Architect Archive
Thread: State of the profession
Is this really a bug? I'd hate to have the "bug" fixed and lose my vendors and tent. I have no problem getting the skills to retain the vendors and tent. I was just using the skillpoints to explore other professions since it was an option.
RobertTamburo wrote:
Lastly, Merchants need to be made whole again, by finding and fixing the issue that allows people to place vendors, and then back out of the skill, retaining the use of the vendor. This undermines those that are merchants, and makes our class a throw away. NO OTHER CLASS IN THE GAME ALLOWS YOU TO RETAIN A SKILL AFTER YOU BACK OUT OF IT!!!
Is this really a bug? I'd hate to have the "bug" fixed and lose my vendors and tent. I have no problem getting the skills to retain the vendors and tent. I was just using the skillpoints to explore other professions since it was an option.
I'm not sure if you would call it a bug. It is a flaw in the game design. I don't support any fix that would cause you to suddenly lose items. However I will be supporting methods for leaning on you to get your skills back or give up your vendor. Things like making your vendor not work properly if you don't have the skills for it..maybe making your tent VERY expensive for you if you don't have the skill you are supposed to have. I think those are the kinds of things that are probably going to be the way to prevent you from using merchant tools without the skills.
How about the ability to place an advertisment on the bazaar or a separateterminal? Not a useless item with a 3,000 credit price tag but an actual adin a business directorythat would list your shop or the business of the person who is paying you to place the ad. The directory would only list the local shopsto differentiate it fromglobal advertising and wouldn't be as obnoxious as a spamming NPC.
On a lesser note the title gained at Efficiency IV should be Merchant or Entrepreneur. Businessman at Business IV is enough without the title repeating at Efficiency IV.
I'm not a Dev or a correspondent, but I think I can pretty much sum it up for those of you who have been asking me about being a smuggler:
Spice Tree:
Nothing is worth making besides Muon Gold and Neutron Pixie, and it's up to you whether it is worth your time to make crates of these to sell for on average 8k per crate or to travel to outlying planets and putting stuff on the bazaar.
Dirty FightingTree:
Feign Death is fairly usefull, espeically when you get farther up the tree.
Panic shot is essentially useless, as while you can stop things from attacking for 10 seconds, you really can't do anything in that 10 seconds.
Low Blow: Usefull for finding out that everything on everyplanet has an armored pair of crabapples, you can knock things down for all of about 5 seconds, so maybe you can get one shot in as they are getting up. When it works.
Charge Shot: Worth the million odd points it takes to get it.....No. When it works.
Slice Tree:
Slicing weapons and armor is really the only decent source of revenue, so long as you are willing to stand around in the cities all day, or wait in the middle of nowhere for someone to find you. Even as a Master Smuggler you still seem to have not progressed past the point of not knowing which wires work for encumberance and which work for speed etc.
Underworld Tree:
Underworld One: You can learn all the languages for only a hundred some odd thousand pistol points, provided in the process of working up the pistol tree and the unarmed tree you never managed to find anyone who could teach you all the skills in about 2 minutes.
Underworld Two: 10% faction discount is great, the first real benefit that Smugglers get, except it doesn't work towards promotions or anything, so you can get Stormtroopers for 360 points instead of 400. Half the faction point loss is genuinely cool, provided that you have also gone into another combat profession that you can PvP with, as the shots you get in underworld are worthless.
Underworld Three: You can sell your hard earned faction points, Useful if you want to switch factions, but not much else.
Underworld Four: Buying faction points is potentially a good way for a smuggler to make money, except that the cost for buying the points is fairly high, to make it worth your time the mark up makes them even more expensive, so you needthree things to get steady customers: people who are willing to pay the astronomical price to avoid the hassle of missions, you need to be around the rank of Colonel to avoid the point loss to lower the cost, and above all patience, since for some stupid reason the recruiters develop a conscience after you buy 300 (or a little more if you buy points at 499) faction points, which leaves you at a 500 point cap, which makes it a little difficult to sell points for a profit and work up for a promotion or pet or anything else for yourself at the same time.
Master Smuggler:
The 25% faction reduction is great, You can now buy Stormtroopers at 300 points instead of 400, the 500 point cap hinders this greatly.
Slice Bonus: It is written, that upon reaching the coveted Master Smuggler position that you can slice better, you still can't slice specific attributes, and you can still get really lousy random slices, but the odds of getting a good slice on the customers items while you stand around in the city or wait out in the country, being certain of not getting a 12% damage range on someones krayt enhanced flamethrower and being able to choose which attribute was sliced would presumably allow you to charge more, but meh. Nothing else, no really that's all you get for being a master.
Profession Synopsis:
Spicing and Slicing can make you money, but not fantastic money. Underworld would be good if the point purchasing was tweaked, the halving of faction loss in PvP is cool but would be better If.......
The Dirty Fighting tree wasn't completely worthless, you geta few shots, which is nice, but for around 2 million points of pistol xp (not counting the marksman pistol tree) you would expect that you would get at least some accuracy mods so you would be able to actually hit the broad side of a barn.
In the end perhaps the biggest problem for the Smuggler profession is that it's not Creature Handler, Pistoleer, or Bounty Hunter, so it's not a priority to fix it, add to it, or even look at it.
Ethakk wrote:
I'm not a Dev or a correspondent, but I think I can pretty much sum it up for those of you who have been asking me about being a smuggler:
Spice Tree:
Nothing is worth making besides Muon Gold and Neutron Pixie, and it's up to you whether it is worth your time to make crates of these to sell for on average 8k per crate or to travel to outlying planets and putting stuff on the bazaar.
/agree
Dirty FightingTree:
Feign Death is fairly usefull, espeically when you get farther up the tree.
Panic shot is essentially useless, as while you can stop things from attacking for 10 seconds, you really can't do anything in that 10 seconds.
Low Blow: Usefull for finding out that everything on everyplanet has an armored pair of crabapples, you can knock things down for all of about 5 seconds, so maybe you can get one shot in as they are getting up. When it works.
Charge Shot: Worth the million odd points it takes to get it.....No. When it works.
/disagree Have you tried using Panic Shot in conjunction with Lowblow? These two are devastating in PVP and PVE. Last Ditch is the hardest hitting pistol skill in the game and adds a stun which further increased damage you do. The only problem with the DF line is speed/accuracy. It's very difficult to make good use of it without pairing it with Pistoleer or BH. The DF line is probably one of the best pistol lines in the game.
Slice Tree:
Slicing weapons and armor is really the only decent source of revenue, so long as you are willing to stand around in the cities all day, or wait in the middle of nowhere for someone to find you. Even as a Master Smuggler you still seem to have not progressed past the point of not knowing which wires work for encumberance and which work for speed etc.
I like the way it is now. With my Master Smuggler title up, I am never short of recieving /tells for slices
Underworld Tree:
Underworld One: You can learn all the languages for only a hundred some odd thousand pistol points, provided in the process of working up the pistol tree and the unarmed tree you never managed to find anyone who could teach you all the skills in about 2 minutes.
Underworld Two: 10% faction discount is great, the first real benefit that Smugglers get, except it doesn't work towards promotions or anything, so you can get Stormtroopers for 360 points instead of 400. Half the faction point loss is genuinely cool, provided that you have also gone into another combat profession that you can PvP with, as the shots you get in underworld are worthless.
Underworld Three: You can sell your hard earned faction points, Useful if you want to switch factions, but not much else.
Underworld Four: Buying faction points is potentially a good way for a smuggler to make money, except that the cost for buying the points is fairly high, to make it worth your time the mark up makes them even more expensive, so you needthree things to get steady customers: people who are willing to pay the astronomical price to avoid the hassle of missions, you need to be around the rank of Colonel to avoid the point loss to lower the cost, and above all patience, since for some stupid reason the recruiters develop a conscience after you buy 300 (or a little more if you buy points at 499) faction points, which leaves you at a 500 point cap, which makes it a little difficult to sell points for a profit and work up for a promotion or pet or anything else for yourself at the same time.
Can't comment on Underworld. I haven't made use of it so far. This tree, as others have said, needs the most work
Master Smuggler:
The 25% faction reduction is great, You can now buy Stormtroopers at 300 points instead of 400, the 500 point cap hinders this greatly.
Slice Bonus: It is written, that upon reaching the coveted Master Smuggler position that you can slice better, you still can't slice specific attributes, and you can still get really lousy random slices, but the odds of getting a good slice on the customers items while you stand around in the city or wait out in the country, being certain of not getting a 12% damage range on someones krayt enhanced flamethrower and being able to choose which attribute was sliced would presumably allow you to charge more, but meh. Nothing else, no really that's all you get for being a master.
/agree that Master Smuggler needs more
Profession Synopsis:
Spicing and Slicing can make you money, but not fantastic money. Underworld would be good if the point purchasing was tweaked, the halving of faction loss in PvP is cool but would be better If.......
The Dirty Fighting tree wasn't completely worthless, you geta few shots, which is nice, but for around 2 million points of pistol xp (not counting the marksman pistol tree) you would expect that you would get at least some accuracy mods so you would be able to actually hit the broad side of a barn.
In the end perhaps the biggest problem for the Smuggler profession is that it's not Creature Handler, Pistoleer, or Bounty Hunter, so it's not a priority to fix it, add to it, or even look at it.
Your last comment is way off mark. The three classes you named are broken. CH just got nerfed fairly hard. The only thing Pistoleers have going for them is Stopping Shot and Fan Shot. Maybe PMD1 but that being a melee range attack and the lack of a delay/dizzy special, its uses are limited. BodyShot3 is decent at master as well so that makes a total of 4 decent specials for pistoleer out of that entire profession. BH? Hah I'm not even going to talk about this one.
I'm not saying that the Dirty Fighting Tree is completely worthless overall, the point was that, like was stated, it really doesn't work all that well without at least some pistoleer; however if that is what is required to make the smuggler's shots work, then perhaps it should have been required instead of the unarmed tree 
Also, as for Pistoleer, BH, and CH being broken...I really couldn't care less, if only half of their shots and abilities work, then thats still far and away above what works in smuggler, not to mention that they at least can envision having some repairs made to fix what they should have in the future, whereas smugglers really have nothing to look forward to, except more and more and more posts where people are asking for the same things, or complaining about the same things and yet none of the devs seem to be listening, which has led to an awful lot of negativity. Especially after having posted and reposted on the threads asking what we think and yet we still have to wait while they nerf and renerf fan shot or eye shot, or whatever shot people start whining about because it makes PvP off center, because after all, we all know that a master architect should be able to go toe to toe with a master BH or TKA.
One more thing, there is a difference between negativity and sarcasm, and I would much rather hear sarcastic remarks to the "This sucks, stupid devs, I'm going to cancel my subscription" garbage.
Thanks for a good post Aeryke, Egowyn.
I have fallen in love with the Underworld skill. I made Colonel in the beginning of December and have made tens of millions (@180/point). After buying something like 20 holocrons for friends (most before the freebies) and spending several million on stuff for the guild ... I still am up 8 figures from last month.
People with money will pay ... people without money can't afford it anyway (even at cost). You will notice the people that gripe about the price ... would also gripe about the 95/point price anyway (which is at cost) ... so throw on the profit margin and you can make bank.
I just had someone place an order for $100MM in faction (net profit will be about $50MM).
I make people pay 1/2 up front (to cover my costs) and 1/2 upon delivery.
Slicing is now just a tool to get my face out there for faction ... and for slicing I charge $5/slice (I know,a little higher than most) ... but I still make $2.5MM/month just from slicing.
Spice ... I don't make much...but I just started that too.
If any of you Smugglers on Intrepid want me to help you get to Colonel ... send me an e-mail in game ... it is well worth it.
cantina_wench wrote:
How about the ability to place an advertisment on the bazaar or a separateterminal? Not a useless item with a 3,000 credit price tag but an actual adin a business directorythat would list your shop or the business of the person who is paying you to place the ad. The directory would only list the local shopsto differentiate it fromglobal advertising and wouldn't be as obnoxious as a spamming NPC.
On a lesser note the title gained at Efficiency IV should be Merchant or Entrepreneur. Businessman at Business IV is enough without the title repeating at Efficiency IV.
Excellent! An electronic yellow pages:
- Terminal that looks similar to the French Advertizement poles
- Placed Halfway between every starport and bank across the galaxy
- All interlinked
- 50cr hour Posting fee paid in advance like maintainence, when funds run out ad is deactivated and can be reactivated by adding more credits. (Fee Reduced according to bazzar fee discounts)
- 5 lines of text available for add
- Portrait of Merchant
- Button for prospective client to "Add a Waypoint" to their datapad
- Button to "Send Merchant an Email"
- Searchable by Planet, Profession, and Keywords
Erom Irack
Master Artisan / Novice Droid Engineer / Novice Merchant / Novice Scout / Novice Brawler / Novice Marksman / Novice Medic / Novice Entertainer
I'm pretty new to crafting/merchant and can't believe some of the game design inherent here. Things that absolutely HAVE to be fixed for sheer logical reasons:
1. No way should you be able to keep your vendors if you have dropped your merchant skill. Do I get to keep the ability to meditate if I drop MKA? Do I get to keep on crafting and using Stim D's if I drop doctor? No way. So someone somewhere tell me why this makes sense. Why can't this fix go in the very next patch? The very next day? Simply boggling.
2. The ability to /move up /move down. This also has to be an incredibly easy fix. In a 3d space, how hard is it to tell an object to move x amount of spots up or down? Can't be incredibly difficult. Heck, even UO had stacking in it's archaic 2d engine. We have this beautiful game with beautiful structures and simply no way to decorate them in a beautiful manner.
Couple of new things to perhaps implement:
1. There is talk now of bazzaar and vendor changes. Why not add merchant abilities to this? Give merchants the ability of higher bazaar listing prices. Give merchants the ability to hold more items on thier vendors. Seems like it's the perfect opportunity to implement some much needed abilities to this ELITE profession.
2. More customizeable advertising. Large, designable signs. Posting boards in game to advertise wares. These are things completely doable and would be fantastic perks for merchants.
Come on devs, quit squibbling about nerfing this and that in combat and give us some nice content!
I am sorry, I'm rather new at this forum and have not read the entire threads.
The Merchant-Profession as currently is, is great I think but I am still missing some features. Let me do an example: At Naritus I am a Merchant, Chef and Tailor (all mastered). I would need each one vendor for Cantina Food/Drink (1), Cantina Pet Food Dispenser (2), Merchant TentTailoring (3), Merchant Tent Food/Drink (4), Merchant Tent Clothing Attachment (5), External Mall at second Planet Food/Drink (6), External Mall Tailoring (7). I am leaking on space for vendors, if I want to do it easier for my customers by separating the vendors for example in Food and Drink instead of Food/Drink. The same would be for Male, Female, Twi'Lek and Wookie Tailorings. I would need there a ton of vendors (that I do not have). At this calculation it is not possible to place a vendor at my own house as well...
Further I am missing some functions that allow me more merchandising, more products at the bazaar, or just simple insert the customer's name at the "customize" function at "Ad Barking".
For the discussion about the cap of 150 items at the vendors: This is inacceptable. At tailor I have a lot (!) of schematics which I want to sell. In addition that there are different colors of the products, I would reach at any tailoring vendor this cap.
Greetings,
Krzl
DocSavag wrote:
Thanks for the ides there are some interesting things in here one I want to ask you to expand on:
*A true stockroom structure, that uses lots and holds item without the auto-delete of vendor stockrooms. Let this structure be "visible" from any of your vendors' stockrooms so that you can more easily replenish depleted goods while looking right at the vendor who needs a resupply.
You are suggesting a physical building that takes up x lots and gives you 75xlots of items and when you go to put things on sale you can actually see the items in the building as if they were in your inventory or backpack? This is what it sounds like to me and I want to know if I understand it.
I'm envisioning a building similar to a factory -- it doesn't even need an interior. Your description of it's functionalitywould be just fine. Here's an example of how I might use this WAREHOUSE:
I have four factories near my workshop on Naboo. I make a schematic at my workshop, then start up a factory. When a factory is done, I would take items from the output hopper and drop them into the WAREHOUSE. Not too far to walk if I have, for example, 40 crates I need to shuffle around and only 30 inventory space. I put all of my factory outputs into this WAREHOUSE, up to some reasonable item limit (75 x Lots, or 200 items like a factory input + output hopper).
Then I fly to Corellia and visit my vendor there. I Use the vendor and pull up the Stockroom tab (or a new tab called "Warehouse"). Here I see everything I put into the WAREHOUSE on Naboo, but I can sell it just like it was in a standard vendor stockroom. (Or being able to open the WAREHOUSElike a virtual backpack would be fine too)
The purpose is to storestock in a logical place, and to make it easier to move large stock from manufacturing facilities to galaxy-wide vendors without making several trips with limited stock on our backs.