Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Discussion of vendor changes
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JaatoWaals
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:44 am
#1
I'd like to start a single thread to consolidate the discussion on vendor changes. Please keep the discussion civil. The three major points are:
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other thanthe bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
Just one note- currently on TC backpacks count as a single item against the limit, no matter how full they are. This should help alleviate the concerns of those of you who sell full suits in packs.
DirthNader
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:57 am
#2
JaatoWaals wrote:
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other thanthe bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
Good change, and a long overdue one at that.
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
I understand that limits based on hiring skill mods are needed to accomplish the first point, so I'm not against them in general. The current vendor limits are too low for doing anything but selling complete suits in packs.
I think everyone agrees that the rest of the changes are good. Well, everyone except those who have been taking advantage of unintended free vendors.
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
Ryche_Mykola
Mon Aug 09, 2004 6:57 am
#3
1.) I understand why the Merchants are ticked on this issue. Its only fair if you drop the skill to not be able to use the vendor anymore. After all, if I dropped Tailor, it wouldn't be fair if I could still make my cloth sub-components. So I agree with this.
2.) Item Limits are WAY to low. My business partner just has Merchant 1. At this level, we could make by with 500-1000 items per vendor. But, going from Merchant 4 limit od 100 - to Master Merchant limit of 110 is nonsense. Not worth getting Master with all those extra skill points to gain 10 more items per vendor.
3.) Awesome idea, can't wait. But what if the person puts up 1 item for 9,999,999?
I don't stock full suits in backpacks, since my friend has Merchant and stocks my stuff up, I know how much extra work that would cause him. Plus, if someones gloves wear out, I don't want to make them buy a full suit.
I sense great inflation over the horizon.
Blimigerite
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:12 am
#4
The only problem I have on the upcoming Merchant changes is on the vendor item limits.
Selling armor by the piece is going to be impossible. It's truelly a shame that to get one bicep you will have to buy a full bag of armor.
Also I refuse to stock my vendors more than once a week. Stocking vendors isa pain and I am not going to stock once a day just to keep up with sales. Prices are going to go up until Supply and demand are in harmony. I'll feel sad for Average Joe Consumer but I am not going to become a slave to my vendors.
I realize they do not want vendors to continue to be used as infinite storage devices but they are swinging the pendulum way too far in compensation. When it becomes more work to be a crafter than gaming enjoyment is when I and a lot of other crafters will stop selling goods to the general public of the server.
Dark_0ne
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:23 am
#5
JaatoWaals wrote:
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other thanthe bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
I think this is fair. My opinion is it is actually an exploit to retain vendors after dropping the skills.
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
The concept is a good one in my opinion, but the quantities are way too low. Hopefully this will be changed on Test Centre to more reasonable values - an order of magnitude higher perhaps, giving a master merchant 6600 across all vendors instead of 660, and the Artisan Business 3 vendor 500 items instead of 50
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
This is also good news - and will solve a lot of issues people have with vendors in general
Just one note- currently on TC backpacks count as a single item against the limit, no matter how full they are. This should help alleviate the concerns of those of you who sell full suits in packs.
I would also like to see the following included :
1) increase the time in the stock room after an item has failed to sell - up to 21 days instead of 7.
2) I hope that the changes made will only stop people putting more items on the vendors untill they have either regained the required skills, or the items for sale fall withing the new limits
Sorackles
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:28 am
#6
1. Totally agree with this change. When I heard about this possibility I automatically changed my template so that I could have 3 vendors and global advertising
2. I can understand this issue a little bit. If they keep the numbers as their first post then I'm gone. Plain and simple. I'd say a reasonable amount would be 1k for master merchant 900 for management 4, etc.
3. Heck yeah. Get rid of the empty vendors, global advertising also if the vendor is empty, etc. I hated going to shops to find the vendor empty. Although I can still see an exploit used when ppl might just drop 1 item in the vendor and that would count as a non empty vendor. But if they would have the time and effort to stock 1 item then they would be active enough to stock their vendor with usefull items. Mostly this will eliminate all the inactive account vendors. But won't the character purge do the same job?
Hawk1138
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:41 am
#7
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other thanthe bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
I already have the bulky vendor and I like it! No worries there...didn't know this was a change...
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
If the proposed limit is 50 and I can fill packs and place them, then the database equivalent is 2500. That should be the standard cap whether the items are in packs or not. I HATE buying in packs because there are no garuntee's and alot of shady dealers out there...
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
It's about time on that one...nothing worse than searching out a map vendor to find it empty. 
Hawk
Jordan_Karr
Mon Aug 09, 2004 7:53 am
#8
Jaato,
On your points heres where I stand
1) No problem with retaining Merchant skills to keep vendors, most of us knew that it was a Bug and need to be fixed. I am willing to keep some merchant in my skills to keep my shop up and running effectivly!
2) Limits are way to low. 10 suits not in a bag take up 90 of the Master Merchants 110 limit. Personally Until Merchant is revamped to become a viable and useful set of skills to keep Most people will only dabble in Merchant. I know I currently stand ready to be Merchant 3004 as Thats all of the skills that I find honestly useful. The other stuff is nice, but I can live with out the reduced Matiance Fees and reduced Bazaar listing fees.
The Limits need to go like this...
Artisan Business 3 250 Item Cap, +1 Vendor
Artisan Business 3 +250 to Item CapPer Vendor
So a box vendor will have room for 500 Items, and honestly thats probably enough for those who use those vendors as their primary vendor.
Novice Merchant
+ 100 to Item Cap per vendor, +1 Vendor
Management 1 - +1 Vendor
Management 2 - +100 to Cap, +1 Vendor
Management 3 - +1 Vendor
Management 4 - +100 to Cap, +1 Vendor
800 items per vendor with 6 vendors (max we can have) for a total of 4800 items, Most people should be able to run their shops with that amount of space.They may have to cut back on some of there Selection of goods....
to make the other Skill trees more attractive to those who want to be a master merchant, They should then sprinkle +50 items Per vendor through out the Hireing and effeciency Lines. Max of +200 per those two lines..
Leave Advertising alone...
Master Merchant
+500 Items per vendor, Free Bazaar Listings, Free Planetary advertisment, Vendor Maintance reduced by 70%
So a Master merchant would be able to have each of their 6vendors stocked with 1500 items witch makes it 9000 total Items for a Master merchant. Where a person with just themanagment line get800 itemsPer vendor with a max of 4800 spread out over all 6 of their vendors.
3)Empty vendors Delisting after a week of being empty is a good thing prevents the shopping all day to only find an empty vendor.Two weeks after the vendor Delists, it goes to the original inactive status... 1 Week after that the vendor would delete itself from the game enviroment...
So after 4 weeks of inactivity a Vendor (no matter how many items are sitting in the Stock Room) Would delete itself from the game along with all items stored with in it...
And honestly if people are going to be gone for More than 4 weeks, They either need to just remove the vendor a head of time and just replace it when they get back, or suffer the problems of loosing all the items stored there from a system delete...
Its good to hear that suits in bags only count as one item.... Thats a good thing...
But lets be openly honest here.... Why is SOE trying to stuff more information onto already taxed servers and not just spending the money to upgrade or add new servers in preperation for JTL... WHY force JTL onto an already taxed set of system servers...
I would accept a Downtime of a week while they did server upgrades, Plus fixing the bug that lets us keep vendors with out business or merchant skills should be deleted at server restart of Publish 10, No matter what.... all Items on those vendors should be deleted. People have been warned and if they dont do anything to prevent it then its their fault...
plus lets be honest they have created this monster known as Database over load, They keep adding more and more junk to the database and dont remove pointless things.
Examples of SOE useless Database Items
Individual Bio effect Controler
Individual Bio effect Controler
Broken Datapad and other broke items
Loot Clothing
Tresure maps and the attached Loot Boxes with stacks of 1 Unit of Resources
Loot Imperial/Rebel Disks
CDEF weapons
Loot kits... (lets be honest Rugs and these statues Architechs should be able to make)
Useless Skill Armor Attachments/Clothing Attachments with either no skills or now defunct skills like Demolition experimentation.
1 Unit of a Resouce
Palm Fronds
I am hearing rumors now that on TC- that one of the new Items you will want to aid you on your quests from the village is another Loot Kit, that requeres you to assemble it from random dropped things...
again being honest here..
Whats with Adding all these Loot Drops, and then cutting our Merchant vendors off at the knees...
Lets look at the bottom line here guys...
By not taking the money and upgrading and adding more servers for JTL and ED combined after a Year and a half of play time, what have you been doing with our money? We pay 15 a month and to you its cheaper to swing the nerf bat then to actully expand and develop a system that can handle the Database information.
SOE you created this monster by refusing to listen to us... We have suggested, Stack all crates to 1000 and not just 40 crates of 25 items... We have suggested Stacks of resources up to 500,000 even 1 million units. As it stands now I have stacks of 500k copper just sitting in 100k stacks, thats 5 items using the same information at the same time...
Oh I know the "Real"bottom line SOE is trying to save money by cutting out parts of the player item database to allow for more room for JTL, but thats not a really smart soultion... all a Vendor cap of 110 items at Master merchant will do is cause crafters to leave the game witch in turn causes a loss of revenue and there for SOE looses out in the end...
Sorry if this just got a bit negative, But its honesty that SOE needs to hear... upgrades are a part of life in any computer based industry... You have to do it some time or else this game will tear itself apart
Lorander
Mon Aug 09, 2004 8:47 am
#9
I agree that all of the changes are needed. The only problem is that the vendor limits are too low. I am a not very active Master Armorsmith and Master Merchant, but I typically have 75-100 items on my shop vendor, and 10-20 of those are special orders (bags with peoples orders in them).
I also run our guilds vendor where people drop off dontated resources, supplies, etc. The guild vendor usually has 200-300 items on it. These include stim packs, repair kits, loot items that people are collecting, armor and weapons oders for guild mates, etc.
I also run the guild Mall, where the guild crafters(and friends can sell retail). Each of these typically has 200-300 items on it.
I can come up with several reasons why such low numbers for limits are planned:
1. None of the developers has actually played a Master Merchant as a reseller, so that they do not realize how this willefect real merchants.
2. By reducing the number of items that can be listed, prices will skyrocket. This will in effect draw money out of the system via taxes. Since only 50k can be withdrawn from the city treasury at a time.
3.This will also reduce the number of crafters, since mass producing items will have little to no effect on your sales (unless you live at your vendors and spend all of your time restocking).
4. The combat rebalance can be delayed even longer, since good armor, weapons and buffs will become insanely expensive and rare for the average player.
Oldog Neutrik
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
Master Armorsmith
Master Merchant
Master Artisan
Financial and Procurement Officer,
The Jedi Praxium
Praxis, Dantooine, Kauri
owako
Mon Aug 09, 2004 9:24 am
#10
Good that you actually have to have the skills to keep venders, been too long where you could just get the skills and then drop them.
Really really not cool item limits. Way way way too low. Its gonna result in the large and medium crafters quitting, which will reduce the supply of armor and jack the price up a lot. If their database is not doing well under the strain, work should done on improving the database itself.
The empty venders not showing up on the overhead map is good, even though a person can easily get around it with one 99999999 item, it will still cut down on the empty visits. The venders going away after a bit is fine too.
Yeah you can sell suits, but its gonna be rather hard to find peices venders.
Can we get a less cumbersome crafting interface? Styx proposed a suit-at-once mode a while back, something like that would be cool. I'd be happy with less steps even, it just takes so many clicks as it is.
Really really not cool item limits. Way way way too low. Its gonna result in the large and medium crafters quitting, which will reduce the supply of armor and jack the price up a lot. If their database is not doing well under the strain, work should done on improving the database itself.
The empty venders not showing up on the overhead map is good, even though a person can easily get around it with one 99999999 item, it will still cut down on the empty visits. The venders going away after a bit is fine too.
Yeah you can sell suits, but its gonna be rather hard to find peices venders.
Can we get a less cumbersome crafting interface? Styx proposed a suit-at-once mode a while back, something like that would be cool. I'd be happy with less steps even, it just takes so many clicks as it is.
Finegold12
Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:25 am
#11
The only comment I have is that imposing the suggested item limits as stated in the Patch 10 test notes, demonstrates a total lack of understanding of the game.
Which to me is very surprising and very dissapointing.
I just hope the developers are listening!
Which to me is very surprising and very dissapointing.
I just hope the developers are listening!
Silvadeus
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:36 am
#12
JaatoWaals wrote:
I'd like to start a single thread to consolidate the discussion on vendor changes. Please keep the discussion civil. The three major points are:
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other thanthe bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
Just one note- currently on TC backpacks count as a single item against the limit, no matter how full they are. This should help alleviate the concerns of those of you who sell full suits in packs.
Only issue I have is with number 2, just like what happened with wookiee armor, by allowing the resource "Horn" to be made a primary resource in wookiee armor, We have seen once again that the Developers don't play the game enough to understand how the economy is run... If these changes go into effect, I will probably shut down business, and possibly leave the game.
speardancer
Mon Aug 09, 2004 11:43 am
#13
1. Allowing only those that currently have merchant skills to actually have vendors (i.e.: if you want to have a vendor, other than the bulky box unit from the Business line, you have to have and retain merchant skills).
A good move, make the merchant skills count for something, give them a reason to exist as a profession
2. Imposing item limits, dependant on business/merchant skills. My own thoughts on this are that the proposed limits are a bit too low, but I have little sympathy for those of you with 10k+ items spread across your vendors. Limits in the 2-3k range seem much more reasonable to me.
A good concept, but limits are way, WAY too low. Argreed the limits in the 2-3K range are much better. I personaly have about 2000 items on my vendors, and would like room to increase that sometimes, even at my skill level.
3. The other features of the change- empty vendors not showing up on the map and being deleted after a period of time, etc.
Much needed... I have alts on other servers, and I have found over 50% of vendors listed on the map EMPTY. This will help everyone greatly.
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