Bio Engineer Archive

Thread: BE and vendors

joined42904
Tue Aug 17, 2004 10:48 am
#1

I hope you folks don't mind a master merchant coming and posting in your forum regarding the vendor issues.


I've posted this in the merchant forum first and at least one BE who is unhappy with the new vendor setups has found this acceptable. I wonder if this would gain acceptance in the broader BE community.


1. Change things so that animals don't have to be happy in order to be sampled for DNA. Permit BEs to sample from any corpse that the BE has looting rights to whether from being in a group or from killing the creature himself or herself. This eliminates the scouting exploration branch as a requirement to sample good dna from aggro creatures. It also makes fairly good logical and rational sense though not necessarily good gameplay sense from the perspectives of the devs. (Aren't today's DNA tests run off cells taken from people's cheeks? Do those cells decay instantly on death?)


2. Change the hunting pre-requisite to an engineering 4 pre-requisite. After all, aren't you guys bio-*engineers*? This changes the pre-reqs from novice scout plus hunting 4 to novice artisan plus engineering 4. The change is entirely skill point neutral. It does mean you will have to spend extra points on hunting if you want to gather and sell hides for a living, but more importantly it gives you 15 points toward getting to merchant since merchant derives from artisan.


This would bring BE in line with other crafting professions with the exception of a medic-line pre-req which considering the variety of things BEs can do including making pet stims seems to have a rational basis.


What do you folks think?



Issadra 12-pt Master Armorsmith, Master Merchant
NERF Armory 5103, 2008 Lost Sanctum Dantooine
Specialty Shop and Outlet in Andromeda Corellia
NancyJ
Fri Aug 20, 2004 9:49 am
#2

OK all items are open for discussion here. What would make you happy with regards to the vendor situation.

Things to consider:
The vendor limits are not going to be removed
If we ask for a vendor in our skill tree everyone will want one and thats unlikely to happen.




Nyria's BioShop
-51 -5732 Tatooine
200m South of Anchorhead


Nyria - Farstar



Suenr
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:13 am
#3

Hmmm, I can't think of anything good, but one thing that might help somewhat would be to drop the medic requirements to become BE. This would potentially free up enough points to get explore 4 and novice artisan. I wouldn't drop medic myself, but it would free up 14 points in medical crafting that could go toward novice merchant without having to drop all my offensive skills.
ArthurDentOnBria
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:15 am
#4







Here are several possible solutions:


1. change our scouting pre-requisite from hunting to exploration

pro: for those of us interested in making creatures, this potentially gives us back 14 skill points that are being "wasted"

con: no clue how they would implement this since all be's currently have hunting and not all may have exploration 4. does nothing for non-creature making BE's.


2. remove eithermed crafting or hunting from our pre-requisits

pro: potentially frees us 14/29 skill points that many of us currently aren't making use of

con: whatever one of the two is chosen, there will inevitably be a bunch of BE's who are using that skill, so this solution does nothing for them. It also make BE "less elite" which could mean more dabblers and more competition.


3. give bio engineers mask scent bonuses in the dna sampling branch

pro: makes some intuitive sense, potentially frees up 14 skill points for pet-making be's

con: does nothing for BE's who don't have exploration skills currently and are not interested in making pets. Also brings up question of terrain negotiation and how possible sampling would be without it.


4. change merchant class such that it is a "novice" class that has no pre-requisits.

pro: gives "equal access" to the merchant class for non-artisan-crafters like medics, smugglers, scouts etc.

con: makes "business" line of artisan obsolete and hoses master artisans


5. In every "non-artisan advanced" class that has schematics (doctors, combat medics, rangers, smugglers, dancers?, musicians?) add one vendor in a 3rd level box, and an additional one in a 4th level box (just like "business") and then make it so that this branch also satisfy the pre-req for merchant.

pro: I think this is the "fairest" solution, gives everyone equal access to merchant without hosing anyone.

con: probably difficult to implement, still "cheapens" the artisan business line some.


6. Give bio engineers a single vendor in the master level box

pro: allows master bio engineers to have a very minimal vendor setup with no additional skill point expenditures, also doesn't impact the business line of artisan negatively.

con: This solution doesn't scale at all. For a bio engineer wanting more than this minimal setup, they are still very disadvantaged relative to artisan-derived classes.

Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 08-20-2004 12:02 PM



ArthurDent - former Bio Engineer, Tailor, and Droid Engineer
Account cancelled 7/8/05 due to game breaking bugs in these professions that have been neglected for FAR too long. Last day July 27 2005
custom tailoring and droid orders welcome. "making Evil products since July 2003"
Achiever: 80%, Explorer: 60%, Socializer: 46%, Killa 13%


NancyJ
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:25 am
#5

The reason I'm asking this now is that Doc has posted a suggestion on the corres forum that kinda caught me off guard, we'd been discussing the issue but I went for my dinner and wasnt really ready for the suggestion to come up for discussion before I talked to you guys first. As a master merchant its obviously something that isnt a problem for me, but I understand the difficulties for other templates.

The suggestion that has come up is to swap organic chemistry 4 for exploration 4 freeing up skill points for artisan.

So I'm glad both of you so far have mentioned that as something you'd be OK with

Message Edited by NancyJ on 08-20-2004 06:55 PM




Nyria's BioShop
-51 -5732 Tatooine
200m South of Anchorhead


Nyria - Farstar



ArthurDentOnBria
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:30 am
#6

I'd be ok with it, but I do actually make quite a few advanced subcomponents for my "low cost" stims so it is not an idea solution for me. If they were to do it though, I'd definitely exchange merchant for med crafting, but it's still not ideal. I'd actually prefer #5 to be honest, but that is probably a lot more work for the devs.




NancyJ wrote:

So I'm glad both of you so far have mentioned that as something you'd be OK with








ArthurDent - former Bio Engineer, Tailor, and Droid Engineer
Account cancelled 7/8/05 due to game breaking bugs in these professions that have been neglected for FAR too long. Last day July 27 2005
custom tailoring and droid orders welcome. "making Evil products since July 2003"
Achiever: 80%, Explorer: 60%, Socializer: 46%, Killa 13%


furrycat
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:30 am
#7

The real solution is to let Merchants grant other players the right to sell items on their vendors.




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ArthurDentOnBria
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:34 am
#8






furrycat wrote:
The real solution is to let Merchants grant other players the right to sell items on their vendors.






no... it's not. I took a poll a couple weeks ago, and the poll shows that very very few merchants have any interest in carrying other people's goods, and those few that do, it's mostly a "friends and family" kind of thing. Even assuming the devs did a ton of work to implement all the tools that would be necessary to make that a possibility, you have to have people willing to do that, and there aren't (enough of) such people in the game.


http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=43199


Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 08-20-2004 10:35 AM



ArthurDent - former Bio Engineer, Tailor, and Droid Engineer
Account cancelled 7/8/05 due to game breaking bugs in these professions that have been neglected for FAR too long. Last day July 27 2005
custom tailoring and droid orders welcome. "making Evil products since July 2003"
Achiever: 80%, Explorer: 60%, Socializer: 46%, Killa 13%


BulgertheHutt
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:38 am
#9






NancyJ wrote:
OK all items are open for discussion here. What would make you happy with regards to the vendor situation.

Things to consider:
The vendor limits are not going to be removed
If we ask for a vendor in our skill tree everyone will want one and thats unlikely to happen.






I understand "everyone will want one" could be a problem, but we are the only crafting profession that does not run through artisan and so it seems to me we're justified in asking for one. Simply add the following skill to Tissues IV: "vendor +1." Or if they want to put up even more of a barrier, make it a master level skill. That should dissuade anyone from doing BE just to get the vendor bonus.


If that won't float, I'd suggest a more radical solution: split the profession. Create one profession focused on tissues/additives that requiresmaster medic and business&surveying from artisan as prereqs. (The master medic should dissuade mostchefs/tailors from taking up the profession...). Maybe make the skill trees"chef," "tailor," and--pie in the sky, I know--enhancements for droid engineer. Create another profession focused on adventuring/collecting DNA and creating pets, with prereqs as they are now and an expanded list of pets to create. (Maybe skill trees could be named "Reptile," "Mammal," Arachnid", with appropriate skins available in each...) And, of course, switch pet stim/vitality packs out of the tissues line and in to this profession. This group would have saleable product but no access to vendors on their own. However, like with creature handlers, the bulk of the satisfaction from play would not be derived from sales anyway.


I often feel like the profession is schizophrenic anyway. The tissue/additive maker is passive with no need for combat skills; the DNA collector needs to be hardy and it's handy to be able to defend oneself while stabbing arachne queens and rancors. Yes, this is radical, and probably unlikely, but our doughty correspondent did say anything was available for discussion so I'll run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.

Spazzers
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:39 am
#10

Seriously well thought out Arthur. Although we don't always agree, I respect your posts enormously.


The prereqs for BE make a lot of sense to me. The medic requirements are needed when making pet meds, although most of us buy advanced components from doctors. The scout requirements are necessary as well. Without hunting you wouldn't be able to harvest all that meat you need. You'd be relegated to purchasing meat off the market or taking hunting all the same.


An easy solution would be to allow a master BE to place one random NPC vendor that holds 250 items. If you have the need for more vendors you will have to take at least business 3. A BE without extra skill points would still be able to own and operate a vendor but only at the master level. This doesn't impact the artisan class and it doesn't cheapen merchant except to say a master BE master merchant would have 13 vendors.



Buboopadoo
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A Simple Resource Dealer

A Developer's answer to everything:
"I can't promise to try, but I'll try to try"
NancyJ
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:42 am
#11



furrycat wrote:
The real solution is to let Merchants grant other players the right to sell items on their vendors.




The ultimate goal is a revamp for the merchant profession that will give merchants the tools they need to be 'merchants', however that isnt something thats going to happen any time soon.




Nyria's BioShop
-51 -5732 Tatooine
200m South of Anchorhead


Nyria - Farstar



Seiryuu
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:43 am
#12

If we ask for a vendor in our skill tree everyone will want one and thats unlikely to happen.

No one else has the pre-reqs we do, so I think we still have a valid argument.

BE pre-reqs: +29 skill points
Novice artisan: +15 skill points
Business III: +9 skill points

With our pre-requisites alone, artisans could have Merchant 0020.

For us to get Novice artisan, which then puts us at the same pre-req footing as any other crafter, they would have the skill points for Merchant 0240 (with one point left over).

Spending the last night nine points (54 total) to get our first vendor is the equivalent of any other artisan getting Merchant 1440.

We're completely justified getting a single vendor at master BE. If they have to, then restrict the vendor to selling only pharmacuticals, tissues and pet deeds.

I don't care if other professions will be unhappy, they aren't being restricted by the silly pre-requistes we are. If they're willing to spend an additional 44 skill points to get a vender in their master box, more power to them.


If the devs do not want to be bothered with fairness and logic, then my proposal is to allow the Organic IV box to be an alternate pre-requisite to Merchant. This would help both us, Doctors and Combat Medics. If they do not want Docs and CM to have easy access to vendors, then place it at the top of our Engineering Techniques box.

Considering how big a deal they make over coding in a simple OR statement, I doubt that will be acceptable either.

if (Business IV || Engineering Techniques IV) can_train (Novice Merchant);

There, I even wrote the code for them.



-----
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Seiryuu
Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:47 am
#13

The suggestion that has come up is to swap organic chemistry 4 for hunting 4 freeing up skill points for artisan.

Do you mean Exploration IV? We already require Hunting IV.



-----
Visit www.swgcreatures.com for all your creature needs.
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