Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
I've asked that question many times before, always to thundering silence. I suspect the answer is no.
PadreBook wrote:
A related question: who among the Development staff actually play primarily elite crafting professions on live servers? I should ask are there any?
Well, let's see, we're up to what -- 68 pages? -- so clearly now is the right time for me to offer my thoughts on this question. 
IMO, both proposals will do more harm overall than good, so I don't support either of them. The price inflation that SWG appears to be experiencing currently would only be intensified by the proposed changes.
To address the Bazaar price cap increase first: resource miners and Artisans without Management III already sell most of their goods on the Bazaar. Is being able to set higher prices on the Bazaar really worth having to wade through the same old CDEF weapons, only now priced at 6k instead of 3k? How does the ability to increase a price help anyone if the item already doesn't sell at a lower price?
To put it another way, increasing a price cap without increasing the quality or variety of items typically sold under that cap will simply result in the same items being sold at higher prices. That is, prices for a broad array of goods will go up despite the absence of any corresponding increase in the quality or value of those goods. But this is the very definition of inflation! Mission terminals fire-hosing cash into the SWG economy is already bad enough; additional price increases through raising the Bazaar price cap would just make matters worse.
Second, limiting vendors to 150 items would likely reduce overall sales by Merchants to some degree. It's not necessarily the case that these "excess" sales would instead be made on the Bazaar -- vendor-sold items are more lilkely to be high-end items whose cost of production (especially for Architect items and vehicles) far exceeds any Bazaar price cap. With fewer worthwhile sales possible, it's more likely that we'd simply see fewer people playing Merchants, which in turn would mean less economic activity, which means less money winding up in the hands of Merchants who then don't have it to hold or spend on money sinks (to take it out of the economy). And again, the result is more inflation, not less.
To sum up: I don't support either of these proposed changes, because I think their effects will be to further damage the game's already shaky economy. Maybe not a lot, but why make matters worse at all?
Thunderheart, I'd like to offer a constructive suggestion on change proposals. When youask forpublic comment ona possiblechange (whether to economic activity rules, or discussion forum structure, or what-have-you), there are two things we need to help us help you. First, afterstating the proposed change,clearly spell out for us the goal you're trying to achieve with the change. If we don't know what it isyou want to accomplish from the game designer point of view, it's much more difficult for us to make suggestions that you can actually use.
Second, list in detail the known constraints of any good solution. Just as goals are benefits, constraints are costs -- if you clue us in on what our suggestions shouldn't do (constraints) as well as what they should do (goals), you'll get higher-value proposals because they'll minimize the costs while maximizing the benefits of the proposed changes.
Please consider this request when proposing game changes; it could go a long way toward improving the quality of our discussions.
Thanks,
--Flatfingers
p4Samwise wrote:I've asked that question many times before, always to thundering silence. I suspect the answer is no.
PadreBook wrote:
A related question: who among the Development staff actually play primarily elite crafting professions on live servers? I should ask are there any?
I'm sure if there ever was a response it would be to the effect of 'oh some of us do crafting', when really they are talking about making camps to call pets or if they really feel like shutting us up--novice artisan.
Padre
I like raising the bazaar cap to 6k, but...
NOT the cap on Vendors (of 150 items). I should be able to sell all of what I create or collect on my own terms, not by paying the bazaar. Sometimes having people come to my vendors because they know they'll find rare things helps my entire player city to grow. Capping this would cause less tourism, IMHO.
Imola Vadec, Gorath
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
I feel a little silly to be commenting this late in the thread, but if I don't.. I'll feel like I should have.
I'm not precisely a 'hardcore' player, but I do play rather a lot, and have been for several months. I started out as an Artisan and, like all new players, I knew -exactly- how I was going to plan out my character's life. I would master Artisan, then one of the elite Artisan professions, probably Architect. And along the way, to keep myself well-rounded, I would pick up one of the combat professions.. rather early on, I decided on Fencer.
Of course, things never quite turn out as planned. I dabbled quite a bit in most of the basic professions, (and why not? That's why they give you so many skill points!) and supply and demand convinced me that being a Tailor would be a better choice than an Architect.
And, much to my surprise, I found tailoring very, very rewarding. Early on, my tailoring mentor convinced me to pick up a few Merchant skills so that I could have a humanoid vendor to match hers. I even took it a bit further, picking up Advertising III so I could be on the planetary map. I don't know if it's ever actually gotten me any extra sales, but it surely can't hurt!
Now, if you actually work out the skill points, there are just enough skill points to have a master in Artisan, Tailor and Fencer with just enough points leftover for Merchant up to Advertising III. This would leave me with exactly 0 skill points.
To get to the meat of the matter, I am more than a little concerned about even an incremental cap on vendor limits. Currently, I have 4-4-0-2 in Tailor, and my vendor holds nearly one thousand items for sale. I do not currently sell any items from Field Wear IV, and have only a few items from Casual Wear IV or Field Wear III. I do not (to my knowledge) have any duplicate items on the vendor; rather, I have been trying to supply as many color choices as possible to my customers. None of my items sell for more than 3000 credits, and most sell for 1500 or less.
I'm honestly not sure what I would do if this change goes through, and I have to seriously restructure my vendor(s) and replan my skill points. If it ends up being a radical enough change, I may end up scrapping my plans of being a Tailor altogether.. and I would find that very unfortunate. It feels like this change will force some (but not all) elite Artisan professions to take large chunks of the Merchant profession, just to keep themselves even remotely stocked in their wares. I guess I am just chafing at the idea of being shoehorned into a particular profession in order to carry on my chosen profession.
Oh well, just my (extended) thoughts on the matter.
Thunderheart wrote:
i dont know that your still reading all these negative responses, but hopefully youve gotten the gist that people really dont want a 150 cap
I do.
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
What about your comment about taking the single Artisan vendor away...is that still a possibility? (please no)
Thunderheart wrote:
i dont know that your still reading all these negative responses, but hopefully youve gotten the gist that people really dont want a 150 cap
I do.
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
I think the point is, many of us non-merchants are worried about it.
I've flirted with merchant on and off - it does have it's benefits, but the skill point cost is just too steep for me. So I did what the game seems to want - I contracted with a merchant who places an additional vendor at my location so I appear on the world-map, and he placed a tent for me.
This is for the "bells and whistles" the profession has - but limiting non-merchants to 150 items requires that in order to simply function, many crafters would have to pick up merchant.
Why? Because having a merchant list items for you is a huge pain - you get no control over anything, no emails about sales, no way to update your own merchandise, etc. So unless you get someone to buy them wholesale off you and resell them, it's a situation that is annoying at the least.
Before you go requiring non-merchants to contract with merchants to sell their wares, please work on making the system actually friendly to these types of relationships. Don't make us have to work around the systems - make the systems work for us.
Audio
Guess I missed it because there was never a poll put up about the vendor caps, just the bazaar price limits...
I've noticed that the bazaar and vendors have been excruciatingly and uncommonly slow since this discussion was put up, at least on Bria anyway. Used to be slow like that once or twice a week maybe. Can we get a guarantee that if we're not listened to and the vendor caps are put in that it will be put back the way it was if stability doesn't improve immediately? Don't know why the caps would be put in since the majority that were asked said no, but in case it happens and it doesn't fix the problem, just curious as to if it will be put back the way most everyone liked it. 
Thunderheart wrote:
i dont know that your still reading all these negative responses, but hopefully youve gotten the gist that people really dont want a 150 cap
I do.
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
I'm really sorry, but that isn't acceptable. I convinced my wife to play and after dabbling around she found she didn't like some of the hectic things to do in battle. Instead she chose a Master Artisan/Master Droid Engineer/Master Armorsmith and a 4/0/4/4 Chef template.
Her armorsmithing alone will mean that she will have 9 items just for *one* set of armor. She can easily make over 150 items, not to mention any extra resources she'd like to try and sell. Now you want to tell her she needs to needlessly invest points for the sole purpose ofbeing able to offer more than 1 of an item?
I mean heaven forbid she was able to sell crated and uncrated Bivoli Temparis..
Instead of finding onerous ways to nerf your players and make them unhappy, why don't you do simple things like make Factory crates bigger than 25 (in the case of Droid parts). She made a run of 1000 CDEF pistols so smugglers could practice and in turn ended up with 40 crates of 25 pistols--seems that would be as much or more of a strain on the ever-fragile database then her trying to sell a few sets of armor, some food and trying to sell some droids/batteries..
Thunderheart wrote:
i dont know that your still reading all these negative responses, but hopefully youve gotten the gist that people really dont want a 150 cap
I do.
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
What's the point of basing it solely on the merchant skill? Novice merchant already gets an extra vendor which means double the items right there. If I wanted to waste points gettign merchant on top of my other professiosn that need the vendor Then I wouldn't need more items per vendor because I coudl just add more vendors. DUH!!!!!!!!!!
Monthar69 wrote:
Thunderheart wrote:
i dont know that your still reading all these negative responses, but hopefully youve gotten the gist that people really dont want a 150 cap
I do.
You may have missed it, but it's looking like there will be an incremental cap based on the merchant skill.
What's the point of basing it solely on the merchant skill? Novice merchant already gets an extra vendor which means double the items right there. If I wanted to waste points gettign merchant on top of my other professiosn that need the vendor Then I wouldn't need more items per vendor because I coudl just add more vendors. DUH!!!!!!!!!!
The point is that it's not a "waste". This is (quite likely) supposed to be one of the "tough choices" that you'll need to make regarding skill point allocation. If you want to be able to offer a wide selection YOURSELF, you'll need to invest some points in Merchant.
If you want to do everything else yourself (not leaving points for Merchant), you'll probably need to partner up with someone who IS a Merchant for sales, and / or specialize in a smaller selection of items.
Otherwise, what's the point of having a Merchant profession at all, if an Artisan can list an infinite amount of stuff?