Development Cycle Archive
Thread: ID#2: Two Changes to Bazaars and Vendors
ShufIrathe wrote:
I don't think an item cap on a Vendor is going to do much against the large PA types that are probably the ones with the monopolies now. I would think that there are some things that can be done to limit monopolies.
There are no monopolies. It's a fiction.
On Naboo, on the Ahazi server there were several weaponsmiths that had 'dominant' business shares as I started grinding WS. Ikemi, Mobo and at least three or four others that were around at the time had big shares (from what I could see/hear of people's recommendations) of the weapons market.
They each had MONTHS of lead time on me entering the business (I mastered WS shortly before I actually registered on the board which is odd, but there ya go), and I was pretty certain I was doomed.... but y'know what? I wasn't. I did some bazaarselling before I master WS of just my proto-type versions of guns, they weren't as good, but they were inexpensive. I did a little advertising, I sold in the city and I eeked out sales and I talked to people.
I.E. I became a merchant in practice long before I mastered the skillset.
I can name a half-dozen WS's with thriving businesses, me, Dex're, Mobo, Snitch, Phatz, Az' & Soar, Howser (though he rarely sells stuff), Akyrl. Some of the names come up on the boards, some don't. All of us have as much business as we want and in some cases more than we can handle... and yet none of us have a monopoly... and nothing will stop someone new from coming in, doing the work to get the resources and becoming just as profitable as any of us are.
If there's a vendor cap, is there more of a chance that I'll be sold out when someone needs a gun? Yep. If there more of a chance that Dex're, Mobo, Snitch, Phatz, Az' & Soar, Howser and Akyrl will all be sold out? Yep.
Will that make a new WS any more succesful if he's not willing to put in the work he has to do in the first place? Nope.
The net effect of this change will be to chain me to my vendor for more of the time than I am now, and to severely inconvenience my customers that rely on me having stock in place.
1) Empire enforced price floors to prevent a PA from loss leading their items until the competition is out of business.
Not a tenable position. How does the software tell the difference between a 2.2 50-92 scout blaster and a 1.7 80-144 in order to enforce a price cap?
2) A limit on the type of goods a PA can offer. One PA may only publicly place one or two types of goods on their vendors. I think this would also have the effect of turning some PA's into guilds which might be fun.
So every solo crafter/merchant in the game has to leave their PA?
3) Empire imposed Tarrifs for items above a certain amount on a vendor.
Which will impact professions like Architect that sell big ticket items, while having little impact on power-up vendors etc. This will also penalize crafters that make premium or market-leading products who deserve to be able to price their items above a certain line.
4) Empire enforced sliding taxation scale based on sales on a vendor.
Work hard, run a good shop.... pay your fine? The credits are irrelevant to me, I'm just not certain my crafters & merchants should have to pay a 'good business' penalty.
I'm a few pages in and havn't seen an architect chime in yet, so i thought i would throw in an opinion.
Bazaar cap... Sounds good, i had all but forgotten the bazaar even exists, maybe now we can actually sell / buy some good stuff on the bazaar (or, all the prices on the bazaar will just double for the same items... )
As far as the vendors go, i think this is a very bad idea. If you add a vendor limit and at the same time make the bazaar market more favorable, you will only remove traffic from player cities and in the long run probably force many merchants out of business.
Alot of people have been pointing to WS and AS as having the heavilly stocked vendors. Architects also fall into this category. - We have over 60 different types of furniture items - Granted some dont sell much, but others people will buy in large quantities (Chairs, torches, couches, end tables, plants, etc...) - I have a continual stock of more than300 furnitureitems on my vendor, and if i do not restock every 2 or so days, i start getting bombarded by emails asking for x or y.
I think a limit of 300 per vendor would be acceptable, but 150 is far too low to keep a business going.
You say this is a change to stop the monopoly, when in fact, it's the monopoly that will continue to thrive. The casual gamer has a hard enough time keeping a vendor stocked because they can't play for hours and hours every day. They are gone for periods of time in which their vendor stock sells out. - When this happens, players will begin to rely on the monopoly vendors (99% of them maintained by people who are online ALOT) because they will be stocked more often.
I think i speak for the whole community when i thank you for asking for our input. But we are sceptical that our voices will be heard. We arebegging you: Donot set the vendor limit so low, a limit is acceptable, 150 is not.
Price cap is good at 6k, but would be better at 10k.
Vendor item limit of 150 seems too small, maybe 300 as some have mentioned previously in this thread.
As a Merchant I have to say that the 150 item cap is WAY too low. Perhaps a better system can be put in place? Like say the 1 vendor you get at Business III can only have 150 items. And the cap raises when you get Novice Merchant by say +25. And have more bonuses as you go up the Efficiency line or something.
Bazaar cap raise is cool, though.
Currently, the credit cap is 3000 and the development team is considering raising the cap to 6000 credits. Are you for or against this change? Why?
If there is a new cap 6k isn't enought, not 10 either. But I admit 10k would be a good start. Even if I think it will nerf merchants a bit.
The big deal isn't with the instant sale cap, vendors are made for that, true? The issue is with auctions, delete the cap on auction and let the market decide truly for high-end stuff.
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The second item has to do with Vendors. Currently, there is no limit to how many items can be placed on a vendor. This causes technical issues, encourages monopolies and actually hurts sales in many instances because most players don't "drill down" through all of the vendor pages to find items. We want to solve the technical issues, discourage monopolies and make vendors easier to use. An item limit is going to be placed on vendors and that limit is intended to be placed on 150.
When we sell only a few products 150 would be nice, but think about an architect (for example) how can he propose a nice assortment of items with, only, 150 slots?
If there are really database issues, delete 90% of crap items, did I said CDEF?
Bazaar increase to 6k: Good Idea plain and simple
Vendor Limit of 150: Terrible idea. I sell out of items all the time and usually stock it to about 400 items. With a limit of 150, I'd have to use all of my vendors at the same location and what is the purpose in this.
I can't say enough that this will hurt Weapons Selection, availability, etc. This truly is a game breaking decision for me as I would have to use all my skill points just to list my wares. Maybe a better idea is using Merchant Skill to raise this cap. Whatever the case, this is a terrible idea as it currently stands. If there is a limit it should be closer to 500.
For what it is worth, I think the cap on the bazaars should be 10k for instant sales and no limit on on auctions.
As far as the private vendors, I think the 150 item cap is slightly low, maybe 250 would be a little better. I don't particularly mind going hitting the "next page" button a few times, unless the vendor is not loading quickly, then I just walk out. Maybe item limits would force merchants to diversify their vendors instead of lumping everything under the sun into one vendor. I hate nothing more than to page through 9 or 10 pages of "ranged weapons" and not find a single rifle.
I hate to bring up a different point , but a better indexing system is needed on all vendors & bazaars, that would also help alleviate the unneccesary searching through all the pages. (For example: factory crates should have sub-categories like food, thrown weapons, ranged powerups, etc..)
As per the 6k bazaar limit, two things: One, I think the limit should be raised on instant sales, but as others have suggested, it should be chained to the Business Systems/Merchant skill trees. And make the limit far beyond 6k. You can put what, 25 items on the bazaar max? For most craftsmen 25 items is but a fraction of their inventory. Good to move stuff, but not good enough to replace an entire store.
Secondly, I think auctions should have the limit increased. Currently the only reason I (and many other players) have used auctions is as a form of advertisement. Place the item, put in a max bid, and let it expire. Makes auctions about worthless. Auctions should be unlocked. The sky is the limit. That is the whole purpose of an auction.
As per the 150 item limit, I have two answers. No. And hell no. I run a tailor shop. One vendor alone has over 400 items. That is the actual "clothing" vendor. I also have a seperate vendor for bio-clothing, another for packaged ensembles, and a fourth for tailoring factory crated components. I use vendors to seperate my goods. As things stand, if the 150 limit went live I would have to stock fewer items, offer fewer choices, and mix the bio-engineered articles with the normal items.
In short, this means shafting my client base. And I don't want to do that.
So maybe to the first; no to the second.
Raising the cap on the bazaar. A 6K cap sounds sufficient. But the issue of auctions hitting the cap should be removed or have an extremely high cap. There should definately bea auction starting cap. But a new thing I would like to see is a "vendor advertisement terminal" where vendors can advertise their location and breifly what they sell, at a daily fee of course. The terminal would give you a temporary waypoint (for making people go back and see new vendors) for their location. There should be a limit as for the number of items one can sell on the bazaar (defeats the whole purpose of vendors).
As for vendors item limit, the limit should have a high cap, otherwise why not just use the bazaar?
What really needs to be done is have the bazaar terminals, or maybe a different terminal that you can browse the player vendors to see what they have, where they are at, and how much they are selling stuff for.
This is supposed to be a player run economy, and if most of the items are sold on the bazaar it takes away from that. The Idea of being a Merchant is that not only you sell your own stuff, but that you sell other peoples stuff, the ones that don't want to have a vendor but can't sell there Items on the bazaar because of the cap. The Auction does not mean it is going to go to 6k, unless it is a hot item, heck if it is not good, I suppose you could get less than the 3k instant sale cap.
This would make being a Merchant a valuable Skill !!!
As far as the cap on the vendors, I think 300-500 would be good. I'm not a Merchant and have only one vendor, that many items are plenty for me.
A Merchant Should be able to gain more room on there vendors while there making there way up to Master Merchant which maybe can have, I don't know, maybe 1500 items.
People are impatient, so having to browse through that much stuff would get tired quickly.
This is just my thoughts on the changes.
Alen Vondor
Radiant
The problem is that both of these changes affect different professions in very different ways.
First, let's look at the bazaar price increase. This will raise the prices of some items that are currently low-balled at 3K. Locked containers are an example of this. These will definitely be selling at 6K in the future. I wouldn't be shocked to see resources go up to at least 4 cpu (1500 for 6K rather than 1000 for 3K), possibly 6 cpu. Certain items may also become more available and less expensive. I would expect to see more small houses on the bazaar at 6K. I would expect to see more qualty weapons. So some professions will make less money. In the end, I'm not sure that 6K is any "better" or "worse" than 3K. THere will be short-term price fluctuations on those items that currently sell for between 3K and 10K or so.
The vendor item cap is much more problematic. For certain professions, it will have almost no effect. For example, if I sell installation deeds, I can probably get by with only 150 deeds on sale at a given time. But for professions that have lots of schematics and sell individual items, this is disastrous. If a tailor simply wants to keep 1 of every item they can make available in 5 different colors, they will need multiple vendors. So soon we will have more tailor vendors filled with all black (since that sells better apparently) and less with real choice. More armorsmiths will drop mabari altogether to make room on the vendor for advanced ubese. Now maybe the mabari should move to the bazaar. Maybe the clothes sales should move to the bazaar. I don't know. I like knowing I can go to one tailor and get a huge selection. I like knowing I can go to a master armorsmith and get the best mabari available for cheap adventuring. Maybe this stuff will continue to get made, but you are definitely making it harder for me to find what I want. I would definitely push for a limit above 150. I particularly like the idea of tying items/vendor to merchant skills (and a different tree than management... you get more vendors in management and more items/ vendor in something like efficiency).
DO NOT change the amount of items on a vendor. DO take away the limit for items in a house, it's crazy to limit them in the first place. If the game can't handle it you might try just raising the limit in general, go from 150 to 1500 to start.
I'm a Master Weaponsmith and like both ideas. The 6000cr limit on the bazaar will allow me to sell cheaper items (such as melee weapons) on the bazaar and reach a wider audience. I had to restock 84 items yesterday and it took quite a bit of time. Lowering the cap to 150 items will force me to plan better and have fewer items but perhaps a wider selection.