Development Cycle Archive

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Elan-Morin wrote:

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PlayeroftheDay wrote:

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Moepple wrote:

TH, thats not nice, thats a compromise I didnt expect, and you turned my suggestion into something thats on the bottom end of what people might expect.

However, maybe you find the time to explain ab bit why there has to be a limit and why it has to be so low?

This is still below what a lot of us Merchant wants, and to accept it, it would be good to know why. In my Eyes, its not a balance Issue, because the number of available Vendors will go down due to the removal of exploited vendors we need high limits for those legal vendors. Otherwise noone plays Merchant and the economy is as broken in the future as it is now.

And btw, maybe you could peek into my post in the merchant-forum :-)

Shubashi/Gorath

Message Edited by Moepple on 08-16-2004 03:21 PM

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As a database programmer the logic is simple. When you have to query a large array of data it takes longer than having to query a small array of data. Yes, it's the same amount of data overall but it's not nearly the same. Ask yourself this question:

Is it easier to eat an apple in one bite or in several small bites?

Until database query logic is improved there isn't much us programmers can do but give out bite-sized chewable data that the database can handle.

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It's the same amount of data either way. The server still has to query every row in a particular table for any given query. The only real difference is that less complex queries that return a larger set of data are more network-intensive (assuming queries are done over a network, and not locally), while the more complex queries that specify certain necessary values for the result set are more resource-intensive (since the server has to verify multiple columns for each row in order to generate a correct result).

In this case, I'm guessing the devs are shooting for a less network-intensive system, since the query structure for retrieving vendor item lists hasn't been changed, just the updates and insertions of new data.

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BioTamer wrote:

I have only management 3 in merchant, does that mean I get 6 vendors at 250 limit each for a total of 1000 items? I am confused, can anyone tell me?

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The way I read the layout is that each of the Management and Efficiency boxes contain a "+1 Vendor" skill mod. So if you have Merchant 0-0-0-3, you get 2 vendors for the business line in artisan, 1 for Novice Merchant, 3 for the three boxes in Management for a total of 6 vendors. The vendor limits are probably set upwith skill mods"Vendor Item Limit +100" in Business 3 and "Vendor Item Limit +150" in Novice Merchant (for a total of 250), so with Management 3 you can stock a total of 6 * 250 = 1500 items.

Personally, I think the per-vendor limit should be a bit lower in Novice Merchant, with increases in the Efficiency branch, and move a couple of the +1 Vendor from Efficiency to Master Merchant. The total limits at Master look ok to me, though, it's just a matter of distribution among the skill boxes.

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LeBob wrote:

TH

When this goes in, will players be prevented from using vendors if they already dropped the Merchant skills necessary to create that vendor?

I think I read this in the patch notes, but I wanted to make sure... if so, I think this will be a great change... too many people were taking advantage of the skill points...

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Yes, they will.

Though, I was able to sweeten the pot for Master Merchants. At the Master Box level, all of the Master's vendor limits will be raised to 300 per each vendor.

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Jadai wrote:

First of all, lets clear the air.. no you're not sorry for causing anxiety... In business, this is called the bait and switch..

for example:

once upon a time, on a thread far far away......

SW:G - we're going to limit houses to hold only 25 items

SW:G community - *big uproar*

SW:G - well, ok... 75 items per lot your house takes up, up to 250

SW:G community - oh.. whew.. thats much better than 25

I've seen this over and over in this game. Why you feel the need to cause an uproar, instead of just spelling out what you were intending to begin with, is beside me. It makes it much easier on the community in general if you're honest and up front with us from the beginning. You know what your DB restrictions are, you know what your servers can handle, just tell us. Its that easy. Quit being drama queens and be honest.

This is the reason you are losing so many quality players. The deception and baiting, then trying to come off as 'heros', when you know what you intended from the beginning, is just childish and completely unprofessional. Those of us who are not... as was categorized by some at SOE... 16 year old boys with nothing better to do than post to forums... would appreciate being treated like adults and not like children. I pay for this service, and expect honest, upfront, customer service in return. I follow your SOE community standards, and expect you to do the same.

Regards,

A'ier Crestingstorm

Master Doctor

BHSS
Tarquinas

Someone speaks the truth... I'm getting a little sick of the bait and switch tech they are useing... Its really old and unprofessional to paying customers

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i agree with you 100%, SOE why dont you treat your customers with respect and not try to treat us like farm animals and just lead us thro this thing

yes i did say i like the new limits better because i do, but the fact is the process they used to tell us how is so disrespectful

What does a limit accomplish?

How does any vendor item limit improve the Merchant profession? By this I don't mean forcing a player to spend the skillpoints I mean how does an item limit make Merchant worth keeping? How does this make Merchant better in general? Why not add to the profession instead of take away?

Why aren't there skills granted through the trees and at master that improve vendor sales and not vendor usage, like:

1.) Preferred customer standing. Your vendor keeps track of the number of items and credits spent by a customer that has signed up as a preferred customer. As a Master Merchant you could set rebates, discounts, specials, and 2 for 1 offer to those that are preferred customers.

2.) A searchable advertisement bulletin board at starports. The amount of information is limited by level. This terminal would show current specials that a merchant is offering, and allow customers to sign up as a preferred customer, maybe a small sign up fee and weekly fee . At Master Merchant a player signed up as a preferred customer could remotely see all items and prices currently on that Merchants vendors, maybe even remote purchasing with a delivery fee.

3.) Being signed up as a preferred customer would have a weekly fee; this would prevent players from signing up at ever vendor. This would also encourage competition among Merchants while creating a loyal customer base for Merchants that do a good job.

Why not add to the Profession?

Removing is easier then actually fixing the profession by adding to it. Does anyone think Master Merchant should revolve solely around the limit you can place on a vendor? To me a Master Merchant is someone that knows how to sell, how to advertise and how to keep customers long term.

The limit of 110 per vendor at master is an obvious low ball; a limit of 3 to 5 times 110 was the original target the dev team wanted. What will happen is a developer will post, "We are raising the value to 500 per vendor at master" and players will cheer for what is still a huge nerf to the profession and that solves none of the professions real problems. If you were around at launch you might remember houses all having 250 item limits, this was reduce to 25 items per lot used:

Holocron- "I am trying to ascertain what the limits are supposed to be. It's based on a formula based on how many lots the house takes up. It should be 25 items per lot."
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=306226&page=9

Then the player base screamed and the limit was changed:

Holocron- " OK, here's what we are going to do in tomorrow's update:

-You will get 75 items per lot, instead of 25, up to a max of 250 items per house.
-No vendors nor their contents will count against the house limit.
-Factory crates will count as 1 volume, not 5.

We realize this doesn't get you all the way back to where you were, but it should improve the situation. A fuller solution cannot be accomplished by the morning, which is why we're only going this far. We want to do as much as we can as quickly as we can.

There are other things that we can and will be doing, but they will take longer.

(Since I am sure someone will ask: why not just roll back the code? Because it was multiple integrations and changelists, and it'd be somewhat hairy. This is safer)."

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=308396

A majority of the player base cheered for what was actually a huge nerf.

Empty Vendor Removal Problem.

At master I placed NPC vendors as a part of my Laboratory decoration. They are not listed on the global map they do not sell items, they are strictly there as part of the Laboratory. Without them the Laboratory is pointless. If empty vendors are removed after two weeks of being empty, that is an added worry I don't need. If I am not qualified to use a NPC vendor I might not be able to list anything on them, not even a data disk containing a description of a given NPC's purpose in the lab. *poof* I lose them and more then 20+ hours of decorating time, and I am still not done with the layout of the lab. I have another 20+ hours of decorating to go.

Empty Vendor Removal Solution.

Vendors that do not belong to the owner of the house in which they are placed should have the 2 week empty removal system where the owner can choose to remove those vendors that have been marked empty. I have seen many vendor malls where players quit and the vendors are still there.

Vendors owned by a player and placed in that player's house should only be removed from the global map when empty. The amount of time it took to get the right size, look and equip each vendor with the right clothing is a process I do not want to repeat. If you are a Master Merchant do you want to worry about taking a 2 week break or a month long break and losing all your vendors that are in your shop or a good friends shop?

Why I turned to vendors as storage.

Bank holds 100 items
5 small generic houses hold 750 items
5 storage droids holds 50 items
1 character holds 60 items and an additional 50 with a backpack equipped for a total of 110 items
Max total of 1010 items.

At 6 months into the game I went back to my 5 small generic houses to find that I did not have enough room to remove my backpack. I proceeded to delete all items that I absolutely didn't need to keep and reorganizing all the empty space to one house. I came up 10 items short from being able to remove my backpack. At this point I began looking into alternative means of storage.

1.) Buy an alt character to serve as a mule. This was not an option for me, I would quit before paying for a second account.

2.) Use factories as storage. You get 100 items per lot used instead of 75 items per lot that houses grant (Up to a max of 250). If you used 8 factories and keep 1 house your grand total goes to 1210.

3.) Get a vendor. The item limit is determined by the player's willingness to deal with unsuccessful vendor sales email and relisting items each month(and over time it becomes a daily relist). I liked that fact that I could search my stockpile and find what I needed without running from house to factory to house trying to find a certain component or item. Relisting items drives me nuts but being able to find them when I need them makes it worth the trouble.

Now someone is going to say, "What are you storing that is over 1000 items?"

I played as a combat character for a long time, then I began crafting, I liked Master Weaponsmith and will be going back to it. This is just some of what I have:

1.) 3-4 suits of armor plus extra chest plates, boots and helmets are around 40 items.

2.) Weapons, I have at least 3 of the same weapon for what ever combat profession I am currently a master of. At least 1 speed and 1 damage version and 1 backup just incase I fail a repair. I usually have about 10 weapons on me at any given time. Add stims, food, spice, clothing...

3.) All the very best looted items and components that I have found. I delete anything that is not as good as player made. Total number of items and components is over 1000. Given that loot drops at 1-12 at once it's easy to fill a backpack in 1 buff session. Do this for 180 days and see what happens. I can not sell or give loot away fast enough and I refuse to delete good items. I have tried to sell them but that takes too much time and it is not fun, I play to have fun. When I get irritated by an in game process I either stop using it or find an alternative.

4.) As a Master Chef I made lots of factory crates of ahrisa for me and a friend, I got tired of arguing the benefits of this food with chefs. When it came time to master Chef I ran a supply of ahrisa about 100 crates in total. I really hated hunting for this stuff . I was and will be a Master Weaponsmith again. Wow components, components, components, resources, resources, resources. I have around 200 stacks of resources and I don't even want to know how many components I have.

The real problem is this:

Many professions have been weak since launch, many parts of the game have been bugged since launch, and the development team doesn't want a untied player base telling them to fix the games foundation. They want a player base that's segregated; remember the locking of the discussion forum? Now they can make small insignificant quick fixes to each profession and make that profession think its being fixed. It's no different then someone waving their right hand to keep your focus off of the left hand.

The development team is strung out too thin working on the Jump to Lightspeed expansion. By creating proposed massive changes that are unneeded and obviously ridiculous the development team gets us to fight with each other. They are turning players against each other to distract from larger systemic problems. After all why take the blame for poorly thought out skills, poorly programmed code and utter lack of thorough testing, when you can blame someone else's profession, "power gamers", "exploiters" or "the powers that be"?

Conclusion

With combat players unable to store loot, the market will be flooded with medium and high quality loot items at very low prices day in and day out. Only being able to sell 20 items at a time on the public bazaar means I have to set my prices low enough that by the next time I sign on someone will have purchased my items that way I can sell items I loot that day. This will impact everyone; crafters will get nothing but special orders with high quality loot components. Merchants will have to stop selling most looted items, limited space and a flooded market will make loot an unprofitable business.

Ask yourself this, does this really solve the major problem with my profession? Does it fix weak and otherwise pointless skills or does it force me to be a master? A master of a profession should feel like a master, being a Master Merchant has nothing to do with vendor limits. Being a Master Merchant means you can advertise effectively, sell items faster, and retain a loyal customer base, without being chained to a vendor.

If I lose the ability to store items I acquired while actually playing the game or lose the vendors I have as decoration I will quit the game. What is the point of being a combat person if I can not keep the best items I find? What is the point of being a crafter if I have to constantly fight inventory space? After 13 months how much database space does my character take up with 2000 items? I bet not more then $15 worth of harddrive memory and I have paid 13 times that to this day. The only reason I would have to sign in would be to chat, and I can do that for free else where.

Add to professions do not make sweeping Band-Aid fixes to hide your under staffed and overwhelmed programming team. Think each solution through; players are frustrated and tired of this "We will fix it later" attitude. When I quit I will not come back even if Jump to Lightspeed is perfect. Once I lose my characters history, whether its loot, crafting resources, decorated store or houses, there is no reason to come back and start over again.

Message Edited by GarVa on 08-17-2004 07:06 AM