Merchant Archive
Thread: There is absolutly no reason why vendors should stay after you drop Merchant.
Why on earth should non-merchants and non-business-3 artisians be able to maintain vendors?!?
- Doctors are not able to buff, use meds or rez packs after they give up their doctor skills.
- Smugglers cannot slice after they give up their slicing skills.
- Creatures Handlers cannot call rancors out of their datapad after they give up CH skills.
- Riflemen do not retain the certification for the T21 after they give up the rifleman skill.
- Weaponsmiths cannot make weapons after they give up their WS skills.
There is absolutely no reason why non-merchants or non-business-3 artisans should be able to maintain vendors. If the developers want to reduce the vendor database size, they should target these loopholes (exploits?) first. Rather than nerfing the merchant profession and business line of artisan.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what the proposed bazaar caps and vendor item limits will be. Its a double nerf against our profession. I say fix the non-merchants loophole exploiters first. Then see how the database stands.
You mean, like, if i drop weaponsmith all my weapons should go poof?
Or that all my vendors should remain nekkid when I drop hiring 4 because there is no reason for them to keep the clothes i gave them?
Try to think before posting on the boards.
Nope, weapons you created should not disapear. But you willlose your weapon draft schematics when you drop weaponsmith, and not be able to make any new ones. Try reading my post before you comment on it. Thanks.
Orew wrote:
You mean, like, if i drop weaponsmith all my weapons should go poof?
Or that all my vendors should remain nekkid when I drop hiring 4 because there is no reason for them to keep the clothes i gave them?
Try to think before posting on the boards.
Orew wrote:
You mean, like, if i drop weaponsmith all my weapons should go poof?
Or that all my vendors should remain nekkid when I drop hiring 4 because there is no reason for them to keep the clothes i gave them?
Try to think before posting on the boards.
So, may I assume that you worked your way up the merchant tree, got your vendors and dressed them up, then dropped all those skill points and devoted them somewhere else so you could get all the benefits of our profession without having to spend any of the points, is that it?
I should still be able to MAKE weapons after I drop WS, still be able to use stims after I drop med skills, and still be able to mask scent after I drop scout too, right?
Try to think before you post on these boards, Orew!
If duping and all kinds of other shenanigans receive harsh treatment such as warnings and bannings, so should people who are exploiting a very obvious flaw in the merchant system. If you give up your skills, your vendors should poof with them. If you had stuff on your vendor that disappeared...then you should have cleared it out before you surrendered your skills.
Harsh?
No harsher than the fact that vendors are now being severely nerfed as a result of exploits of game flaws like this, as well as many other bugs and problems with items and the way they're arranged in the game, clashing with the pathetic database.
I'm not saying that people who keep vendors after giving up the skills are horrible people by any means. One of my close friends is doing the same thing, and I yell at him, too.
I'm just saying that this is a known flaw and anyone who is taking advantage of it is as guilty of exploiting as anyone else who takes advantage of any other known bug or flaw in the game. You're not bad...you're just not helping any, hehe.Flames will be cheerfully ignored as you're only going to be cheesed because you're guilty.
Orew wrote:You mean, like, if i drop weaponsmith all my weapons should go poof?
Or that all my vendors should remain nekkid when I drop hiring 4 because there is no reason for them to keep the clothes i gave them?
Try to think before posting on the boards.
Please follow your own advice, and think before you post.
As has been outline NUMEROUS times before, the distinction is between WORK TOOLS and WORK PRODUCT.
When you surrender a skill necessary to get access to a profession-specific work tool, then continued use of that work tool to produce new work products should be eliminated.
Existing work product should remain after the surrender, because nothing else makes much sense.
For crafters, their primary work tool is the ability to experiment, and create the work products of prototype items and schematics. (Schematics can be a bit confusing, because it looks like they produce new work product. It helps to think of them has having stored 1000 units of the "work" already, and you're just time-shifting when the product pops out.
Let's get concrete here. Architects produce work products like buildings for deeds, and schematics for the same. The Architect's work tool is the Structure Crafting station. When you give up all of Architect, you forfeit the ability to continue to use those profession-specific tools to create any NEW work products.
Everything that you built while an Architect remains behind, including the work product of schematics.
Work product stays, use of work tools goes. Producing NEW work product through the use of the tools is what allows a profession to "stay in business" over the long haul. An Architect who gives up all skill boxes can sell off whatever they produced before, but they won't be able to continue to be viable in that profession for long, because they can't make anything new.
Now look at Merchant. If Merchant were to behave as pretty-much all other professions do, they should keep the work product but lose access to their profession-specific work tool.
Here's where you have to think carefully about the FUNCTION of vendors, in order to understand what they are.
A vendor is not a work PRODUCT. A vendor is a WORK TOOL. The "product" of a successful merchant is an unattended sales transaction (with no price cap). The tool that they have to make that product is the vendor.
The vendor is to the Merchant, as the Crafting Station is to the crafter.
When a Merchant gives up their skill boxes, we don't expect their work product to disappear. Past sales that have been make don't get undone somehow, just like shirts don't disappear after a Tailor gives up their skills. What we DO expect (as every other profession rightfully expects) is that when you give up Merchant, you should lose the ability to CONTINUE TO MAKE NEW SALES LIKE A MERCHANT. You should lose access to the tool that allows Merchants to do their distinctive form of work.
Without that, we get the situation as we have it today... Ex-Merchants who have the same basic ability to create work product (unattended high-price sales) as does a CURRENT Merchant.
There should be no benefit to being an EX-Merchant, just like there is no benefit to being an ex-Architect, an ex-Tailor, an ex-Weaponsmith, and so on.
An ex-profession should be treated the same as a never-profession, because you're not incurring the cost of the skill points. You got the skill points back, so you should have to give back the PRIVILEGES that came with the skills... but no one is suggesting that we undo the WORK that was done while you had it. All objects and schematics remain, as do all past sales. You just need to stop doing NEW BUSINESS using your former profession's tools.
That's why continued, ongoing vendor use should be limited to the skill boxes that supported their placement in the first place.
Because to be honest, if a player is no longer a merchant, then their opinions on merchant skills shouldn't matter to the devs (and to things like our top 5 lists) as much as the concerns of those who kept those skills. Obviously everyone should get a chance to say what they want, but the opinions of actual merchants should count for more on merchant issues than the thoughts of ex-merchants.
I mean, if I was an ex-pistoleer and ran into their forum asking for them to be nerfed, my voice shouldn't be considered as a representative of those who are actual members of the profession...
jbeck wrote:Nope, weapons you created should not disapear. But you will lose your weapon draft schematics when you drop weaponsmith, and not be able to make any new ones.
Orew wrote:You mean, like, if i drop weaponsmith all my weapons should go poof?
Or that all my vendors should remain nekkid when I drop hiring 4 because there is no reason for them to keep the clothes i gave them?
Try to think before posting on the boards.
"Hogwash."
There needs to be a reward for having mastered a profession other than "another notch in the belt for the Hologrinders" and "a badge".
Being able to keep master-experimented schematics (only as long as you can find the resources to keep building them) is one such reward.
Being able to keep your extra vendors is another such reward.
People have made good arguments that "keeping vendors after dropping Merchant" is a Bad Thing. But not one has suggested that "schematics made while as a master should *poof*". And if that's your reasoning, then congratulations, you've just pushed me onto the "Heck with it. Let 'em keep their vendors. They earned 'em."
Your argument is akin to suggesting that when you /image yourself after grinding to Master Image Designer, your face should return to its n00b origin. On grounds of logical inconsistency, "no thanks."
AngryHoopJumper wrote:
Being able to keep master-experimented schematics (only as long as you can find the resources to keep building them) is one such reward.
Being able to keep your extra vendors is another such reward.
That's not a good analogy. Schematics are limited use, they are only useful as long as they last (max of 1000 items each) and as long as you have the right type of resources to run them. Eventually the person will run out of resources (which will go out of phase and never be available again) or run out of schematics. Schematics can also already be freely traded to anyone, so any character, no matter what their profession, can use them.
Vendors will last forever as long as you pay their maintainance and the maintainance of the house they're in. They will never get "used up" like a schematic will. They are also not tradeable, so any character, if they don't have merchant or business III, is not intended to be able to use them.