Merchant Archive
Thread: Give a little.
p4Samwise wrote:
Balkstar wrote:
In the end, the skill points allocated to every player are balanced out.
Would you say that a master ID gets the same bang for his buck as a master rifleman?
If all the professions were balanced with respect to each other, and all the skill trees were well designed, we wouldn't have revamp after revamp on the schedule. Even after the ID "revamp" I'd say they're horribly shafted.
p4Samwise wrote:
There is no shortage of brokenness in the game. Saying that poaching is the only thing in the game that needs fixing doesn't win you any respect from the other professions.
Balkstar wrote:
I will say when compared to the artisan based crafters, BE's get the shaft in having to spend more than 9 extra credits to get a vendor, but think of it this way, in order to be a BE, you get to be in the basicprofessions of medic and scout...
In the end, the skill points allocated to every player are balanced out.
Yee Gads, why is it so many people, who all live in the same world as me, fail to understand how manufacture and retail work? I'll break it down once again.
- Company / Person(a) Makes a product
- Company / Person (b) contacts (a) stating that they want to sell said product OR
- Company / Person (a) contacts (b) stating that they would like (b) to sell their product
- Company / Person (b) buys the product from (a) at a wholesale price in bulk
- Company / Person (b) advertises to the public that they sell the product
- Company / Person (b) retails the product to the consumer for a profit
And at some point, normally 30-90 days later (b) pays for the product they bought from (a) this may be after they have resold it or before, that is not important.
This may happen in RL where there is systems to ensure (b) actually pays (a) and also a capability of (b) to actively spend TIME marketing the product. The most irritating thing of the SWG merchant system is that Merchant has such a complete lack of ability to service a customers need. If they had to spend more of their gametime doing merchant work rather than the 15 - 20 minute restock at the start of each login session I would consider allowing a merchant to sell my product.
As it stands now Merchant is nothing more than a skill point sink that prevents SINGLE ACCOUNT players from having a varied game experience. All initial advertising stated you would be able to Master 2 professions thereby I have a Combat Skill and a Crafting Skill but now I willl need to waste skill points on a tree that acheives absolutely nothing to enhance game play.
lisasdarren wrote:
Yee Gads, why is it so many people, who all live in the same world as me, fail to understand how manufacture and retail work? I'll break it down once again.
- Company / Person(a) Makes a product
- Company / Person (b) contacts (a) stating that they want to sell said product OR
- Company / Person (a) contacts (b) stating that they would like (b) to sell their product
- Company / Person (b) buys the product from (a) at a wholesale price in bulk
- Company / Person (b) advertises to the public that they sell the product
- Company / Person (b) retails the product to the consumer for a profit
And at some point, normally 30-90 days later (b) pays for the product they bought from (a) this may be after they have resold it or before, that is not important.
I wish to heaven things really worked this way in SWG. I would love to surrender my merchant skills. There are quite a few problems with this, however.
First off, in order to really do this properly, you have to have a large stake of initial capital to purchase the goods you wish to re-sell. While you are more likely to find someone nowadays that has cash to burn than you would have been back at the game's release, it is still not all that easy.
Second, the re-seller has to be knowledgable about the products he is selling. Most crafting professions are sufficiently complex that the person who has mastered them has a hard enough time keeping up with everything that is going on (changes, new schematics, bug fixes, etc.) much less the merchant who isn't actually making the items.
Third, the Merchant class really has no advertising skills to speak of. The planetary map and barker droids are not that much help when trying to fight the AFK spammers. How do you efficiently advertise your products without stooping that low?
Fourth... okay, that's really all I can think of for now, but do you see where I'm going with this? Playing a "pure merchant" in SWG has to be probably one of the most frustrating, impossible experiences ever because of the limitations of the profession and the seeming inability of players to do any research on a item before bombarding you with tells asking about it. Are there any out there on any server? If so, how do you manage it? I'm genuinely curious.
Cephalo wrote:
I think vendor poaching needs to be fixed, but I think everyone should be able to have a basic vendor without skillpoints. I think one of the biggest reasons for empty vendors is that once you lack the skill to set one up, you can't afford to take him down just because he's empty, at that point it's easier to make people drive across the planet for nothing than it is to take him down temporarily.
I don't think allowing one vendor would hurt merchants too much, and it would give a BE the chance to sell his goods without giving up half his functionality.
Wrong. One of the biggest reason for empty vendors are lazy people or people that quit. Allowing everyone to have a vendor would hurt merchants as much as letting everyone use a republic blaster without novice pistoleer, harvest creatures without scoutor using stim Bs without novice medic. The game was designed so that players can't do everything, and having or not a vendor is part of the choice they have to make.
And the problem a lot of people have, is that aside from vendors, which are a utility, merchant doesn't give you anything to actually 'play' with. And since this is a game... 'playing' it is the most important thing. If merchant had anything besides vendors to actually 'do', people wouldn't have anywhere near as many issues over this vendor poaching junk.
Message Edited by DragonScout on 06-16-2004 12:09 AM
DragonScout wrote:
'good' loot isn't sold through vendors.
DocSavag wrote:
As long as Vendors are valuable (and they are) then we are going to be upset at people using them with less skill point expenditure than we have. No amount of MORE skills is going to compensate me for you taking skills that I spend points on.
If those vendors were made available to everyone, you wouldn't be spending points on them, any more than Marksmen"spend points" on CDEF certifications.Loot is sold on vendors yes, but not high end loot that goes for millions of credits.
But anyways... I still say that making merchant a playable profession is more important in the long run than fixing poached vendors. Yes, it would be nice if both could be done at once... but if forced to pick which to fix first... I would choose making merchant a viable stand alone playable profession.