Merchant Archive
Thread: Some ideas about retaining vendors after merchant droped
aachil wrote:
I don't give a dam n about loosing goods, what I care about is that content I've created will be destroyed, the merchant I made; I named; the location I picked; the market niche that I aimed for and even the coments it makes to customers. But not just that! I care about all the little shops that I visit, the ones that have unusual decor, amusing vendor names and they sell wierd junk for what can only be the fun of having a vendor.
You loose the certification for a T21 if you surrender the skill but you can still equip the gun - if you like the look you can keep it. The only thing that a merchant does of any note is place vendors but thats a flaw in the game - by concentrating on this issue you fetishise vendor placement - raise it up as the great goal of merchantdom when its an utterly banal ability which has only slightly more impact on the world than the ability to rotate your furniture.
What does me loosing my vendor ammount to? I have to go to a merchant? No, it just means that I'll go to the trade forum or the bazaar or not sell stuff at all, its not worth the effort anyway and frankly even as a merchant I have to use both the bazaar and the trade forum for most of my sales (and probably all of my significant sales). I can't sell a full crate of muons on the bazaar but I can sell a crate of ten much easier than using a player merchant as a go between.
This is not a solution to merchant problems - the rest of the class is still quite worthless. Most people who have anything worth selling already have some merchant skill, taking merchants off the tiny percentage of people who still have vendors just makes the game less fun for everyone.
That is why it won't hapen - the Devs want a fun game with lots of player content, argue for limited stock levels, higher maintainance, limited prices or other restrictions but its quite pointless asking for player vendors to simply be removed. In any case concentrate on stuff that improves the class - makes it worth keeping.
A weaponsmith selling 5 million credits worth of merchandise a week on her vendor isn't going to stop doing it because they have to contract a merchant to sell things for them. They will either get the skill back or they will get a merchant to help them.
You T21 example is EXACTLY what we are talking about. You can keep the T21 but using it is useless because it now does not work properly for you because you lack the skill to use it. Vendors should work the same way. If you ditch the skill to operate the vendor you lose the ability to manage the vendor properly. You can keep the useless vendor if you want. But like an uncertified T21 you aren't going to benefit from owning it.
I have never posted a single post on the trade forum. I haven't put anything other than random junk I wanted out of my inventory on the bazaar in two months.
I make money all day long..while I'm out pvping, while I'm sleeping. I use my advertising, my merchant tent, word of mouth. And multiple vendors stocked with various merchandise.
If you can sell everything you want on the bazaar or in person using the trade forums then you shouldn't be worried about losing a vendor in the first place you obviously dont' value them.But you do value them or your wouldn't care about them going away if you didn't have the skills to keep them.
It would be worth keeping if giving it up had some penalty. Right now it doesn't. You can give up all the skills and not lose anything. How is that fair? The "rest" of the merchant class is not worthless. The only line that can be remotely called worthless would be the effiency line and even that has its uses at the top. The silly bazaar fee reduction is useless because they never addressed it after they lowered the fees in beta.
The hiring line is not useless. It allows people who are very interested in the atmosphere of their shops to create that using different vendors. The Hiring IV skill of allowing you to customize your vendors is a useful skill if you are trying to manage the image of your shop. The Management line gives you multiple vendors and that is really a nobrainer. The advertising line has the gobal map which is a measurable effect on your sales. The Adbarking is again a feature for those trying to create an atmosphere.
If you don't want atmosphere then don't take those lines but calling them worthless isn't true. They just aren't valuable to you.
It is true that we need to revamp the effiency line to make it more worthwhile. It is true that Master Merchant should have a "must have" skill or feature that isn't there now. But giving our vendors away to everyone who USED to be a merchant isn't going to make the profession any better. And giving ourselves new features isn't either if you don't have to be a merchant to use them.
Doc...Agreed.
Vendors allow you sell items offliine for as much money as someone can con themselves into buying it for. It's immensely valuable. No you shouldn't have one if you don't have the skills to run it. You can't use panic shot if you don't have Dirty Fighting. You can't use a Rancor if you're not a Creature Handler. You can't have vendors if you don't have the skill. End of subject.
Ive been in a house with the whole master merchant thing going on - protocol droids, 4 merchants, 2 terminals, map listing, ad barking and nothing for sale except 2 personal harvesters and some fiberplast! This is content, its atmosphere, I walk away thinking - 'well its not a very good place for a shop' and sure if 1Km further on isn't a 'random' vendor with a whole stack of cool stuff for sale.
You get a vendor with 9 skill points and 5k rather easy exp in a novice class. I don't see how its the be all and end all of an elite proffesion costing 63 skill points (with a 14 skill point requirement). If there were some big benefit to having multiple vendors then I could see the point or if low end vendors had diferent functionality, but the game benefit of business 3 is very little distance from the game benefit of the *entier* merchant tree.
It is in my oppinion a very serious error to push for vendor certification, I think it wastes energy that can be put into making the merchant class actualy usefull. It would in fact be better to say 'the whole vendor thing needs a total overhaul and the merchant class needs to be re-focused on trade rather than sale with some entirely new skills such as...[insert some actual ideas]'.
Droid Engineer compairs favourably in terms of what it offers, its a whole range of cosmetic options and some minor functionality that is desirable by everyone. Merchant has a whole range of cosmetic options and some functionality that is desirable by a few people (crafters who want to sell to the public). DE has at least got something for everyone.
However, I know I would have to invest skills to do either of thoughts things. Moreover, I am sure most people would like the ability to change thair own hair cut, beard, or make up, but that requires skills as well.
I agree that player content is a good thing, it is what keeps a community alive over time. However, I do not think a house, decorated as a shop while selling nothing, is player content. Neither is a single vendor selling junk.
A vendor is not like a harvester or a chair, a product that the merchants make. They are a skill.
Please explain how a tailor who have 6 vendors places and dressed, before dropping hiring and management, and who only have advisement 3, beyond novice merchant, is adding to player content with the shop... It is abuse of a design flaw, pure and simple.
This is what it is about... people using shills they no longer have.
Player content would be things like a restaurant, a zoological museum, a night club, stories, a swoop bike track, or something like that. Something that does not provide a service to the owner.
aachil wrote:
Re reading the first two paragraphs look contradictory but they are not due to the distinction of 'game benefit'. Skills should grant game benefit, thats a key element of progression in an RPG. The guy behind the keyboard may want to be able to have a vendor selling fishing rods and jawa beer and some ultra cheap newbie stuff. My charachter gets no benefit from this - on the contrary I'll have to pay upkeep on my vendor and restock periodicaly.
Having the vendor is the benefit. If you don't have it you have to be online to sell it..or sell it through the bazaar for under 3k and compete with the 1000 other items of the same kind for sale.
The vendor in your own shop advertising EXACTLY what you sell by name is the benefit.
I don't understand how you can argue both that something has no value and that you should be able to keep it with no cost at the same time. If it had no value you wouldn't want it. If it has value obviously you should have to pay for it. The maintenance isn't the only cost of a vendor. Having the skill to manage it is also a cost.
Persistant content is vastly more important than non persistant content (i.e. my vendors are there for everyone all the time, content that I trigger when I'm on line isn't), but essentialy I agree that people who have masterd the Nalgaron should be able to keep playing it and loose only the game benefit if they surender the skill.
Tarnak_Archvold wrote:
Aachil, It is no excuse that something adds player content. I think it would add loads of content if my character could play some party like music that big piano like instrument.
Well, I think your wrong, you are making a value judgement about what is junk and while it may not be content that you appreciate it is clearly making the game world more interesting (people have consistantly bought 'junk' off me - so they appreciate it too).
I agree that player content is a good thing, it is what keeps a community alive over time. However, I do not think a house, decorated as a shop while selling nothing, is player content. Neither is a single vendor selling junk.
Please explain how a tailor who have 6 vendors places and dressed, before dropping hiring and management... is adding to player content with the shop... It is abuse of a design flaw, pure and simple.
This is very, very obviously player content, lets say this person actualy runs six shops and advertises them in cantinas etc. Great, I want to see more of this and I'm certain that the Devs do - its *not* a bug exploit, its a feature of the game, like it or not, its here to stay in some form.
As it stands tailors are lucky to cover their costs, this person probably ditched merchant so they could get a combat proffesion and earn the money required to maintain their clothes shop hobby. But hey, if they ditched tailor they could still make clothes! Draft Schematics allow crafting proffesions to make things that they no longer have the skill for.
Take the merchant vendors off these people and the world will be empty except a bunch of bulky terminals and a few people with novice merchant 'random' ugly vendor. The problems of the merchant class will remain, if anything even worse than before because no one will bother to 'go shopping' in game at all - they will all just go to a forum and look for vendors advertising goods they want.
If it were a choice between: one bulky terminal and access fees OR the entier merchant line, I'd take the terminal and access fees. Merchant is *that* bad that the novice proffesion it hails from is actualy better in terms of game benefit!
Your Nalgaron example is very instructive, when the game was released there was no in game benefit to being a master musician, people were healed to full in thirty seconds anyway. Indeed neither of the elite entertainer proffesions had any noticable game effect - eventualy Sony fixed the buff line and suddenly they were very much in demand.
Draft Schematics do NOT allow you to make things you don't have the schematics for. They allow ANYONE to finish running off a line of items with EXACTLY the same components. Once that is used up or the resources are no longer available they no longer work. You can't create them again and you can't duplicate them. It is a bad analogy. It takes NO skill level to use a schematic that is already made. None. The fact that you used to be a tailor has no bearing on your ability to use them.
The content arguement is just a weak arguement for devauling the skill perks of the Merchant Profession so you can use the Skill Points for something else and get around the 250 skill point limit.
but essentialy I agree that people who have masterd the Nalgaron should be able to keep playing it and loose only the game benefit if they surender the skill.
You se the "game benefit" of the merchant skill is the ability to sell unlimited amounts of for as much as the costumers will pay in up to 6 different locations while off-line or other vice occupied.
If people was aloud to keep the terminal or NPC vendors, but was unable to sell anything off them or restock them (though still having to pay maintence), then the problem would be solved.
Of cause someone going up hiring IV and the placing a non-pc race vendors, dressing and arming it and the dropping the skills back to business III, would still get the the benefits of the hiring line but the problem would not be as big.
Most tailors do not have 6 shops... they have one shop with 6 vendors, each dressed to show what kind of clothing they sell. (a wookiee for wookiee clothing and so on). Tailors inability to make credits is inconsequential, in relation to this mater.
Take the merchant vendors off these people and the world will be empty except a bunch of bulky terminals and a few people with novice merchant 'random' ugly vendor. The problems of the merchant class will remain, if anything even worse than before because no one will bother to 'go shopping' in game at all - they will all just go to a forum and look for vendors advertising goods they want.
This is where we most likely have the largest difference of opinion. Sure some weapon and armour smiths would likely go with that bulky vendor from business III, but many would seek out a merchant to sell thair wares for them. The advantage of decorating a shop and giving it a good feel and having it registries on the map, is HUGE, especially for thoughts new to the craft.
Actually that person has a GOOD point. I have been buying bilk materials used to make items. Like for example I bought bulk items to make weapons from a master who was only there due to holo. I bought around 100k of each item needed and the crates were made also. So I have been making MASTER Caliber weapons for about a month now, and still have plenty left to go for about 2 more months. Then I will just repeat the process. So yes the guy had a VALID point. If I can just buy a schematic, and bulk items and make things.....why not allow an average Joe to buy and run a vendor? A merchant should be able to have a tent, adds, and that word of mouth that was never placed in, and lower fees. I see no reason to argue about a person leveling and getting a vendor then dropping it. If I hit master arch, and make a schematic and have plenty of resources, am I in the wrong from doing this? No.....so let it be. Just charge an average none merchant more like x2 what a merchant is charged for vendors is all. And limit the amount of items then can have on there. Like limit them to 30-50 items tops.
Elvinworm wrote:
Actually that person has a GOOD point. I have been buying bilk materials used to make items. Like for example I bought bulk items to make weapons from a master who was only there due to holo. I bought around 100k of each item needed and the crates were made also. So I have been making MASTER Caliber weapons for about a month now, and still have plenty left to go for about 2 more months. Then I will just repeat the process. So yes the guy had a VALID point. If I can just buy a schematic, and bulk items and make things.....why not allow an average Joe to buy and run a vendor? A merchant should be able to have a tent, adds, and that word of mouth that was never placed in, and lower fees. I see no reason to argue about a person leveling and getting a vendor then dropping it. If I hit master arch, and make a schematic and have plenty of resources, am I in the wrong from doing this? No.....so let it be. Just charge an average none merchant more like x2 what a merchant is charged for vendors is all. And limit the amount of items then can have on there. Like limit them to 30-50 items tops.
If you want to argue giving limited vendors to non merchants fine (this isn't the forum for it) but that is NOT the same as saying it should be allowd for you to go up the merchant skill tree get features from it then give up the features and continue to use the features.
The schematic example is FLAWED! A schematic is a LIMITED USE ITEM that you can sell to ANYONE to use. It is not a skill perk! You can still use it because it doesn't require any skill to use. The skill perk is MAKING the schematic..which you can't do any more if you give up the skill required to make it.
I
One idea on this that I haven't seen brought up yet is renting vendors? Is there any way that it could be set up so that Merchants could grant admin rights to their vendors and charge a percentage of any sales or a flat rate? I think this would make merchants more desirable, especially if the ability to use vendors is dropped with the skills. I think this should be explored as it will give merchants some new options and allow them to interact with crafters. Merchants could help in setting up businesses and be part owners of those businesses. As it is, if I didn't have a vendor, all my stuff would go on the global market or I would just be a wandering salesman
Merchant is not a class in its own right, it has no benefits to trade. A dedicated master weaponsmith could take merchant, the vendors would just be a convenience - if someone else ran thoes vendors it would *not* be convenient so they would take the merchant skill as an adjunct What hapens is that a Weaponsmith, an Artisan, an Armoursmith etc. all get together and place their merchants in the same place. Their mall is not run by a merchant per se its run by a Weaponsmith who hapens to have picked up some merchant skills which give no actual benefit in the running of the mall.
With player cantinas and so forth vendors are a significant element of player content, if the only way to have that content is to have the **in all other respects utterly worthless** merchant skill then that content will largely disapear. Don't have as a top 5 issue 'make the game worse for everyone'!
Here is another idea:
Merchants are able to modify any vendor in a building to which they have admin rights, some costs involved. This would make merchants at least the Image designers of the non merchant world. People who stoped merchant at novice or at manage 1 or whatever would use real merchants for periodic modification and merchants could actualy run a mall with 20 vendors: changing ad barks to reflect new stock; clothing to reflect seasonal variations; taking vendors off the planet map, if they are out of stock etc.
Fix the merchant class!