Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Maintenance Fees coming – your input request
I've been using a bulky terminal all along, simply because the NPC models are so buggy they aren't worth the risk of corrupting and losing all my inventory (again).
I was not aware that NPCs didn't charge maintenance, but the vendor rate seems perfectly fair to me. However, perhaps as part of Merchant, the NPCs should be at least some percentage cheaper than the artisan-business line of vendors, as another motivation to bother having Merchant.
Although Merchant's got alot of neat features described, until you actually fix them, it's a fairly worthless profession. I filled Hiring 4, to find you can't cloth your NPCs, and all the models appear ugly and overweight.
I filled the maintenance line, which is not too bad, although reduced bazaar fees is rediculous really; further reduced vendor fees would be a greater boon.
As you know, plantary map display doesn't actually work reliably.
In short, like an above poster, I would say sure set the NPC maintenance fee to working, but go ahead and fix the broken 90% of the merchant profession too.
P.S. Why is merchant exp based on number of NPCs? It should have based on actual sales all along. A good merchant isn't someone who has the most stores or sales clerks, it is the store that moves the most merchandise, entices repeat customers, etc. For a player-driven economy, I believe you have failed to properly model the role of a Merchant.
1) PLease fix the vendors
2) Do not base vendors on total cost of items being offered. This hurts those trying to sell higher priced items. Vendor fees should be based on a tx from the item sold, or 1000/per day, but not based on the price of the items offered.
3) Fixing the corpse thing would actually help out with this money sink so you don't have to screw over smaller populations
I am all for a flat 'salary'for the vendors and a sales tax. Its such a bear to refigure all the math everytime I add an item. 
That's a pretty crippling price. I'm an architect. I put big expensive things on my vendors.
Example:
I put a large house on my vendor for $150,000. The maintenance will be $150 every 45 minutes, 32 times a day, for $4800 a day. That's a lot of credits, and that's just one house. I frequently have to leave larger items up for sale fordays, because they are not impulse buys. If it costs me an extra $4800 a day to try to sell that house, I'm going to lose a LOT of profit by leaving it on the vendor. What's the incentive for me to even sell that large house on my personal vendor? I am not getting $4800 in value by leaving it there.
The master merchant in our town who runs the shopping mall will probablygive up his business. He doesn't make much money on his markup (because crafters can run their own vendors or sell by email sales). Mostly he does it because it entertains him, and having a town mall is neat. Even with the Efficiency skill trees, I don't think he would find it economical to sell merchandise for the town. Just the nearly-master armorer would cost him tens of thousands of credits per day in upkeep fees. If he goes a few days without selling anything, he could go broke.
Personally, the only thing I would list on my vendor is a Price List item and tell people to email me orders. That completely voids the benefit of having a player vendor - but I find your proposed prices too expensive. I will work around the cost by only taking email orders for most of my goods. In the end, it's less convenient for me, it's less convenient for my customers, and you aren't sinking much money out of the economy.
My opinion is that most people will do likewise. Player vendors will become mostly useless, but the money sinks will not increase appreciably. In my opinion, this would be a significant hindrance on the player economy without havingmuch of an anti-inflationary impact.
Another concern is the perception that players will be further tethered to the game by forcing to perform more daily maintenance: "I have to log in and check the upkeep in my vendors every day or they will rot and I'll have a million credits of merchandise disappear forever."
So for 100,000 worth of merchandise on a vendor you should pay 3200 credits a day?
So if you had say 4 DX2 pistols that would cost you 3200 credits/day. That sound about right?
A single heavy harvester at 150,000 credits would cost you 4800 credits/day to list.
So much for having an inventory....
I think you are off your collective rockers Q-3PO. It is obvious you despise architects, as well as weapon and armor smiths, not to mention the entire merchant class. When you came up with this design did you mean that vendors should only be used for a couple weapon powerups?
If you goal of course was to develop as punitive a scheme possible to struggling merchants and crafters you found it.
Costs for vendors should be a simple transaction fee per sale like bank transfers with an additional flat fee/day for vendors.
For example a reasonable flat fee/day for a vendor would be around 500 credits and for every transaction the vendor takes a 5% commission. In this way the more successful you are the more you pay. It also means that 5% of total revenue from merchants will go into the bit bucket per day.
My approach would be progressive, fair and well established in the real world as an effective way to take money from sales.
To be blunt though basing vendors fees on posted value on the other hand is plain stupid. It will not take one cent out of the economy, people will just start selling directly and avoiding your insane fees or using other techniques to bypass it.
So much for your sink. You will also further alienate casual gamers, most of which are not the multi-multi millionaires you seem so interested in punishing. Not to mention that you will see vendor bots set up in short order which will also bypass your sink.
No I suggest you and all your designers should go back to the drawing board on this one because there is just nothing good about this idea.
By all means though introduce a scheme based on posted values of items. I guarantee you will NOT get the result you are looking for.
Sorry...
I agree 100% that the cost should be a fixed value, selling high cost items because way too expensive with the first formula.
If a fixed cost is not good enough, a sales tax on items would be totally acceptable. Because at least that way a merchant could list items without fear of the insane vendor maintenance costs.
I agree fix the vendors before putting on the cost. That's fair I think if we're going to pay more it should work.
As for the proposed formula I almost gagged. Way too high in my opinion. I'm a tailor and I need that many things in stock for variety. My master items on one vendor alone would add up to be 500k and I wouldn't sell all of them in one day, so I'd be penalized for having every style and every color int he master line on my vendors.
Also I think if you stick with time based to pay the wages of thevendor then you should do it on the average sale price for that vendor not the total. And to not penalize the ones who need lots of goods and variety available,then call it either a tax or a commission to vendor for each actual sale. That way the people who sell something actually can pay their share while the people who do not that are just starting out aren't penalized.
A high time based cost penalizes casual gamers I think. There are so many things that run and take credits without you ingame, this is just another one. I agree, SWGs is becoming less of a casual gamer friendly atmosphere, and I'm not even a casual gamer but I see their plight.
I know this formula was to dissuade people from using a vendor as storage place, but I think somebody might have a better way of accomplishing that that does not include nerfing the merchants mercilessly. Nerf sure, but nerf to our knees begging for mercy...no
I think the maintenance fee should be a percentage of what is sold and not what is on display.
Say, 2% of all sales or something like that and have merchant skill affect that percentage.
Makes sense yes?
That way if I have a vendor that hardly sells anything I'm not penalized.
Ok, someone double check my math. I'm a little upset right now.
If I have a million dollars of inventory / by 1000 every 45 min - that's 144,000 credits a DAY?
Are you out of your every loving mind?
500 cr a day - PERIOD is the most I ever intend to spend on 'taxes' on a vendor - if you do this -you bloody well better put a cap on it. Even 500 a day is too high given I'm a master merchant.
Between vendors disappearing and reappearing, my houses and factories disappearing and reappearing, my factories not WORKING, most of bio engineering (my product) being seriously flawed or plain broken- this would be the last straw. I've nearly been run out of business by these ongoing bugs already.
I've worked extremelly long and hard to develop a shop people can come to and KNOW they will find something and can get exactly what they want if I don't have it in pretty short order.
The biggest complaint customers have is they go into a place - see a vendor - and it's empty.
I will NOT - repeat NOT EVER raise my prices enough to cover this kind of horse**edit**.
You want to suck money out of the economy - stick a surcharge on the item and have the CUSTOMER pay it at the time of sale. Don't burden the crafter or merchant with that kind of sick overhead that will only drive them out of business. Even the most horrid tax systems on the planet don't charge taxes every DAY on inventory in stock.
No matter how you approach vendor fees there is not going to be a good way. High ticket slow moving items - this method - forget it, won't work. Small ticket fast moving items will get off more lightly but those typically have a smaller profit margin and a slow day or two is going to kill them.
Goldsinks are very much needed - but for them to work - they have to be in things people WANT - not just thru necessities. Burdensome costs associated with necessary activites is just a pain in the butt.
And some people ARE going to squirrel away wealth - get over it, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
This will be the final straw.
I'll just hit cancel first.
Please don't do a time based fee. If I put 4 crates of Stim b's on my vendor at 50k credits a crate that means I have to pay 6400 credits a day. If I dont sell those crates it could cost me 44,800 credits a week for not selling anything.
Make it like the bazaar and charge a % of the total price. The only way to charge people fairly is to charge a % of the price and not a set costs per item. I sell hundreds of stim b's a month for the same profit that an artisan makes off a couple of houses but I pay loads more using the bazaar because I have to pay per item sold instead of a % of the final sale.
a state sales tax would be the best way to go, otherwise your punishing people who have lackluster sales.
not all people are rich because they were among the first masters.