Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant shouldn't be a class...
I'm a Master Armorsmith, by the way, and am quite serious about it, and I have never had Smuggler and never will. I have some contacts that I send people to, one of them who gives people who purchase my armor a discount on slicing (I supply him with AUK crates). I don't sell sliced armor, just armor. That is what I do.
You simply want to do everything, and you can't. Sorry.....no, acutally I'm not sorry. Deal with it.
Even better yet, get rid of the merchant profession and let droid engineers make droid vendors. I'm not a DE, but that would be very cool.
ToranTT wrote:
But, they will still use their own vendors over mine, because the system is more convenient that way.
If it weren't more convienient they would. It isn't about enforcing dependancy it is about making it less convienient to do it yourself while making it more convienient to form business relationships.
And if any of those players are using vendors they don't have the "Manage Vendor" skill mod to support then it really isn't about convienience it is about them having the same skills as you without tieing up the same skill points.
One of the bad things that has happened to merchantsis the fact that it is now exactly the same cost to manage a bulky Business III vendor as it is a merchant NPC vendor. This removes an "accidental" convienience factor that we had before ( and the reason I formed one of the most profitable business relationships I ever had in the game). I think this is as much an imbalance between Merchant and Weaponsmith,Architect,DE,Chef,etc as any has ever been put forward between two Combat Classes.
Brawler 4000
Marksman 0400
Scout 0000
Artisan 0442
--------------
Smuggler 0044
Pistoleer 3040
Chef 0044
Merchant 2401
After a lot of thinking, I decided to go with what Im aiming for now:
Brawler 4000
Marksman 0400
Artisan 0442
--------------
Smuggler 0044
Chef 0044
Master Merchant
Do you know why I chose to severly limit my combat ability JSUT to gain the supposedly useless merchant profession? Because I decided it would negativly impact my business NOT to go for master merchant. Sure, you may not give a stuff what a shop looks like, but me and many, many others do, I will not gove a crafter my custom unless they are willing to put some effort into making their store look inviting. Sure, you could argue that once you are a millionaire the 20% reduction in vendor and structure fees is nothing, but Im not a millionaire, and Im not likely to be anytime soon, so now, it makes a huge difference, that extra cash can buy more/better resources, allowing me to stock my shop better, which in turn will bring in more people.
A merchant's job is not just too buy and sell goods, it is too entice the customer into buying those goods from HIM, and not his competition. If me having to sacrifice the ability to kill some uber force sensitive so I can make an easy million from selling holocrons means I have a more efficient, profitable business, then so be it.
The only change I would see made to the professin(apart from obvious exploit and bug fixes), is the consolodation of the hiring and management trees and the addition of a new tree which facilitates the ability of other players to use merchants vendors, with the first block allowing limited use and charging of a fee, the second reducing cost, the third allowing full use by the rentee and the final box giving a further cost reduction(all rental fees would be taxed until master merchant).
Im sorry, but anyone who suggests that merchant should be scrapped and their abilities handed out to everyone else is either short-sighted, selfish or very very stupid, possibly all three.
DocSavag wrote:
jbeck wrote:
Naufragus wrote:
ok let me pose this question....
How many "pure merchants" are there.... meaning how many people dont craft but simply sell items they have purchused from others?
I think if you did a poll you would find that 99.999% of respondants would be crafters who simply use vendors to sell their products.
Crafters can use Business3 to sell their products. Or the bazaar. The dont need to be a merchant.
Your question isn't really relevent. You might as well be asking who would artifically handicap themselves by not spending 158 skillpoints (it only takes 92 to master merchant). Your answer will be 0. I highly doubt there is a single player out there who would not spend that additional 158 skillpoints.
We asked that question..there were many of us who weren't crafters. A lot more than .1%
doc...there are only like 5 people who post to this forum!
look at the vendor thread in the In development forum...its like 70 pages!!!!!!!!!!
those people dont post here. because they dont really consider themselves "Merchants"....just like if i have scout so i acn harvest hide, i dont consider myself a scout and would never visit the scout forum.
I dont like the idea of a handful of people deciding the direction of the game for all of us. That is what is happening with several professions.
All that is going to happen is that instead of IMPROVING the profeesion as a whole, they are just going to make the current boxes more tedious and less fun. IE you can only list X # of items with Box 2 and X# more with box 3 etc.
Still, No one has has yet to answer why you would be a Master Merchant...what benefit is there? What fabulous new vistas open up as Master?
Do you know why I chose to severly limit my combat ability JSUT to gain the supposedly useless merchant profession? Because I decided it would negativly impact my business NOT to go for master merchant. Sure, you may not give a stuff what a shop looks like, but me and many, many others do, I will not gove a crafter my custom unless they are willing to put some effort into making their store look inviting.
I think a well laid out shop is more important than what the actual vendors look like, and that requires no in-game skills at all. If you have quality goods and the shop isn't a barn, the vendor appearence is relatively unimportant. Sure, a small % may care about the actual appearance of a shop, but I doubt it's a noticable %.
14 skill points "wasted" just to get the vendors to look pretty. I think it's alot of skill points for very little gain.
Naufragus wrote:
DocSavag wrote:
jbeck wrote:
Naufragus wrote:
ok let me pose this question....
How many "pure merchants" are there.... meaning how many people dont craft but simply sell items they have purchused from others?
I think if you did a poll you would find that 99.999% of respondants would be crafters who simply use vendors to sell their products.
Crafters can use Business3 to sell their products. Or the bazaar. The dont need to be a merchant.
Your question isn't really relevent. You might as well be asking who would artifically handicap themselves by not spending 158 skillpoints (it only takes 92 to master merchant). Your answer will be 0. I highly doubt there is a single player out there who would not spend that additional 158 skillpoints.
We asked that question..there were many of us who weren't crafters. A lot more than .1%
doc...there are only like 5 people who post to this forum!
look at the vendor thread in the In development forum...its like 70 pages!!!!!!!!!!
those people dont post here. because they dont really consider themselves "Merchants"....just like if i have scout so i acn harvest hide, i dont consider myself a scout and would never visit the scout forum.
I dont like the idea of a handful of people deciding the direction of the game for all of us. That is what is happening with several professions.
All that is going to happen is that instead of IMPROVING the profeesion as a whole, they are just going to make the current boxes more tedious and less fun. IE you can only list X # of items with Box 2 and X# more with box 3 etc.
Still, No one has has yet to answer why you would be a Master Merchant...what benefit is there? What fabulous new vistas open up as Master?
There is not a whole lot of benefit to the Master box right now. That isn't unique though a lot of professions have the same problem. It isn't devoid of any features like the Politican box right now though. It does carry a vendor maintenance discount increase and it does have the Shiny Pink Protocol Droid. Is that enough? No. And adding things to master would be a good idea but that isn't going to make artisans who think this shouldn't be a class happy either because they don't want to be master merchants.
The bottom line is simple: You can have all the features of Merchant..or you can have some of them..you decide and spend your skills points wisely. But you can't have all the features of this game at once that isn't how it is played. You have to choose.
bpeter3 wrote:
Do you know why I chose to severly limit my combat ability JSUT to gain the supposedly useless merchant profession? Because I decided it would negativly impact my business NOT to go for master merchant. Sure, you may not give a stuff what a shop looks like, but me and many, many others do, I will not gove a crafter my custom unless they are willing to put some effort into making their store look inviting.
I think a well laid out shop is more important than what the actual vendors look like, and that requires no in-game skills at all. If you have quality goods and the shop isn't a barn, the vendor appearence is relatively unimportant. Sure, a small % may care about the actual appearance of a shop, but I doubt it's a noticable %.
14 skill points "wasted" just to get the vendors to look pretty. I think it's alot of skill points for very little gain.
So don't spend the points on the Hirinig line. A number of people DO care what their vendors look like for various reasons. I care mostly becaue I like them to be varied and not all the same thing. But if you dont' care don't take that line at all.
so basically what you and some of the others here will do is lobby hard until no one can sell anything without having to waste 50 skill points just so that you feel like you have some skills others dont. all players will have to suffer so a few can feel like they have a profession.
what is going to happen is that some people will just give up crafting because its too tedious...they grind and grind and then have to give up other skills so they can sell the items they can finally make that people want.
others will just quit the game because everything is just a chore and made more un fun as time goes by.
i do not like the direction i see this headed.
it reminds me of Industrialist in Beta. The idea was that ONLY industrilaist could own and run factories. if you wanted to make something you had to rent the factory from them or Crafters would simply make the schematics and Industialists would make the finished goods and have to buy the resources from miners as they would be the only ones mining, which in turn they would have to sell to merchants who would be the final point of distibution to the consumer.
A nice economic model but not really fun gameplay.
Not every skill needs to be coveted, compartmentalized and restricted. Most players are having fun under the curerent model and that should not be ruined to satisfy a handful of people
once
This does not mean there shouldn't be a merchant class. It just means its way too hard to interact with merchants.
Merchants should be able to set up their vendor as a "bazaar" type vendor. Item limits would apply, they could set price limits, and it could be public or private (where anyone or just select people could put things up for sale). Naturally if private everyone could still buy.
The merchant class cannot stand alone, because it has no tools for effectively offering its services to the crafting professions. This is the main problem.
BINGO!!!!!
what i see happening is that they are not making the skills more desirable...nothing is IMPROVING merchant or making it more fun.
all i see is the profession just being made more annoying and more tedious as they gate every aspect.
Vendor limits do not make me say HEY, THANKS MERCHANT IS GREAT NOW, it makes me say GRRRRRR, 4 more skill points wasted so i can carry the same amount of items i used to.
nothing benefits me
bpeter3 wrote:
Do you know why I chose to severly limit my combat ability JSUT to gain the supposedly useless merchant profession? Because I decided it would negativly impact my business NOT to go for master merchant. Sure, you may not give a stuff what a shop looks like, but me and many, many others do, I will not gove a crafter my custom unless they are willing to put some effort into making their store look inviting.
I think a well laid out shop is more important than what the actual vendors look like, and that requires no in-game skills at all. If you have quality goods and the shop isn't a barn, the vendor appearence is relatively unimportant. Sure, a small % may care about the actual appearance of a shop, but I doubt it's a noticable %.
14 skill points "wasted" just to get the vendors to look pretty. I think it's alot of skill points for very little gain.
So don't spend the points on the Hirinig line. A number of people DO care what their vendors look like for various reasons. I care mostly becaue I like them to be varied and not all the same thing. But if you dont' care don't take that line at all.
I dropped it as soon as I trained it up and realized how weak it was. If you don't want them to all look the same, you don't even need to train the skill in the first place. Without any hiring you still have a decent amount of variablity in the vendor appearance. It just takes longer to get what you want.
I just think the hiring line is an example of a profession with alot of "fluff" and alot of skill point requirements. Most skills are not useless, but not overly useful. There is alot of room for improvement in the skills granted and this should be the major focus of our efforts.
like our laughable SHOP SIGN SKILL
why arent people crying out about that...GASP people are getting to keep their signs after dropping the skill, the evil exploiters
None of the skills are actually about being merchants, they all deal with as you say fluff and the profession shouldnt be called merchant but Visual Merchandizer because thats all they deal with, merchnadising.
The profession is equal to the folks who dress the mannequiens in the Neimann Marcus window