Merchant Archive
Thread: They make us pay skill points for this?
The Elite Artisans certainly didn't like it when some merchants suggested that Artisans had no business with vendors in the first place and that they should be pulled from Business III altogether. But you are ok with suggesting that our entire profession be deleted so you can get vendor skills without spending skill points on it?
You sir really don't get the point. The point is it doesn't take anything in the merchant skill tree to be a great merchant. A person without one single skill point in the merchant tree can be a better merchant than a person running around with Master Merchant above their head. I don't care if you have vendors on every single planet in the galaxy; what good is it if no one wants your product? If you are a good merchant then you should only need 1 shop and customers will come from all over the galaxy to visit your shop.
I get more business at my one shop then others do that have 5 shops or more.
I would really like to hear what your argument is to keep the merchant tree and not to just have those options added to the elite crafting classes. And with the said I want you to name how many Pure merchants you know (those without any crafting skills). You can name me if you like because I am one. The only thing I sell is resources.The only vendor I would be able to get withthis suggestion is the ones in the business branch of artisan.
These are the only benefits of the merchant tree:
---A very small maintenance reduction(not really that big of a deal to a successful merchant)
---The ability to list a shop on the planet map
---Having multiple vendors
If you don't need thevendors from the merchant skill treeswhy do you want them in the elite crafting professions? If you can do everything from business III then do it.
I am going to do that. Thanks though and guess what I will still be a better merchant than 95% of those with Master Merchant above their heads. Isn't that funny.
If they are worthelss then don't use them.
Yeah, I came to that conclusion about a month ago. After hanging around and hoping for that month. I have come to the conclusion that playing dress up with my vendors and saving a few 100 credits with maintenanceis not worth all the skill points. I am now only waiting until the next patch that puts in badges for mastering professions to drop merchant. After 5 months of having the Master Merchant title; I will be able to finally give up all hope and move on.
Good luck to all you that keep that title and hopefully one day you will get something that is worth having. It seems that most people in the class are more interested in the cosmetic look of the class rather than the functionality however hence the shop signs and the merchant tent.
DocSavag,
I really don't want to argue with you because I know you are trying to make the class better. I know it is not your fault that the class has its problems and I have never blamed you personally.
You have to agree with me on one point though: it is not the merchant tree that makes a person a good merchant but the merchant himself.
I truly do enjoy being a merchant and have been one in every MMORPG I have played. I thought it was great that SWG actually had a class for it but now I know it is just mainly for appearance. To be honest I believe what killed the merchant class was having the ability to place a vendor at business 3. I might as well take advantage of this like others and save myself 32 skill points or however many it is.
Jebwa wrote:
DocSavag,
I really don't want to argue with you because I know you are trying to make the class better. I know it is not your fault that the class has its problems and I have never blamed you personally.
You have to agree with me on one point though: it is not the merchant tree that makes a person a good merchant but the merchant himself.
I truly do enjoy being a merchant and have been one in every MMORPG I have played. I thought it was great that SWG actually had a class for it but now I know it is just mainly for appearance. To be honest I believe what killed the merchant class was having the ability to place a vendor at business 3. I might as well take advantage of this like others and save myself 32 skill points or however many it is.
First please don't confuse my passion for the profession and making it better for personal animosity. I have none. And I wish you all the success you can have in the game whether you have merchant skills or not.
Second Yes I agree that being a merchant is mostly about learning how to sell things in this game. You CAN be successful with 1 vendor or no vendors it is about you selling. But I disagree that there aren't some things in the merchant line that make doing it more fun and easier. I could not have entered into the complicated consignment sales system with my weaponsmith without multiple vendors. Keeping the sales separate was difficult enough without it and I wouldn't have done it at all. Building a successful business is aided by advertising and global advertising does work. I've seen it myself in action many many times. The merchant tents are another form of advertisement really (shoudl be in Advertising IV). I also care what my vendors look like. Does it matter? I Don't know. It might or it might not. Billions are spent in the real world every day on marketing which vendor appearance would be part of.
Third, I agree the fact that you CAN have a vendor at Business III makes the merchant profession more of a challenge to justify than it shoud be. If I were designing it I would NOT have put vendors at business III or I would have severly limited them so as to force merchants to be used by artisans. That milk is already spilled however and I can't see a way of fixing that without nerfing Artisans severly.
I still don't get why you are so ready to remove a profession that you claim you don't need. If you are going to do it all with Business III then you have your solution. Every Elite Artisan who wants to do the same thing can do so.
If you had 5 stores and the ability to stock them you would undoubtedly be selling more than you are now. If you are saying you can't keep resources in stock in your store as it is fine you've reached the limit of your ability to produce a prodcut and you don't need another avenue to sell that product. That doesn't mean that others can't produce more prodcut than their 1 market can absorb. If they choose to use their merchant skills to operate multiple locations and other features to compete in those markets then how does that harm you?
You are right. I will stay with only business 3 since the main thing to be a merchant is only owning a vendor.
I hope some good work is done to the class and maybe 1 day I return.
Just to be constructive though:
Things I would like to see:
1. Vendor placement removed from the business line of artisan.
2. Personal pricing for vendors (ability to sell something on a vendor that only a certain person, faction and/or race can purchase.
3. Ability for people to buy amount they want (list a certain stack of resources at 3cr/per and then a customer can use a split purchase command to buy however much they want at that price)
4.Some sort of remote access to structures so you can check maintenance/power for a harvestor/shop/factory
5. Some sort of remote access to vendors so you can see what you need to restock up on without having to go to another planet or what not (I don't have this problem but I know others do)
There are many other great ideas that people have come up with that focus on functionality rather than cosmetic.
I only buy from Twi'lik females in purple dresses!!!
Main thing I like about master is the reduced maintaince on everything.
Jebwa wrote:
I hope some good work is done to the class and maybe 1 day I return.
Just to be constructive though:
Things I would like to see:
1. Vendor placement removed from the business line of artisan.
2. Personal pricing for vendors (ability to sell something on a vendor that only a certain person, faction and/or race can purchase.
3. Ability for people to buy amount they want (list a certain stack of resources at 3cr/per and then a customer can use a split purchase command to buy however much they want at that price)
4.Some sort of remote access to structures so you can check maintenance/power for a harvestor/shop/factory
5. Some sort of remote access to vendors so you can see what you need to restock up on without having to go to another planet or what not (I don't have this problem but I know others do)
There are many other great ideas that people have come up with that focus on functionality rather than cosmetic.
I doubt 1 will ever happen as it would send the Artisan community into a fury and I understand why.
The others are all ideas that make sense though some of them are probably technically challenging. #2 has the best chance of becoming a reality fairly quickly (no I don't know anything you don't...just my guess)
And while I want functionality too..I don't mind cosmetics either. Cosmetics can make the game more fun.
Arkenor wrote:
Polenth wrote:
The disagreement comes in saying to abolish merchant as a solution.
It would indeed. If I'd actually said that.#
I will reword my post, so that hopefully the point gets across this time.
1. You did say it. It might not have been what you meant, and you didn't use my exact words, but you did say it. I can post examples if you wish of why it sounded like you said it, but you did talk about removing skills from merchant.
2. Other people thought you said it too. This should raise the alarm that something you said was poorly worded. This includes both people that want to see merchant stay, and people that want to see merchant go.
3. Your reply was a veiled insult to those that disagreed with you, and implied they didn't want to see improvements. This is the opposite of what people said, as nearly all the replies, regardless of what else they thought, wanted to see improvements. You misunderstood them too.
4. You showed no empathy to those that found a different selection of merchants skills useful than you did. It's insulting to say someone is elitist and just trying to keep themselves 'special' because they find the fact they can dress their vendor up really useful, and you don't. I find the dressing up really useful, but I can understand why a resource merchant doesn't. Lack of empathy is another form of misunderstanding.
The moral: If people are misunderstanding, it should raise some alarm bells saying you need to re-explain. You clearly think merchant is a bit light on skills, unless that's another misunderstanding. So did most of those replying to you. You agreed with them over that, so why turn round and act as though they disagree in every way? People were trying to listen and respond constructively, they weren't telling you to get lost.
A more constructive reply would be to say 'Okay, we'll never agree about whether dressing up vendors is a useful skill or not, but what I'd like to see added is: ....'. You might find if you think of things you would find useful, those that previously disagreed would have something to agree about. Or will point out problems with the ideas that need work. That is what this forum is for afterall. Coming up with ideas to improve merchant.