Merchant Archive
Thread: Consignment, is it an endless cash machine for merchants?
Darkov wrote:
I understand what you're saying, what I'm saying is there needs to be the option to let the crafter do the hard work if they want to aswell as your system or whatever. Not everyone wants to give their products over to a Merchant... so we shouldn't force them, as there will be plenty of business as it is anyways, why corner and hinder their enjoyment of the game by not giving them the option of renting a vendor?
Many tools, one goal, some for us, some for them, all controlled by us.
p4Samwise wrote:
- can list/sell a maximum of 50,000 cr/week
There is a huge difference basing it on listings vs. sales. It is easy to have a slow period when nothing sells, followed by a good week that empties everything out. If the vendor quits working when it meets its sales quota it is the same to a customer as an empty vendor. If it is based on listings, a bad typo that mispriced an item could keep you from finishing filling your vendor. An extra zero on the price of that swoop bike could really hurt.
Now if it were a matter of total value for sale at any one timeon the vendor, it would be like the days when terminal pricingworked that way. Great for tailors, terrible for architects. A total item countlimit is just the other way around.
I think there is plenty of risk for the merchant in filling his vendor, even on consignment, with stuff that doesn't move. Afew weeks of that in a row, and he will be doing something else even with the low current cost of vendors. Even without a system limit, restocking what drops to the stockroom offers a limit as well.
The big thrust has to be to give Merchants the power to sell more as they gain skill, not arbitrarily limiting what they or anyone else can do.
DocSavag wrote:
A full feldged banking system with lines of credit would be the only thing that would close that gap from those who have Merchant skills but no cash to those with both cash and skills. I haven't seen a good proposal for that yet they all end up being a potential money faucet and that can't happen. They have to be revenue neutral or a slight sink to even have a chance to happen.
I don't think one is really possible as a game system, but there are tools that could be given to Merchants to allow a moneylender role to be played. The key is having a way to force players to pay under some conditions. Automatic debits are one way. Player bounties aren't good, unless I can sell the right to collect to a bounty hunter that can keep killing the guy until he pays up, or take his stuff like a repo man. A Mortgage system for structures might work.
If the game system lends the money, it is a faucet. If the moneylender has no recourse, or has to pay yet more to punish the debtor, he won't bother.
Haruspex77 wrote:
There is a huge difference basing it on listings vs. sales. It is easy to have a slow period when nothing sells, followed by a good week that empties everything out. If the vendor quits working when it meets its sales quota it is the same to a customer as an empty vendor. If it is based on listings, a bad typo that mispriced an item could keep you from finishing filling your vendor. An extra zero on the price of that swoop bike could really hurt.
I'm thinking doing it by listing, but if you withdraw an item from your vendor, it shouldn't count towards the listing limit for that week. So if you typo the swoop bike price, just pull it off and try again, no harm done. (That's more a UI issue than anything - errors should be recoverable.) Unless someone buys it. In which case, you got your money for the week, you should be happy.
Now if it were a matter of total value for sale at any one timeon the vendor, it would be like the days when terminal pricingworked that way. Great for tailors, terrible for architects. A total item countlimit is just the other way around.
I considered "value at any one time", but rejected it when I was coming up with this, because it means that the limit can be circumvented by logging in frequently to restock. This makes it impossible to balance the system for players with different play time constraints.
I think there is plenty of risk for the merchant in filling his vendor, even on consignment, with stuff that doesn't move. Afew weeks of that in a row, and he will be doing something else even with the low current cost of vendors. Even without a system limit, restocking what drops to the stockroom offers a limit as well.
I find it obnoxious that the "limit" is enforced by UI grappling, though. This is similar to how the "limit" on crafting skill is put in place by requiring onerous grinding to advance. I don't like it. It's not good game design. We should be focusing on improving the UI to remove that sort of crap, rather than using it as a game mechanic.
The big thrust has to be to give Merchants the power to sell more as they gain skill, not arbitrarily limiting what they or anyone else can do.
Here's the million-dollar question - how else could we give higher-level merchants more selling power than lower-level ones, without making merchant unviable at low levels, or making merchant gameplay devoid of challenge and uniqueness? Putting realistic limits that go away as you gain skills was the best way I could think of. I'm sure there are better ways, but I obviously haven't thought of them. If you have any, please share...
p4Samwise wrote:
Here's the million-dollar question - how else could we give higher-level merchants more selling power than lower-level ones, without making merchant unviable at low levels, or making merchant gameplay devoid of challenge and uniqueness? Putting realistic limits that go away as you gain skills was the best way I could think of. I'm sure there are better ways, but I obviously haven't thought of them. If you have any, please share...
I posted this before, but here it is again:
How about a skill tree that topped out at Master by giving a merchant full access to every vendor in the galaxy while sitting at home. A nice interface that allowed you to see everything for sale, where, and at what price, with the ability to buy it and send a droid off to fetch it within an hour or so at a cost the same or less than personal travel.
The full skill set could be delivered in pieces in the tree, planet visibility, remote purchase, delivery droid, galactic visibility. No non-master could take a customer away from you by offering a lower price if you were in game and willing to play. About the same results as the competition between a Master Pistoleer and Marksman.
Lower levels would not be "unviable" though they would certainly be at a disadvantage if they went head-to-head against a master. Someone selling a unique item would actually sell it faster, since some Master thatknew a willing buyer could snap it up. The only people who might complain are those who had the desire to sell at low prices to end users, and they could still sell that way by trade window.
Truely awesome power for the Master Merchant without nerfing anyone.
p4Samwise wrote:
The thing is, right now the thing that allows you to do that is having lots of credits, not lots of Merchant skill. Shouldn't the high-level Merchant gameplay be facilitated by the high-level Merchant skillset? Under the current system, any Business III artisan could buy out other vendors and redistribute their wares.
Songe wrote:
Hmm I don't get it... What prevents you from buying out other vendors to sell their wares if you want to? What prevents you to go find good deals and resell the items for a profit? I do it, why can't you? We really don't need any change to do that. Even if we change to a low risk consignement system, nothing prevents you from still doing both.
Yes. That is why the Business III vendor should be less efficient and cost more than the Novice Merchant Vendors and above. This problem isn't new it occured the minute they fixed the maintenance issue on the terminal vendors months ago. The Business III vendor went from expensive and troublesome to operate to just as efficient as merchant vendors that should be changed.