Merchant Archive
Thread: Why Should People Who Don't Have Merchant Loose Their Venders, A Valid Arguement Why They Shouldn't
Barris wrote:
The skill is PLACING. Not using. Plain and simple. We had to get the xp and do all the crap the current merchants had to inorder to have these venders, but we wanted to do something more with our template. So, tell me, how is this wrong? We still had to get the xp, and when we give merchant up, give up the skill to place new ones or do any of the goodies that goes with it.
Regardless of what we think is right or wrong, it has been said that the current behavior is not intended:
From TH's "19 Answers" Thread, posted on 04-22-2004:
Merchant: Currently there is a lot of debate about the fact that there is no skill point check for managing vendors. Is it the intent of the development team that vendors operate normally even when owned by players who no longer have the Management skill required to place that vendor?
It was never intended for players to be able to keep and manage vendors after surrendering the Management skill boxes used to acquire them. This is scheduled to be fixed in a future publish and we want to upgrade vendors also, but it’s a bit early to start talking about that.
Original Post (scroll down to the Merchant question).
Barris wrote:
If you want to admit it or not, this nerf, to those like me which you flame because you stick up for your profession (which is made up of a good deal of crafters which don't need their SP's to try to survive in the PvE or PvP system), this will affect you. The inflation will affect you.
Barris, I happen to agree with you fully on the economy, but that comment right there tells me you don't have a clue what it is to be a crafter. Last night I went to service my harvesters. There were no less than FOUR hostile camps around them. I was only able to deal with it by luring them into some nearby Jawas. Because I kept Novice Medic (a necessity) and Master Artisan (for guild reasons), I have three boxes of rifles, and two of pistols. That's it.
Someone else (missed the name) said:
By making it 'work as intended' it will bring value to those skill trees.
Uh. No. First, if you're referring to ending the exploit, that does not "add" any value.Necessity, yes. Not value. Second, the vendor limits radically REDUCE the value of Merchant. For 18 boxes worth of skill points, what do you get? Not a lot, not a lot.
Ever play EQ? If so, do you remember "the EC tunnel?" Get ready for that x10. The current spam around Cnet is nothing....
Crimsonsplat wrote:
THANK YOU WIRE!!
You put into clear and coherent words, the single best argument I have seen to date, in favor of my position: the merchant profession is a useless waste of points and should be removed from the game. Give the abilities to all crafting classes, and a lesser form of them to the "semi" crafters.
All this does is place someone between me and my customer, who does not know the product, who may or may not be trustworthy, who probably doesn't have the wherewithal to buy my stock outright, and doesn't have enough space to put it up for sale anyway, with these limits.
Question : If merchant is useless , why do you want the skills in merchant rolled out into your own professions ?.. If it were the case and merchant were useless then it should be removed from the game entirely and no skills should be passed on to the crafting professions at all as the crafting professions constantly state they are useless.. Sound logic I think..
Doc's said that in the past, but no one really came back with anything close to a decent response, and I expect I will probably just get a one star and ignored myself...
Message Edited by BountyBlunter on 08-16-2004 04:25 PM
Wire3k wrote:
Worked for me and pretty much everyone else - and in case you are late to these forums - I HAVE a master merchant as well as some merchant on my 3rd toon - but nice try. Not sure what the reference to Ebay is all about never bought or sold anything there, but I have had an extremely successful and appreciated store since release.
Look, obviously you're a tailor, I realize that an item limit will hit that profession the hardest. I respect the fact that you are taking a position that would preserve that wide assortment of choices that you have on your vendor. However, your assumption that its just dandy with everyone else the way things are is out of touch with the rest of the merchant community. If this was not a fact, then you wouldn't have the multitude of merchants that come to this forum and voice their opinion that a limit of SOME TYPE would help improve and protect their profession and business.
As far as others coming in to fill in niches - ayup, that does happen - but there is such a thing as critical mass in MMOs - lose it and you are in trouble - deep, deep trouble.
Vendors with 20 assorted crystals for 50k each and 20 travel packs for 99,999,999 ceditseachare hardly a major contribution to the game economy. Like I aleady stated, I know of several of these off the top of my head. The extinction of these vendors will no more negatively impact the economy than the disappearance of the empty vendors.
Apparently you haven't seen all the posts from well established longtime crafters that have said they have either already cancelled - or their fingers are hovering over the button. Normally - you can take the average player's threat to quit with a grain of salt - the exception to that is the crafting community. That's true of any MMO I've ever played (several over many years). Crafters will adapt as best they can - as long as they can, until you make it counterproductive for them or they feel they aren't contributing any longer.
A vendor item limit that is too low is the biggest concern of most crafter/merchants. The only exception to this rule are tailors. But sorry, there really is no way to accommodate a profession that can make 64,000 possible color combinations of the same item. Thats not going to happen. A vendor limit that will still allow the MAJORITY of crafting professions to manage their own stores will keep the MAJORITY of the crafters happy.
Requiring that you have the appropriate skills to keep those vendors going is most certainly NOT counterproductive. It will discourage the vendors that I described above. When a player pulls up the planetary map looking for a vendor, maybe they can actually find what they need if the operator of that vendor is required to have the appropriate skills.
But you really need to get your complaints straight.
I did. Maybe you need "Hooked on Phonics".
Try reading it again. Or are you one of those people that aren't really listening to another person's point of view while they speak but instead are thinking about what should come out of your mouth next?
If all these poachers you are so sure are spoiling your fun aren't 'serious' - they can't possibly produce enough - or have enough steady clientele to impact any serious business. There are aspects to crafting/merchant that go far beyond game mechanics
I never accused them of "spoiling any of my fun". A system that allows one set of characters to do one thing but restricts another set of characters from doing the same thing is an unbalanced system. A combat-centric player can get merchant skills and drop it but retain its abilities and benefits vs a crafter that gets combat skills but loses those benefits when he/she drops those skills.
THATS an imbalance. TH has said so (someone else has provided the quote and link to prove this). Doc has said so (if you have kept up you would know this but if you insist I will provide the quote and link for this as well). Whether or not you think that their statements are valid or not is another issue entirely. If you think you can do better, then apply for the job.
I guess I've always been far too busy keeping my operation running smoothly to have the time or inclination to be sticking my nose in my neighbor's business.
You don't go out and check out your competition? You don't look atother people'svendors? Isn't this part of the "would be personal and business skills" you profess that you have?
Like everyone else, occasionally I have to shop for things that I can't make or acquire myself. I become one of those customers that is sick and tired of initializing a vendor only to end up staring at someone's pitiful inventory and "basement contents".
The thing that's always attracted me to the crafting game is it isn't a win/lose competition like everything else. For any merchant to be effective and successful - you have to find the niches that produce win/win.
And even with a vendor item limit those that truely enjoy it will continue to do so. Those that only had a vendor because they could exploit the system for a few extra credits can go bye-bye.
You CANNOT be successful if others lose, everyone is a potential customer.
I most certainly can. People lose everyday. Business goes on. Life goes on.
There will always be customers as long as there are those that don't want to be crafter/merchants.
Barris wrote:
I do enjoy having a shop up though, it gives me something to do in my off time. I just don't like how having to keep it up makes for such a huge SP loss.
BTW, I never take anything personal. People are intitled to their opinions, even if different than mine. If people flame it just shows a lack of a better thought. I didn't take anything you said as flaming in this post really.
Message Edited by Barris on 08-14-2004 12:02 PM
Welcome to SWG. The developers never indended for people to be able to do everything. The whole point of having a limit of 250 skill points is to limit the abilities of your character and force you to make choices. Do you want to own a shop? Then you need to send a certain amount of skill points. Do you want to be able to use a T21, then you will have to spend more skill points. Do you want to be able to use heal yourself? Then you need to spend even more skill points. At some point, you will run out of skill points to spend.
The problem is that since Merchants skills have been exploitable since the beginning of the game, people have gotten used to having them. Now people feel entitled tovendors with ZERO investment in skill points. This was not the intent of the developers. They have stated this many times.
Barris wrote:
Difference is this nerf affects the economy.People having the ability to use those attacks after surrendering the skill would create imbalances in the system. This does not cause any imbalance. Ifanythingit helps balance the market out. People with venders and not the skill don't get the benifits that people who do have merchant get.
What you are saying would be having venders, not having merchant, and being able to place new ones, customize them, put them on the planetary map, etc.
IMO the problem is the merchant profession just doesn't have many bonuses. The one thing they do is place vendors. Other than that, there really isn't that great of an incentive to get it.
Dressing merchants
Lower Maintenace
Global advertising
With the exception to the advertising, the others really aren't that useful. Advertising is until you get a decent amount of customers.
I still don't like the current idea of the merchant profession though. This profession to me should be wholesalers. A Weaponsmith can still sell their products however they wish. But a wholesaler can come along and not craft a thing and sell all products. Maybe have certificatons on what you can sell. These would not apply to the global bazaar, just to personal vendors.
If the current way goes though(Merchant is basically support for crafting classes) then I'm all for the current changes. The only thing I would be against is the low limits which have been discussed enough.
This change does give people more reason to drop crafting though. They have to use more skill points for their crafting part and less for combat. Many people will quit crafting just because they might have to use 40ish points. These are also the people that can afford to quit crafting, and have 100mil+ in the bank accounts.
Barris wrote:
So, instead of being able to have fun with a combat template, I had to surrender it to be merchant gimped inorder to keep my shop open, which sucks. You who are crafter/merchants don't have any use for the skill points that merchant actually eats up. PvE people do. The basic 24 skill points it takes to get just management 3 eats up a very large amount of needed skill points for those who are combat professions.
Snadroj wrote:
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2) Merchant will become more viable as a profession. In real life what use are shops if every manufacturer sells direct?. Merchants could stock items from a number of crafters so each vendor has a wider range, and crafters get to list items on many more vendors that Artisan allows. It just means that crafter has to allow the Merchant to make a margin in the selling price. i.e. No CDEFs for 5K any more - if the going rate for a CDEF is 100, the crafter sells at 75-80.
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