Merchant Archive

And by the way, smart aleck, I don't intend on dressing my vendors. I don't really care to. Nor would I expect to keep the benefits if I did. I just want 6 NPC vendors to sell my stuff.

There has been a lot of talk about what the devs intention is concerning these skills, and the dropping there of. Some have said that since the skill is 'place' vendors, then the devs clearly meant that people would lose the ability to place more vendors, but not lose the ones they have. To which i quote from the devs response to the top 5 issues:

5. Currently it is possible to give up practically all of your merchant
skills without having to give up the vendors that you received as a benefit
of those skills.

We would like to see some suggested changes that would address this
situation. We agree in principle that Merchant Skills should not be
surrendered without the loss of the benefits of those skills.

I think it is clear from their answer that they never meant for merchant to become a throwaway skills, and that they are trying to come up with a way to rectify it. So can we at least stop talking about the dev's intentions ... they have already made it clear.

Thank you. I was about to say the same thing. Except no where near as diplomatically.

Hiring is a bad example because it's benefits are intangible. It's pure marketing. Does a pretty salesrep sell more than an ugly one all things being equal?

The thing is the management line. Vendors CAN sell for ANY cost. And vendors can hold AS MUCH stock as you have. And with the management line, you can have as much stock as you can make, sold for as much as you want to charge in SIX different places in the galaxy. That's kind of a large edge.

Also, getting rid of non-merchant vendors doesn't equal ONLY merchants having vendors. You can still have one vendor with business 3, for the price of novice artisan, and 3 business skills (which I grant you, is a signifigant portion of skill points). If only people who have the skills to place vendors HAVE vendors then people will want to USE those people with those skills to sell their merchandise. Interdependancy is an important factor in this game, and that's what this is about.

I was mostly teasing.

I just really really really think that a mechanism needs to be put in place to allow vendors after dropping skills to in some way or form be functional to the point where the items are still stored but not able to be sold. I have no problem regaining my merchant skills......it's just not possible right now as I'm training as a bounty hunter and the skill points will not allow it.

But then you run into database problems where everyone gets merchant skills, then drops them for unlimited storage.

"No one else gets to keep the benefits of a skill after they drop the skill. NO ONE."


You clearly do not understand the way skills work in this game, and furthermore, you clearly have not read the posts in this thread, because several of them explain this in big, bold, easy to understand terms.

EVERYBODY gets to keep the benefits of the skills they have used after they drop them. EVERYONE - every single proffession without exception.....

- The creature handlers pets retain the commands taught to them
- The weaponsmith retains the schematics he made
- The damage caused by the carbineers crippling shot does not go away
- The medics wound healing does not reverse itself
- The mohawk that the Image Designer gave you is still there
- The clothes you wear that the tailor made for you do not go poof

etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc

When you drop a skill, what happens is that you do not get to use the skill anymore, from that point on. THATS IT. Nothing that you have already done with it goes away.

In this case the skill is, always has been, and clearly is meant to be, the PLACEMENT of vendors. It is so clearly stated that you really have to be ignorant, dumb, blind or just plain old stubborn to not see it. "For each point of Manage Vendor the player may PLACE a vendor in a structure"

To read anything else into that is outright insanity.

So when you drop the skill, you can no longer PLACE a vendor.... thats it. Thats all you lose. The ability to PLACE the vendor.

You DO NOT lose the vendors you have already placed just like you would not lose the clothes you make while Master Tailor, if you drop the skill.

It really couldnt be easier...

This point is really moot since just about every crafting profession (except those outside the artisan line) can have merchant as a secondary profession.

I don't see the vendor numbers changing that much, except it'll make it a little bit harder for some Scouts/rangers, Smugglers and CHs. Most of the ones I know seem to have secondary accounts anyway or have friends that already do the vending for them.

The simple fact that this issue has been brought up and thrashed about will in itself bring it to the attention of the devs. Everyone that argues against it happening will cause it to happen simply by highlighting it. The devs will look at it, and the devs will probably nerf it just like they have done with everything else in the game.

Bookmark this thread. I'll come back and say "I told you so." when it happens.

What good is knowing the transfer command if you can't call the pet?

As far as i can see, your only argument is based on wording. "Place" is very different from "Use", I understand that, and so does everyone here. But what you fail to understand is that Merchants are Merchants, and we should not be undermined by people who don't respect the profession enough to commit to it.

In the end, this is all about commitment, a little to do with holocrons, and wanting a little slice of everything. In the end people should make choices, and if they choose to give up a profession that has obviously been created specifically for this purpose, they should either lose the abilities, or be inoperably handicapped in the skills that profession provides.

We could argue until we're blue in the face about this issue, but it doesn't change the fact that there are people with no merchant skill whatsoever running successful businesses, using an in game disability, and reaping double the rewards than someone who chooses to concentrate purely on merchant/crafting.

This is a game all about rewards, and its all about balance. You have seen the developers make major chances in the quest for combat balance, its only a matter of time before they do the same thing with the underlying economy.

" What good is knowing the transfer command if you can't call the pet? "

See, another fine example of NOT knowing how the game works. The transfer command allows you to trade a pet to another player, without the Transfer command you can not do this. You do not need to call a pet to be able to trade it, it just needs to know the Transfer command. So training a pet to 'Transfer' and then leveling out of the box that contains the skill mod that lets you do so is a perfectly smart and acceptable thing to do. And it is just another fine example of how skill mods REALLY work in this game.

Which is again, that when you use a skill mod - you retain the benefits of using that skill mod indefinitely. Whether it be training a pet, doing damage to a creature, healing a player, crafting a schematic, image designing, or placing vendors. Without exception, throughout the entire game, when you use a skill, the benefit of that usage does not dissappear. When you drop a skill mod you do not lose what you have already done with said skill mod!!!!!! You just lose the ability to do it again.

"As far as i can see, your only argument is based on wording. "Place" is very different from "Use""

That is part of it, but you are really missing the big picture if you consider that the totality of my argument. The word PLACE is just the in-game description of the skill mod (in plain english). Step one is understanding the skill mod.... the word PLACE lets us do that.... step two, is understanding how skill mods work.... that is what seems to be baffling everyone here. The idea that what you have DONE with a skill is not immediately erased when you untrain the skill that allowed you to do it, seems to be throwing people a curve ball.

Which is not a bad analogy.... when I was younger I could throw a mean curve ball. I have certainly lost the ability to throw that curve ball now. But because I have lost the ability to throw it, doesnt mean that I didnt strike out young Jason Smith with it back in grade school - it just means I cant throw it now. So simple.

Likewise, if I set up an online store last year when I knew how to code ASP.NET does it mean that people cant buy stuff from me via that store because I have since forgotten how to code? Noooooooooooooooooooo, of course not.

Instead of understanding my reasonings, you seem to have picked on badly chosen analogies. Here it is simply:

Merchants hate non merchants being able to do things they can.

Thats great, because non-merchants cant place vendors.... thus they cant do what we can.

The problem is, you keep coming up with these analogies, and clever reasonings in order to justify retaining benefits of a skill you no longer have.

This is all well and good in the real world. We are after all free to do as we please (within the limits of the law), and that is why we're all in this pickle, but that's another argument.

The fact is, we, as merchants do not see why other people, without the merchant skills should be allowed to have the same things as us. This is especially true as most people who have it purely worked on merchant just to get these skills, with the full intention of dropping them afterwards. It's a slap in the face to the people who are still committed to the profession, don't you think?