Merchant Archive
Thread: VENDOR CAP GOOD FOR MERCHANTS
I am a master merchant, master tailor, master artisan, and budding armorsmith and it sucks for me. 4 of my 6 vendors have over 300 items each on them.
But on a good note SOE fully intends on leaving vendor lag in the game.
DocSavag wrote:
This is not desigend to help anyone. This change is to limit the number of items in the vendor database. That is it. All of it.
*THANK YOU* Doc.
God, I've been banging my head against the wall all day between the 'Oh 150 is plenty' and 'yeah this will help us!'
*hands doc a Krayt Laser Carbine*
*lends Doc his Adv Composite*
*points to the thread*
Go git 'em.
To continue what I was saying up above before I hit the wrong button...
I have invested WAY to much time into getting my business to the point of where it is. I was spending 95% of my time for 4 months on my business, not playing, while my online buddies were passing me up in everything. I just recently (within the last two weeks) finally got a set schedule on picking up my resources from my harvs, from my contract miners, etc and putting them on my vendors for purchase.
Doing this 150 limit will put me RIGHT BACK to where I was, spending all my time on my business with no time to play for myself.
I guarantee I will quit, cancelling both my accounts, before I do this again.
JTGAlpha wrote:
Doc...Agreed, and I said as much on the thread. The vendor limit I'm not so worried about. 150 is a lot of items after all. It's going to mean more stocking for some of us but over all but it's not going to be a huge deal. In fact, people with only ONE vendor are going to suffer more than those of us with mulitple vendors, just because we're gonna have more room. But anyway, yeah that bazaar cap getting doubled is gonna HURT. Bad. No doubt.
JTG? It's going to kill Tailor's dead.
It's also going to royally roger people who focus on a total service business. I sell weapons, grenades, powerups and sliced weapons.My customers know they can come to me for everything. Right now I consider myself 'low' on stock in several key areas. With a 150 item limit? I'd have to have all of my vendors in my store right now, and I'd have no space left to fully stock them in the other areas.
All around bad call.
"This is not desigend to help anyone. This change is to limit the number of items in the vendor database. That is it. All of it."
But that in itself would be a help - if it doesn't reduce the numbers held right now, it should curb their acceleration.
People assume its all database space that is the issue, but it's the time to process all the records, not the space taken up - there is a finite speed at which multiple servers can process data, so the more data there is, the longer the delay to retrieve more records from the database - especially if the results then have to be sorted.
Personally I support the suggestion, though my ideal would be...
Vendors run by non-Merchants, or Management skill dropped after deploying vendors:
- disable public access to vendors
- disable ability for the owner to add items for sale, they can only withdraw sales and remove from stockroom
At Business 3, terminal vendors can be deployed with a 50-item cap (double the bazaar limit, and no price cap).
As the character progresses up past Business 4 and into Novice Merchant, then up the various trees, the item cap skill mod is raised in a similar fashion to the CH change - to take advantage of multiple vendors with decent caps, you need to work up and keep more than 1 tree.
At Master Merchant, the cap per vendor should work out at around 300 or so.
The item cap should be a number shared between the items up for sale and those in the stockroom.
IMO this would put value into the Merchant profession, and give a reason to train and retain the various trees.
AndI doubt very much it would cause a massive influx of characters switching to the Merchant profession, as "dabbling" would not be much use.
It may cause a shift in playstyles where crafters just craft and sell their wares in bulk to Merchants, who mark it up, advertise it and sell on to consumers... now there's a thought! 
As for the bazaar price increase I can't see that having such a huge impact (personally I find the current stuff overpriced as it is, there is generally only crap on there, I find) - people aren't going to traipse across the galaxy paying shuttle fees and waiting just to collect an item that saved them 1 or 2k... false economy.
And stuff that is cheaper than normal will sell out too fast for it to be a problem to vendor operators due to the bazaar item limit (plus unscrupulous/intelligent types might by up cheap stock and resell on their vendors at the regular price).
I said it in the huge thread, I'll say it here. To me the concept of a merchant is I don't just sell my own goods. I buy from suppliers and then sell on. I pay people to deliver stock to distant vendors. I get stocked by many different people. That is what a merchant is meant to do. I'm not meant to just sell my own items (if so why have a seperate merchant profession and not just give crafters vendors?)
The problem is 1) Vendors being used as storage 2) The fact that there are way more vendors than there 'should' be.
Maybe a cap is good, but it needs to be in the 500-1000 range for Master Merchants at least. Maybe there should be a lower limit on maximum vendor sales too. If you can't sell at more than 250k say on a vendor then you can't use a vendor to store your very valuable things. Yes it will mean we have to sell smaller resource stacks and that Krayt Pearls etc won't be able to go through vendors which is a pain...but less of a pain than the alternative which will kill one of the least valued (and useful as once you level it you can drop it) professions in the game.
Of course we'll lose the bazaar poll - its more convenient for everyone else, who don't care for the most part about merchants.
I just hope they realise that if they kill merchants then they basically kill the economy and even semi-casual crafting. I should be able to make everything in runs of 500 or 1000, throw all the crates onto my vendor and then not worry about restocking for a few days. Having to go to my vendors several times a day to restock would be....very bad. You know what a pain it is to restock with the current interface anyway. At least doing an entire inventory of items at the same price can be done quickly. If I have to just do 20s or 30s at most then thats more time per restock and more restocks = I can't be bothered to run a merchant business on the side of hunting.
I think the cap is bad!!! i ma the merchant for our guild i keep over 600 items on each vendor. people like having a choice on what to buy and how many i get orders for 10 -20 all the time this will force people to sit by there vendors to constantly restock items.... as i see it there are not enought vendors also i have tomix products like tailor and armor, guns and veichels ..... i sell the goods for all and have a hard time keeping the vendors full as it is....in our giuld it they impliment this our guild of 80 say this is the last straw they nerf everything... we are leaving the game
ticked off on talus 
How do you think lowering the vendor limit to 150 is going to help the Merchant class? If anything, its going to help Armorsmiths, Weaponsmiths, Architects, etc because we'll just double our prices and make twice as much money.
What they should do is combine the mining profession in beta with the Merchant skills. Redo the tree, maybe title it "Industrialist" or something. That way it'll make Merchants have something to do besides just setting vendors up. Instead of nerfing, ADD stuff to make Merchant more desireable.
JTGAlpha wrote:
Dude, I totally agree that it's going to make life hell for a lot of us, in extra work. I concede that. But, if you put in that work your business shouldn't take too big a hit.
Work? Work? This is supposed to be a game.
-Indene- (who has felt for a while that this 'game' was too much like work )
They want to reduce the strain on the database?
1. Make merchants delete their extra vendors before they can drop their extra vendor skill. (just like you have to empty a harvester before you can delete it). Further... give everyone 2 weeks notice, then delete any current vendors for players who dont have the skills to have them anymore.
2. Limit the # of items non-merchants can have on the bazaar. Raising price capsmay consolodate resources, but will INCREASE the total number of items sold via bazaar. The current plan will INCREASE server strain. Instead, limit non-merchants to 5 or 10 items.