Merchant Archive
Thread: Bazaar Cap Increase
Greatsails wrote:
The 4 professions they said they'd be redoing:
Chef
Smuggler
Merchant
Droid Engineer
My assumption, this is only a precurser to a lot of changes to Merchant that as yet we have no insight into.
Guys, it's too soon to jump to conclusions. This is a 100% hypothetical from TH, not something that's going live tomorrow. Lets all get out from under our *OMG THE SKY IS FALLING THE SKY IS FALLING* attitude and take a breath.
Kav is right. Selling a finished product for less than 3cpu (architects being the exception to all pricing rules) is undercutting yourself, because you can sell the raw resources forthat on a bazaar (or better - I've been selling great conductivity copper for 6cpu on the bazaars: 3000cr per listing of 500 metal). But this is an aside to the main point.
Would this mean a new price fix? Maybe. Maybe not. As the game stands now, it certainly would be, and I for one would not be in favor of such a change. But I seriously doubt it would come to that. Merchant is going to get an inside-out look around the same time they start fiddling with Smuggler, and I'll bet that they've got some really cool ideas they're holding close to the chest. I'm *so* impressed with their changes to Chef, that I'm left feeling like they are getting a better and better feel for this game as it is, rather than as they wish it were, and are adjusting their coding and balancing to account for it. I'm looking forward to the upcoming changes.
People on these forums love to crap on the Devs, but lets take a look at what they've done recently:
Player Mounts:
- Good for the game: check
- Balanced for game mechanics: check
- Well-implimented: check
Player Cities:
- Good for the game: check
- Balanced for game mechanics: check
- Well-implimented: not really, but issues are mostly resolved,the onesthat aren't are being corrected soon,TC looks great now
Player Vehicles:
- Good for the game: check
- Balanced for game mechanics: check
- Well-implimented: mostly, just some disappearing issues that are mostly worked out
I mean, why do we hate the Devs so much? Cause the game was buggy at a premature launch? Don't blame the Devs, blame corporate Sony, a bunch of suits who know nothing about gaming and think they know everything about marketing, how said to the Devs "Oh, btw, we're releasing the game sooner than you though, get ready for shipping in a week."
The things the Devs have done to make the game better have. So their implimentation could use some work, granted, but they've done well for the game, and I'm not worried about the future of Chef, DE, Merchant, or us. I'm looking forward to the new patches. They'll get implimentation down as time goes on. But they've done well by me. Lets all just take a breath and wonder:
"Gosh, if this is what they want to do to the Bazaars, what kind of cool sh!t do they have in store for Merchant??"
JTGAlpha wrote:
Actually Kav it effects crafters too. Take clamps. They cost, at 3cpu, 270,000 credits for one factory run of 1000. If you sell them for 6k a crate (and you'll have to because who's gonna buy them from your shop for more money when they can walk down the street of cornet to the bazaar?) 40 crates only brings 240,000 credits. That's a loss of 30k per run. So the ONLY people who can sell clamps on the bazaar, and therefore, at ALL, are gonna be people who can mine their own resources. Good bye casual crafter.
You could split the crates. But if people get used to buying full crates at 6k you will be stuck into lowering your prices to that level.
WTH does this =have to do with being a casual?
-You can mine offline
-You can make the products offline
-you can sell the products offline.
You can make as much finished goods as I do by playing one hour a day. since quality doesn't matter, you don't even have to be there at the "right" time to get a grab at an uber resource. For all that is holy you don't even have to be an artisan to mine! Being one gives you self reliance to find mining spots. And you pay for it with skill points, so I don't see the problem.
I've been repeated over and over "you want to rock with your pistol, take pistoleer". You want to rock at commerce, take Artisan/merchant. You can be master pistoleer/master smuggler and have a vendor and be able to survey. Anyone can do it.
And sluggy...
I AM a merchant. I know that you have to spend the skill points. But it's already going to cost me considerable time just checking all the vendors, and keeping them stocked without having to maintain, and move harvestors as well. And as a CASUAL player I don't want to make that time investment. And like I said, I understand that means higher overhead, but it SHOULDN'T mean that some price cap eliminates me from the market.
"I don't WANT to mine resources"
Well, ok, I understand not all the game facets appeal to everyone, but you have to understand that people are putting more effort into this and therefore reap more rewards. Seems logical to me.
I take steps to lower my crafting costs that you don't make, therefore I can sell for cheaper for the same benefit. If it wouldn't give me an edge, I wouldn't do it, there would be no point.
People are really neglecting one thing.
Who the heck is going to be able to make enough spice to keep up with demand and in stock on the Bazaar when you can only have 25 items?
I sell Wind Energy on the Bazaar for 1.5 CPU (2K energy for 3K credits), and low-grade Radioactives at 3 CPU. (Anything better I put on my energy vendor).Half the time I sell out before I'm done playing for the night, and I'm always cleaned out when I log in the next day.Who's going to sit there camping the Bazaar terminal restocking all day when people are buying 10 crates a pop?
Sluggy, I'm not saying I should make the profit you do, I'm saying I shouldn't be excluded from the playing field. That's what I'm talking about here. If you DON'T mine, you CAN'T afford to sell clamps at 6k per crate. Period! Ever! And if no one ever pays more than 6k per crate because they can get them off the bazaar for that much....see what I'm sayin?
As it is now I don't make as much profit as you. I can't sell as low as you and can't compete as well, and make a lower profit margin. That's fine. But I can still sell them and make decent money. But not at 6k a crate.
Oh AND...
Right now it is advantageous of me to buy resources. It's cheaper. But I still elect to. HOWEVER, if buying resources is no longer an option, because it's impossible for me to make a profit buying them, then I'm FORCED to mine. And if I'm FORCED to mine I'll never BUY resources, which will hurt the resource market. It won't kill it, but it will impact it. Because for those of us who do buy our resources, that will no longer be an option. That's an entire resource market gone.
JTGAlpha wrote:
Remliel, that's a moot point. It's not a matter of ONE guy, it's a matter of a 100. As long as people know that they can buy clamps or spice by the crate for 6k on the bazaar they'll never pay one credit more for it. Ever.
Are there 100 high-volume spice dealers on a planet in any galaxy? 50? 20? 10? Maybe ten. People are not gonna hop planets to buys Spice off their Bazaar. Maybe to visit a Spice Vendor, but not waste 10/20/30 minutes to planethop for a Bazaar purchase.
People buy lots and lots of spice. It's a disposable, short-term consumable that is easily made. The hassle of keeping 25 items stocked on the Bazaar is going to be far too high to be sustainable enough to damage the long term viability of mass spice selling via vendor.
People will pay what they have to. If all that's available is what you have on your vendor, people will buy it.
JTGAlpha wrote:
Oh AND...
Right now it is advantageous of me to buy resources. It's cheaper. But I still elect to. HOWEVER, if buying resources is no longer an option, because it's impossible for me to make a profit buying them, then I'm FORCED to mine. And if I'm FORCED to mine I'll never BUY resources, which will hurt the resource market. It won't kill it, but it will impact it. Because for those of us who do buy our resources, that will no longer be an option. That's an entire resource market gone.
If people start selling all of their resources for 6 CPU, all that's going to happen is inflation, and you'll have the exact same situation as now, just with double prices.
Number one, it's not just spice. Number two, they won't have to. All it takes is for people to think "Hey, I can get crates of 25 off the bazaar for 6k" and then that's the most they'll ever pay.
And inflation of resources? Yeah that's all we need. It's not bad enough right now. You're lucky ifyou can find resources for 3cpu.