Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Maintenance Fees coming – your input request
Syxix wrote:
ed
By the way, it doesn't cost anything curently to advertise them on the Planetary map, which renders the Merchant skill Advertising IV useless.
Actually I have to re-Register my vendors every day I log on. Also I have to re-enable Ad Barking. I honestly feel that some of the options given to the Merchant profession need to be fixed.
These are features that are intended to increase vendor activity as well as sales. They aren't working properly. Therefore we won't be making any more money than we were, but still be paying for these features which are broken.
I did not bother to read the whole thread, but skimmed a few pages of it, so if some of it is repetitive, please excuse.
The only reason I took up merchant was to avoid the 1000k maintenance fee a day I had to pay for a droid vendor. That was just killing me on top of the expenses I had a day.
1.I am not a master, so not all my items sell. This has to be brought into consideration when "fixing" this. If something sits on my vendor for a couple of days this would actually hurt.
2. There should not be limits on the amount of items on a vendor.
3. The idea of a sales tax, ie 10%, is the best way for a sink. That way it only hits succesful sales and does not adversely affect the up and coming artisans who have established a shop and dont sell everything.
4. I already am struggling trying to keep up all the maintenance costs for my harvestors, house, & shop. I am just barely able to stay afloat.
5. In no way should it be based on % of the value or total prices of the goods that are on there. This would create a huge deadweight on crafters. For architects it would be fatal almost, especially considering that their profit margins are already squeezed. It will be a huge blow to any artisan. Do not do this.
6. A % based maintenance will have the following effect: in order to avoid having to pay these fees the crafters will only put their items on during "high" times. Basically times when he knows a lot of people are on, for example Saturday night. Then come monday morning he will simply take the items off to avoid the fees, and put them back on Friday night. Well what about Jack Bauer...he's on a lot during the weekdays, never during the evenings and weekeds due to RL and work schedule. Which unfortunately is not a high traffic time. He needs to buy a DX 2 gun to help fight the imperials and save the world in a 24 hour period. The only thing is that all weaponsmiths he knows of do not have any in stock. He's emailed and he has tried to find them, but they are only putting them on during high traffic times. Thenlets say Smith and Wesson (SW) does put up a DX2 on his vendor on Monday night and tells Jack about it. Unfortunately Jack cant get back on till Thursday night.SW has to pay two days worth of fees. This simply would cause frustration on both parties. Jackcant get his gun, he has to go out of his way to find one.And SWhas to pay excess fees on something. I think you can see the point I am trying to illustrate. There could be work arounds, but I for one would only put my guns up at times when I knwo they would sell. A sales tax is the only way to go with this.
7. Also why target merchants? Arent they supposed to be the upper class anyway? ANd have lots of funds?
8. In case you are wondering why not just close your shop till things sell. I established my shop because of its prime location. Also I knew I was not going to be able to sell a lot at that moment. I just wanted to put it down to save that spot. Also I wanted to establish myself and let people know that it was there.
Ideas for more sinks:
1. Increase travel fares. That way it strikes all across the board.
2. Increased training fees
3. Insurance actually working!!!! When people do their first couple of corpse runs...I think you will find people dropping tons of money into insuring their goods.
4. Leaving it alone for the moment, and wait till you have fixed some of the other things.
Erm, all this money flying around you seem to see - it's not coming from me or anyone I know..
Hardcore players may have money to burn, but those of us with fewer hours and a more casual approach to looking around, dabbling with making things, running a couple of missions - I can't even afford to insure my gear, much less pay a ton for vendor maintenance, etc.
I realize there is no fair way to do this - Income Tax maybe - but these fees are going to cripple casual players. The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. Just because the RL economy works that way is no reason to emulate it in-game. It IS a fantasy game, after all.
Just thought I'd add my voice to the many.. Hopefully they will be overwhelmed at the sheer number of posts, but I doubt it.
Please do a sales tax instead! This will put merchants out of business for reasons nicely articulated by several earlier posts!
as far as I know, 99% of all the money sinks are forced down the throats of merchant and cratfers. The combat classes only need to buy weapons and gear on an occasional basis. The only money sinks they have are training (a one-time expense so this doesn't really qualify as a money sink) and if the so wish, they can own a house and pay maintenance on it. However, for the non-merchant/crafter housing is optional!
Meanwhile, all the real money sinks in the game are forced down the merchant/crafter's throat: havisters, generators and factories - all of which are NOT optional for our classes, very few have the money with which to buy all of their materials, so most of us do the mining ourselves. Housing, also is not an option for any crafter/merchant who is serious about starting their own business. You don't have a choice as a crafter/merchant, when it comes to houses you NEED a house and a vendor.
So when you think about it almost ALL of the money sinks in the game exist ONLY to the merchant and crafter classes. I really think we all have enough hell putting up with feeding money into our equipment and shops, not to mention dealing with the hassle of resource shifts and bugs. If you REALLY think there needs to be another money sink in the game, please for the love of all that is sacred, DO NOT put it on the shoulders of the already burdened merchants and crafters. If you do, you're playing with fire.
Well, I'm not reading the tons of stuff added to this one, but I'm going to comment on my opinion.
The only reason you guys are seeing that you need money sinks, is that there is a very small minority of hardcore players who have managed to accumulate tons since release. The vast majority of players are not 'suffering' from this problem.
I started a Droid Engineer / Merchant some 6 weeks ago. This morning, after all the work I put into him, he just broke the 100k mark. This character hardly needs yet another money sink.
The reason is I'm playing the character as you might intend him to be played. He hardly goes into combat, and only has 1 completed destroy mission under his belt at character start to get enough for a few tools. The rest has been pure crafting and selling of those items.
Although I'm quite familiar with what sells and at what prices, the current money sinks in place eatup most of that revenue, so I make very little profit. Doing this will once and for all kill the casual gamer.
Q, remember when the game was for those people? I will simply say, you cannot do this thing. There is such a high percentage of casual players about to can this game that I'm positive it WILL drive them over the edge. Things are bad enough as they are. I'm hoping SOE SWG will change their philosophy and start concentrating on changing things to make them more FUN instead of meeting the requirements of your metrics.
Your hard numbers are doing nothing to promote the playability of this product.
Keeping the current system only hurts and affects one class the merchant.
By changing the system to a percent on each item to be taken when the item is sold prices could be adjusted so that the merchant is not the only one getting hurt by the money sink that is needed.
In it's current state some items can not be sold on a vendor for periods of time. Large structures, Speacilized weapons and armor. Due to the high price on these items if they are not sold with in a few min of being placed on the vendor the merchant loses signifigant amounts of revenue.
Vendors should not be the only money sink in game change the system to a percent based system and add other money sinks to compensate.
To stop people from using vendors as storage put item limits on them that increase with skills in the merchant tree. Dont put all the skills in one line and no ware near the bottom this would make it cost valueable skill points to get that extra storage. Make it a base 30 items on a vendor with an additional 50 at lvl 4 of each skill and a additional 70 at master for a total of 300 items. This would be 300 items on all vendors not just one.So if i had 6 vendorsi would not be able to sell or store 1800 items. it would be 6/300 or 50 items per vendor.
Other money sinks could range from charging for factional perks on top of faction points to missions with good rewards that require multiple trips from planet to planet.
Please do not punish and kill one class to address a problem that everybody should be affected by.