Merchant Archive
Thread: The nonskilled ‘merchant’ problem – or be careful what you ask for.
SeraphinAnnie wrote:
We're going in circles. I am NOT disputing that it would be a good idea to allow Combat templates to be able to sell items too, thus my suggestion of 1 freebie limited use vendor. No need to argue that point, as it's not the current argument, at least not with me specifically.
The part where, in 2 pages of replies, you neglected to ever post that you were a legitimate Master Merchant. The only thing I remember you posting was "I have merchant skills".
So only 'masters' are legitimate merchants now?
There's also no need to call "your" profession's Correspondant a loser
Excuse me - when did I ever call Doc a loser? He's had a hard thankless job that at the moment I wouldn't take for all the tea in China.
That's the two chief defenses of 'merchants' here about this issue - sell on the bazaar - go hawk in person in front of the starport, the loser was referring to merchants talkingTO nonmerchants that have come here time and time again asking for a little consideration of their problems.
And there are MANY problems, very legitimate concerns that EVERYONE has. Right, wrong or otherwise, so far those issues have been somewhat sufficiently addressed by using vendors to fill in the gaps of functionality. The workarounds are being removed without any consideration whatsoever by this community in general. Who is THEIR correspondent? Who is going to stand up for them and say - yeah, this is a problem and it needs to be addressed? The way they've been treated in these forums makes me ill. Oh yeah right - that's not your problem.
It's not unfair to me in the least little bit that someone without merchant skills can have vendors. They have higher maint than I do, they can't change up barks or anything else that retaining skills lets you do. I'll grant you - there aren't nearly enough perks - and perks I - nor any nonmerchant would blink at loosing with skill - THAT is the choice. The fact that the class AS a class sucks isn't any players fault. Did you even bother to read my letter? Yeah, I think merchant should be WORTH the skillpoints invested - at that point I doubt you'd find nearly as much resistance. Throw in some measures to address the void left that vendors provided - or examine the underlying systems so the NEED isn't present - I think you'd find most people would be fine with 'merchant as a class'.
And I'll guarantee you - as long as players fight among themselves the dev's have divided and conquered and you've given them absolutely zero incentive to expend the considerable effort that will be required to address these concerns.
No one in this game is A CLASS. It's a chinese menu where you are SUPPOSED to be able to find your niche - and yes, that is exactly what skill limits are all about. You aren't wrong about that - how many times do I have to say BOTH sides have extremely valid points? But it's not the merchant's fault that the devs have neglected to include the needed functionality nonmerchants need - and it's not the nonmerchants fault that functionality was provided by 'class' functions and their interests are reasonably in enough areas that the class is woefully insufficient.
DocSavag wrote:
Ok..so people will be willing to take a 293k loss and sell their Uber loot kit item on the bazaar but they can't be bothered to risk selling it through a merchant who might take 20%?
Are these the brightest loot collectors?
If money and economics are no longer the point - yeah.
If you are looking for reasonable methods where is the infrastructure to support this so that all the risk is not on the seller?
Workin on it - sorry, track record is rather poor in this area. Between never addressed bugs and continuing promises on this and that - forgive me if I'll believe it when I see it. You have to address the problems FIRST.
What? Do you truely know howlittle it costs to make weapons? I do, I am a MWS as well as a merch, though no longer master there. Yes, you are right...I dont sell weapons on the bazaar for 6k...I sell at 5k or less. I've done the math, I know what my costs are, andI still reap huge profits. There isn't a single weapon that costs me more than 1.5k to make. If any of my customers want 'special' items in their weapons, i insist they bring them to me for the combine, I don't buy any of those things at their current overinflated costs. I harvest my own resources, and have guildies who assist with that.
Meandra wrote:
The first scenario is ludicrous. Who is going to be selling stuff in the bazaar for 6k each? It wont be the elite crafters, if they want to make a profit.
I can't even relate it to other elite crafting professions like ...weaponsmith. They are going to spend the points in merchant or find a merchant to resell their stuff, otherwise they aren't going to make a profit.
In a nutshell your character has no clue which structures it owns or doesn't own. It knows only how many lots it has left. The data about ownership is all stored with the structure itself which has no clue what your current skill levels are. To check they have to do it at specific events (in the vendor example when you try to put someing up for sale) Checking every time you enter a building could be very laggy as the number of checks would be staggering on a server wide basis. So its problematic to enforce ownership rules for Cantinas, Hospitals, Theaters and Merchant Tents. That doesn't mean they won't do it. Just that its complicated and they have a lot of things to handle.
-Droideka- wrote:
Will people who exploited the system be pissed off? Sure. Will crafters that want to sell on their own vendors have to remove skill points from other areas? Yep. Will the Non-Exploiter general population of the game give a damn about it? Not in the least.
Wrong. We DO care about having to waste skill points on a profession just so we can sell our specialized items. Skill pointrequirements should absolutely be removed from the merchant class.
I don't know what your 'specialized items' are, however i guess you mean things like med packs from docs an CMs, tissues from a BE, slicing tools and spices from a smuggler etc?
Well here is another point of view...
Docs and CMs can create meds so they can use them, if they'choose' to become a seller of meds then they need to invest in some business skills as they are choosing to go into business, its not necessary for them.
Smugglers, well slicing tools are tools of the trade, they can make them so they can use them, if they choose to go into business they can. Spices are supposed to be illegal, sold in back alleys for cash, not available on public vendors as they are today. However if a smuggler wants to go into business as a spice dealer they need to get business skills.
BE's are a difficult one, half the profession is dedicated to creating pets, tissues etc. which are really only there to sell, while tissues can easily be sold in bulk to tailors and chefs by offering them to their vendors, they need a store to sell pets in any big way. Does this mean they should get a free vendor? No! they can learn the business skills just like everyone else, after all BE is a hybrid profession and taking any hybrid profession limits what else you can do more than any other profession.
So most non-artisans have no 'need' for a vendor, unless they want to go into business, if they want to go into business they need business skills.
The merchant profession isn't the same. The POINT of having a vendor is to sell things. The skills you have in the profession facilitate doing that on a large scale 24 hours a day..giving up the skills was not intended to allow you to continue to sell things at the same rate and efficiency. There is no debate with me on their intent I spoke directly to the person who wrote this code and he said to me in front of a room full of witnesses "..that was an oversight on my part and will be fixed soon.."
The non civic structures are most likely not protected by skill point checks for the technical reasons I outlined above.
SeraphinAnnie wrote:
Wire3k:
The only reason I said we were going in circles is because your previous post was rehashing a lot of your points, ones that I have already understood and agreed with, as if I hadn't. So, it seemed as though we were not really getting anywhere. But if not, then fine.
You did not respond to my hypothetical scenario though. Regardless of the desire for a freebie vendor, in the general sense of things, do you really think that people using "the bug" is fair? Do you think it would be fair, if people continued to do it, even if they were given a freebie vendor?
Do I think an issue that didn't hurt anything but SOME merchant's 'feelings', but gave a LOT of people functionality they needed and increased their joy in their activities, evened out the economy and distribution patterns,promoted more activity between more players, and in fact was open to anyone at all if they earned the right the first time wrong?
Nice, short simple Tyrant answer - No.
Do I think it would be fair to leave that loophole open if the functionality that those other people NEED because of the underlying systems were addressed so the need was no longer present,or accounted for with other methods, or merchant was made worthy of being an elite class so nonmerchants and many merchants alike didn't feel like it was a 'waste' of skillpoints - qualified no, depending on if the issue was truly addressed - your mileage will vary with that one, depending on the quality of the 'fixes'.
In a choice between 'perceived' wrong and concrete practical 'wrong' - practical wins in my book every time.