Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Top 5 Issues
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=merchant&message.id=13834
As a master merchant who's holocron told him Master Bounty Hunter, which will force me to give up all but 30-ish skill points, and who isn't planning to stay Master BH for more than 30 seconds it irks me that if some had their way I'd be unloading a half dozen vendors of hundreds of items for a span of about a week. I don't have time to go into rant mode on this issue so realize that there are other situations other than Merchants who are planning to get master and then drop it with no plans to return. Deleting vendors when you drop the skill, unless there is a trade off that results in some kind of positive elsewhere like all items are auto-stored in backpacks in my house (not even possible with current item cap limits), it's no solution at all.
so say you have a factory crate full of say laser rifles, and you want to sell them all, but I personally don;t want to jump thru all the hoops, unloading em from the crate and selling em one at a time.
so make an option to seel all items in a factory crate for a set price and seperately, instead of as a crate.
Haruspex77 wrote:
Doc, I think I am having trouble reading. I can't see where increasing the bazaar price limit and limiting the number of items on a vendor appears on the "top 5" list.
It must be there, they are working on our priority issues first aren't they? It must mean I need new glasses.
Heh. I've already been verbally spanked privately for making the same general observation. 
Doc, I think I am having trouble reading. I can't see where increasing the bazaar price limit and limiting the number of items on a vendor appears on the "top 5" list.
It must be there, they are working on our priority issues first aren't they? It must mean I need new glasses.
I am getting ready to summarize this thread for the Development team and I'll post that summary in this forum for comment before I send it on. Basically it will be the most often posted ideas for #4 and #5 along with the disclaimer that there are some (a minority by any realistic measurement) in the community who don't feel it is an issue at all.
If you have a really great idea for either of these this is the time to post it before the summary is done. I don't want to delay much longer and lose a window of opportunity to get something in front of the development team.
Regarding issue #5, what will happen if they remove vendors and remove the ability to hang on to your vendors?
1. More people become Merchants becaues its such a super fun class to play?
2. Random shops selling random things open and close at random because people are grinding holocrons that say Master Merchant?
3. The Master Merchant elite (includes me) become the prime sellers of high quality goods, and are able to dictate the prices of everything, this hurting the noobs and casual players (always the victims)?
4. Dozens of vibrant commerce areas, malls, and shopping centers that were setup by various guilds and player cities, will empty out and have only 6 (not 36) vendors selling a limited range of goods?
5. The economy will favor the hardcore players and the e-bayers because everything will become much more expensive due to the lack of shelf-space and the increase in demand?
Those are just five of the things that COULD happen if the vocal majority of merchants have their say.
I would rather see Merchants get more skills, or new skills, then have this change come to my server. I loathe having to spend 5 hours shopping around trying to find any vendors that still exist and sell the goods I am looking for.
Just my $20.00 (adjusted for SWG inflation)
Hi there, new merchant here, sorry for the long post but I talk a lot 
In re: "Placing" vendors - the skill gives, for instance, "Vendor+1".
Some argue this means you can place a vendor for as long as you want to, regardless of whether you maintain your Management skill.
Personally, I look at it otherwise. At Management 1 I can "place" a theoreticallyinfinite number of vendors. I simply have to delete each one before I can create a second one. Therefore, the "+1" refers to the maximum number of vendors I can _HAVE PLACED_ at once; the skill represents the number of simultaneous available vendors you are allowed to have.So if my Vendor skill drops from +2 to +1, I _should not_ be able to maintain that second vendor.
Give folks 2 weeks warning, then delete all vendors over the skill cap and give their former owners a magic bag (remove items only). Impliment the consignment system to allow the non-merchants to sell their stock through a 'legitimate' business channel.
My first and primary character is a Smuggler/Combat Medic. I know all about the pain of dealing with skill points. Due to all of the different requirements for Smuggler and Combat Medic, I've ended up as a Master Smuggler and 1034 Combat Medic. No other skills beyond the requirements for these 2 professions; in fact I have 1 skill point unused. Unfortunately that means I'm a 4000 Brawler, 0404 Marksman, Master Medic to go with the two hybrid profs. That's a total of 57 of the 250 skill points just for novice levels. I would LOVE to be able to use other classes abilities without paying the ongoing skill points for them!
There's my couple decicredits worth on topic #5 (Exploiting Merchant:Management skill line).
Topic #4: Business Relationships
1) Consignment ability would make a HUGE positive difference. The system already allows for most of the functionality in terms of the initial offer and keeping track of who owns the item. Heck, the item still has an owner displayed! All that is needed is checkbox on the offer screen: Consign? [ ] If unchecked, this is a normal "offer". if checked, a second price box is enabled for "MSRP". Finally, allow the vendor owner to grant "consign access" by player name and/or guild.
Other suggested improvements:
1) Targeted sales: if I have an item I want to sell to playerX and can't meet them, rather than putting it in a backpack with their name and hoping no casual dropper-by buys it, it would be immensely nicer to be able to specify who can buy a specific item. Maybe add this ability to master merchant, a special-order vendor where each item has a single player name associated with it? Gotta have SOME perk
2) Can we have a discussion on re-organizing the 'vendor categories'? Maybe adding subcategories for some like weapons, tools, etc? It'd be nice to know that the Architect vendor I'm going 5km to see sells harvesters or just potted plants, or the Weaponsmith is working only on Ranged not Melee weapons this week?
3) Oh how I would love to see this: Direct placement from factory to vendor. I've spent maybe 4 hours this past week "playing" this game, and the rest running around playing with harvesters and taking crates from my factories on 2 planets to my vendors on 2 planets, all the while worrying about whether someone was going to buy my last crate of Weapon Upgrade Kits before I got back to the factory and stopped the production run to grab a couple crates for the vendor (leaving me apparently "empty" for the next visitor). Any way to create a "retail schematic" that costs, say, 100cr per unit manufactured, but allows you to set the sale price and vendor name (pull-down list of your currently-placed vendors?) to be automatically delivered as the item/crate comes off the line? Again a possible Master Merchant perk? Maybe it's a merchant/architect combo like an optional "delivery module" to be built into a factory but requires master merchant to place (oh, and use lol don't want to go there again...)
4) As stated before by many people, allow us to place entire crates of items for sale on the vendor with a "per crate" and "per unit" price, and allow the users to select (slider or text entry) how many units to buy. Would free up a lot of database space for resource vendors who could now have just a single stack of resource_x rather than breaking it up into 5k, 10k, 50k, etc lots.
It's late, I'm getting silly, so here's my final idea of the day:
Speaking of class crossovers (merchant tent, delivery module for factories) how about a merchant/weaponsmithcombo for putting in a wookiee with a bowcaster behind the counter for when people on the new "kill on site" list (one step DOWN from the banned list) enter your store? Merchant faction turrets? bwa hah hah
Thanks, g'night!
I will state these again since it took me hours to stock vendors last night.
- Increase crate size. It makes no sense for power-ups to only come 10 to a crate. Please consider increasing the size of all crated items. If we want smaller sizes we can split them. This will make stocking easier and decrease load on the database.
- Allow us to multiselect to add or relist items to a vendor at the same price. It would be nice to also be able to remove multiple items from a factory.
- And again add the per unit pricing... A win for us and the database.
Snikrop wrote:
Hello,
As a master merchant who's holocron told him Master Bounty Hunter, which will force me to give up all but 30-ish skill points, and who isn't planning to stay Master BH for more than 30 seconds it irks me that if some had their way I'd be unloading a half dozen vendors of hundreds of items for a span of about a week. I don't have time to go into rant mode on this issue so realize that there are other situations other than Merchants who are planning to get master and then drop it with no plans to return. Deleting vendors when you drop the skill, unless there is a trade off that results in some kind of positive elsewhere like all items are auto-stored in backpacks in my house (not even possible with current item cap limits), it's no solution at all.
yes...merchants will never be able to be jedi
i wonder how the system will determine which vendors get whacked and which ones will work...
bunch of loudmouths making the game less fun if you ask me
Regarding Issue #5
You're not able to redeed/destroy a vendor with items in it,so could the fix for this problem be to set it so you can't drop the skill with the max number of vendors for you skill level already placed ?
Also, regarding this hiring issue. All skills in the game build on the one preceeding it. Would it not be possible for advanced employees to be autodowngradedwhen the skill is dropped ?The downgraded vendor may not fit with the Merchants style or concept but management is about making do.
Regarding Issue #4
This has been annoying me too, I've beengetting undercut by all the artisansin my PA becuase they can offer items with very little mark up.The point I see in being a merchant is that you can retain stock, have contacts and a sales network. With this in mind i'd suggest...
1) Limit the number of items a non-merchant can offer in their vendor which would make selling to a merchant a lot less hastle if an artisan istrying to sell in bulk.
2) Link 'Max Stock Count' to the management skill tree inunits of +100 to +200 or so.
3) Make all vendors stockable through the one interface. Ie I live on Rori but have vendors on a few different planets, having to go to each one to stock them isnot only apain butif you think about it retail shops generally placeall orderswith head office and then head office would place the order with the supplier.
4) Reseller automation, Merchants should be the channel to get goods out to the masses but if business is bad a merchant can't purchase the items offered to a vendor and so can't sell them. I'd like to see a 'Prefered seller' list, the idea behind this is a merchant can specify player names in the vendor and when those players offer items to the vendor a preset mark up % is added and the item is automatically placed for sale. The artisan would then have the cash placed into his bank account when the item sells and the merchant would gain his commission.
Regards
Fin Umaw
Merchant/Chef/Pistoleer/Lover !
DocSavag wrote:
Haruspex77 wrote:
Doc, I think I am having trouble reading. I can't see where increasing the bazaar price limit and limiting the number of items on a vendor appears on the "top 5" list.
It must be there, they are working on our priority issues first aren't they? It must mean I need new glasses.
Heh. I've already been verbally spanked privately for making the same general observation.
Ok First off let me say I am a consumer NOT a merchant.
Limiting the number of items on a vender is just wrong and it is a poor attempt to rectify any situation.
If there is a problem with seeing the NEXT button, that is a HUMAN INTERFACE problem that the designers own and need to correct.
If someone complains about Merchants stocking their venders with to much stuff and they cant compeat, Well Boo Hoo! If I spend another day and a half flying around to venders who claim to have this or that and they have nothing do you think I will come back there?
The ones that stock their venders DESERVE the business. They get the business because the DO keep their venders stocked.
If you change that,
I want to be able to Hire Bounty Hunters to Kill merchants who make me fly to their venders and never have any items.
I am not talking about the ones next to hot spots whith the click me for exp, I will click on them happily, I am talking about ones who globably list and NEVER and I meanNEVER have what they claim and I spend 50% of my game time flying to.
If you Gimp the vender limits you basicaly are going to reduce getting quality items to spending days and custom orders and that is NOT in any way shape or form helpful.
It's frustrating enough with half the folks abandoning professions to grind holos, but let those that Work hard to fill their Venders Reap the rewards they have EARNED.
Imagine 'Target' or 'Sears' only being allowed to carry 150 items just because Bob sells things from his garrage sometimes in theReal world.
Insane!
Fix the Human Interface Issues that are the Devs Own without Gimping venders. If you need Ideas Devs send me an e-mail I have a degree in Interface Design and I will help you out.
Make a way for crafters and Merchants to share a vender.
If a merchant approves Bob on their vender, Bob should be able to upload items at Bob's price and when it sells it goes to Bob Just like on the city Venders. The Merchant gets the Exp and the Merchant sets the access fee like the city ones have (20 cr or whatever)
And the Devs make the Human interface better so the next button gets more use.
It's not that difficult to figure out what to do to make it better. Now coding it might take a lil extra work, but i am sure some of that city vender code is portable.
If you Nerf venders to 150 items and you do not permit me to hire Bounty Hunters to kill merchants who make me drive all over with nothing in the vender...
I will quit *neener neener*