Merchant Archive
Thread: Research and Manufacturing Bonuses : Hiring
Now that the mounts and cities are in place, I'm hoping that professions will get another round of fixes and improvements and merchants are among the most in need after droid engineers, squad leaders and possibly chefs. I'd like to see some improvements that give us more to offer in a business deal with artisans and improve our ability to offer a market for them.
Currently, my favorite idea is to add research and hiring bonuses along the lines of the city specializations, but to those we are grouped with. This would let us make a deal to stand by an artisan while they craft, improving their chances to make a quality product in return for a discounted price to buy them or for a percentage of the finished goods. I'd put this in the hiring line with a sizable portion of the total bonus at master level.
Other ideas:
* Ability to advertise a vendor in multiple catagories on the planetary map. Now that they cost a fair amount to maintain, items are being consolidated on to single vendors. Perhaps Advertising IV could be changed to allow additional catagories at a cost of 1cr/hour added to maintenance for each catagory.
* Bazaar advertisements: These are already done by putting up dummy items in the bazaar on a seven day auction and giving them a name and desciption that advertises a shop elsewhere. Institutionalize this with special advertising items, perhaps made by image designers, that show up first in listings arranged by the amount spent to place it. These should have enchanced descriptions and possibly include waypoint attachments.
* Droid Vendors: The droid engineers have been asking for this I believe; a droid that could act as a vendor so long as it is near its master and sell the items it has in storage. This way a merchant could relax in the cantina while his droid worked the crowd.
* Droid Vendor Terminal: As above, but provides the merchant with a vendor control screen that would allow him to manipulate good on his vendors as if accessing one directly, though without being able to retrieve items of course. Preferably this would also allow changing planetary advertising as well.
* Consignment Auctions: Allows a merchant to accept an offer conditionally, putting the credits on hold like a bazaar auction transferring them to the offerer if and when the item is sold or put into the stockroom. If not sold within a month or a time selected by the offerer the credits will return to the merchant and the item becomes available for pick up.
* Goons, Hired Goons. Allows the merchant to use vendor slots to make pets that take up those slots while in the data pad and cost hourly maintenance when in use. At Hiring IV, they could be equiped with weapons and armor before initializing which they could then use.
* Hired Dancers and Medics: This would be a tricky one to balance with players, but the new player cities often have idle cantinas and medical centers. Something better than the effect of the building to heal, but less than that of a real entertainer of medic would be very handy until the city becomes more of an attraction.
This isn't the first time I've proposed a few of the ideas and probably won't be the last. I really enjoy the merchant profession and would like to see it become even more fun to play. Admittedly, the bugs that some are experiencing with their vendors and stockrooms should have priority, but I hope some of the above are considered when there is time for enhancements.
Perhaps I will have more later.
Eshren_Jandl wrote:
Currently, my favorite idea is to add research and hiring bonuses along the lines of the city specializations, but to those we are grouped with. This would let us make a deal to stand by an artisan while they craft, improving their chances to make a quality product in return for a discounted price to buy them or for a percentage of the finished goods. I'd put this in the hiring line with a sizable portion of the total bonus at master level.
I don't really want to become a variation on a droid with a crafting station.
Other ideas:
* Ability to advertise a vendor in multiple catagories on the planetary map. Now that they cost a fair amount to maintain, items are being consolidated on to single vendors. Perhaps Advertising IV could be changed to allow additional catagories at a cost of 1cr/hour added to maintenance for each catagory.
Yes, this would help a lot. Ideally, too,the shop name would go on the map instead of the vendor. I think it confuses customers when they don't see a building with the name they were looking for.
Eshren_Jandl wrote:
...
* Bazaar advertisements: These are already done by putting up dummy items in the bazaar on a seven day auction and giving them a name and desciption that advertises a shop elsewhere. Institutionalize this with special advertising items, perhaps made by image designers, that show up first in listings arranged by the amount spent to place it. These should have enchanced descriptions and possibly include waypoint attachments.
The problem with this is that the customer still has to make an effort to see the ad. The bazaar is aparticularly bad place to have them look now,because the catagories are poorly organized, and if your add falls to a second page (even premium auctions do that) it is unlikely to be seen. Better to name a droid with your ad and have it patrol about town. We really need to put full paragraph adds in places the customer can see without searching!
* Droid Vendors: The droid engineers have been asking for this I believe; a droid that could act as a vendor so long as it is near its master and sell the items it has in storage. This way a merchant could relax in the cantina while his droid worked the crowd.
Yes! Though with the proposed pet nerf, it would eliminate our ability to call a mount if we left a droid in a high sales potential area.
* Droid Vendor Terminal: As above, but provides the merchant with a vendor control screen that would allow him to manipulate good on his vendors as if accessing one directly, though without being able to retrieve items of course. Preferably this would also allow changing planetary advertising as well.
Yes! I would expect this to be rather automatic if the droid were a fully functional vendor. Planetary ad wouldn't work though for other vendors, and it doesn't make much sense for a droid who is moving about.
* Consignment Auctions: Allows a merchant to accept an offer conditionally, putting the credits on hold like a bazaar auction transferring them to the offerer if and when the item is sold or put into the stockroom. If not sold within a month or a time selected by the offerer the credits will return to the merchant and the item becomes available for pick up.
Yes, but there are a lot of implementation options with this that the wrong dev could blow badly. A well thought out proposal on what the screens and logic would look like is needed.
* Goons, Hired Goons. Allows the merchant to use vendor slots to make pets that take up those slots while in the data pad and cost hourly maintenance when in use. At Hiring IV, they could be equiped with weapons and armor before initializing which they could then use.
Doesn't sound likely. However, in Episode 1 Merchants (the Trader's Guild) fielded whole armies of combat droids. I think it a poor choice that Merchants in SWG are limited to one.
* Hired Dancers and Medics: This would be a tricky one to balance with players, but the new player cities often have idle cantinas and medical centers. Something better than the effect of the building to heal, but less than that of a real entertainer of medic would be very handy until the city becomes more of an attraction.
Why not hire a player? AFK entertainer's doesn't care where they play, and can be bribed. If you can generate enough traffic to keep it from being boreing, you might manage a medic too.
OK, I think we have provided Doc with enough to lobby for. Maybe he should put up a poll for prioritization purposes. Though before he did the poll, it would be nice to get a dev response to every item in this list and mine as to whether they looked feasible before 2006. It would be a shame to give top priority to something that cannot be done.
I love your ideas, especially the one about the crafting bonus, but I think there has to be a better way.. I am racking my brain as we speak to think of a better idea. I have one forming but it is still problematic, I will post it when I figure out how it would work completely.
Master TKA - Master Brawler - former Master Medic - Former CH - aspiring Merchant