Merchant Archive

OK, here is my question.... I almost master merchant when I read my first Holo. Merchant skill worked well for me, as I am also a Master Tailor. But to my teary eyes, when I read I had to become a Master Ranger to follow my chosen path. WHy is this bad you ask? Well, Master Ranger requires me to Master TWO professions... scout and ranger. Well, with the current skill points the way they are... you can only master 3 total professions at once. I absolutely refuse to give up the time I spent reaching Master Tailor. I would not look forward to the *grind* *2x click* *grind* again to get back to Master Tailor. So, with all that said... it looks like Master Merchant, and a few other chosen skills will have to go... but what happens to my 3 vendors I have placed in my shop when i drop the merchant skill? Will I still be able to manage them? Will they go *poof*? As it looks right now, not only merchant, but pistol, and the other artisian skills I have (currently master) will have to go except the artisian skills need to keep Master Tailor. So.... what do I do? My business is generated primarily on vendor sales (about 100k a day on a good day). Any suggestions? PLEASE HELP!

Thanks,

Sky

your vendor will remain, you can use it, you can pay for it, but you can't do jack didly beyond that.. don't lift them up once you drop the skills.

So i can still place items on the vendor to sell once i drop the skill?

Yes

I do not believe thisan exploit. The skill specifically says "ability to place a vendor", it does not say to place and maintain a vendor.

For instance, I can get uniforms 4, dress my vendors in pretty dresses, than drop that skill box. The clothes dont go flying off the vendor cuz i dropped it, is this an exploit too? Also, what if you get to master weaponsmith create a schematic for a nice FWG5, than drop master weaponsmith, shouldyou not be allowed to use the schematic anymore?

Im suremost will argue with me, but Ibelieve these merchant skills were made to be flexible in that regard, to free up points to pursue other interests, which is appreciated.

~Prinethea

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PrincessThea wrote:

I do not believe thisan exploit. The skill specifically says "ability to place a vendor", it does not say to place and maintain a vendor.

For instance, I can get uniforms 4, dress my vendors in pretty dresses, than drop that skill box. The clothes dont go flying off the vendor cuz i dropped it, is this an exploit too? Also, what if you get to master weaponsmith create a schematic for a nice FWG5, than drop master weaponsmith, shouldyou not be allowed to use the schematic anymore?

Im suremost will argue with me, but Ibelieve these merchant skills were made to be flexible in that regard, to free up points to pursue other interests, which is appreciated.

~Prinethea

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The Weaponsmith anaolgy is flawed. The probelm with it is that once the schemaitc as made ANYONE can use it not justsomeone who used to be a weaponsmith.

The Clothing example is a good one however and I'll concede that one.

I am certain the devs did NOT design merchant to be dropped to free up skill points. They constantly hammer us with "making choices about skill points is part of the challenge of the game" allowing you to drop and entire line of skills and keep using the beneifts of those skills is definitely not very challenging.

I do not believe it is in the best interests of the profession to have people who are not merchants running vendors they wouldn't be able to manage if they hadn't had merchant skills. This isn't fair. If you allow this I should be able to retain all my skills from master artisan that I gave up to do medic.

If you want to be a merchant be a merchant. If you want to give up all your merchant skills to do something else..then get someone who is a merchant handle the vendors for you. It is that simple. That is what you are supposed to be doing. Giving up your skills and continuing to be a merchant isn't fair to everyone else who is still keeping their merchant skills. You are cheating the system. I'm not calling it an exploit, I am saying you are not playing the game the way it was designed to be played. If you aren't willing to spend the skill points you shouldn't be using the benefits of those skills.

Vendors are NOT items that can be traded or sold from player to player. They are created and managed by a player with the skills to manage them. If you could trade them or sell them I would concede that they are items and the sill is placing. Until a designer tells me that this is the intended function I will continue to voice my opinion that the skills of "Management" should be required to have vendors.

Agree with DocSavag on the point that only current Merchants should be able to have vendors. Afterall, that is ALL we have. If I master Bounterhunter and then quit, should I still be able to do eyeshot and use a LLC? No? Having a vendor is THE merchant skill, it is all there is, and everything in Merchant is based around the vendors. Why let people have it just cos they trained a skill and dropped it?

I would get master merchant before you drop any of your skills. It took me about 3 or 4 weeks to reach master with a business running out of my shop. Getting your next holo and it saying merchant will piss you off if you drop it now

Just say NO to holos!!!

I do want to use an "exploit" nor do I want to use the game in ways it was not intended to be used.... however, I worked really hard to get my Master Tailor (my passion for enjoyment in game), and I feel it is important to my business as a tailor to beable to atleast maintain a vendor. I am willing to drop the cute npc types and go back to the basic bulky type, because not ALL of my business is special orders. I am relying on my main profession "master Tailor" to be able to support my cost during my holo trainings.... I dont see anything wrong with that. But since my business has been based on my "shop" my customers have come to expect myy vendors to be well stocked, so that if they dont catch me online, they can still purchase stylish clothing =] After all, being a Master in any crafting profession that allows you to make goods to be sold, doesnt that kind of make you a merchant anyways? Haven't you earned the right to beable to sell your goods this way? Not everything can be sold on the bazaar at 3k or less....

Sky

I personally believe it's an exploit, and hope they fix it soon. Merchant just becomes that much less meaningful when someone can place and maintain vendors in this fashion. However, more practical advise: why not find another merchant who you trust who can place vendors for you? At least one or two vendors, in the interim while you are off working other skills? It's work on the merchant'spart of course, but this is one thing I help my friends with - running their vendors. It's actually closer to the real use of the profession in my opinion. A lot of crafters of course sell their own products, I think there's a lot of room for a middleman though. Anyway, sorry off topic a bit.

What I do on one of my vendors is have my friend offer the item he wants to sell, I buy it and restock it plus a small handling fee to give me a bit towards the vendor maintenance and for my own trouble (time). When we started I didn't have enough cash to do this, so he'd just put in the description how much he wanted to sell it for and offer it for 1 cr. Then I'd 'buy' it and at the end of the week, pay him his profit less my handling fees. Obviously you want to be able to trust someone to do this and if money isn't too tight the first option works fairly well (having the merchant buy the item at the full amountand resell it).

It's probably not an ideal solution but it is one at least. Good luck

Sky,

First understand this isn't personal and I'm not trying to hurt your business in any way. But you haven't earned the right to use merchant skills you don't haveanymore. You have earned the right to make masterful clothing and you should be proud of that and you are perfectly within your right to sell them..however if you have no merchant skills you should have to use a vendor from the artisan line and if you give up Business skills you have to hire a merchant to sell them for you. That is what merchants are for. If the designers had wanted to give all artisans a vendor they would have put it at Novice Artisan instead of business III. They intended you to choose to spend those skill points to have vendors. Not just to place them..but to have them at all. That is my belief.

The bottom line is currently you can give up most if not all of your skills and still keep them.One day I hope that isn't true. But if they change it you can bet you'll have plenty of notice (for one thing I'll talk about it here if it ever happens) and you can also bet it will be done in a manner that protects you from item loss.

This is mostly a philosophical discussion about what is good for the merchant profession.

Yes, but this is a bug and therefore technically an exploit. I wouldn't risk it myself, there's always the chance it will be fixed without warning and your vendor with all its items will "poof".