Merchant Archive

Well... fine.. they want to nerf a utility profession.. whatever.. But let's do it right.

My suggestion would be to have the limit based upon the player and his merchant level, not the number of vendors.

When I was merchant, I didn't like to have a bunch of vendors. 1-3 was the most I would ever use, and that was stretching it.

Yet, under this new item limit, to be able to get the most items out there for my customers, I would have to have a bunch of vendors cluttering up my store.. To me, that is unacceptable.

So, my idea is to base it off the player. Give him a var field that updates every time he puts an item up for sale or has something sold, etc.. And just have it check against his merchant level every time he tries to put something new up for sale.

This way, You can still impose item limits if that is the brilliant plan of the day.. and at the same time you don't screw people into using a bunch of vendors that they don't really want to.

Whatca all think?

Sorry. I have been posting here for quite a while and know my way about its abilities and skills and forums. And I didn't just come here to whine about some nerf to a utility profession. I have been here for a few months just trying to help improve the profession overall. Sadly the DEVs went in the completely other direction. To me.. a profession that the only 'active' thing you do as the profession is stock vendors.. is a utility profession and a sad one at that.

And as far as TH's post. I hadn't read it. But I would like to understand how adding MORE items into the game -- meaning 12 vendors instead of only 6 -- is going to help the database problem any. But that is just me.

Problem is that you are still checking the character each and every single time you try to place an item for sale because it has to see what level of merchant the player has, which determines specifically how many items he can hold on said vendor. So it would slow nothing down, from a coding standpoint, to check a hard limit on the player himself vs checking it on the vendor. If anything, it would slow things down if they have the limit stored in the vendor, because then it is checking two different sources.

An example of how I would work it if I was coding.. Essentially I would create a variable field(1) on the character that would store the number of items he currently had up for sale. There would also be another field(2) that based on his merchant level would be the hard cap for the number of items he could have up for sale. (this cap would be changed every time he gained or surrendered an applicable profession skillbox).

Every time he put an item up for sale, it would take field(1), check it, check it against field(2), see if field(1) is less, if so, allow them to put the item up for sale and add 1 to field(1). Then, whenever an item was bought or unsuccessful, etc.. it would subtract 1. Pretty simple really.

The way they are going to code it sounds a lot more messy and resource intensive. because then not only does it have to check the players merchant level, it has to establish what the vendors item limit is, then it has to check if that vendor has room, and then it has to decide to accept the item. Just more messy, more variables, and you are adding to the database problem by forcing players to have more vendors in game when say 1 or 2 might suit them just fine.

But then again, maybe their code is just so buggered that it doesn't really matter. Which wouldn't surprise me. Either way, to me, it is fairly stupid to claim this as a fix to a supposed database problem, and yet then change it so that to be able to effectively use what space you are given, you have to add more items into the database.

And that is fine, you don't have to agree with me as far as the merchant profession being a utility... but in my opinion that is what it is. It cannot stand alone. You have to have other professions just to grind it, and you don't even have to play it to be successful. That is a utility profession.

Any profession that does not actively require you to PLAY it to be successful.. has problems. And even with all the planned upgrades, it will just become even less playable because the only way you can 'play' a merchant right now is by spending hours stocking goods.

For the past few months I have been arguing for systems like commodities markets and trade missions between cities and planets and JTLS, etc.. Because then you would actually be DOING things as a merchant. Not just being a retail store clerk. To me.. a merchant is Jabba the Hutt... not some minimum wage earning stock boy.

But again, that is just my opinion. Hell, I mean if they are going to encourage professions that don't require you in game to be 'good' at... Why can't I load my T21 with some energy cells, and send it off to hunt for me while I am gone? That is essentially how Merchant works.

I don't always think of it as a 'one-location-merchant'. You might, I don't.

Just to point out some flaws with your shoe box metaphor.. you are forgetting all the checks it is constantly making TO THE PLAYER each time you put something up for sale. So not only are you checking the player, you are checking your shoe box as well. That makes for messy pointless code. Since you have to check the player for the merchant level, why not also store the item count on him as well so you only have to check one source. Also, a shoe box doesn't really work. Try maybe a well organized filing cabinet and you might find yourself closer, though even then it doesn't totally fit.

Under both systems the vendors need to update their sales information constantly, if only to keep track of money. So there is no difference if said merchant has different locations.

Like I said before, the way I would do it would allow players to have a hard limit of items they could put up for sale, based upon profession level, and they could spread it out amongst whatever number of vendors that are available to them in whatever number suited them best -- which from a player satisfaction standpoint is the important thing.

It would be fairly easy to code just because they would just need to create two varfields(one for the actual number of items for sale, and one for the hard limit) instead of one varfield for each vendor, and then a varfield for the merchant level/hard limit per vendor.. And it also prevents checking two different sources. To me, from code I have written, it is easier and more effective to just check one source for information instead of several different sources.

Basically, what it comes down to is the DEVs having a crappy code base, and making it worse by just putting a patch fix over it instead of completely rewriting it to be truly viable.

And while yes, you are somewhat correct about a lower limit on vendors making it easier to deal with that specific vendor, you aren't considering the fact that most people are not going to spread out their items all over the place when it is just going to take that much longer to travel and stock the vendors. Sooo. That means that the majority are probably going to have 12 vendors in a house and in that situation it is fairly pointless to try to claim it is 'helping' the database any.

Hehe. one-star me all you want. As per the latest update I read, I see I was on to something