Merchant Archive
Thread: Politician vs. Merchant
Will argue that merchant is also a skill point sink.
Only reason I would say politician sucks maybe a bit more... is because it is a money sink.
But merchant is definitely a skill point sink. You just set up your vendors... log on once in a while to stock your vendor, and the rest of the time you never have to think about it at all. That to me... isn't a worthwhile investment of my skill points just to gain a utility like vendors. And all the upgrades and enhancements to vendors that are requested... will just make it even easier to spend less time actually being a merchant. Which then just turns it completely into a mule/secondary account profession.
Merchant vs. Politician
Which One is the Bigger Skill Point Sink?
I have mastered the merchant profession and maintain a shop with vendors and stock. I served as a mayor, mastered the politician profession, and placed every possible city item a mayor can place at least once. To analyze the differences and similarities between the Politician and Merchant professions, I begin with a question: How many skill points does each profession take?
The answer: Merchant - 63 and Politician - 77
Right off we see that Politician takes up more skill points than merchant does. That would be all well and good, but what are these skill points used for?
Novice Politician grants the ability to Grant Zoning Rights, Manage Taxes, and Place City Hall. Any militia member can grant zoning rights and they don't have to have one whit of politician skill, just permission to do so from the mayor, who can't even grant this permission yet. Placing city hall takes no lots and is the same as dropping a house except that you have to name the city before you drop it, as opposed to naming a house after it's been dropped. About the only worth from this skill is the ability to manage taxes, which merchants can do in a sense during the business tree of Artisan by setting entrance fees.
In Novice Merchant, the skill points afford the user the ability to place a random NPC vendor as well as a total of 2 vendors. Already the merchant has the ability to have two locations to sell from if he/she so chooses, or the ability to separate their stock, or rent out a vendor to another player.
By moving up the skill trees, we see the leftmost column of politician is Fiscal Policy and for merchant it's Advertising. By the time the player reaches the 4th level of this tree in each profession, they can place their respective things on the map. The politician is now able to place a bank and a shuttleport, all of which are also dependent upon city size. A politician in a city that is Class 3 on a planet that is capped for Class 4 cities will never use the shuttleport placement ability, it is a wasted skill. The politician also can now set manufacturing and research center specializations for the city.
The merchant, however, now has the ability to set custom messages for his vendors to greet customers. This could include information about updates, new products for sale, a new shops that just opened, etc. The ability to change these messages continues only as long as the skill points are invested. If a politician leaves a city and a new one is in place, the new politician doesn't need the skill to have the city still use the bank or the specialization; the skill points are obsolete.
In examining the second tree, politicians with the 4th box of Martial Policy can manage militia, place cloning centers, place faction terminals, and set the clone lab and stronghold specializations. Stronghold is pointless unless the city is factionally aligned and every citizen is militia in order to defend a base. Without /citywarn, the militia are otherwise powerless except in instances of the GCW and stronghold actually only gives the same bonuses that a good squad leader would. As for faction terminals and clone labs, these are dependent on city size as well. About the only useful tool in this tree is managing militia, which comes from the very first box of the tree.
Meanwhile, the merchant has gained Efficiency, which reduces vendor, bazaar, and maintenance fees, thereby saving the merchant money. When the skill is gone, so are the savings. Also, a merchant with Efficiency 4 can place merchant tents, which only take 1 lot and are, by now, recognized everywhere as something that houses a vendor, regardless of if that vendor is on the map or not.
Continuing on, in the third tree, politicians gain the abilities to place mission terminals and recruit skill trainers as well as set more specializations. As with all the politician placed items and settings, these are in place and in effect regardless of the skill of any incoming mayor, making the need to retain the skill obsolete. A Merchant who drops Hiring, however, looses the ability to diversify their vendors, dress their vendors, and place new ones of like quality as the old ones if they need to. Perhaps my situation is not the norm, but I have had to replace vendors a few times due to moving, or even just aesthetic value, and without this ability would not have been able to do so and still have the visually appealing vendors I have. Also, sometimes, a truly good-looking vendor is born with simply hideous clothes. With Hiring 4, that is no problem.
Moving into the final tree of these professions, we find what I consider to be the most definitive difference in the professions. Both trees refer to placement. The politicians gain the ability to place statues, streetlamps, fountains, and all manner of gardens and the merchants gain the ability to place more vendors until they reach a maximum of 6. Again, as I have mentioned before, once these city structures are placed, even if a new mayor comes in who has absolutely no politician skill, these structures will survive and be a part of the city. Their placement is also dependant upon the size of the city, which could cap and remove even the option of placing them from a politician who otherwise would be able to.
With regards to vendors, it is known that the placement of vendors and then dropping the skills associated is not supposed to allow the player to keep those vendors. It is a known bug. Assuming things worked correctly, politicians would still be able to have the gardens and city beautification structures, even without the associated skillpoints, but merchants would not. This alone makes investment in even the fourth skill tree worthwhile for a merchant. Add to this the options to have multiple sales locations, diverse separation of stock, and renting of vendors to other players, and the merchant has a considerable investment by having these skillpoints used for this tree.
A final note about skill trees is the master box. In merchant, the player gains the ability to have items for sale at even less cost than they already does, which is already lower than the average player. Politicians get absolutely nothing other than a nice shiny new badge. This alone is offensive to those who master politician, but add in that politician mastery invests 6 skill points as opposed to merchant's 1 and it's nearly a slap in the face.
Furthermore, only select members of the community can be politicians, those being the ones voted in as mayors or in possession of a city hall deed and 10 friends or alternate accounts to vote for them and live in their city. Anyone can be a merchant if they so choose, its just a question of whether they want to invest their skillpoints in that particular profession.
Also, master merchant takes 92 skill points, not 63. You are forgetting the 15 to novice artisan and the 14 for the business tree. (and if you are assuming that they already have a crafting profession, you are making my point for me.. because no profession should REQUIRE another profession to be viable.)
And I don't think anyone is doubting that politician is a sink hole for skill points. Very nice post explaining why, but it is biased towards why politician is a sink hole. Let's look at it for merchant and assume that vendor poaching is fixed.
advertising. almost a complete waste. planetary registry being the only good thing. Barking is annoying to most customers, especially if you have more than one vendor barking. And reduced fees is a joke. Also, you register a vendor once? then its done until you make a new vendor, if you ever do.
efficiency. nice, slightly useful, but not really. You don't save enough credits for it to be like WOW. mainly because the initial costs aren't that expensive. reduced structure fees are nice, but again, not really worth it, and not active at all.
hiring. complete waste. does absolutely nothing but give you a few new vendors and lets you dress them -- which also 'steals' whatever you dress the vendor in. Again, very passive ability that is rarely used except in the initial set up.
management. probably the best tree, just because it actually gives you the vendors. But again, once you place them, you never use it again.
master merchant. more reduced fees. big deal. 1-2 less credits an hour. That just saves you it does.
In the end, the only thing you 'do' as a merchant is stock your vendor. Some people claim that you make deals and scout out partners and other junk, but anyone can do that. I could do that if I was a jedi with zero merchant skills. So I don't consider that a 'merchant ability'. The only thing you actually get to 'do' as a merchant is stock your vendor.
Anyways. point of this is... Merchant is a sink hole and utility profession. Even with upgrades and enhancements to the vendors themselves, it is not going to do anything to improve the profession itself. It will just make it even more of a mule/secondary account profession -- just like politician is. Which is sad to me.
For anyone that wand to sell something on a larger scale merchant is necessary. The price cap on the bazaar as well as the max 25 items limit, are drawbacks for anyone relying on it for all of thair business.
Standing at the starport shouting while having the products on you can be a hassle as well. The customers have to go the bank to with draw the cash if a secure trade are to be made. And then it will be more difficult to tempt them to buy an extra item or two.
AFK spamming is only useful is you have a vendor to refer to, granted you can make do with the one you get at artisan:buissness 3, but ones the item limit comes on vendors (and we all know it will) then will again limit you business.
I would say that what the merchant profession buys us is not as much an income positional, as if you was a master doc or tka, but time to get the products we wad to sell. Weather we hunt for them, make them our self, or go out and find things we can resell.
When I look at it. Merchant is not a skill point sink, it is something that it would be hard to do with out if you wand to run a business of any respectable size.
That do not mean that I think it have enough tools, or have enough benefits. It is definitely not some luxury profession that I just throw my Sp in to because I have nowhere else to use them.
DragonScout wrote:
Would agree that politician is a skill point sink.
Will argue that merchant is also a skill point sink.
Only reason I would say politician sucks maybe a bit more... is because it is a money sink.
But merchant is definitely a skill point sink. You just set up your vendors... log on once in a while to stock your vendor, and the rest of the time you never have to think about it at all. That to me... isn't a worthwhile investment of my skill points just to gain a utility like vendors. And all the upgrades and enhancements to vendors that are requested... will just make it even easier to spend less time actually being a merchant. Which then just turns it completely into a mule/secondary account profession.
hon, if you're a politician and is paying for most of the city's expenses, you should rethink the city over. player cities are communities, and your citizens need to be supportive.
Politicans are required to run cities. You take the skills you need to do the things you want to do with your city.
Merchant is required to run vendors. If you want to continue to run them you keep merchant. That is currently broken. It won't be much longer....then you can talk about whether the skills are useful or not.
Before you learn to criticize, learn to spell.
Nioked wrote:
I thinktherethey're both pretty useless.
p4Samwise wrote:
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