Merchant Archive
Thread: Vendor Maintenance Fees coming – your input request
Before we swing the proverbial nerf bat, we want to get your input on this issue. ffice
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All vendors will soon require maintenance fees. The game is in need of more money sinks and the vendor is an appropriate place to put that because it effects the economy in the transaction phase (meaning money is taken out of the system as it is being transferred around the system). This also addresses an imbalance we had with some NPC vendors requiring maintenance while others didn’t. Currently all NPC vendors basically don't charge maintenance properly whereas Droid vendors and Terminal vendors do. The fix will make NPC vendors properly charge the maintenance they should have been charging since day 1 just like Droid and Terminal vendors are currently doing now.
Unfortunately (for some of you) this change is scheduled to happen. We will still keep an ear out for your debate on it, but expect it in an update.
Where we are asking for your input is, given that there will be maintenance, how much is appropriate? How much will give us an appropriate drain without crippling any players?
We are currently planning for the formula to be:
Total Listed Value of Items on Vendor / 1000 every 45 minutes
What do you feel it should be at? How much should it cost to maintain your vendors? (answering zero is the same as not answering the question at hand by the way
).
Because there is very little current support in the way of advertising, what you proposed will make it very difficult to post big ticket items -- the variable portion of cost needs to be based on dollars sold vs inventory stored.
Vendors should definately cost more than they do, but here are a few suggestions:
Assuming only a time-based cost:
1. Make thefee based off of an hour, not 45 minutes. That makes it easier for me to calculate how many hours a certain amount of money will take.
2. Make the efficency skills in the merchant tree have a SIGNIFICANT effect on the maintaince. Perhaps as much as 50% at Mastery levels. Remove the bazaar reduction (as that is pointless) and make all 4 of them provide increasing levels of reduction.
What I would prefer to see is a very minor time-based fee (perhaps 1 to 10% of what you are proposing) and then a steep sales tax. That will allow me to keep a large selection of items on my vendor for potential buyers. I would accept a 20% (or more)sales tax to avoid a serious time-based fee. Ideally, I would like to see no time-based fee at all, but have a serious sales tax.
Instead of looking at it in terms of maintenance, how about make it more realistic...
Commissions....
You pay your vendor (or your vendor automatically takes), say 10% on all transactions. Your vendor doesn't do his job (sell/buy an item) he doesn't get paid.
I know this won't help with those who abuse vendors as additional storage, but, that is what creative game developers get paid to do
Lol, indeed, fix them first (advertising still not working, sometimes hard to retrieve items, etc.), and then think of putting a maintenance fee on them... >
By the way, it doesn't cost anything curently to advertise them on the Planetary map, which renders the Merchant skill Advertising IV useless. Also, please work on a way to tell people they can find player shops that are advertised on the Planetary map because the vast majority of them don't even know!
Keep up the good fixing guys...
32 credits a day per 1K isn't too bad. IF and Only IF people actually come to you vendor.. I've had item get pulled from my vendor automagically (after 7 days) 2 times already..
just fustrating heh.. then again i am like 3.5km from the closest shuttle. I'm working on it..
Having high vendor fees hurts the dabbler, casual gamer, and non-master crafters more than anything else. Coming from someone who is one of those, the current droid fees are way too much.
Being able to afford a house, maintain harvesters, buy power, etc is enough, IMHO.
Something along the lines of: Total Listed Value of Items on Vendor / 100000 every 45 minutes would be more appropriate.
Basically, I think having a lower fee would balance out with the master/prolific sellers putting more on their vendors.
If you want to add a money sink, reduce Insurance Fees 90%ish so EVERYONE can afford to use them. I guarantee you if they were around 2k per insure all instead of 20k, it'd be used religiously. Cheaper fee = over all more users = bigger money sink overall.