Merchant Archive

I'm just about to become master artisan and choosing a specialty craftingline. I love crafting and I love selling. So the Merchant profession as secondary profession seemed a sure thing for me. I've started to read on the profession and man... am I ever dissapointed.

Really, this profession is REALLY not worth the 63 skill points it eats up. Lets look at the 4 skill lines:

Advertising line: Unless the vendor barks over 7 miles away, I think this skill is useless. Who actualy entered a shop in the middle of nowhere because an NPC said : "Hey, you look naked, come buy my nice shirt". Actualy, I avoid those spammers. I would also be very interested in seeing how many people look for shops on the world map (or actualy know they can find some vendors on the world map)

Effeciency: A whole line dedicated to reducing costs of operation. This to me says: we lacked imagination on what to put there. Cost could easily been in line with Management . ex; Management 1 = +1 vendor and +1 effenciency. That would leave open a new line (Commerce operation: cantina, vendor tent (inside a city), armor shop, weapon shop, shopping malls, etc)

Hiring: Another thing that could have been put in Management. This skill line also lacks imagination. Maybe some more content could be added here

Management: if the line was a mix of effenciency, hiring and management, it would be worth the skill points. As is it now, it only allows 1 extra vendor per level ... 1!! An architect with those same skills points can build any house in the game. A merchant gets 4 vendors. wow..

Seriously, I really WANT to like this profession. I would be a great vendor. But the profession as it stands is not worth the precious skill points IMHO.

I think the correspondant issues are really just skimming what's wrong with this profession. A total revamping would be more like my #1 choice.

Please convince me otherwise.

Im getting ready to dump my merchant skills. This entire class sucks. I can get BETTER advertising on the message board and word of mouth. Saving money on auctions/bazar feesis laughable. The newer merchants arent important enough to waste the points on. Sell it back and pick up another crafting line or a combat line.

Maybe.. just MAYBE we can get some Dev love soon like the Ranger Class just did. I would LOVE for Holo to come in here and address the merchants and all the crap that is making this class worthless. But it aint gonna happen. We are probably dead last when it comes to help.

I do not want to give up on SWG, but so far I am almost a master merchant, and I don’t seem any reason to keep this profession. Merchant has got to be the most underdeveloped profession in the whole game. Thankfully we are seeing fixes to very old broken skills, but what we really need is a huge profession makeover. There is almost no utilized skill in this profession that sets us apart from an business 3 artisan. Many of the other professions are making strides at becoming unique, while the merchant is anything but unique.

The sad thing is my store is successful, but the skills in this profession are such a waste that it disgusts me that I have paid for them.

While I agree that the Merchant profession needs a great deal of help - I look at the points I am spending (at times it feels like wasting) as a long term investment.

I've found a few skills useful - Management up to 4 has given me 6 vendors that I can custom tailor for specific goods. Advertising 3 has dramatically increased the traffic coming to my store. Even custom ad barking (Adv 2) has increased traffic to my store since my vendor barks at people as they run by (not sure if that is as designed, though).

Maybe it's just me, but I feel a certain amount of pride running around town with my Merchant titles. Instead of being "Random_gunslinger_23,000" or "Bounty_Hunter_15,000" I'm kind of unique. I get /tells from people asking me to sell there goods or to enter partnerships almost daily.

The game is only two months old (and a year early from when it should have been released) so we need to give the devs some time. Eventually they will get to us and they will improve this class.

I reached master merchant a few days ago and I am already thinking about cashing all the merchant points back in. I can have as much success as a merchant with only business 3 than I do now with master merchant.

The only reason I have been keeping onto the points actually is that I am hoping with player cities they improve the merchant class as well. I believe that a lot of people are only holding onto merchant for this reason.

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Maybe it's just me, but I feel a certain amount of pride running around town with my Merchant titles.

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Artisan/Business4 gives you the same title as Merchant/Effecenecy4.

This really sums up just about all the fundamental problems Merchant has…… we are not much more than business 3 guys. This is a testament to the lack of development out profession has had. And it is ironic that even the titles reflect this problem

"Artisan/Business4 gives you the same title as Merchant/Effecenecy4." (Can't figure out how you guys quote yet )

I thought there wasn't a title at efficiency 4, but perhaps you are correct that the titles are the same. I know Business 4 is "Businessman" and almost any crafter knows that this is the Artisan Business 4 title.

Personally, I run with my Propagandist title which distinguishes me (and makes my name searchable under the merchant class). It may sound silly, but that silly tag above my head has given me several business contracts since people know that I am a "career" merchant. It is, admittedly, a small concession to this otherwise broken class - but the fact remains that it has opened several doors for my business.

Othewise, I agree completely we need more distinguishing attributes that will make the merchant unique and viable.

Our class is definitely the worst class all around. Sure other classes have their problems but at least they have some branches of their trees that are worth something. Our entire tree is worth nothing because of business 3.

That is plain and simple. Someone tell me what skill box in the merchant class is worth anything. The cost reducing is a joke. What is the point in having more vendors?(so you can place them on different planets and spend your whole playing day running around tending to them?)

I am going to tell you what needs to happen with the merchant class for it to be worth anything. When player cities are implemented, the DEVS need to do away with the bazaars in NPC towns. Make bazaars craftable by master architects and allow only master merchants to place them. Make it so master merchants can only place a small limit of bazaar terminals(1-3) and only on lots they own. It would be nice if they could be placed outside of a building in the space opposite the ramp(this feature would also help to distinguish which buildings are shops).

This feature has to be added with the addition of player cities. It is kind of stupid to just have bazaars in the middle of towns when you have an entire profession that could be benefitting from this feature. There are enough master merchants in the game now to make this work and if this feature was added, there would be a lot more people drawn to become master merchants.

HOLO, lets really make this a player economy. At the point things are now why in the hell is the worst profession in a game that is totally based on a player economy the merchant profession? Does this make any sense to you guys at all? It sure doesnt' make sense to me.