Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant Top 5 Issues
My thoughts as a Master Merchant...
#4. I think the easiest step they could take to let merchants act as "resellers" for other artisans would be to give vendor owners the ability to grant "Administrator Access" on vendors the way people can grant admin on houses, harvesters, factories, and the like. For example, I make a vendor for my smuggler friend Han and name it Spice Reseller. My friend Han pays me a weeklyfee to retain admin rights on the vendor. He can then sell and retrieve items on this vendor just like he owned it, just like the bazaar. Sold items send the money to him, just like the bazaar. I can list items alongside his, and I get the money for my listings, just like the bazaar. Basically, this uses the existing "admin rights" code and the existing "galactic bazaar" code to achieve the effect we want.
If Han stops paying me, I can take him off the admin list. His items already in the vendor can still sell and pay out to him, but he can't list anything more. This is a simple business model that works as well for guilds and friendsas for businessmen.
Add to this the ability for me (owner of the vendor) to charge a "vendor listing fee" (just lke the bazaar does), and now Han's payments come automatically based on how heavily he uses my vendor. I wouldn't even mind if Han got reduced fees for having Business and Efficiency skills...
#5. I understand the intent of the item, but I don't know that I agree with it.
There are many reasons why it would be dangerous to just destroy someone's vendors or tents if they drop a skill (and skyrocketing the maintenance costs would probably have the same effect if they don't check maintenance daily). Better would be to simply prevent them from dropping the skill (though I don't think this would be an easy change to make to their existing system for dropping skills).
Now that Player Cities allow players to put down Cantinas, Hospitals, and other player-owned special buildings, should those buildings go away if the owner changes careers? If the Master Dancer puts down a theater, and then gives up dancing to become, say a Master Merchant -- a manager instead of a performer -- should she lose the building? I would say NO. She worked hard to get the building and to get the right to put it down. Why take it away? In the same light, why take away benefits that a merchant worked hard to get?
I keep my Merchant skills because they are useful to my long-term play. I like having reduced building costs, so I keep Efficiency IV. Believe me, the tentI own is not the incentive... Similarly, I like the flexibility to MOVE my 6th vendor around and change its costume. If I drop my skills, I am locked into my current positions and lose that flexibility that keeps a business vibrant.
Let'slook at it from another angle.A Master Weaponsmith can make a very nice gun, then drop WS and take up Rifleman and use that gun. He gets to keep the fruits of his labors even after he loses the skill, but he cannot make that gun again. A merchant is either (a) moving his vendors andusing hishigh-level skills frequently, or (b) not moving his vendors and thereby not really getting much "play" out of his skills.
I'd rather see the merchant skills contain daily incentives (like have Vendors branch affect how many items you can put in eachvendor, and Hiring affectvendor maintenance rates). With these ongoing benefits that affect a merchant's day-to-daybusiness, there is more incentive to keep the skill, and greater penalty to dropping it.
Every other artisan-based profession can make items and schematics that last after they drop their skills. An architect's buildings don't explode after he drops his skills. Why should Merchant be the only productive profession that loses everything they worked so hard to accomplish, when the skill goes away?
I'd much rather see incentives for keeping the profession, rather than penalties for dropping it. But then, I'd also rather see struggling classes get a boost than competent classes get nerfed.
Here are the current top 5 issues for the Merchant Profession and the
responses from the development team. Understand that the Top 5 had to be
turned in at the same time that we were transitioning correspondants from
Marqie to myself so I had to come up with the list based on the existing
posts in the forum instead of starting a new topic to identify them.
Several of the items are bugs including one that has already been addressed.
The current focus needs to be on identifying suggestions and ideas on how
to implement issues #4 and #5 below. I realize that we have gone over these
several times ourselves over the past few months but we need to come up with
a clear and concise list of ideas in one place that the development team can
work with.
1. Merchant XP is not being granted when the vendor is not loaded. Forcing
merchants to baby sit their vendors.
This has been resolved in the most recent publish by making Merchant XP
"catch up" when the vendor is loaded.
2. Items retrieved with the multiple select sometimes go missing.
This bug is being sent to QA for testing so a resolution can be identified.
3. Terminal vendors are not initializing properly.
We are currently researching this issue. Additional information about this
bug would be helpful in tracking it down and fixing it.
4. The lack of tools to make good business arrangements with Artisans.
We would love to have more detailed ideas about tools to help with these
arrangements.
5. Currently it is possible to give up practically all of your merchant
skills without having to give up the vendors that you received as a benefit
of those skills.
We would like to see some suggested changes that would address this
situation. We agree in principle that Merchant Skills should not be
surrendered without the loss of the benefits of those skills.
While I don't want to stifle any good ideas I would like to stress that Item #4 could get so complicated that we risk not getting anything implemented so I urge you to try to come up with changes that would fit into the current system that could help achieve our goal of making things easier instead of JUST asking for major overhauls to the system. Thas being said here are my ideas:
#4. The biggest roadblocks to the Crafter/Merchant relationship are the credits, and the ability of the crafter to get items to the vendor. To that end my suggestions:
a. Remove or greately increase the current 24 item limit that can be placed on the offer screen.
b. Allow the offer to include a suggested retail price. Allow the merchant to "buy" and "sell" the item in one click instead of having to buy it then put it up for sale.
c. Allow a Commission Entry on the for sale screen. (eg: User: Chatlana Commission: 400) the amount is sent directly to that user on the sale.. the rest goes to the owner of the vendor. In a perfect world this would be a percentage of the sale if that is possible.
#5. I know this will be controversial but my opinion is that merchant skills are precious. They belong to merchants. If you don't want to spend the skill points you shouldn't be allowed to keep the benefits. That cheapens the skills and is unfair to those who still have the skills points and it is game breaking in that it changes the whole point of the skill point system which is to force you to make tough choices about what you want to do. so my ideas are:
a. If you have only the right to handle 4 vendors then vendors #5 and #6 (in order of placement) become non functional. You can retrieve items, but you can't put more items on, you can't accept offers. A user accessing this vendor should get a message that the vendor is no longer working.
b. Merchant Tents: Any merchant tent owned by a Merchant without Efficiency IV should be charged a punative maintenance rate (200-300 per hour) this would encourage you to either get rid of your tent or get your skill back up to own it.
c. Hiring: Simular to Management if you have vendor that is above your current skill level (Protocol Droid) then that vendor should stop working properly. No Loss of items will happen, but you should NOT have the ability to keep using your vendor without the skill to keep him employed.
These are my ideas I look forward to seeing some of your own ideas on these questions.
Thanks Doc!
I hope that the fixes can be confirmed to be in by those on this forum. I've been a master merchant for so long, I can't help confirm the XP generation fix.
Regarding #4, I like the commission idea, but I find it too loose and therefore too subject to bugs/griefing/expolits. Instead of an open item offer limit, perhaps permissions on vendors would be helpful. This would also alleviate the problems with private PA and group vendors which offer discounts. It would work like this. There would be two lists the Merchant could access on the vendor: Offers and Shoppers. The default would be for All - meaning an open vendor, but the option would be there to add restrictions to Guild:<tag>, individual players and Faction:<rebel or imperial>. This would alsohelp the issue of those merchants who like to make custom orders available to only individual players. (A perfect solution to this issue would be to designate availability of individual sale items to individual players.)
Regarding #5...why does this even need discussion? You either have the skill/ability to manage x number of vendors or you don't. Of greater concern to me would be the empty or 'token' skill boxes that don't really separate Master merchants from those with all of Hiring and all of Management.
The only problem is that this would not solve dropping hiring.
Another way to do it would be to not allow the surrendering of a skill you are currently using. (if you have a protocol droid up you can not surrender master)
I will get back later with ideas for tools to enhance our trade.
My reason for choosing "disabling" was to prevent the loss of items. The Surrender prevention option is an idea I wonder if that would be a difficult thing to accomplish. But that would solve it for future offenders but allow everyone who has already done it to continue to profit. If we "disable" vendors that are being used by non merchants (or extra vendors that should be being used) then it cleans up the problem retroactively.
That is juts my thinking on it. I am fond of using punatively high maintenance as a tool though where it makes sense. This method is currently being used in cities where they city has exceeded its maximum number of structures for their size.
#4 ----
the problem as I see it is that there is no reason for people to really use merchants...
the merchant skill is EASY to get.
every house has atleast 1 vendor.
so if i want to sell say pet stims...there is no reaon for Stm Chemist #1 to give me good wholesale prices because he can just sell them himself and make more money...there isnt really a wholesale/retail in this game. everyone is tehir point of distribution. if you in a guild then you really only need one perosn to even have the skills to place many many vendors.
I also suspect that a good # of players have trained merchant, gotten teh vendors and listings and add barking and placed tents and then surrendered all the skills (see #5)... to be honest I am about to do the same.
which brings up another issue... our "skills" really arent worth the permant surrender of points...once you have 3-4 vendors of a cool species dressed up, you really dont need those skills...you dont use them, they just sit there idle. where as with otehr professions i actually use things in all the boxes nearly daily..its not a one time set up thing like most vendor option...
I would really like to see a revamp of the entire profession (it was thrown together at the last minute for release) and different skills granted. sorry but just being able to change the vendors shirts is not worth 9 skill points.
Sadly, I think merchant falls into the same catagory as politician. These are really more sidelines than professions and i dont think they need a skill tree based on the otehr professions.
I think it would be really cool if there was a new catagory of points that could be earned some way that would allow us to pick up added skills like merchant.
All in all i just dont think Merchant is a good profession...i love being a merchant but the skills availble really dont help...they basically just let us decorate our shop windows and dont give us an real benefits or advantages
For instance, you might make a rule like "If you hired a vendor at a level of Hiring you no longer possess, it stops working." Seems sensible enough, but in my own case, that hypothetical rule might harm me, unfairly, I would argue.
When I put down my current primary vendor, I had Hiring II, which allows you to choose the race and gender of your NPC merchant (or maybe I lets you do that? I forget.) I chose a Bothan Female. Later, I got rid of my Hiring skills. The above hypothetical rule would make my vendor stop working, even though it's not "wrong" for me to *have* a Bothan Female vendor. (And in fact, my 2nd vendor, created without Hiring skill boxes, is a Bothan Female.)
So even though the general principle is well-accepted (you shouldn't benefit from skills you no longer have), specific implementations of the principle across the skill boxes could get a bit tricky in the details.
SueDenim wrote:
#5 might have more tricky issues than you'd think at first glance.
For instance, you might make a rule like "If you hired a vendor at a level of Hiring you no longer possess, it stops working." Seems sensible enough, but in my own case, that hypothetical rule might harm me, unfairly, I would argue.
When I put down my current primary vendor, I had Hiring II, which allows you to choose the race and gender of your NPC merchant (or maybe I lets you do that? I forget.) I chose a Bothan Female. Later, I got rid of my Hiring skills. The above hypothetical rule would make my vendor stop working, even though it's not "wrong" for me to *have* a Bothan Female vendor. (And in fact, my 2nd vendor, created without Hiring skill boxes, is a Bothan Female.)
So even though the general principle is well-accepted (you shouldn't benefit from skills you no longer have), specific implementations of the principle across the skill boxes could get a bit tricky in the details.
SueDenim,
Yes I wouldn't ask that you be penalized for any vendor you could have possibly gotten at your current level. But if you can't have a "Gran" vendor at level I it is pretty obvious that you shouldn't be using it.
As far as skills that would make us more viable?
1) Don't let Business 3 have a vendor. I know a lot of people disagree with this, but it takes away business because it doesn't take a artisan many points to get it. Put vendors at Novice.
2) Give us the ability to sell an item to only one person. This takes care of custom orders so that nobody else buys them.
3) Give us the ability to discount based on certain rules, such as Rebels, Guild, Friends list, etc. This way we can set our prices to cost for guildies, and at +20% for Imperials!
4) Give us the ability to manage vendors remotely. This is just a wish, but I should be able to stock my stockroom with items, and have them stay there till I need to restock. This saves me from having to run off planet every day if I want to have a large business. But I know the devs would like to not see the vendors as storage, so this will remain a wish a very long time.
5) As a workaround for my last one, maybe give us the ability to stock from a distance for a fee. Would also save us a ton.
6) Travel discounts. This would be a two fold system. Would save us money traveling to our remote vendors, and would also set up a travel brokerage, passing on our savings to others.
7) More lots. So we can have decent shops around the galaxy.
8) List vendors on the bazaar for a fee. Would generate a lot of business.
9) Merchant only shops and furniture. I know they gave us the Merchant tent, but frankly in a city, it looks pale compared to the cantina, theater and med center. I would like a shop that I can display my wares in, as well as have vendors in, and that is unique to Merchant.
Those are just my suggestions/wishes. I'm not claiming to be right, but I have heard lots of good suggestions for Merchant, with very few things coming back to us. Many thanks to Doc for all your hard work on our behalf. Keep up the good work!
This is a sad list of mostly hotfix-able bugs.
Sorry but I am honestly disappointed.
ResourceMan wrote:
I thought we had submitted much better areas of improvement for the merchant profession. I know I saw much better lists of improvement elsewhere in this forum. Compared to some of the other professions, we sure are not going to progress much on this pass.
This is a sad list of mostly hotfix-able bugs.
Sorry but I am honestly disappointed.
Issue #4 and Issue #5 are MAJOR changes for the Merchant Profession. Yes 1-3 were bugs but I am certain the people who are having problems with 2 & 3 wouldn't want them over looked and just HOPE they get fixed. We can't succeed if our items are disappearing and our vendors aren't initializing. Those issues are properly in the top 5. You have 3 bugs and 2 major systems enhancement. One of which has the potential to revolutionize the Merchant profession by making it easier for merchants to do business with suppliers. The last item is a serious problem for merchants as it is making our profession a throwaway profession which is just not right.
Are you sticking with "Sorry but I am honestly disappointed" as your sole contribution to the issues we have been asked to flesh out?
The change to retrieving was great, but you are still required to jump through popups to sell items.
1) You should be able to relist items in only click and they should automatically go up for the previous listed price.
2) Make the interface more like a spreadsheet. You have an item column and a price column. The price column can be edited and you can do multiple edits before commiting your changes.
Example Column system for the stockroom
Item Current Price New Price Relist Recipient Percentage
Elite Carbine 9,000 10,000 x PlayerA 50%
Elite Carbine 9,000 10,000 x PlayerA 50%
Elite Carbine 7,000 10,000 PlayerA 45%
Elite Carbine 9,000 10,000
Laser Carbine 8,000 x
Laser Carbine 6,000
Laser Carbine 6,000 8,000 x PlayerB 25%
Click to submit
In the above you could edit the price in the new price column and you can select whether or not to relist the item in the last column. For the first laser carbine of course it would relist for the previous price if there is nothing entered. This way you can lay everything out you want to do and then commit the changes rather than click, click, click, click etc...
Merchant imo is all about that interface for the vendor so aside from bugs I would like to see features and improvments for merchant focused there. I also like the ideas of setting a recipeint for a percentage.
In the above example you could add a player name column and a percentage column. When the item sells the player gets the percentage of the sale. This would make consignment sales 1000 times easier and would facilitate merchants as centers of commerce for other players rather than a class everyone has to get some skill points in to sell their goods. Making you keep merchant skills to keep vendors is one side, but the other is making it easier for other players to make use of other merchants.
In fact you could unify all the interfaces into one, add a column to say whether an item is for sale, in the stockroom, or up for offer. One interface, no clicking from page to page, all there in front of you so you can manage the system like a proper buisness ledger.
You could add "sold" to the status column instead of emails (save on the email system load), and also allow players to download the information to local disk as a CSV file so that they could import it into a database or spreadsheet, or both.
You could also add a column denoting what vendor that item is listed on, or what vendor an item is up for offer. Then you could purchase and list items on remote vendors without leaving your shop. Now this would not allow teleporting of items, all offered items would have to go up on the vendor they are offered on, but it would save some travel, at least make it work on the same planet?
Just some ideas anyway.