Merchant Archive
Thread: Getting npc merchant and surrendering merchant class... ?
Hey I am doing this right now for a couple reasons.
1. paying maintenence on a droid vendor based on how much the cost of the items in it are is stupid. It needs to be a flat maintenence rate just like everything else. Even on NPC vendors this should be the case. You're paying them an hourly rate.
At the most they should make a commision. Not be paid for showing stuff that's not being sold...
2. Because it makes sense. I mean if I grind up to architect, make myself a house, and then surrender architect that stays too right? Makes sense that a vendor would. Especially since every other perk you need to keep the merchant class to have (ad tree resetting, etc). I think that's good and helps benefit those who keep merchants.
But I also think classes such as smuggler and BE should have the ability to put vendors and surrender the skills or just get a basic random npc vendor within their class. They're the only 2 hybrid crafting classes and point cost is a real stretchand I simply cannot justify the time requirement to deliver spices to everyone by hand or revisit the bazaar every 20 minutes to keep it at 25 items....
Anyhow, thoughts? Observations? I want to know if people get mad at this and are trying to get it nerfed before I get my hopes up on possibly having several "shady characters" around that peddle my illegal goods =).
People have evidently been disgusted enough to one-star you but didn't answer your question, so I will...
This is indeed a bug. Crafting something then surrendering a skill does not destroy a real object. A house deed can be used by anyone regardless of skill or profession. A vendor, on the other hand, is a skill related object and once you surrender that skill you should not be able to use the NPC vendor.
That it doesn't disappear is a bug that has been mentioned by us for some time. I have bugged it multiple times myself and will continue to do so until it is fixed.
The Merchant profession will live and die by two things: The availability of vendors to Artisan through Business III and the way Vendor fee's are determined so that Master Merchants can sell higher value objects with less fee that Novice Merchants. If neither one of these are met, then the Merchant profession will not be viable and we will see an utter lack of Master Merchants as people free up unproductive skill points to be able to use them elsewhere.
You are free to exploit this bug, but I would be really careful. Everyone takes a dim view of exploits that hurt PC's or professions and you could find yourself without every item on that vendor if and when a fix is put into play by the Dev's.
Vaylis Arturin, Mercenary Master Merchant-Master Artisan-3/0/3/3 Armorsmith-Pistoleer, Starsider, Naboo
How could merchants be anything but annoyed with someone who is essentially stealing our business? You dn't have merchant skills you shouldn't be using the tools we have to do business. If Merchant could go though the trouble to get Slicing skills and then give them up but still be able to slice weapons with the tools they created while they had the Slicing skills Smugglers would be marching on SOE headquarters.
Thank you for your input =). Given your accusitory tone through your whole post I feel obligated to respond.
A. It only takes on person to 1 star a post.
"That it doesn't disappear is a bug that has been mentioned by us for some time. I have bugged it multiple times myself and will continue to do so until it is fixed."
B. Please point me to the thread where a dev has said this is a bug. Because it doesn't work the way you want it to does not necessarily make it a bug. Whether it's bad design or not is a whole different conversation.
"You are free to exploit this bug, but I would be really careful. Everyone takes a dim view of exploits that hurt PC's or professions and you could find yourself without every item on that vendor if and when a fix is put into play by the Dev's."
C. This is why I'm posting here. If I thought it was an exploit and I was doing something wrong I wouldn't be advertising it on the boards. If I thought it was an exploit and I advertised an exploit on the boards I would expect to get banned.
By design I have also read by the devs that merchants were originally the only ones that should have multiple houses. That others could get more was supposedly a bug. But they have no intention of changing it now.
What I'm wondering is if this was by design or not and if they plan on changing it. I can understand why many merchants would not want to have this be the design, but if the devs aren't going to change it (which they should give some indication) you should spend your energy thinking of things to help the class have benefits instead of kicking a dead horse. I don't know either way which is part of the reason I'm inquiring here.
If they don't change it I'll quit being a merchant. Plain and simple. What is the point of having a skill that other people are enjoying the benefits of without using the skill point?
Houses are a bad example there is no multiple house skill. There is a skill that gives you an NPC vendor. If you don't have the skill you shouldn't have the vendor. There really is no fair way to allow a non merchant to have an NPC vendor and have that be a benefit of holding a skill in merchant.
List out all the skills in your profession that you are keeping. Now try to imagine that I have them without having to hold on to those skills. Would that be fair? No.
One thing I'll mention is I would gladly give up my merchant to do business with someone who was in the merchant class to be a merchant for real if the devs ever gave you all tools to do this in a reasonable manner.
That is, if you could set me as a "supplier" on your vendor, and I could put things up on your vendor for a price, and when it sold I would get that minus a "commission" for your sales front.
Short of this type of setup, I would be depending on meeting a merchant somewhere, trading him all my junk (or putting it on offer which would be hard since my 25 slots are all used up on the bazaar) and hoping that he buys it and then sets it up for resale, yada yada.
It's just a logistical nightmare to deal with a class that should be a class on its own.Very few pure merchants exist that I've seen. Partly because it needs more, but partly because of the logistics.
Currently if you want merchant benefits for your goods, you almost have to be crafter + merchant. That really is a pitiful option for the smugglers who have to spend 64 points just to reach novice and even worse for bio-engineers.
So I guess this post is turning into a **please give merchants the logistical tools to be the sole merchants** post. Short of the class getting those tools I will continue on my plan until I see a reason to do otherwise or a merchant who I'm "stealing business from" offers to take the business and deal with the logistical nightmare of putting up my goods for sale and compensating me.
"If they don't change it I'll quit being a merchant. Plain and simple. What is the point of having a skill that other people are enjoying the benefits of without using the skill point?"
This is really where I am coming from I think. I keep up with dev posts for the most part, and as I have never read anything that indicates it's going to change I'm simply agreeing with you here. What is the point of keeping the skill if there are others who get the same benefit without spending the points? None. So I'm not going to punish myself over a bad design.
I can't in good conscience give up a skill and keep using the benefits of that skill. If I was giving up my merchant skills I would remove my vendors first, and I expect others to do the same. Anything else is cheating the merchants who are still holding their skills. I will continue to lobby for a fix to what I consider to be one of the biggest and most well known exploits in the game. It is damaging my chosen profession.
Well, while I agree with you that only merchants who have the skills should get vendors, I do not agree that it is an exploit. I have yet to find any indication by the devs that it is exploit, and it's not quite as black and white as me using eye shot after surrendering bounty hunter. It's a lot closer to the gray area than that. You're creating something, and so it falls inbetween a skill like slicing and creating something from a schematic like a house.
The only thing that makes it like a skill is that you can't trade the vendor or sell it once it's "hired" or created.
The 2 things that make it more like the house which you get to keep after surrendering architect is a: it is something that goes in your inventory and then is dropped and utilized just like a house or harvester. b: you get to keep it after you surrender the skill.
Do I think it's dumb? Sure. Do I think it's an exploit? No. And therefore I'm going to not kick myself or punish myself because the game isn't designed the way I want it. I'm going to live with the current design and help lobby for the changes the merchant class needs to come into its own.
-"Some people are always tryin to swim against he current"
You keep using the house example which is a bad example because ANYONE can place a house deed.
I'll give you a better example:
Scouts can create camps. I created a camp as a scout. Surrendered the skill. Then I tried to use the camp I had made before that (it was in my inventory) and I got a message that said "You lack the necessary skills to use this item".
Creature Handlers who train a high level creature then give up their skills cannot call the creature they trained..why? Cause they don't have the necessary skills to control that creature even though it still remains in their inventory (data pad)
If I am a medic and I make stimpacks and then give up all my medical skills. I can't use the stimpacks...why? Because I lack the necessary skills to use them.
Anovice musician can build a slitherhorn. But if you give up Novice musician you can no longer play the horn you created.
Give me one legitmate example where a skill gained by a profession (other than Merchant) can be surrendered and you can sill use an item that ONLY your profession can use.
That's all I want from merchant skills is the same treatement other professions get.
It most likely is a bug...and knowignly using a bug to your advantage makes that bug an exploit...
Use it all you want..but when they do fix this bug and you lose your items on your vendor because it goes POOF...you should not complain at that point...It is the gamble that you took.
As merchants we are pretty low on the get fixed food chain 
but it will eventually get fixed (as will vendor costs overall)...
Well, as of now I have not surrendered the skills yet =). But let's address a few things:
It's unfair. Everyone can do it, so I'm not quite sure where that comes from.
It's a bug and an exploit. Again it is not clearly either. Logically it seems like it is. But allow me to point out using a schematic in a factory and setting it to above 100 items was an exploit. The devs made that very clear that it was a bug. How many of you did it? And go read the latest news. It was a bug that people used for a long time and finally became normal practice.
Exploiting implies that you're doing something that most people cannot. It implies an action that uses methods not well-known to gain an advantage. As they let bugs sit and fester they turn from exploits to normal practice.My mind set is like the above stated. Why should I waste points when all the people I'm competing against in the market don't have to?
Why should I sit around competing in the heavily populated markets due to the way vendors are so readily available ... then go into combat and have to be inferior to people I combat against because they surrendered their vendor points and got combat abilities?
If people could get master smuggler, then surrender smuggler altogether and still slice things just as well as a master would I blame them for doing it, this far after the game has released? No. I would not surrender the class, either because that is what I want to play. I would blame the devs and lobby for change.
But there is also a part of me that wonders and thinks maybe they should make this the way it is by design. That every class with a crafting ability should have a vendor-ability inherant in the class. And that the merchant class should be given alternate unique abilities as compensation. And maybe that's how it will turn out. Again, lack of any indication from the devs leaves us to only do what we think is fair.