Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant's biggest issue: It Sucks.
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tacwraith
Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:58 am
#1
I used to be weaponsmith and artisan and some armorsmith a while back (like 3 months), and back then I never used a vendor or took up merchant since I would just take custom orders and hand deliver them (basically a guild&friends only crafter).
But the holo said merchant. So I began up the trees.
This proffession sucks. There's no other way I can put it.
To begin with, the means of getting XP is really screwy. From the very start you are apparently supposed to have a legion of die-hard friends to visit your house(s) and vendor(s) to get you xp AND/OR somehow blackmail/con/spam-advertise so you can get people into your shop.
This last part is exceedingly difficult, bordering the impossible. For the places that have high player traffic are literally walled around by player buildings. In my server, coronet (as im sure its the same in all servers), you run 900m away from the city, in any direction, and you will either hit the ocean or a house. It took me an HOUR of running around those houses to find a spot I could build in.. and this literally was past700mof pure houses. The player traffic, the chances of a player paying attention to your house and going in are so small you have a better chance of looting a holocron off a durni.
So far, if it wasn't for my guildmates, I would have only vendor per hour XP. And there's nothing more hateful than inconveniencing my guildmates to travel almost 2k away from coronet to take a peek, preferably every time they pass through the corellian capitol.
The tools given to the merchant as he ups the tree also do not help the merchant be a merchant. Whats this? hire better looking vendors? Heck, the bulky machine vendor does the same exact job as any npc vendor. Its fluff. Pointless fluff.
Reduced fees. huh? 2k creds on a vendor and it runs for 5 days. Im sure its worth 4 trees worth of skillpoints to save myself part of 2k credits.
additional vendors... now this helps the merchant. No complaints there.
planetary advertising... helps the merchant. lots. Too bad its on a high box, where the help it gives the merchant is already insignificant for xp purposes.
Tents. box4. Pointless. Tents should be in novice merchant. After all, a pauper merchant should be in a tent, a rich one in a 2 story shopping center.
premium auctions. oooh a little star in the bazaar. who cares?
ability to choose different vendor 'looks' and 'dress' vendors. And how exactly does this help profits or merchant xp gain? it doesnt. Pointless.
The merchant proffession should concentrate on bussiness, not barbie-play-house skills on the merchant trees.
the ability to make bussiness cards, discount cards, contracts (where player crafters can 'rent' a merchant's vendor for X time, merchant getting a % of profit per item sold), unique 'bussiness' houses (aka just like entertainers can put cantinas, merchants should be able to put shopping malls.. tents are the pauper start version of this), different kinds of Mercantilism (as in, different kinds of bussinesses. Delivery services via the use of 'Fred-Ex' droids (player goes to merchant's house, places items to 'send', pays delivery fee, sets 'target' player to be delivered to, and when the target player goes online a droid will pop up and deliver the items to his inventory) , money lenders (sets contract where player taking loan puts certain items or amount of credits as security fee, and sets a % per day of interest, agreed upon by both parties, the interest % is taken automatically from the bank account of person taking the loan per day. if no money in bank for interest daily payment for 3 days means the lender receives ownership of the 'security' fee/items.)
Abilities to advertise should also be big stuff in the merchant's skill tree. Allow a 'mailing list' vendor to be placed in merchant-only houses, that way costumers automatically get informed when you restock vendors.. or promotions you'll be running.
Brand Name Registration. When crafters/merchants join up to make a company, allow the factories to 'stamp' the item creator as being the name of the company that made it not the crafter's name. Just like people can register vendors in the map, this would be a brand name registration.
All this is lacking from this proffession. All this class is now is no more than a buy/sell/play house with vendors proffession.
BaudGnarly
Mon Jan 26, 2004 4:21 pm
#2
Very well said. I just hope the devs make these changes FIRST before removing all the vendors from people who do not have the skills to place them.
Valuthorax
Mon Jan 26, 2004 6:08 pm
#4
I disagree I fully stocked my vendor with high priced good items -- I advertised i hired players to advertise -- i used forums in game contests and quests -- I made master in NO time
the xp is like any weapon classs you cant master just using a cdef
Yolner
Mon Jan 26, 2004 7:51 pm
#5
Nice suggestions 
To BaudGnarly:
"Very well said. I just hope the devs make these changes FIRST before removing all the vendors from people who do not have the skills to place them."
Yes let the exploiters use our skills AND the new content with 0 merchant skills. Thats such a greatidea.Why dont we just give them 20 extra lots and a few million credits too.
DocSavag
Mon Jan 26, 2004 8:56 pm
#6
Yolner wrote:
Yes let the exploiters use our skills AND the new content with 0 merchant skills. Thats such a greatidea.Why dont we just give them 20 extra lots and a few million credits too.
Extra lots!!! WHere is that surrender button!!!?!?!?!?!
SkatanEric
Tue Jan 27, 2004 6:40 am
#7
i just hate that you already need to have some master'd crafting skill to even think of trying to master merchant. Unless of course you already have an army of friends or a guild of good buddies. The only XP we actually have control over is the vendor / hourly xp. Thats it. Everything else is based on other players that happen to some to your house/houses. I myself am a solo player. No guild ... a few friends (RL friends that play every now and then) and the oh so fun Master Bio-Engineer. To bad fishing is long and boring and milk is stupidly rare or i could possibly make some money. Sure i can sell pets .. but everyone is looking for like a lvl 20 pet with 100% kinetic defense and 2000k HAM. Pet stims are just dumb seeing any medic can heal pets. Very few people depend on pet stims. With resources shifting every couple days its hard to keep tabs on anything good. I am a casual gamer .. not hardcore ... so i cant sit somewhere for hours harvesting and most people want an arm and a leg for resources and I'm already a quadrapelegic. So i sit around ... begging people to help and visit my shop ... my vendor with a few stupid items ... and i wait. Boy this profession is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! (sarcasm off)
RazorBluewing
Tue Jan 27, 2004 8:22 am
#9
SkatanEric wrote:Pet stims are just dumb seeing any medic can heal pets. Very few people depend on pet stims.
Pet stims work on a different counter than regular medicine. You can do both at the same time. Also pet stims heal mind as well as health/action.
I don't depend on them, but I don't go hunting without them. When something is beating the living poo out of your blocker, you don't want it finishing and chasing you down. Also, the downtime between fights is cut way down.
As for the main topic of this thread, hear! hear!
I am the merchant person for a group of friends (read: a guild without anybody wasting 9 slots to get a happy name over our heads and NO OTHER BENEFIT) so I need more than a few vendors and planetary advertising. I keep hoping that they will add new stuff to the class but am also thankful that what is there works currently. If they add some type of contracts or vendor sharing it would make my life easier. Maintenance cost savings is a joke (too small to be much help) and doesn't even make much sense (you are negotiating a better deal from a machine??). Put the negotiating skills to work! Maybe being able to buy from player vendors at a reduced cost...
Manipulative
Tue Jan 27, 2004 2:08 pm
#10
Oh my this is good. This is really good. Personally, merchant seems like it's only25% of a profession. If merchant skill boxes granted the abilities you speak of, then it just might bea real profession.
maddogs
Tue Jan 27, 2004 3:29 pm
#11
tac lol fanshy i see you here
i to agree with ya im going up merchent i have a bot thats a master wep/armor smith
and its taking me for ever to lvl were i can esly lvl threw any other profesions in a week or less it needs to be changed i advertis all the time but all i get is hate tells and i dont blam them spaming **edit** in the strees is just plan anoiying and as for haveing freinds come and buy/look well all my freinds quit when decay came in
then how it randomly gives you 5000 xp out of no were is really anioying or even wors gives you no xp all day no matter what you try
but its not only the xp that hurts its the hole sytm thats all weird merchents get venders that talk wow and less matinesslike you sed 2k maybe and get to play dress em up but all i realy need is one vender to sit in the corner and sell stuf or to drop off a order maybe its just me but i think this profesion needs a big boost
Tarnak_Archvold
Wed Jan 28, 2004 3:15 am
#12
The most properly reason why you all dislike the merchant profession so much, is because it is NOT and achiever minded profession. It is a profession for a socialise or a explore (you know from the "battle test").
You can affect you XP gain, but only by being a merchant. If you sell products that people wand at prices lower then the competition you will attract a customer base. Having your vendors outside several different NPC towns will further help on this.
Yes the merchant profession could use some work, like most professions in the game. Not because it is not easy to grind throe on your way to Jedi, but because it is the only profession that deals directly with the crippled player economy.
Remember you only have to get a total of 400000 xp, not a lot compared to BE or WS.
You can affect you XP gain, but only by being a merchant. If you sell products that people wand at prices lower then the competition you will attract a customer base. Having your vendors outside several different NPC towns will further help on this.
Yes the merchant profession could use some work, like most professions in the game. Not because it is not easy to grind throe on your way to Jedi, but because it is the only profession that deals directly with the crippled player economy.
Remember you only have to get a total of 400000 xp, not a lot compared to BE or WS.
tacwraith
Wed Jan 28, 2004 8:24 am
#13
tarnak, the issue is that merchant itself receives only 2 skills which do help a merchant in the bussiness. the additional vendors and planetary ad. the rest is just fluff that does nothing.
the xp grind is plain dumb. the only thing you can do is give away things and macro-bark in starports and beg your friends and guildmates to go visit your shops.
I have three houses in different planets, each stocked with 1 credit for 2X 31% powerups or 1k creds for a crate of the same powerups. So far only my guildies go there regularly...part because they are helping me, part because its basically a very good powerup giveaway that helps them. But to be able to reach a big majority of clientele, the only thing that works is location of shop. For those getting into bussiness so late after the housing patch, its practically impossible to find a lot to build in near an npc city, for they are walled by houses, most times these houses can be 700m deep.
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