Tailor Archive
Thread: Vendor changes: a full report & feedback requested
I will be editing this message as I post new things to the correspondent forum, etc.
These changes are not set in stone
From the TC patch notes
These are the Test Center Patch Notes and are subject to change before publish 10 is pushed to live servers.
From "in development" - Holobits
TH WROTE: "I've been reading the feedback with regards to the Merchant/Vendor changes. On one hand, merchants need to be the vendor wranglers. There is no getting around tying vendor limitations to Artisan/Business skills and Merchant skills. On the other hand, I've been speaking with the team on the item number restrictions and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to get those limits raised to a suitable level.
(Okay, feel a little better?)
Patch Notes (copied from TC launchpad)
Bazaar/Vendor
- Vendors that are empty will no longer be visible on the planetary map (Ctrl-V).
- Vendors that have been left empty or abandoned for two weeks will be deleted (owner will receive a warning message prior to deletion).
- Email notifications have been added to advise vendor owners of the status of their vendor.
- Fixed a bug that caused items to sometimes vanish from vendors.
- Vendor item limits will now be based on player skill. (Players over either limit will not be able to add new items for sale on vendors).
Vendor Limits
Artisan Business 3 Get (1) Vendor, that will hold (50) items, for a total of (50) items for all vendors
Merchant Novice Get (2) Vendors, that will hold (60) items, for a total of (120) items for all vendors
Merchant Management 1 Get (3) Vendors, that will hold (70) items, for a total of (210) items for all vendors
Merchant Management 2 Get (4) Vendors, that will hold (80) items, for a total of (320) items for all vendors
Merchant Management 3 Get (5) Vendors, that will hold (90) items, for a total of (450) items for all vendors
Merchant Management 4 Get (6) Vendors, that will hold (100) items, for a total of (600) items for all vendors
Merchant Master Get (6) Vendors, that will hold (110) items, for a total of (660) items for all vendors
Tailoring Feedback
Which changes do you dislike and why?
How will these disliked changes affect your playstyle as tailors?
Globally, how will these disliked changes affect the economy at large?
What changes do you support and why?
Keeping in mind that the devs consider these changes beneficial, what counterproposals do you have.
How would your counterproposals affect crafters in general, tailors specifically, and the market at large?
Also feel free to comment on the merchant forum in this thread (original thread poofed so please re-post if you've already commented).
If you're curious about my opinion:
1. I find the vendor limits problematic:
a. They are too low for suitable tailor stock. The limits are too low across the board.
b. No dedicated merchant will want to stock a 110 tailored items which are low profit when he can stock 110 armor/weapons and get a cut of that.
c. Master merchant gets a lousy extra 10 items per vendor which is not enough of a perk for having a master profession.
d. I find a better solution to be "aggregate limits" where you get a total number of items based on skill and you can allocate among your vendors as you see fit, because it's difficult to categorize based on even stock levels among all vendors.
2. The 2 week timer is problematic because it bars the casual player from being able to effectively be a crafter. It seems unfair to impose an addict-like play schedule on crafters. My feeling is a better timeline would be 30 days, because items stay listed for 30 days.
3. I like that empty vendors will be removed from the planetary map, because that was just annoying. I also like that empty vendors will eventually be removed because it's impossible to get rid of abandoned vendors at the moment, and if a vendor is truly empty, the merchant loses nothing by the vendor's deletion.
From the Correspondent Forum: what I wrote
(Please keep in mind that a lot of these posts were "comment quickly" and "on the fly" sort of deals so there are a few mis-wordings and whatnot - /cringe. Oh yeah, and I was taking the BAR or on VACATION because... these things can never happen when I'm unbusy)
On limits (edited for repetition and pieced from a few posts considering I tend to hammer on the same points over and over)
Okay, time out... about the item limits.
1) In January you said 150 items, and everyone pitched a fit. A FIT! And we said we'd scale to merchant level. I think the players would have been happier with the 150 items across the board than this obscene nerf.
2) I fail to see how this number helps master merchants. An extra 10 items per vendor? Oh be still my beating heart? That's an extra 60 items and a mute droid. I'm underwhelmed.
3) How does that help master merchants at all? How does it help the class become more viable when you only have to take ONE LINE of merchant to get the full benefit of number of vendors and number of items.
I'm disappointed because I don't feel this reflects at all what Doc and the merchatns have been saying all along, and I think they have been quite reasonable.
A tailor can barely keep decent stock with 500 items. This is going to hit like a brick because you force tailors to become merchants - because no merchant is going to dedicate 3+ items to tailored goods which are slow-moving and low profit margin.
This change is going to hit the tailors like a brick and likely run a bunch of them into retirement. No, that's not a threat, it's just the reality of a class that has gotten no new content in months and has just been nerfed hard-core. It won't be fun and it won't be worth it to a lot of them.
Yuck. This is over the top and unnecessary.
...
You're alienating the crafters by taking away their ability to be casual players. We don't have the time or the inclination to spend eons babysitting our vendors. On a personal note, I'm considering taking down my vendors completely, because this makes the game completely UN FUN for me and many of the tailors.
As for the tailors - they will go out of business. 500 is where a good stock starts. You need to have a significant amount of merchant to pull that off. They will have to take on merchant themselves becuase no reseller will want to devote 5 vendors to low-priced slow-moving hard-to-stock goods. The tailors will drop off dramatically.
...
Already crafters must babysit houses, factories, harvesters and vendors, which consistently drain credits, while gunbunnies can be put on ice for months without losing any sort of property. Essentially this change skews the balance even more in the direction of forcing casual players to abandon crafting b/c it is too much of a committment.
...
ITEM LIMITS:
Tailors are going to get hit hardest by this change, because they have to keep a lot of stock on hand, and it doesn't really sell that fast. A tailor has to keep many colors in stock, with the expectation that he or she will sell under 10% of stock on any given day. That's just the reality of the profession that is based on variety.
AGGREGATE LIMITS:
I would really like to see aggregate vendor limits. If you have 6 vendors, you usually organize them by theme. It's really hard to foresee fluctuating stock levels, and hard to figure out what categories are going to be bigger or smaller.
Also, stock levels will fluctuate by goods sold. For a dedicated merchant, he might want to have 1 vendor for each type of good - and the armor vendor might have 100 items, his architect vendor with 50, and the clothing vendor with 500, and he should be able to do that without having to use 2 vendors on clothing. It would be part of the strategy of the merchant to figure out where to put his goods.
....
8/12
The limit is way too low for tailors who are master merchants. Many of them are quitting. Tailors have 150+ schematics and 255 colors. You need a large stock to have a decent selection. Most tailors feel that 500 is an adequate stock, but no lower.
We need to have variety to be able to sell. Period. And because we need to stock so many items, no dedicated merchant is going to sell tailored goods, because he would have to use at least half his vendors to keep a reasonable stock. So we tailors are forced to be master merchants, and even at that level, we still can't keep the stock we want.
This has nothing to do with a tailor monopoly and everything to do with the fact that tailor is a different animal. We don't stock a ton of items because we're lazy or don't want to login. We do it because we stock one of everything that we think will sell. And every day we have to replace exactly what sold. This isn't a case of putting up 500 harvesters and walking away.
What the tailors have suggested is to have a vendor limit OR a money cap. That way low-profit, low-price sellers (such as tailors) will be able to compete with those who sell a few expensive items, whom the nerf is not affecting as much.
On 2 weeks
I think one week is too short. What if you go on vacation.
I think a month would be better because your vendor items stay up for a month so it seems incongruous that a merchant can keep stuff on the vendor for a month, but must access every week.
Merchants need to go on vacation too. I want to be able to go off for 2 weeks and not have all my vendors go poof or whatnot.
...
Of course, things can all drop to stockroom in a day, and I could have something (*cough* bar exam *cough*) that kept me away from my vendors for a week.
I'm concerned about keeping this accessible to the casual player. Otherwise the casual player is forced into a combat profession because those professions can be "put on ice" for long periods of time without any detriment.
Message Edited by NJ62 on 08-09-2004 11:33 PM
Message Edited by NJ62 on 08-10-2004 09:33 AM
Message Edited by NJ62 on 08-12-2004 09:35 PM
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 08-09-2004 10:34 PM
- Professions like tailors to list many small-ticket items.
- Professions like architects and armorsmiths to list a reasonable number of large ticket items.
This discourages:
- Business III dabblers from storing items in packs that cost more than 100k. After all, would you feel comfortable placing your vaulables inside of a pack that can be purchased by anyone for a mere 100k?
- People from grinding to management IV, placing all the vendors they want, and then dropping their skills. They'll be left with somewhat useless vendors that can only hold 100k of stock at the very most.
You kill a number of birds with one stone this way. It just makes far more sense than limiting things solely on the number of items.
A change like this would be very tailor-friendly and would minimize the impact on professions that sold big ticket items. Tailors, architects, and weaponsmiths may have to restock more frequently, but then again, they make significantly more income to begin with. By my count, with a 10 million credit ceiling, an armorsmith would be able to stock 25 complete suits of armor if they were priced at 500,000 credits each.
I honestly don't think that the devs really mind vendors that have thousands of items on them, but only as long as they're items that people would like to buy. Well-stocked vendors with real merchandise are good for the game. Crafters and merchants are earning their living, and adventurers are able to find the tools they need to play the game. The squatters who grind their merchant skills, place vendors, drop their skills, and store thousands ofitems ontheir for 99999999 credits are ruining the system. This change would prevent that. And in the worst case where someone would store a backpack on a vendor for 10 million credits, at least they'll have paid their dues by dedicating points to master the merchant profession. But when it comes down to that, they'd have been better off storing things in a factory. In this scenario, the only reason to learn merchant skills would be tosellthings.
How will these disliked changes affect your playstyle as tailors?
Globally, how will these disliked changes affect the economy at large?
I really like this idea. I think this would bea much better compromise to the vendor limits.
Alciril wrote:
Yap! I also like your take on things, NJ! But I think that putting a cap on the aggregate listed value of everything might be a better solution than simply raising the item limit. Not all items are equal. Limiting by the total number of items justdoesn'tdifferentiate between a 750 credit shirt and a 1 million credit weapon. I posted this on the big merchant thread, but I'm sure it's been lost to the spam:
I'm not a big fan of item limits as a restriction. As some people have suggested, why not give vendors a maximum saleable limit for all items being listed? For example, let's consider setting the limit at10 million credits for master merchants and 100k for business III. This allows:
- Professions like tailors to list many small-ticket items.
- Professions like architects and armorsmiths to list a reasonable number of large ticket items.
This discourages:
- Business III dabblers from storing items in packs that cost more than 100k. After all, would you feel comfortable placing your vaulables inside of a pack that can be purchased by anyone for a mere 100k?
- People from grinding to management IV, placing all the vendors they want, and then dropping their skills. They'll be left with somewhat useless vendors that can only hold 100k of stock at the very most.
You kill a number of birds with one stone this way. It just makes far more sense than limiting things solely on the number of items.
A change like this would be very tailor-friendly and would minimize the impact on professions that sold big ticket items. Tailors, architects, and weaponsmiths may have to restock more frequently, but then again, they make significantly more income to begin with. By my count, with a 10 million credit ceiling, an armorsmith would be able to stock 25 complete suits of armor if they were priced at 500,000 credits each.
I honestly don't think that the devs really mind vendors that have thousands of items on them, but only as long as they're items that people would like to buy. Well-stocked vendors with real merchandise are good for the game. Crafters and merchants are earning their living, and adventurers are able to find the tools they need to play the game. The squatters who grind their merchant skills, place vendors, drop their skills, and store thousands ofitems ontheir for 99999999 credits are ruining the system. This change would prevent that. And in the worst case where someone would store a backpack on a vendor for 10 million credits, at least they'll have paid their dues by dedicating points to master the merchant profession. But when it comes down to that, they'd have been better off storing things in a factory. In this scenario, the only reason to learn merchant skills would be tosellthings.
MayRee wrote:
I really like this idea. I think this would bea much better compromise to the vendor limits.
Alciril wrote:
Yap! I also like your take on things, NJ! But I think that putting a cap on the aggregate listed value of everything might be a better solution than simply raising the item limit. Not all items are equal. Limiting by the total number of items justdoesn'tdifferentiate between a 750 credit shirt and a 1 million credit weapon. I posted this on the big merchant thread, but I'm sure it's been lost to the spam:
I'm not a big fan of item limits as a restriction. As some people have suggested, why not give vendors a maximum saleable limit for all items being listed? For example, let's consider setting the limit at10 million credits for master merchants and 100k for business III. This allows:
- Professions like tailors to list many small-ticket items.
- Professions like architects and armorsmiths to list a reasonable number of large ticket items.
This discourages:
- Business III dabblers from storing items in packs that cost more than 100k. After all, would you feel comfortable placing your vaulables inside of a pack that can be purchased by anyone for a mere 100k?
- People from grinding to management IV, placing all the vendors they want, and then dropping their skills. They'll be left with somewhat useless vendors that can only hold 100k of stock at the very most.
You kill a number of birds with one stone this way. It just makes far more sense than limiting things solely on the number of items.
A change like this would be very tailor-friendly and would minimize the impact on professions that sold big ticket items. Tailors, architects, and weaponsmiths may have to restock more frequently, but then again, they make significantly more income to begin with. By my count, with a 10 million credit ceiling, an armorsmith would be able to stock 25 complete suits of armor if they were priced at 500,000 credits each.
I honestly don't think that the devs really mind vendors that have thousands of items on them, but only as long as they're items that people would like to buy. Well-stocked vendors with real merchandise are good for the game. Crafters and merchants are earning their living, and adventurers are able to find the tools they need to play the game. The squatters who grind their merchant skills, place vendors, drop their skills, and store thousands ofitems ontheir for 99999999 credits are ruining the system. This change would prevent that. And in the worst case where someone would store a backpack on a vendor for 10 million credits, at least they'll have paid their dues by dedicating points to master the merchant profession. But when it comes down to that, they'd have been better off storing things in a factory. In this scenario, the only reason to learn merchant skills would be tosellthings.
Isn't discouraging loot campers a good thing?
AllyaEcati wrote:
MayRee wrote:
I really like this idea. I think this would bea much better compromise to the vendor limits.
Alciril wrote:
Yap! I also like your take on things, NJ! But I think that putting a cap on the aggregate listed value of everything might be a better solution than simply raising the item limit. Not all items are equal. Limiting by the total number of items justdoesn'tdifferentiate between a 750 credit shirt and a 1 million credit weapon. I posted this on the big merchant thread, but I'm sure it's been lost to the spam:
I'm not a big fan of item limits as a restriction. As some people have suggested, why not give vendors a maximum saleable limit for all items being listed? For example, let's consider setting the limit at10 million credits for master merchants and 100k for business III. This allows:
- Professions like tailors to list many small-ticket items.
- Professions like architects and armorsmiths to list a reasonable number of large ticket items.
This discourages:
- Business III dabblers from storing items in packs that cost more than 100k. After all, would you feel comfortable placing your vaulables inside of a pack that can be purchased by anyone for a mere 100k?
- People from grinding to management IV, placing all the vendors they want, and then dropping their skills. They'll be left with somewhat useless vendors that can only hold 100k of stock at the very most.
You kill a number of birds with one stone this way. It just makes far more sense than limiting things solely on the number of items.
A change like this would be very tailor-friendly and would minimize the impact on professions that sold big ticket items. Tailors, architects, and weaponsmiths may have to restock more frequently, but then again, they make significantly more income to begin with. By my count, with a 10 million credit ceiling, an armorsmith would be able to stock 25 complete suits of armor if they were priced at 500,000 credits each.
I honestly don't think that the devs really mind vendors that have thousands of items on them, but only as long as they're items that people would like to buy. Well-stocked vendors with real merchandise are good for the game. Crafters and merchants are earning their living, and adventurers are able to find the tools they need to play the game. The squatters who grind their merchant skills, place vendors, drop their skills, and store thousands ofitems ontheir for 99999999 credits are ruining the system. This change would prevent that. And in the worst case where someone would store a backpack on a vendor for 10 million credits, at least they'll have paid their dues by dedicating points to master the merchant profession. But when it comes down to that, they'd have been better off storing things in a factory. In this scenario, the only reason to learn merchant skills would be tosellthings.
This discourages people from selling valuable loot on vendors. Many pieces go for more than 10 million credits.
Which changes do you dislike and why?
I dislike all of these changes, I think they are exceedingly reactionary and over the top. Like swatting a mosquito with a cinderblock -- Sure you'll smash the fly but you'll wind up crippling yourself in the process. As a tailor we simply cannot survive in the mode we currently know as a profession if these ridiculous limits take effect.
How will these disliked changes affect your playstyle as tailors?
I will be forced to drop master tailor and reduce my crafting ability to making supplies for armoursmiths.And that's only for as long as I'm able to re-coup the costs of materials I have stored and factories. Once that is done, I would have no more reason to be a tailor -- the game would cease to be enjoyable if I spent my entire time babysitting my vendors.
Globally, how will these disliked changes affect the economy at large?
I think it will cripple availability and force an exponential climb in product inflation. People will be able to charge whatever they want for items, thus leaving the casual game totally out in the cold, without any sort of ability to play the game. I seem to recall the devs stating from the get go that this game was supposed to be designed so that the casual gamer would be able to have just as much fun as the hardcore gamer. These sorts of decisions by the development staff are completely contrary to this ideology -- you are not helping the casual gamer, you are alienating them from the game.
What changes do you support and why?
I support a new and comprehensive approach towards COMMUNICATION between the developers and the community. Already we who frequent these bards have been sidelined and made to feel like our opinions matter for squat. For this game to succeed and move forward, this needs to stop immediately. A profound ideological shift needs to happen in the relationship between the developers and the board users, and they need to work TOGETHER to come up with viable solutions to situations such as this. Example: Devs need to explain to the community WHY certain ideas are being proposed and thought through (such as the vendor item limit changes) and solicit feedback from the community as to viable options. You have an incredible resource at your beck and call, willing to give you their time, energy, and working potential to help solve these problems. Why not utilize them? In short, the community needs the devs to be up front, forward and honest, and the devs NEED THE SAME from the COMMUNITY. This is a two way street -- and from what I've seen thus far, the community has stepped up and on countless occasions has been and continues to do this.
Keeping in mind that the devs consider these changes beneficial, what counterproposals do you have.
As you have stated -- I think this is a good start for dialogue, but certainly is not a final solution. Re read the paragraph above, this all is contingent on communication.
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Addendum: I think that a lot of the outcry is response to this is due to the fact that the merchant class is not deemed as a true class by many people in the game. I think most players see them as a support *option* to better enable their crafting character. This I feel is because they were not set up to work independently from the get go. I think that if SOE wanted crafters to simply produce items and then sell them off to merchants, who would then sell them to the consumer, they should have reinforced that ideology from BETA forward.
Unfortunately, because the game went live without this set up, crafters have gotten used to not needing to go through a middle man to move their equipment. By removing the middle man (merchant) the crafter feels like they truly own a business, and feel that they are seeing 100% of the profits. Now here you can go one of two ways.
1) Keep craftingas is, dissolve the merchant class, and roll their abilities into the other crafting professions.
2) Kill the crafter's ability to work as an independent business person and force them to simply craft items and sell to the merchants.
Neither of these are savory options, as I'm sure people are thinking. It looks like SOE is leaning towards option 2 currently. To make this work, there needs to be some serious streamlining to the crafting process. Speaking only from a tailor's perspective, I would say first off you need a universal color palate for all clothing items; secondly you need to find a way to create all items available in no more than 3 mouse clicks. I do not see how this would be possible in this game, at all, ever -- the game mechanics are simply too complex, which is part of why we love it so much.
Unfortunately, I have no answers to this conundrum, mainly because I do not know why this is going into effect. Were I/we to have more variables in the equation, I'm sure that we could HELP the developers come up with a fitting compromise and solution. I would urge the staff at SOE to take this idea of making communication the first and foremost responsibility seriously and work on that before any sort of work on JTL, GWC, the Combat Balance, Publish 10, Jedi revamp, or anything else happens or changes.
Without communication, you are unable to affect change, work with others, and improve a situation. Please consider this and the need to make it a priority.
N'Uro M'Bok
Mater Tailor
CorbantisMerchant Novice-2 Vendors - 100 items -total of 200 items for all vendors
Merchant Management 1 - 3 Vendors -150 items - total of 450 items for all vendors
Merchant Management 2 - 4 Vendors - 200 items -total of 800 items for all vendors
Merchant Management 3 - 5 Vendors - 250 items - total of 1250 items for all vendors
Merchant Management 4 - 6 Vendors - 300 items -total of 1800 items for all vendors
Merchant Master- 6 Vendors - 500 items -total of 3000 items for all vendors