Editing the limit on playing Merchants

[Captain Gecko]

I've been trying to play merchant recently, it's quite nice, I like it... When I can actually play it. The thing is you cannot play as a merchant whenever you want, on some rounds, there is a slot available, on some rounds, there is not.

Firstly, I don't get why merchants are not allowed on every round. I assume that the reason is that we don't want people possibly trading weapons with the crew on every rounds, so that antags would have more of a chance. It might've made sense on the Aurora, but on the Horizon, even the crew gets an armory, if anything a merchant selling weapons is redundant. Worst case scenario, lower fundings for the merchant at round start for most rounds to prevent them from spending it all on guns.

Secondly, that means that we get rounds where merchants can't even properly trade. The two rounds I got to play as a merchant were all low-pop, since I created my character two weeks ago, NEVER did I find a round with an over-20 souls crew where the merchant slot was open. There may have been a planned probability on when one could play merchant (I remember someone telling me it was 1 out of 4 rounds a while ago, not too sure about that), but in practice it's MUCH LOWER than that considering that you barely do actual merchant work on lowpop.

 

Here's my proposal: Simply remove the limitations on playing Merchants, let the people play merchant on any round. Worst case scenario reduce fundings on rounds where they wouldn't have spawned.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Captain Gecko

[KingOfThePing]

They are supposed to be something more special - having them every round kind of defeats the appeal. I don't agree the roll chance (I think it was 25% or something like that) should be removed.

[Confused rock]

Having the slot open every round doesn't mean you'll have a merchant every round. I don't play the role, but it's probably frustrating if you like it and have to just hope it will be open whenever you have time to play.

[WickedCybs]

I have to agree with Ping. I don't really want to have the chance at a merchant every round since they can significantly change the round dynamic through what they sell.

[Gromnax]

The slot should be open after the initial roll if available, then, if it is rolled but no one turned it on. Right now, barely anyone wants to take their chance and thus we barely ever see it.

[sperky7933]

As someone who plays a lot of merchant I think /vg/station has the right idea: instead of random garbage that no one cares or buys, the merchant should be incredibly desirable by offering products that grant good quality of life or interesting items. That, and also giving the merchant more power to do gimmicks easily (drug dealing, merchant vessel casino) you get my point. Merchant is too damn boring and giving it an 100% roll every round would destroy all interest in them spawning. You want 100%, you gotta give players a reason to be interested in interacting with them.

[Captain Gecko]

Right then, how about at least lowering the limitations?

 

My issues still stand about this part:

On 10/08/2022 at 22:03, Captain Gecko said:

Secondly, that means that we get rounds where merchants can't even properly trade. The two rounds I got to play as a merchant were all low-pop, since I created my character two weeks ago, NEVER did I find a round with an over-20 souls crew where the merchant slot was open. There may have been a planned probability on when one could play merchant (I remember someone telling me it was 1 out of 4 rounds a while ago, not too sure about that), but in practice it's MUCH LOWER than that considering that you barely do actual merchant work on lowpop.

Once again, it's horrendously hard to get a merchant round, and even if you get one, you better hope that there's at least people you can play with and not a 4-men skeleton crew.

 

On 10/08/2022 at 22:24, KingOfThePing said:

They are supposed to be something more special - having them every round kind of defeats the appeal. I don't agree the roll chance (I think it was 25% or something like that) should be removed.

We are still having many ghost-roles to interact with, which are often played... Which is great! But the point is, one round you get TCFL visitors, on another you meet adhomaian refugees, an Orion express ship, or even Ex-Solarian forces. One of the great things about being on the Horizon is that, while only the merchant, events, and admeme fun could make add something "special" to the round. By now? We have potential to do so on nearly-every round... So why making the merchant so limited on the Horizon?

Not only that but from what I got, merchants from the Merchant role have some kind of special agreement/permission with the Horizon, since they can practically freely dock with the ship, differenciating them from the average ghost-role chracters. It wouldn't be too far fetched to have merchants appear a little more, then, would it?

 

On 11/08/2022 at 01:20, WickedCybs said:

I don't really want to have the chance at a merchant every round since they can significantly change the round dynamic through what they sell.

I disagree. As I already said, the Horizon's crew has access to more options than back on the Aurora to defend themselves against threats. Even without the Security armory, even without engineering or science doing unpredictably robust stuff to assist the crew, we still have the crew armory, coming with weapons (which certainly are more decent than makeshift ones), armors, ammo, and even a god damn one-use rocket launcher of sorts.

It isn't guaranteed that the merchant will even get the occasion to bring weapons to the Horizon, and most of the case, will have access average/mediocre guns (sidearms, bolt actions, things like that). While it is technically possible to buy something much more powerful, these generally cost 4/5k+ credits, meaning that with the current starting funds you'll be buying this and nothing less... At least as far as weapons go... And of course someone has to afford the gun once the merchant tries to sell it. I don't believe that merchants would make that much of a difference to the round's dynamic, or balance or whatever, at least on the Horizon.

 

At LEAST if we're not removing the limit on playing merchants, could we at least lower it? Perhaps make it 1/3 - 1/2.5 rounds instead of 1/4.

[WickedCybs]

2 hours ago, Captain Gecko said:

I disagree. As I already said, the Horizon's crew has access to more options than back on the Aurora to defend themselves against threats. Even without the Security armory, even without engineering or science doing unpredictably robust stuff to assist the crew, we still have the crew armory, coming with weapons (which certainly are more decent than makeshift ones), armors, ammo, and even a god damn one-use rocket launcher of sorts.

It isn't guaranteed that the merchant will even get the occasion to bring weapons to the Horizon, and most of the case, will have access average/mediocre guns (sidearms, bolt actions, things like that). While it is technically possible to buy something much more powerful, these generally cost 4/5k+ credits, meaning that with the current starting funds you'll be buying this and nothing less... At least as far as weapons go... And of course someone has to afford the gun once the merchant tries to sell it. I don't believe that merchants would make that much of a difference to the round's dynamic, or balance or whatever, at least on the Horizon.

I can't really get into that viewpoint, as I think It's coming from a position where you've had a bit of fun with merchants and want it to happen more often. The rarity is what makes it all the sweeter. I understand some may have interesting gimmicks or might not even be selling game changing stuff. However, we accept stuff like a merchant drastically impacting the round sometimes for now, because it just doesn't happen that often. If it were to change there is absolutely no way their stock would make it out intact, such as breacher suits and the other more interesting things people like to buy. Maybe that could be a plus, though. Either way it causes me to not only consider the constant effect on a round, but how it even makes any IC sense considering the Horizon is supposed to be out on its lonesome often. Meanwhile, there is a constant merchant presence docking to sell it stuff?

That aside, it's not really the weapons I care about, but it is still a relevant aspect so I'll discuss it. They can't really be compared to the Horizon's armouries anyway, they're far more easily accessible and often outclassing anything or being a good alternative to what the ship can easily bring out. That the Horizon can bring a lot of guns to bear isn't really relevant. The only important ones are its rifles, the PEAC isn't even a contender because It's a terrible weapon (to anything not mechanical) that only looks scary. Meanwhile, the merchant can provide fully automatic weapons, xrays and a lot more. Good weapons aren't even that expensive and you can comfortably buy a few extremely powerful ones or a lot of on-par or better good ones without really caring too much.

Being a massive game changer often, what with the firearms, hardsuits, tools and more. Credits are not even relevant, most merchants realize (understandably so) that credits are useless and It's far more interesting to sell at a massive loss. Then there's considering just how that's going to be used, especially as consistent merchants have a tendency to favor the crew.

I do not want the role watered down and believe the current way is the best when it comes to facilitating roleplay, reducing issues and the headache of some tickets/investigations. 

Edited August 12, 2022 by WickedCybs