Merchant Rivalry

Drueric · Feb 17, 2022

Okay, so I know this may sound like a radical suggestion, but hear me out... What if, like how bounty hunters are able to get paid to go after other players, that player businessmen(or persons) had a mechanic where they would declare a business competitor a rival, and send player thugs after their enemy's supply chain?

I mean, right now, there is really no way player business people can do anything to affect the business of their rivals?

Ok, so lets say this feature existed in the game. You are an architect, for example, and you have another architect who is doing better than you, and you want to ruin their business in order to increase yours(think about how the huts handle competitors) So for exampe, what if say I could hire a group of players,(with a binding contract) to go and destroy my rivals harvesters in the field. Or, maybe just damage them enough make them shut down, and cost my rival money and/or resources to repair them. You can call it corporate sabetage. It would be anonymous, unless the scruplulous players who did the deed ratted you out for a fee. In which case, then your rival would know who to retaliate on. There would have to be some kind of restrictions on this system so random players cant just go around breaking everyone harvesters for fun. One rule could be that this action is only available to masters of a profession, and can only be used on other masters of the same profession, so that high end players cant jsut pick on early level crafters.

Anyway, what do you think if we could do that?

Morfordus · Feb 20, 2022

I'm not sure about that rivalry in legal goods, but would like to have more content for smugglers, and that kind of rivalry/war between illegal goods companies could do it. If the smuggler had a mission to do something and fail it he could be on the bh missions, I know smugglers are not the best figthers but it could do my life a bit more interesting hehehe, and I can travel with a group so the bh should think about the strategy before trying to kill me while my friends are around...

BuddyHightower · Feb 21, 2022

I still think the idea is fantastic and I never saw the proposal as PvP.
I don't like the details provided but that's why we are here to discuss, right?
I see this as a proposal for infiltration / spying / causing issues with your competition.
A guild war would be PvP on crafters, right? Not this....

So what could the details be? I don't know...
I do know that in the GCW the winning faction gets bonuses - this would be something similar.

Morfordus · Feb 21, 2022

It could be a great idea, but don't think is good to force players to PvP if they don't want, you can promote it giving new designs, or boosts for experimentation that makes the rivalry have some kind of profit while you will have better stats on your goods cause you steal the rival blueprint for example, but if you're an artisan and don't want to PvP then you're not forced to do, just your bussiness will be a bit lower on the quality and profit but peacefull

Drueric · Feb 21, 2022

Morfordus said:
It could be a great idea, but don't think is good to force players to PvP if they don't want, you can promote it giving new designs, or boosts for experimentation that makes the rivalry have some kind of profit while you will have better stats on your goods cause you steal the rival blueprint for example, but if you're an artisan and don't want to PvP then you're not forced to do, just your bussiness will be a bit lower on the quality and profit but peacefull

It wouldnt be pvp. Here is a scenrio I envision. You are a master of some craft. You log in oen day and and have a mail in your box informing you that one of your harvesters has been sabatoged and has shut down. With a map location in the mail to which harvester(s). It would be like that.

I dont think it could happen often, as harvester never have any identifying marks unless they have been renamed. The sabetours would have the challenge of trying to figure out which harvesters belong to their target.

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

Drueric said:
It wouldnt be pvp. Here is a scenrio I envision. You are a master of some craft. You log in oen day and and have a mail in your box informing you that one of your harvesters has been sabatoged and has shut down. With a map location in the mail to which harvester(s). It would be like that.

I dont think it could happen often, as harvester never have any identifying marks unless they have been renamed. The sabetours would have the challenge of trying to figure out which harvesters belong to their target.

I like that idea, it gives some extra live to the crafter tasks, but as you're damaging or disturbing another player live or stuff it's PvP, so you need to do it well planned, in other case there will be trolls just sabotaging every harvester or factory...

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

If you want just a little stretfood vendor on Naboo and live peacefully you can, but if you want to be a great food company and destroy your rivals you just activate the "PvP" option for crafters and be able to place some BH/Smuggler missions for sabotaging other players that has "PvP" activated and you can steal resources (IDK something like stealing 1 hour production for example) or just sabotage to stop their production, or steal the blueprint (it stops the production and delete the bluerpint of your rival and gives you a bonus on experimentation and assembly for example)... The BH/Smuggler will need to lead with some thugs or guards that could be harder the higher "PvP" level the crafter has, and if they failed to do the mission will be able to be hunted b other BHs in their mission terminals if the crafter that was the victim of their sabotage wants to take revenge on them... I think this could be a great idea

Grogar · Feb 22, 2022

In the format you've suggested, I'm not a fan. It is a form of forced PvP in the sense that I as a crafter have no choice in this and it's entirely down to my "competition" if they wish to basically do me over. This would also allow wealthy merchants to run huge monopolies. A new player comes along and starts selling carbines and next thing you know they've had their whole operation smashed in and leave the game. It wouldn't be good for anyone.

I can understand where you're coming from with regards to your comments on Jabba - but we don't play crime lords or run protection rackets. Not every planet in the game has crime lords either - Coruscant & Naboo to name two had governments, so this idea doesn't really hold much water beyond a few places.

Competition comes from the cut-throat business of reducing prices and offering good quality items. Now there is perhaps scope when a merchant's operation becomes too large - maybe they start stepping on the toes of the crime lord / local authorities who warn them to scale back or suffer consequences. That could indeed be sabotage or a shake down. But there needs to be a political solution and it shouldn't be instigated by other players although they could perhaps encourage it using their own political influences.

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

I don't think this will fore PvP, it depends on the bonus you give as reward, you can access to certain things just doing cgw the same here, and a low lvl artisan can ally with others to pay more for his missions, or just go for other low lvl rivals the same way that you don't go for rancors when you're a low lvl meses. It's just another optional feature you can use or not

ThunderVamp · Feb 22, 2022

Morfordus said:
I don't think this will fore PvP, it depends on the bonus you give as reward, you can access to certain things just doing cgw the same here, and a low lvl artisan can ally with others to pay more for his missions, or just go for other low lvl rivals the same way that you don't go for rancors when you're a low lvl meses. It's just another optional feature you can use or not

Per yours and the OPs own suggestions this will force PVP. OP is suggesting that someone be able to deliberately damage your equipment or factories, and you are suggesting that you shouldnt be able to craft the best quality unless you take part in this system.

Dreuric: "You log in oen day and and have a mail in your box informing you that one of your harvesters has been sabatoged and has shut down. With a map location in the mail to which harvester(s). It would be like that."
That's forced PVP. As CL1 crafters, being forced to deal with damaged items like harvesters or factories outside of normal wear and tear is a form of PVP. I can't fight my opponent because I have no combat skill, but I am forced to spend money to defend myself, to repair my equipment, or to hire defenses. And this harms the end user in the end because if I have to spend money to defend my business and repair my equipment, I'm certainly not going to eat the cost. I'm going to have to recover it somehow and that means passing it on to customers.

Morfodus: "your bussiness will be a bit lower on the quality and profit but peacefull"
That's forcing PVP on a player if they want to be able to make the server's best gear. You don't want to engage in fighting other crafters, you can't make the best stuff?

Both are unacceptable.

And this will never fly with people who may otherwise want to do some sabotage, because as the OP pointed out, "harvester (and factories) never have any identifying marks unless they have been renamed. The sabetours would have the challenge of trying to figure out which harvesters belong to their target."
So you're going to take a job to sabotage someone's stuff, with no idea where any of it is? Travel planet-to-planet and explore all around each one trying to damage every single harvester or factory you come across until you MAYBE find the target's?

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

ThunderVamp said:
Per yours and the OPs own suggestions this will force PVP. OP is suggesting that someone be able to deliberately damage your equipment or factories, and you are suggesting that you shouldnt be able to craft the best quality unless you take part in this system.

Dreuric: "You log in oen day and and have a mail in your box informing you that one of your harvesters has been sabatoged and has shut down. With a map location in the mail to which harvester(s). It would be like that."
That's forced PVP. As CL1 crafters, being forced to deal with damaged items like harvesters or factories outside of normal wear and tear is a form of PVP. I can't fight my opponent because I have no combat skill, but I am forced to spend money to defend myself, to repair my equipment, or to hire defenses. And this harms the end user in the end because if I have to spend money to defend my business and repair my equipment, I'm certainly not going to eat the cost. I'm going to have to recover it somehow and that means passing it on to customers.

Morfodus: "your bussiness will be a bit lower on the quality and profit but peacefull"
That's forcing PVP on a player if they want to be able to make the server's best gear. You don't want to engage in fighting other crafters, you can't make the best stuff?

Both are unacceptable.

And this will never fly with people who may otherwise want to do some sabotage, because as the OP pointed out, "harvester (and factories) never have any identifying marks unless they have been renamed. The sabetours would have the challenge of trying to figure out which harvesters belong to their target."
So you're going to take a job to sabotage someone's stuff, with no idea where any of it is? Travel planet-to-planet and explore all around each one trying to damage every single harvester or factory you come across until you MAYBE find the target's?

Don't place any experimentation or assembly bonus just give new designs with similar stats depending on normal crafting. The rest is just optional if you don't want PvP no one can steal or sabotage you, about the harvesters haven't any identifying you don't need to have that, when you place a mission you can select the material or blueprint and the factory or harvester is marked like the bounty in the map, or a lair.

That's just an early idea that should be well cooked, but I think that gives a little spice for later game to crafters that can do something else than just try to look for the best materials and lower their prices to compete

Grogar · Feb 22, 2022

Morfordus said:
Don't place any experimentation or assembly bonus just give new designs with similar stats depending on normal crafting. The rest is just optional if you don't want PvP no one can steal or sabotage you, about the harvesters haven't any identifying you don't need to have that, when you place a mission you can select the material or blueprint and the factory or harvester is marked like the bounty in the map, or a lair.

That's just an early idea that should be well cooked, but I think that gives a little spice for later game to crafters that can do something else than just try to look for the best materials and lower their prices to compete

I don't quite understand what you mean by "don't place any experimentation or assembly bonus". I do agree that crafting PvP should be optional though.

With any ideas like this I think the key question to ask is "what are we trying to achieve". Is it to add a bit of interest and variety to end game crafters, or is it (as the OP reads) to do over potential competition because they're providing a better service than you. Whatever the reasoning, there's a risk/reward balancing act to deal with as most crafters are going to be CL1, so very limited on what they can actually do. Rewards shouldn't be so good that you "have" to participate in order to stay competitive (other games have done this and it's rarely worked out well).

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

Grogar said:
I don't quite understand what you mean by "don't place any experimentation or assembly bonus". I do agree that crafting PvP should be optional though.

With any ideas like this I think the key question to ask is "what are we trying to achieve". Is it to add a bit of interest and variety to end game crafters, or is it (as the OP reads) to do over potential competition because they're providing a better service than you. Whatever the reasoning, there's a risk/reward balancing act to deal with as most crafters are going to be CL1, so very limited on what they can actually do. Rewards shouldn't be so good that you "have" to participate in order to stay competitive (other games have done this and it's rarely worked out well).

As I said, the reward would depend on the type of quests you generate, for example if you generate an extractor sabotage quest the reward for the crafter would only be the "fame" or PvP level; if you generate a material theft quest, the reward would be the amount of materials stolen; if you generate a blueprints theft quest you could get a boost of experimentation and crafting assembly.

Depending on your PvP level you could order a specific type of mission. Also your extractors and factories would be protected by guards if someone included them in a mission.

Crafters are CL1, but they could hire the services of BH and Smugglers to do these jobs, just like they hire or buy the high lvl materials from creatures.

As I say, this gives a little bit of life to the experience of that crafter who wants to access the PvP, can be used within the CGW, does not alter too much the market, because if the reward instead of being a boost is a blueprint with a new model or design only adds content without affecting the stats directly, can also be blueprints of 1 single use with a maximum of manufactured items...

There's a lot of possibilities, and you don't need to do over potencial competition

Grogar · Feb 22, 2022

Morfordus said:
As I said, the reward would depend on the type of quests you generate, for example if you generate an extractor sabotage quest the reward for the crafter would only be the "fame" or PvP level; if you generate a material theft quest, the reward would be the amount of materials stolen; if you generate a blueprints theft quest you could get a boost of experimentation and crafting assembly.

Depending on your PvP level you could order a specific type of mission. Also your extractors and factories would be protected by guards if someone included them in a mission.

Crafters are CL1, but they could hire the services of BH and Smugglers to do these jobs, just like they hire or buy the high lvl materials from creatures.

As I say, this gives a little bit of life to the experience of that crafter who wants to access the PvP, can be used within the CGW, does not alter too much the market, because if the reward instead of being a boost is a blueprint with a new model or design only adds content without affecting the stats directly, can also be blueprints of 1 single use with a maximum of manufactured items...

There's a lot of possibilities, and you don't need to do over potencial competition

Your suggestion is significantly different from the OP and has an element of workability to it. Generating mission(s) could automatically flag you as a valid PvP target to have missions created against you. If would need some thought because it could risk ending up as a clash of clans mini-game. For me the key bit is that this needs to be an addition to end-game crafting. It shouldn't make one crafter be able to craft superior items over another one who's happy to continue finding resources and making stuff.

Morfordus · Feb 22, 2022

Grogar said:
Your suggestion is significantly different from the OP and has an element of workability to it. Generating mission(s) could automatically flag you as a valid PvP target to have missions created against you. If would need some thought because it could risk ending up as a clash of clans mini-game. For me the key bit is that this needs to be an addition to end-game crafting. It shouldn't make one crafter be able to craft superior items over another one who's happy to continue finding resources and making stuff.

Sure, I was thinking in something that not only works for end game crafters, but adds content to Smugglers and BH, right now Smugglers are just for DHL services with a bit of danger, slicing weapons and armors (terminals isn't working i think), BH is for jedi hunting or pve hunting, with this idea you can create more content that makes other kind of bussiness relations

I know BH and Smuggler has other uses, but without enough proper smuggling missions and just jedi hunting, i think they both (and the crafters) will benefit this idea

Drueric · Feb 22, 2022

Morfordus said:
I don't think this will fore PvP, it depends on the bonus you give as reward, you can access to certain things just doing cgw the same here, and a low lvl artisan can ally with others to pay more for his missions, or just go for other low lvl rivals the same way that you don't go for rancors when you're a low lvl meses. It's just another optional feature you can use or not

This would only be an option for masters of craft profession. Excluding artisan.

Drueric · Feb 22, 2022

Grogar said:
Your suggestion is significantly different from the OP and has an element of workability to it. Generating mission(s) could automatically flag you as a valid PvP target to have missions created against you. If would need some thought because it could risk ending up as a clash of clans mini-game. For me the key bit is that this needs to be an addition to end-game crafting. It shouldn't make one crafter be able to craft superior items over another one who's happy to continue finding resources and making stuff.

A proposal isnt a hard object, incapable of being altered. they are malleable, able to be shaped and improved upon by more and better ideas. So long as the idea isnt just dismissed out of hand and finds its way into the game in some refined form, because its a good idea.

Thats why proposals being voted on, based on the original post is dumb. people arent going to keep reading the discussion to see that the idea has been added to and improved on by other ideas and suggestion like these. So now, the R3 guy is gonna come in here, look at the downvotes, and throw out a perfectly good suggestion, saying its "unpopular" because of the shallow downvoting system.

They should only allow upvotes with no downvote option, just like the "like" option on comments doesnt have a "dislike" option. it would toxic. And the downvote option IS toxic.

Kimber · Feb 22, 2022

LordKorto · Feb 22, 2022

Drueric · Feb 22, 2022

You are making my point for me.

ICY1977 · Feb 22, 2022