Please make purchase orders more viable

One problem with POs, is that when you look at a vendor, you have the "buy" and "sell" tab no matter if there as anything for sale or any purchase orders up. It would help players looking for items (and therefor those of us running vendors) if those tabs only showed if there was something on it.

In addition, I would like the ability to drag an item from my inventory to the vendor without being in the manage inventory tab and it act as if I was.

I think these two changes would just make things run a bit more smoothly for those of us of a more mercantile persuasion.

 

While I do agree that something could be done to encourage more in game trade and streamline the process a bit... I don't know if a game where you are required to ask every NPC their name manually is the place to cater to that specific request. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about finding a happy medium that stays true to the original vision of interactions between PC and NPC, but isn't overly tedious as well. Your suggestions have merit.

 

We like to show the tabs there to ensure you are aware that they do, at some point, buy or sell. It's more of a statement in that case than an actual offer potential. Still, a good idea we could consider!

 

I think it would nice if vendor tabs had numbers on them so that you could see when a person is buying things without having to click on the tab. Just a simple Sell (8) if there are 8 purchase orders. Maybe different colored tabs for empty vs. not empty would work also. The way it is now, people that have purchase orders have to advertise for them on their own vendors with notes or renamed containers because most of their customers won't notice otherwise.

 

Consistent UI; I hadn't thought about that, it's a good point. What about Lazlo's idea below?

I think this is a great alternative. This seems to keep the tab for your interface point, while addressing my desire to know when there are POs without actually clicking.

 

could do it like inventory. default tab is everything and then there are breakout tabs for buy and sell

 

Vendors can behave differently, if they have something to sell and/or to buy. For example, they can try to attract attention by waving hands.

 

Also not a bad idea. Right now they seem to do nothing, which is pretty poor salesmanship!

 

Added this thread and the different color suggestion to the aggregation of vendor suggestions. Wanted to understand the "drag from inventory" suggestion so it may be able to be added. I'm confused though, as we can already drag from inventory.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ggregating-vendor-requests.79544/#post-756108

 

Well originally the idea was to have work orders that would be on bulletin boards. Then next we knew the vendors got a purchase order tab, ummm well this was not the request. So how do you remember where you got it in the first place. You do not receive a receipt that says obtained a purchase order from x person who lives in for example owlshead.

How do you remember where you got it?
Well I could be wrong that it won't work since I was just reacting to them being put on vendors in the first place and not bulletin boards where they would be centrally located to find.

So in my thoughts players would place work order requests on bulletin boards and you accept them there as well. The only thing not worked out is when you have completed the work order what then? Well perhaps it is like picking up a quest and completing it, you automatically receive the reward and payment would automatically go to the person who placed the work order, but that would be coding work as well. It would give reasons to do some of the grinding we do for those who would like a reason. So not sure if the Devs will do it, but I can hope as always. Well we should not give up hope finally @DarkStarr said yes to someday or did he

 

We can, but only if your on the right screen. If you're on the buy screen at least, it just silently fails. I don't know if that's intended or a bug, but it's kinda annoying.

That's not bad, or have the town crier know. I would think it would be just informational though, "x is up on x vendor" or even just allow us to post flyers. Anything to get people able to see what's a waste of time and what vendors are worth talking to.

 

@Tiina Onir Ah, I see. So you can load your vendor without being in the sell tab, correct?

 

I think that just by looking at vendor you should be able to tell:

• are there items for sale
• are there any purchase orders
• was there any transaction (or new item added/removed) in the past 7 days (possibly more active vendor for the past 24 hours trades)

It would be nice if vendors moved and waved and perhaps talked as other NPCs, giving players clues as to whether they are active and worth checking.
Eventually it would be super handy to have notice board in town and perhaps a way of checking which vendors are selling or buying certain items in the town (even though player woudl have to visit them to see actual pricing).


Oh and one other feature I would love to see for vendors. If you put stack of items on vendor it would be great if you just defined price per item and anyone could buy how many items they wished. Would be handy especially for resources and perhaps items such as food, potions, or scrolls. Same should apply for purchase orders. If I need toi buy scraps, I want to define price (e.g. 3 gold per scrap) and maximum quantity 5000 and have anyone sell as many as they wish to.

 

Exactly!

Obviously, this isn't a huge pain point, just a minor thing that I feel would improve the UI a little bit.

 

The blacksmith in Soltown tries to attract attention.

 

What's a "purchase order"?

 

it is when you use your vendor to buy stuff instead of selling it.

 

@Net gotcha! Never had one so I didn't know it was a thing.

 

Well, you can use public vendor to place purchase order as well.

 

Wait, what? What does that do?