Vendors sitting on ground - is this new and how do I change it?

What makes it too long? New Britannia Market is not a good metric as it sits to one extreme - the most active extreme. That is just as bad as balancing the game towards people who play for eighty hours a week. I'd strongly claim that 2 weeks is also too short. Three weeks would be the minimum in my eyes. Three months would be too long. About 4 weeks would be perfect.

NBM is also a poor visual metric, as it is largely street vendors which are much more immersive to have sitting, especially if the player thinks to put down a carpet with some wares on it.

 

I have a plain old non patterned street vendor and he looks just as terrible when he sits outside as I am sure yours does sitting inside. It would be great if the devs could work the ai to have them sit on a chair. I am all for it! Until then I will re-stocked him once a week as I have.

 

Yes; what I mentioned. But there are outdoor vendors placed behind counters, too, which you can only see because of their nameplate.

The shutters on the row homes are another thing that still bothers me, even though they can be left open. When I set up my shop before, I placed my vendor on the inside in a way that you could see him through the window and I placed a shelf of items for sale by the window, too. Now that we have shop signs, it makes this less necessary, but being able to see the vendor through the window is still more inviting. The shutter, even when open, blocks visibility a lot.

Old screenshots from pre-persistence,





I wish the devs would keep in mind players who like to build their shops with RP and immersion in mind, and not make this an unviable option.

 

Maybe @LordBritish himself is the best person to appeal to for immersion and RP design decisions? TLDR of the thread: Vendors sitting down is causing them to "hide" behind countertops, windows, and more in our very nice shops just because we haven't modified their listing in the last 7 days. Even though they are fully stocked. It looks really bad. And we shouldn't have to go poke the vendor and relist an item if we do not have any real changes to make.

I understand we have stale merchants that haven't been touched in a year, but a week? That's pretty silly levels of upkeep. Especially since I can pay my lot tax three months in advance and be across the map adventuring for a month.

 

I vote for no sitting vendors unless it is a few moments to take a break but not because their inventory has not been updated in a while. I want no one to tell me to update my inventory on my vendor. Sitting is not the answer besides what new player would even know that's why they are sitting. I don't want micromanagement of my vendor. So if we could have a date someplace saying Inventory last updated 01/30/2018 for example then I would ask for this. It could be right below the vendors name. @DarkStarr

 

I think that vendors should only sit/go-dark if they're empty.

 

Then you just know someone will buy that 200 gp lone backpack just to sit the guy down. Haha!

 

Only when empty is easy to circumvent, simple but an overpriced item in. And nothing changed, customers has still to visit unmaintained vendors.

+1 to enable the AI to search the next chair for sitting down. May a radius of 5.

What is about vendor sharing? As more Players can update the inventory as sooner the vendor stands up again. And this will also reduce vendor count, and one have to check less vendors.
This is also possible with RP styled vendor placement. One can setup a Blacksmith Shop, for example, and only allow adding blacksmith related items to the others. This will also help customers.

@Lifedragn good looking shop

 

I might be ok with it once vendors are empty. I hate wasting time going through empty vendors.
This vendor I have with the automaton pattern sits on the job even with 60 items on him.

I got sick of him sitting behind the counter so I put him on top.

 

I missed this.

I agree that 7 days is kinda short. Some of my best and well-stocked vendors are sitting down atm, and others are standing because someone who has 6 items on them took it off and re-listed it. Personally - I think I would prefer to see new items get a date stamp and older items just show as older than 7 days or older than 14 days.

Because you can game the system by re-posting all your items, some people will do so... and it's just needless work. Nothing makes your town look more inactive than a vendor with September 2017 items and nothing else... and yet that vendor is standing up still, because they had listed a lot of hot-priced items and got bought out.

 

1. Sitting vendors are still accessible, right? I mean, you can choose to shop there, it's just an indication that the newest inventory isn't that recent.

2. As a shopper, this is very valuable: if it's a place I shop regularly, I can ignore the sitting vendors, if it's a new place I can go check them out anyways.

3. I have a vendor that is sitting and I'm happy they are sitting because I know I won't restock her soon and I'd rather buyers not be annoyed by stopping to say, 'Yep, same old crap' and eventually not checking any more. This way they will be alerted when I do restock.

4. Time period for sitting should be based on shoppers' needs not sellers' needs. A week or two is fine for regular shoppers.

5. I do feel for those who have vendors behind counters. I would rather see them add 'chair sitting' functionality than mess with the core mechanic. Ultimately, though, as long as the nameplate remains visible, you are still in business. Hopefully, they could eventually add chairs.

6. I think people who circumvent the system by relisting old crap will eventually only harm themselves by annoying their best customers, the regular shopper, who will eventually stop checking because they know the trick.

 

I still don't want vendors to sit at all. I see we got a patch to make it so now they sit after two weeks. They are difficult to see when they are sitting and I don't care if they haven't been updated since whenever. I may not want an item one day but then decide I have a use for it another day. I still think we could reflect that vendors have not been updated better by adding a vendor updated date under their name. See the difference from the sitting vendors to the Standing vendors. Being able to see standing vendors is much easier to see. Now I am not talking about Market places which of course they are all next to each other. There are times those vendors cannot easily be seen if they are sitting down. I have even put them on tables, how high must they be placed to view them if they are sitting. Please just add the date, please, please, please and stop them sitting.

 

There are a other ways to solve this vendor issue without something as immersion breaking as a date next to a vendors name. Let use our imaginations here. Off the top of my head, a lantern can be place next to the vendor that links to the vendors timer. An active vendors lantern is lit and an inactive vendors lantern is not lit. This is a 1 minute idea off the top of my head. To much dev work to link the lantern to the vendor and put this in game? Then do what they do with the LB/DS battle banner and have a light that shines down on active vendors and not shine on empty vendors.

There are plenty of ways this can be corrected. Lets try to come up with immersive ideas instead of non immersive ones.

 

ok yes I agree that is one idea but of course lets try to find good ideas.

 

But they are hard to see if they are behind a counter. And it looks super bad if they are behind a counter inside a building.

But it is not very immersive and very punishing to casual audiences with a vendor.

And when one person just relists the same item at the same price it completely breaks this advantage down. Most of the time the vendors are still holding the same old crap.

As the seller, the vendor is my employee. He should stand if I want him to stand.

Chairs would work. Vendors should not sit on the ground at all. It isn't a core mechanic. It's a new feature that remove immersion purely for the convenience of the most active players.

We shouldn't have an auto-sit down system period. It makes no sense. This is an RPG and the sitdown timer makes no sense from a roleplay perspective.

 

What are some ideas that are more immersive to address the issue of stale/un-maintained/empty vendors, that are feasible for SOTA?

 

To be honest, I very rarely enter a structure to find a vendor. I likely wouldn't find your vendor sitting or standing. Most are outside and still visible when sitting.

Your immersion complaint is valid, I don't disagree with that. I'd love for them to find a way to not have them look silly under certain circumstances, like behind a counter. But the overt value of having some sign of empty/not recently updated vendors is valuable and I really hope they keep some system that facilitates this (even the current one with additional fixes).

 

A different emote, maybe. Vendors recently updated could, at random, wave, bow, look at book, talk to themselves, or any number of other pre-existing emotes. Vendors that are stale just stand there, like they used to do. No waving, no nothing.

The idea being that the active vendors are active. Inactive vendors aren't active, but don't have to sit. That avoids the problem of not being able to see a vendor, but still making them visibly different.

 

knee jerk mechanic, it is a quick simple fix, for a way to "Mark" unsupported vendors. Since I used my vendor in two places to actually decorate, it makes zero sense for me also.

A very simple date last updated when moussed over, or optional tag with name to turn on / off if you are looking for vendors would have been so much more viable.

 

I do sometimes find it rather unsettling how many outdoor merchants there are. Specific markets like the NBM I like to imagine as a street bazaar and it makes sense. I love my little shop though, and won't be moving my vendor outside for the sake of a couple more sales. I do get a lot of compliments about how good it looks. And many return customers ask me for custom creations, which also reduces my need for restocking...

I think the best option is to use a nameplate. Hijack the Guild Tag/Faction entry on nameplates maybe? Where a player would have guild, the merchant would have Last Updated: YYYY-MM-DD