Expand Items Carried by Merchant

Sry if this has been posted before..

Why not have the Merchant or some new NPC offer all mods and inscriptions for sale, like they do for dye, runes, mats, ect..

I think you mean a trader, not a merchant. I would like it because it would make trading a lot easier. But then again, it would be a lot of work on Anet.

would like it, would save a lot of time everyone gotta spend selling the mods, moreover, it would give a borderlines for the prices, as they re quite changing, and especially when im for some obscure mod, it would allow me to get it without hours spamming for like Brawn over Brains or w/e

gotta decide what about non-max mods though, as i dont feel like scrolling 21 fortitude mods for a sword to find the max one

Merchants could have some more basic items, like each of them having the local Alcoholic Beverage, the Local Sweet and the Local Firework, that would be different depending on region. Vabbian Wine in Vabbi, Rice Wine in Cantha, Drunken ale in outposts controlled by dwarves, Hunter's Ale everyone else (like the Guild Hall), etc, etc.
But upgrades are something to be sold in Traders, not in Merchants.

If it is Trader what you meant, and not Merchant, then:

A Trader for weapons is a good idea that has been already suggested. It would be great for things like:
- Get rare upgrades that people don't usually sell. That is, most of them.
- Get inscriptions for BMP and Reward chest items if you only have Prophecies and Factions.
- Getting upgrades for PvP rewards and items obtained from Zaishen and HoH Reward chests if you are a PvP character.

It would have some problems, since, unlike armor upgrades, their properties are very variable, but they can be solved easily if you think.
For example. Let's take an upgrade that ranges from 10 to 20: 10..20%.
If you sell the trader one at 20, since it's maxed, another upgrade is added to the stock all traders can sell.
If you sell a 10%, then, only a fraction of a new item is added.
And fractions would be made on a geometric progression, not arithmetic.
This way:
Sell 1 maxed (20%) and one is added to the stock.
Sell 10 19% and 1 is added to the stock.
Sell 30 18% and 1 is added to the stock.
Sell 90 17% and 1 is added to the stock...
Sell 270 16% and 1 is added to the stock...
...
...
etc, etc...
So, with this progression, you'll need t sell 196,830 10% upgrades to get a maxed 20% added to the stock. Seems pretty fair to me. phew...

Same goes for prices. I you make the trader sell only maxed upgrades, but buy all of them, you make the price the trader would pay for a maxed upgrade the 'base', and reduce it geometrically when the trader pays for lesser upgrades, until 25gold is hit:
20% : 1,000 gold.
19% : 333 gold.
18% : 111 gold
17% : 37 gold.
16% and less: 25 gold (hit the min)

Note that numbers are just examples to get the overall idea.

That way we get the stock up without getting it too high, and without messing too much with prices, and people can sell all upgrades, not only the perfect ones, while getting only perfect ones when buying.

if you give a mouse a cookie... think of how people were upset when rune traders came out. if you give an inscription trader to the game, and a weapon upgrade trader also, people will instantly want a weapon trader too, so they can buy any skin they want, any req, whenever. no, simply no. heroes/some traders have already taken a lot of the interaction out of the game, you add more traders and there will be even less. might as well go play a single player game right?

people would argue that anet needs to cater to the audience in order to sell products, good business right? if you keep giving players handouts (GW:EN titles, zaishen chest, etc) yeah the sales go up a bit, but then what?

people are never happy, ever, never satisfied, thats what keeps people playing, keeps people working for things. if they get everything they want, whenever they want, then whats the point? people will bring up 'gw is a dying game.' whats the point of playing if everything is easy, theres not challenge and you dont have to work for it?

Are you joking? XD
No, really, I meant it. This is GW. 2008 GW. We are talking about 2008's GW.
GW right now.

The rune traders were added AGES ago.
And they don't create items, they are a mean for players to trade between themselves, that also act as a gold sink, by selling higher than they buy.And gold sinks are GOOD.

And they don't reduce prices. Players reduce prices by selling more. Without a trader, most people would spend ages to get a single item, or having to use external systems to trade and without not much success for items that are not the most sold, like the runes that cost 100 gold in traders. With the slow trading system we have and the storage limitations, it's better to sell single HIGH-price items or HUGE bulks of stackable. People want cash, and you get cash by selling the things that are sold for more, not single cheap ones only a few people want once in a while.

On top of that, they regulate the prices, since anyone can check prices there to have a reference so they don't get scammed by scum without souls.
They are WAY better for the market than the SLOW direct trade system. Specially since they sell upgrades most players don't care about (all with price 100 in the trader)

Imagine you are a PvP-only player.
Now you get an weapon in one of the reward systems PvP has.
Now you want to make a quick upgrade change before you enter the next round to the GvG tournament you are inscribed.

How do you upgrade the weapon?
Oh... "make a PvP item" you say... eh...? So what PvP rewards are for? You can't show off weapons in Outposts, and they come customized so you can't sell them. They exist to be used, and to be used effectively they must be upgraded.
Ah... buying in the Great Temple, eh...?
I want you to go to ANY outpost and get me a +15% damage -5 energy inscription and Health +30-45 (while in a Stance) focus core in less than 5 minutes...

Oh... can't eh? You could say that's almost impossible. Then imagine just the Great Temple of Balthazar. Less than impossible.

You can't make everyone happy, but you can make MOST people happy. And most people would be happy if they they could sell the upgrades they don't want and buy the ones they want without having to spend months farming or days (or even weeks and months for certain upgrades) trading.

Maybe for American districts it's not so hard. But in Europe trade panels are HELL. German, Polish, French, Spanish... you see a lot of offers, and you can understand only a few of them, and if you look for something you may have it in front but never see it. And regardless of how many offers they are, they are all 'trendy' or expensive items, never a weird upgrade or something that would cost 100 gold between players.

Traders may remove some interaction from the game, but if that interaction is spamming "WTS xxxx" 3 hours a day, it's a welcomed removal.

One thing is "too easy", and another thing is "less annoying".
There is no challenge in killing easy monsters again and again until you get the drop you want, that's what people do to get things today.

This would make upgrading less annoying, specially for PvP characters and for upgrades that are less traded or almost not traded at all.

Do you get it now?

Simple fact is, mods outside of Elemental damage have too many variables. Mithran's idea of requiring multiple quantities to be sold of lower mods to have a max mod is crappy. Don't see how selling a 10% mod should allow someone to buy a 20% mod. Don't care how many are required, it shouldn't work that way. Besides which, the work involved to program something like that isn't as simple as it sounds.

And PvP characters never need to purchase or sell mods, what in the world were you thinking about with that one? Press 'J' and use Balthazar faction, faster and easier.

/unsigned due do possibility

Make them only take max and 1-2 off perfect mods. We have three grades of runes, so why not 3 grades of mods? Or just make it so they only take perfect mods.

Boy, that was a tough problem to solve.

Id /sign if the trader only took maxed mods. Non-maxed mods should still be merchant fodder, the 25g from the merch is generous.

youre telling me a pvp person with enough points to unlock this new fancy equipment isnt going to have that kind of stuff laying around? so if youre 'pro' enough to have these points to unlock stuff, you havent gotten any balth faction for keys/cash or opened the z chest? quit kidding yourself.

and mithran, if you are going to quote me, quote a statement and say your issue with it. you know everything i said makes sense, you know people would demand a wep trader next.

the game was made easy enough already with some of the really stupidly overpowered pve only skills, farming is a joke now

Or it may bring up the dreaded idea of an Elite Tome Trader. That dumb idea would be demanded by all who are lazy and like everything handed to them.

QFT! I don't see how it makes GW so much better to interact with hordes of bozos. The guy who gives you "LOL noob!" when you refuse his generous offer to sell you an Aptitude inscription for 18k, telling you it's really worth 20k but he's being nice. The guy who tells you he's the only person in existence who bothers to stock a spear grip of enchanting, and he'll gladly accept your 10k when you find that out and come crawling back to him. The level 10 who can't be bothered to check trader prices and thinks his Major Smiting Prayers rune is worth a fortune because ZOMG, it's a **MAJOR** rune!!1! How exactly will it ruin the game not to be forced to stand around Spamadan for hours dealing with these people just to trade a few mods?

I've merched some pretty decent mods and weapons that could probably have gotten 4-5k, rather than deal with the hassle for such a small return, and that benefits nobody. If I'd been able to sell them to a trader, then someone who really needed them could have gotten them.

There is no need for such a trader.

We're 2 years into the current weapon design. Everybody has their r8/9's completely modded and ready, there's a reason stuff like +30hp, 20/20, 15^50 are only 1-5k instead of the 100k+ at the start of gw (tough that was also in part cause of the random salvage back then. qq destroying the +30hp and getting ebon upgrade).


If you dont believe me, then take a look at the sup vigor's 10k instead of the 100k it used to be; people are selling loads more then buying since they got their 5-6 15k and obsidian set already with a separate sup vigor in each.

/not signed

If you take scavenging for stuff out of the game you might as well roll a pve toon like you do for pvp.

"Faster" is not the same as "easier".
Farming countless hours for an upgrade that someone else may have already found and that you'll sell if you can, but that one discarded because not much people sell or because he hates to trade its's not hard. It's annoying.

What GW needs is less "annoyances", like the change they made to titles. (And more stuff to do, but that's already being take care of)

I've tried many farming builds myself, and there's no effort in that. It's boring, quite boring, actually. That's not hard. But people will get more upgrades that way, because with those, the more drops you get, the more chances you get to find the one you are looking for.
People used to get Runes by killing ettings... again... and again... and again... That's wasted time.
It's way better to play normally, sell the runes you find and don't want, and buy those that other people do not want and sell, but you may use.
Someone's junk may be someone else's treasure, and that's the principle that traders apply, and since the GW trading system sucks, traders are a good fix for that, since they help people trade between themselves quickly.
Remember: Traders DON'T create items, they just are intermediaries between players. We can't have a better trade system right now, but we can have traders for some items, and that's better than nothing.
That's how armor upgrade traders work and weapon upgrades are almost the same.
They drop from monsters, they can be salvaged, they are applied to equipment you equip, you usually get some for the equipment you use most and you may need to make quick changes to them sometimes for certain builds.
The only difference is that armor have more fixed properties, while weapon upgrades are more variable.

You can't add a trader for every single item type.
But with upgrades and materials, it's a different story.
For the most sought upgrades there is no problem, but 15%^50, 20/20 or +30 mods are NOT the only upgrades out there.
What about those upgrades almost no one sells?
For armor upgrades you can get them almost always with fair prices.
But for weapon upgrades? Ah! Forget it, until you find them yourself, you'll never get them, because NO ONE sell them.
It doesn't matter how much are you willing to pay if NO ONE sells.
That's not hard, that's annoying.

Now, in PvP areas, we have Rune traders.
Why are they there? Hm...? To use space? No.
If you want to make a quick change, you go to the Xunlai chest, pick some cash you earned before, and go get the runes you need to the Trader.
Can you do so with Weapons? Noope.
Why? Because there is no trader for them.

Items already sold in merchants, vanity stuff like miniatures or festival items, items with alternative secure sources like tomes(Skill traders and bosses), armor (crafters), weapons(crafters and collectors)...
Hey, even dyes and scrolls could perfectly go without a trader, but that's not the case of upgrades and materials.

There is only ONE trader left to add. Only one. And it's the one for the remaining equipment upgrades.

to mithran arkanere, here you go bud

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10334319

Well, that thread agrees with me, most people that trade won't trade anything but Zaishen Keys in the Great Temple, so PvP-only account players that want to buy weapon upgrades from other characters will have a hell of a hard time.