Gamemode Changes to merchant jobs

[Obsidial]

Title of Suggestion: Changes to merchant jobs

Description
Have merchant jobs been considered in the economy reset / server reset?

The following are suggestions / considerations to fix the issue, so if you have a better idea post them in this thread with your -support.

I think there are some fundamental issues that need resolving for these jobs that will help them to be revived:

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Self-Manufacture Issue
Whilst this is against the rules, it can't be consistently be enforced manually like it is now. It's easy for players to just do it whenever a staff isn't online to catch them doing it.

People tend to go gun dealer / bmd / chef and manufacture their own stuff instead of buying it like they should because of this.

This is rather difficult to enforce properly, but I think that some kind of automatic system like the FL anti-minge system should help to prevent this.

Specifically, the game would you from using gun dealer / chef / bmd items that have been manufactured by yourself. It will also make sure that you can only give out these items above a certain limit when you are the relevant job. 

The goal is to allow something small like giving an unarmed criminal you are working with an AK and some ammo so they can help in the raid,
But not allowing something like 2 friends both going gundealer/bmd/chef -> self-manufacture together -> swap items to get them at market price instead of buying from a player.

The specifics for how to do this are probably very technical and something for the devs to consider whether it's even doable. But at the moment the self-manufacture issue kinda fucks the gun dealer / bmd / chef because people just log on during quiet hours and manufacture things at market price so they can get it cheaper than following the rules.

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Chef - Fish makes them obsolete & food stats need reworking
The chef job has been obsolete outside of selling fishing rods for a very long time now. This is because fishing provides a free and easy way to access food sources which are almost always more OP and cheaper than what chefs sell.

I'm thinking that fishing could possibly be dialed back or limited to chefs only + chefs can't use what they manufacture / fish. This will direct players to buy from the chef job again, because right now the only people who touch chef job are for an organized rp or new players that quickly realize nobody wants to buy anything from them and leave the job.

A revamp for food stats might also be in order to stop people from just ordering whatever has the most % hunger filled. Right now there's a big variety of food items that are totally obsolete and there is no reason to ever buy them because other food items are just better. Food items could be specialized instead so that different foods are helpful for different things instead of having a single item be the meta item where only that one food item gets bought.

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Mechanic - repair boxes
Repair boxes have very much made the mechanic job obsolete as well. Most people who play mechanic these days are minges looking to bait cops into a vehicle pursuit because the tow truck is dirt cheap and super fast. There's also the issue of minges going mechanic and picking up random parked vehicles and towing them away for shits and giggles.

The mechanic job will benefit massively from reconsidering the balance between mechanic / repair box, and possibly make it more profitable to increase the number of players taking an interest in the job. 

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Again, the above suggestions might not be the best possible solution. If you have a better idea then put it in the thread comments please

Why?
The above suggestions would hopefully revive the merchant jobs and prevent them from dying in the wake of the economy reset.

I think this is quite vital considering after the reset nobody will have any items and there will be significant demand for them, but these will die off from self-manufacture, fishing, etc. as the demand falls once people are kitted out with new items. 

If nothing is done to help them, these jobs will fall right back to how they are right now once the initial demand from the reset is gone; where nobody plays them and nobody buys from them.

[-(P)- Dabster]

+++ Support!

The merchant jobs have been dead for a long time, i only see them played for RP reasons nowadays really. Especially with the economy reset coming up this seems to be very important as it will bring back the jobs only for a short period of time( if self supplying is not fixed) since everyone loses their items. Fixing the self supply issue especially in terms of food, guns and i think medical items too would increase the general interest in the merchant jobs greatly as people will actually have to buy from you instead of just having tons of fish etc.
Think the points mentioned above from Obsidial are spot on and definitely need to be considered and fixed! would also add, that besides maybe only chefs being able to fish, the rate of fish being caught should be decreased greatly, or fish just getting nerfed. You can go fishing for 10 minutes and basically have enough food for 2 weeks of playing time since its so strong of a food too. Would also put into consideration of the vending machine being disabled when a chef job is taken, so the players have to buy/rp with the chef.

[Pollux]

We have some ideas planned on how to fix merchants, however it's too early to say much and not all of it will be done alongside the economy reset due to it waiting on a few other things first. One thing that isn't currently possible is your suggestion to stop self-supply, we can't add unique data to items right now due to how the system works. Repair boxes are already expensive and take ages, people simply don't care. Due to it being VCmod and locked behind a DRM, we're really limited on how we can modify it.

The entire market system should be changing alongside the reset which might help merchants, however this won't fix everything. There will also be a smaller inventory limit so hopefully people can't stockpile as much. We also already have plans to nerf fishing or make it harder. Merchants are still somewhat boring to play as and a solution for that won't be here for a while.

I'm open to short-term stuff we can do while we work on long-term updates to resolve it.

[Archer]

We have some ideas planned on how to fix merchants, however it's too early to say much and not all of it will be done alongside the economy reset due to it waiting on a few other things first. One thing that isn't currently possible is your suggestion to stop self-supply, we can't add unique data to items right now due to how the system works. Repair boxes are already expensive and take ages, people simply don't care. Due to it being VCmod and locked behind a DRM, we're really limited on how we can modify it.

The entire market system should be changing alongside the reset which might help merchants, however this won't fix everything. There will also be a smaller inventory limit so hopefully people can't stockpile as much. We also already have plans to nerf fishing or make it harder. Merchants are still somewhat boring to play as and a solution for that won't be here for a while.

I'm open to short-term stuff we can do while we work on long-term updates to resolve it.

I don't think merchants will ever be as "exciting" as other jobs...and that is completely a-okay. Some jobs are by nature more passive and boring - it isn't really limited to merchants, the Nexus Desk Secretary is the same, or for that matter, the Chauffeur. Instead of making major inherent changes to these jobs, alternative and interesting ways of playing those should be promoted - different sorts of chefs for example, in restaurant settings or whatnot. A roleplay problem should not be solved with extra-roleplay solutions.

[Pollux]

With our recent economy changes, this isn't needed.

Denied.