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    Your Elvenar Team

Hire a merchant

Henroo

Oh Wise One
I'm still in the early stages of chapter 18. I just did the upgrade to the trader. There is now a new tab where I can hire merchants. Exactly how does this work and what do they do?
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
The merchant trades ascended goods for you. You hire them with coins for 20 days. You then set each merchant up to sell your ascended goods for other ascended goods. The first level is 2000 at a time. If your goods don't sell after 6 hours (on level 1, this may increase or decrease as you upgrade your portal, but I'm not sure), they are automatically sold for you. So selling ascended goods is about keeping the merchants filled consistently. I find my 3 merchants seldom go 6 hours before somebody has accepted the trade.

Another thing. Once you assign a merchant to sell something for something else, if you didn't get the right "something" in one or more of the slots, you can't cancel. Or maybe I haven't found the way to do so?

And, the totals displayed as you enter your merchant trades reflect the levels after the trade has completed. So it may say you have 13,900 (enough for a hub) but you will have to wait for the transaction completes before you can use the 13,900.

AJ
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
A new question: I see 3 merchants for hire with gold. Then there are 2 more available but they cost diamonds. Do you pay the diamonds once to unlock them and then after that they are available to hire with gold? Or do you constantly have to use diamonds each time you want to use merchants 4 and 5?
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
Ok, I've hired a merchant and have put a trade up. At least I think I have. I can't see it when I look at the "my offers" tab. Is this normal? And so far response to it seems slower than it would for a sentient good trade. Posted the trade in Arendyll and my boosted there is Ignited Ingots. Is the trade market for ascended goods there balanced?
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
Ok, I've hired a merchant and have put a trade up. At least I think I have. I can't see it when I look at the "my offers" tab. Is this normal? And so far response to it seems slower than it would for a sentient good trade. Posted the trade in Arendyll and my boosted there is Ignited Ingots. Is the trade market for ascended goods there balanced?

Right, you cannot see your ascended trades because you get the goods from the merchant as soon as you make the deal. And then you just have to wait the 6 hours for the merchant to return for another deal, unless another player takes it before the time is up. So if you need a lot of goods fast, you either need a partner who does not have the same boost as you and you can each keep making deals and then taking each other's offers or you can use time boosters to make the merchant come back sooner. Arendyll was not balanced as of a couple of months ago when I finished chapter 19 and stopped needing ascended goods, until chapter 20 comes out. Also remember, because all ascended goods trades can only be 2-star, it is a lot harder for your offers to be noticed when there are a lot of the same and for the same amount.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
Ok, I've hired a merchant and have put a trade up. At least I think I have. I can't see it when I look at the "my offers" tab. Is this normal? And so far response to it seems slower than it would for a sentient good trade. Posted the trade in Arendyll and my boosted there is Ignited Ingots. Is the trade market for ascended goods there balanced?

Trading is very slow and often you have to wait out the timer. As mentioned a trading partner is your best bet to get a lot of goods quick. US1 isn't balanced but I doubt any of them are due to low number of players at those levels and often people at end tech stop producing.

The market fluctuates between what is in demand but I know it was painful getting goods. Your one advantage is there is ch19 so more players making and potentially trading A1 goods then there was when ch18 was the end. I am noticing a lot of cross tier A trades due to the demand of goods. Another positive is that a some of the goods costs from memory are based on your boosted goods, so for those items everyone is forced to trade.
 

Henroo

Oh Wise One
US1 isn't balanced but I doubt any of them are due to low number of players at those levels and often people at end tech stop producing.
I also have cities in Khelonaar and Winyandor in the same chapter right now. And Arendyll is *by far* the worst trade market for ascended goods. This could be because of my boosted there: in Arendyll I'm boosted in ingots, while in Khel and Winy I am boosted in minerals. Or it could be that Arendyll is just a more unbalanced marketplace. Whatever the reason, in Khel and Winy other players often pick up my merchant trades so that I can cycle merchants faster. And I can also frequently find trades posted requesting minerals, which also helps. But in Arendyll I usually have to wait the full 6 hours on merchants because nobody picks up the trades. And I rarely see posted trades requesting ingots.
 

Mykan

Oh Wise One
the limits on trading don't help. I have the ingot boost to but won't put it up for trade currently as I am after A1 goods and can only post 3 trades at a time. So that limit will force people to focus on most urgent need.
 

Enevhar Aldarion

Oh Wise One
When I went through chapter 18, my boost, Sprouts, was by far the worst to have on Arendyll, as it seemed everyone starting the chapter with me had the same tier 1 boosts as mine. I still finished the chapter in about 4 months, even though I never used more than 3 merchants. No way I was wasting diamonds on something temporary. This ended up being another situation where time boosters came in handy, and a lot of people are still doing that, as you can see from the offered trades. Any trade that has not started to decay yet, but does not have the exclamation point next to it, means that player used time boosters to get their merchant back right away. You also have to look at all trades, not just ones offering the good you want. Just like with other goods, take any trades that are asking for your good and then look at the other trades to see who wants that good too and trade. For example, I have Sprouts and someone is offering Minerals for Sprouts, but I need Ingots. Someone else is offering Ingots for Minerals, so I would trade my Sprouts for the Minerals and then turn around and trade the Minerals for the Ingots. Also, over the course of those 4 months, I never did a long-term trade with anyone, not even in my fellowship. I think the most that ever happened was swapping maybe 10 trades back and forth with another random player, who happened to be on at the same time and we just happened to be offering what the other needed, before one of us ran out of goods to trade.

@Mykan yeah, the starting amounts are really low, but as you level the main hall, the amounts go up, going from 2000 at the start of chapter 17, to 5000 after the 2nd main hall upgrade in chapter 19. And chapter 19 uses the standard cross-tier values of 1:1.5:2.25, so 5000 tier 2 ascended gets 7500 tier 1 ascended and 5000 tier 1 ascended gets 3333 tier 2 ascended. Chapter 20 is almost here, so I will get to start dealing with the tier 3 ascended soon.
 

defiantoneks

Well-Known Member
i never hire more than one merchant, and i have one of the lesser desired boosts in E with minerals. But, with attention I have success trading to keep an equal balance of minerals and ingots available to grab any sprouts that come up regardless of the demand. there's no way i would get along trading just minerals for sprouts. and i would guess if you dont have the time to spend lurking around the trader, hiring more merchants would be the way to go.

edit: i would also add, if you snag trades from someone else that you want, i highly recommend hanging around the trader for a while. more than likely they are looking for a bigger total and will come right back to reset more offers.
 
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