I totally agree with what @Marrash had said. People are always going to find the most efficient way of doing things with limited skill points which will mean that the majority of players will eventually end up being all pretty similar. Perhaps instead of being so lean with the skill points to create different shops for the economy why not make it so you have to choose between what shop stands you can make … Make the different categories have different shop stands and when you choose one to make it locks out the other plus they can’t be sold so each player has to make their own if they want to sell something.
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Interesting idea.
Maybe even tax epic could have three versions of it lowering tax for one type of goods each. You chose one and the other two are locked. Via chosen epic you become price competitive in a chosen field more than in the others. If you want only one merchant skill set than you only have the lower tax in one category. To cover all you would need to have three merchant skill sets, so one character fully dedicated to buying tax epic skills. You can do it but you sacrifice your time to get there.
It’s the same with crafting. To max out all crafting skills you need all three skill sets to go for crafting epics and cover different areas.
So yeah, the system still allows you to cover everything but you need multiple characters with all skill sets maxed each. That requires dedication and time. You get rewarded at the end and you might be able to cover a lot with your characters but still time will limit your ability to do everything alone and build one-player empire. So again you still need to rely on others to run a big shop or net of shops, or to create a portal network etc.
MMO and cooperation wins! But you can still have a set of characters to do everything whenever you want to. Just spend time to build that up.
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Interesting ideas, however it think they would be a bit too easy to circumvent via multiple beacons/characters/accounts
another cool idea… however it has the same potential pitfalls… one workaround… a special set of account wide perks/skills? That way one account would have to pick and choose what was most important… however this still would be bypass-able by having multiple accounts ><
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indeed - but again it all requires time and all; so, whoever has time for it they can be rewarded by being able run a tax free shop/shops;
I know from my own experience that even running an average size shop alone is hard and impossible if you also want to mine, craft, build or hunt. I found it difficult to restock stands regularly. I had enough goods to sell most of the time but to go through stands and restock and check other shops prices and set up my own, that was impossible - whatever skill sets and characters and accounts you have to cover all areas of the game you eventually need to work with other people to run it effectively.
If running a shop is all you do than you have a chance, but then why not? dedication shall be rewarded.
so, ideas like that are there only to make sure a single player cant achieve too much alone and within a couple of weeks, as that would kill the need for cooperation and remove any satisfaction from achieving things (like “look what a great shop I have, selling all goods in game… oh wait a minute, there are 20 shops like that in the city and 100 more on the planet…”) - if everyone can have it, why have it?
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True but then so is the current system as well as the next update subject to exactly the same workaround. I’m pretty sure all the big shops in the current game are not each run by just one person so if anything the new update is going to work in their favour as they work in a group they simply split the different crafting amongst themselves so will always be able to produce everything whether they put it under one roof or create a shopping area made up of seperate shops. If there’s a shortage of any particular resource for any period of time they simply concentrate on producing items from what resources are plentiful whereas a ‘specialised’ shop run by one person will always be subject to the availability of the resources they need so if they in low supply for any period of time (guilds buying them up etc) then they are pretty limited in what they can do in the interim apart from go out looking for them themselves, which if they’ve sunk all their skill points into making brews for example then they are going to find it very challenging especially if they have to go off world to higher level planets. So far it’s a win win situation for the big group run shops and I think the thought of any small independents being able to have a safer niche in the market because they’ve ‘specialised’ is not going to happen … but that is just my opinion and hopefully I’m completely wrong 
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I see both sides of the argument here. As a shop owner previously with the likes of Omni and Sly as competition, it’s tough to compete on your own - although I found ways of keeping it interesting, it really is a capacity issue. If you want to stay solo, the chance to specialise (I’m thinking of the chap who made a mint on Atlases when/before they were released) and stay agile is there.
On the other hand, if you want to sell everything and be competitive at the top end, this is likely to be the domain of organised groups - but it’s fair to recognise the organisation that does have to go into that kind of process.
However - it’s important not to base all our assumptions on what today’s universe brings us. Currently we have a couple of key hubs, and everything is connected to everything else via portals. Every planet is within a handful of jumps from every other.
With the new universe there will be a lot more territory… which means more potential gatherers, but also may well make a recognised ‘central’ hub more difficult. So I wonder if making a name for yourself in one section of the universe will be viable; perhaps the comparison of owning the main canteena on Tatooine, rather than the central megastore on Coruscant…
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