Hi guys,

I am currently working on discovering what can be made to improve player's experience through the NPC vendors in RPGs.

So, what do you think of Skyrim's vendors?

Are you looking to make a Skyrim mod, or are you just trying to do research on RPGs, or what? My character is a greedy bastard who would like it if merchants gave him better prices and had more money, but as a player I think that would unbalance the game.

I guess what I would like to see from merchants is more variety. Different merchants should have different prices, and absolutely should have different dialog. The prices could vary according to what resources are abundant or scarce in the local region and on the health of the local economy. Ideally, player's action should have economic consequences (cleaning out lots of bandits should make it safer and cheaper to ship goods).

I liked having some hints about their disposition and the opportunity to haggle with vendors.

I HATE how shop inventories are scaled to the player's level. It's [censored] ridiculous and completely undermines the believability of the world; while also making pretty much every shop of a certain type generic with nothing unique to offer.

Shops in a poor village should sell poor quality items throughout the entirety of the game. While shops in a wealthy city should sell some of the best items right from the moment my character sets foot in the world. And every shop should sell unique items (whether they're cheap/expensive, weak/powerful, etc) that no other shop sells.

Sure, this might mean that some people will exploit the game to buy the most expensive items straight away, but who cares? People like that are going to find ways to cheat anyway. The world should be believable, not centered around the player.

Having them say different things instead of the same lines would be nice. Also if they could add a favorite customer feature with discounts or select inventory would be good too. Kinda like VP 2.

Now that were at it , Ri'saad is the best vendor and Eorlund is the worst. I don't know why he says 'Gods be praised' every time I ask him what he has for sale.

Many is annoying because of their stupid greetings. Mostly the one at Warmaiden with her has you meet my father. I like the one in Drunken Huntsman yes he repeat his greeting but at least it's sound plausible.

Sheogorath88 Unleveled items would not work well, pretty easy to get money in this game, no I'm not talking about exploiting, just buying an daeric sword over another house at level 17. Also as it would not show up often you will feel pressed to buy it as you might not see another before level 60.

Yes we could change it so high level items was way more expensive but it would introduce other problems.

I agree with both. Ri'saad sounds so nice with his "Tehk a look", makes me want to buy all his stuff. I guess that's how Khajiit attract customers, they act amazingly adorable.
Eorlund's greeting gets more unbearable every time, but still I kind of like him because he usually has the best and most things out of all the smiths, at least in my game.

I don't see how it wouldn't work. It's pretty easy to work out an average on how much money a player will accumulate by X level, and work prices around that. Besides, if the player doesn't cheat and still becomes rich after just 20 hours of gameplay, the problem is with how easy it is to aquire wealth, and they should fix that instead of scaling shop inventories to stop the player spending their wealth on powerful items.

Also, i'm not necessarily suggesting the very best weapons should be available in shops. It doesn't really make much sense for any merchant to be selling Daedric items for instance. They should be extremely rare artifacts that can only be found in dungeons, etc.

Well, I do wish they'd have more gold available for bartering, but that might unbalance the game. In vanilla Oblivion, merchants had unlimited gold but I don't know which idea is better.

Haggling/bargaining would be nice (I haven't found an option for this at least?).

I don't know about level-scaling items. I kind of like it the way it is, but maybe that's because I'm lazy.

They only had unlimited gold in total. They were, however, limited in how much they'd spend per transaction (making it virtually impossible to get full value from high level, enchanted gear -- even with Speechcraft maxed and investing in the shop).


Well, in Skyrim, I think haggling/bargaining is implicitly there and is reflected by your speech skill and some of the perks in that tree.


I don't like the auto level-scaling, as others have said, because it's too player-centric and, therefore, an immersion breaker. It'd be much better if different regions specialized to reflect regional resources and if the local economy played a role.

A quick example of both: Markarth should obviously be the region for dwarven gear and, further, the more bandits/forsworn the character kills in that area, the more prices should drop since supply should increase due to safer trade routes. In this manner, it'd make it harder for characters to spam kills for loot in one area without seeing diminishing returns to sell in the same area. Otoh, the more bandits/forsworn killed in the area, it should become more likely for dwarven materials and gear to show up in the inventories of merchants in other regions.

And just an aside, but it'd be really, really nice from an immersion standpoint if merchants recognized the character as a frequent, repeat customer. As it is now, you're treated like any random, new customer by almost every merchant unless you've done a quest for them -- even then some act like they've never seen you before.

I liked how in Morrowind if you shopped with a certain vendor all the time you would eventually get better prices from them. It seemed more realistic than just adding a speech perk that affects all vendors. I also wish they didn't just have scaled items. There should be a bigger price range so early characters couldn't purchase the high end items. Having really high end items would also make the money more meaningful and the reward of finally getting them greater. They should also have more unique items that can't be found as dungeon drops and some items that are as good as or better than named dungeon drops but only have a small % chance to show up in a game. And I wish the NPC's at least had unique lines instead of saying the same 5 lines all the other vendors say.

I found the merchants horribly generic and uninspired. Every merchant shared the same stock lists, their wares are ridiculously leveled, and there is little reason to care about the economy in this world. It's just there, with no other point to exist than to allow the player to offload goods and sell things the player has been proven worthy of receiving.

Which is why I'm striving to change that. Though I'm currently hung up by a lack of scripting functions in regards to pricing.

Yes, I'm quite aware of this. A sword worth 20 000 gold wouldn't catch more than 1200 in a store. However, if I had 100 swords worth 1000 each, I could easily make 100 000 gold. This is what, I think, unbalances the economy.

Well it has been said but all the vendors for the msot part said the same thing "some may call this junk, but me, I call them treasures!" Really? The guy in whiterun said the same thing.... and so did the girl in markarth.... hmm

I do like the way the meat vendor in markarth actually sells his product by talkikng to people who walk by, whom actually reply. Apparently the women tend to be vegetarians?

I also do not like the fact the jewelers have less than 100 gold (usually, without perks) yet they sell some of the most expensive things. You'd think they'd have more money based on the fact they are selling jewels/necklaces which some are 1200 easy.

I also do not like the fact that I can buy the same exact things in whiterun as markarth, dawnstar, etc. I feel that the colder areas should have more fur related items, pelts, etc where as the warmer areas have the steel/dwarven/etc.

No one should sell daedric armor. I think that should be loot or rewards only. Nor should dragon armor be sold. (I believe it is... I know I've found it in chests)

I think the vendors should recognize the fact you've spent thousands of gold in there shop, bought their entire supply of ingredients out, and then sold them tons of unwanted potions... but no they just state how they'll never be as good as their master....

I have tons of peeves that will eventually make it into my own thread...

I hate is the stupid interface.

Its impossible to sort weapons by damage, or value or anything which was a nice feature and pretty commonly available in pretty much every application created since 1999.

And switching between my inventory and the vendors is a PITA. the FONV or OB mechanisms were far superior, faster and had more information.

This game definitely needs more money-sinks. Once you've reached 100 smith, ench and alchemy and bought all the houses + decorations what else is there to buy? Vendors (and the game in general) need more "novelty" items that you don't mind spending 10k out of your 101 million on. Either that or make everything more expensive, it annoys me having this boundless wealth and nothing to do with it apart from add to it.

That and add more bloody greetings of course, just simple ones like "Good morning", "Hello" or "How may I help you?" would do, just so you don't hear the same stupid line every time you go to buy/sell. Dunno why Beth make vendors constantly repeat 1 or 2 lines that any normal person would only ever say once in their lives rather than 1 or 2 standard greetings that people use countless times every day.....

"You look a little pale. Could be Ataxia...." Comes to mind

Can't quibble with that. I just wish they hadn't taken the cheap and lazy route to fix that unbalance from OB. A thriving, dynamic economy makes the world feel alive, but they instead chose a simple, static limit to merchant gold to *solve* the imbalance.

Kind of both. It's an academic work whose purpose is to improve the whole RPG experience through vendors, but I will be looking into making a Skyrim mod to prove my research is worth. I am a Skyrim player and I have my own opinion on vendors (it has a lot in common with some of the things you guys said), but I obviously have to look deeper into the community in order to get more points of view.

I would also like to add that I will be obviously be looking at the whole RPG industry and how they implemented their vendors and not only Skyrim.

Just one idea. More preferential treatment depending on your factions in different regions, i.e. you get a discount on goods for being in the Legion in Solitude, etc. would be nice.

As for leveled goods, that's a tricky one. I'm guessing a lot rebalancing (available gold in dungeons, etc.) would have to be done if they were removed. I'd prefer less leveled goods though.

...they sell stuff...