One complaint I have heard in Skyrim (and almost any RPG ever) is that it's easy to lots of gold and so little to buy. Personally, I am always strapped for cash but this is apparantly not the case for the majority. So my proposed counter to this to have merchants one-up the levelled loot lists so what they sell is worth going into dungeons, risking your life to buy. I'm not suggesting the merchants always have better items, there's nothing more satifying than finding an ultra-powerful enchanted sword or armour but more of a secure way to get higher level gear than being a means to get the bare minimum of equipment and someone to dump your useless loot for useful money. Is this a worthwhile idea, or the biggest misunderstanding of a problem in RPG history? Is this possible in a patch, or only a mod?

I always check vendors to see if there is any new enchantment I can learn.

Sometimes they actually do have better equipment, but it's rare like the loot in dungeons.

I like to have a choice of going to a merchant to pay, let say 4000g for a robe or if i wanna save money, find one in a dungeon. Its totally optional to buy it from vendor. I LOVE this kind of freedom and it does wonders for RP.

I'd rather them all have a (sort of)static inventory, but scaled very slightly so that as you progress through the game, there is some sense of progression in their merchandise. not as much so that the riverwood trader will eventually start selling glass and daedric and stuff. More like, he starts with iron, and later on in the game you'll see that he has steel. end-game maybe he'll have a very limited selection of glass, maybe a helmet and a sword or something.

And each trader would have different tiered items. You could randomize it a little, so that each playthrough is a bit different, but overall, I don't want to see every single merchant have the same tier of gear. I want to be able to risk my neck traveling to a far off city on foot at level 1-5 to find a trader that has a much better selection of weapons to buy....or steal! >: D

The level scaling would only be implemented to give it a slight dynamic effect, for realism's sake.

Or, we could abandon the scaling in favor of a more immersive system. A living economy. Some traders would do well, some not so well, some would become incredibly rich (and in turn would be able to sell rare equipment), some would be forced to close down their shop. That would be better, but a lot harder to pull off.

In my experience the merchants typically do have slightly better stuff because you (or I) will often level while doing a dungeon so the merchant's inventory will have updated to reflect my new level but the dungeon was stuck on whatever it's set when you step in.

I actually don't like the idea of the merchant having stuff to buy that's better than what I can find, personally. Makes you wonder why you bother going into dungeons.

You will bother going into dungeons to find stuff to sell to get gold for better stuff in shops, or to get paid for a quest that directs you to a dungeon.

Good ideas.

I think that the vendors should have generally higher level loot than the normal dungeons in the local environs.

There should still be the chance in any dungeon for a rare or higher level item.

The user should be able to, eventually, craft higher level items than the vendors or the generic dungeon loot.

I only find iron or steel stuff in their inventories, then all the the kinds of armour I got a few hours ago.

I'd like to know more about this 'amour' you talk about.

Just an idea:
What if there were different unique sets in the game ?
-Sets of Armor
-Sets of Jewelry
-Sets of 1H+Shield
-Sets of Dual wield weapons

Now say there were very few special vendors, possibly vendors who could only be interacted with or even found by completing a certain quest.
Or made available by meeting other preconditions.
Those vendors could have 1 piece ( 2 pieces for Armor) of that unique set.
Any given piece of any set would be expensive, let's say from 25.000 gold upwards.
Buying such a piece would then prompt the vendor into a convo with you, revealing the Lore behind it and a rough indication where to look for the missing part, NOT the exact location.
Also, the icon for that location would not be revealed on your compass, and retrieving the missing piece should be a challenge.
I can see how that would be tough to balance with existing items in the game, but there should be game mechanics available to make it work without totally OP-ing such sets, yet give them properties no other items have.
And it would certainly drain those wallets many of us are dragging around.
Not to mention that good 'ol treasure hunting feeling.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

THAT'S AMOUR!