Oblivion talk:Commerce

Table of available gold for various merchants?Edit

Would it be possible to add a table showing the available gold for each merchant in Cyrodil? Or at least the ones who offer the pre-Expert max of 1200 gold? — Unsigned comment by Dawncroft (talk • contribs) at 03:57 on 13 July 2007 (UTC)‎

There already is such a table; the Merchants page. --Saruuk 00:31, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

Thanks! Perhaps a link here, then? — Unsigned comment by Dawncroft (talk • contribs) at 07:51 on 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You're free to modify the page as you think necessary. But I'm not sure what more you think needs to be done: the first sentence of Merchant's Gold already explicitly says "these values are also listed on the Merchants page and on the individual merchants' pages". --Nephele^Talk 12:17, 13 July 2007 (EDT)

InvestmentsEdit

Can you Invest in a merchant more then once? — Unsigned comment by Umbacano (talk • contribs) at 19:10 on 30 March 2008

No. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 00:43, 31 March 2008 (EDT)

Rpeh is correct, multiple investment could imbalance the game drastically, as you could sell rare items at a far too high price, especially when duplication is added into the mix of things, and so it could happen that you collect so much gold from this that the game crashes because of memory overload. Bad things could happen is what I'm saying Lem0nhead 12:11, 1 January 2009 (EST)

Merge with Oblivion:MercantileEdit

I suggest merging this page with Oblivion:Mercantile. There seems no reason why there should be three pages Oblivion:Merchants, Oblivion:Mercantile, and Oblivion:Commerce discussing the same subject: the sale of items in Oblivion. I can understand why there are two separate pages Oblivion:Merchants, Oblivion:Mercantile because the table is so long, but I see no reason why this page can't be merged with Oblivion:Merchants.

Support and proposed. Travb 19:26, 10 September 2008 (EDT)

Oppose: I'm not sure this is the best plan. Oblivion:Merchants is already a page with which we have problems and making it larger isn't going to help. Instead, I'd keep only the standard sections on the Mercantile page (Character Creation, Skill Increases and Tips) and move the rest on to Commerce. You're right that the pages duplicate too much at the moment, but I think we still need the three pages. –Rpeh^{•T•C•E•} 01:38, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

Oppose I agree with Rpeh; the Mercantile page needs to be cleared of most of what is in there and leave only the standard stuff. The rest of it can be cleaned up and put into the Commerce article. --Mike | Contrib 06:26, 11 September 2008 (EDT)

Added Bartering to Commerce as proposed by Rpeh. --Mr. Oblivion^(T-C) 01:13, 29 May 2009 (EDT)

BarteringEdit

The article states the variables to the Barter system, but how exactly are these values used? Is there an equation of some sort that affects the level at which you can Barter with a merchant? --DKong27 ^{Talk Cont} 20:01, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree in that someone should work out some calculations with the slider with respect to varying Mercantile differences and dispositions. Or they could at least have a rule of thumb (x disposition at y Skill = z position on the bar). We console users really can't arbitrate such data, I wouldn't think. Not without PC support. Tea ache sea 19:32, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Barter doesn't mean negotiating about priceEdit

I've noticed that unfortunately the word "barter" has been used when talking about haggling over prices. Barter is the exchange of goods and services for those of equal value, it doesn't mean bargaining over a monetary transaction. I kinda wish Oblivion *did* have a barter system, it would mean we'd have a chance of swapping a couple of pieces of high value armour for one that was even better!

Not sure why this confusion about barter has occurred, the button in the trade screen is called the Haggle button, after all. — Unsigned comment by 90.198.216.6 (talk) at 11:54 on 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Blame that on the game manual itself. They incorrectly use the term "bartering" to mean "buying and selling", not "exchanging goods and services". I suspect it was confused with "bargaining" or something along those lines. Feel free to change them, though you may want to note somewhere on the page that the manual refers to the process as "bartering". ‒ Robin Hood↝talk 19:26, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

VerificationEdit

This is the first time I've edited a wiki, so I'm not entirely sure how to 'verify' the small bug of changing the haggle slider, pressing cancel and the changes still happening next time you talk to them. I've tried it with a few merchants and it seems to be true, so do I just remove the small 'verification needed' bit on the page? — Unsigned comment by 86.27.248.222 (talk) at 12:27 on 17 July 2010‎ (UTC)

Yup, and leave an edit summary saying that you did verify the bug. Thanks!--^Corevette₇₈₉ 13:50, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Hawkhaven glitch?Edit

The article states that Hawkhaven can be entered by exploiting a glitch... I am assuming this is to be done on the console version of the game? I don't see much point in exploiting a glitch on the PC when you have free access to everywhere at your fingertips. The link just brings me to the Frostcrag glitch page and makes no mention of accessing Hawkhaven. Little help, please? Tea ache sea 19:27, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but it seems that the test world that the Frostcrag Spire glitch takes you is the same world that Hawkhaven is located, so by exploring the world you will find Hawkhaven. I think this is wrong though, as the only thing I managed to in Hawkhaven's world is the Creature Testing Hall, which can also be accesed by the Testing Hall. --Rigas Papadopoulos • Talk • Deeds •

HagglingEdit

Does anyone know the full haggle formula? Looking it up on the CS wiki gives me a lot of game settings, but no detail on how they interact.131.247.38.30 09:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I captured 100 points of data and performed a 3d surface fit to the data to come up with an approximate haggle formula by using the difference between player and merchant mercantile skill as the X axis, the merchant's disposition as the Y axis, and the resultant improvement over the minimum haggle as the Z axis. The function's terms and coefficients bear little resemblance to the fBarter game settings given in the construction set. The resultant formula was Z=(17.3754 + .1741*X + .09*Y). So, if your mercantile skill is 51, the merchant's is 60, and the merchant's disposition towards you is 36: 51-60 = -9 = X, 36 = Y, and you could move the slider 19 points above the minimum haggle. It's interesting to note that, even if you only have 5 mercantile skill to a master merchant's 100, and even if they hated your guts (0 disposition), if you can initiate trade, you should be able to haggle for 1% more than their worst prices. Joy. 131.247.38.30 03:40, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Your formula seems correct to me, but you forgot that luck influences skill effectiveness (see next discussion, below) so it was most likely luck that made it look wrong. Also, would it be possible that someone would make a Mercantile Calculator where you input your mercantile skill, the merchants skill, their disposition to you and your luck? I mean, there is an Alchemy Calculator already, so why not make a Mercantile Calculator as well? FallingKnife 20:28, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

LuckEdit

I believe that Luck may have an affect on your bartering skills. I'm going to do a bit of experimenting, but I got a bit higher prices from The Dividing Line while under the affect of the Luck boost from the Lucky Old Lady. I went back the next day and got a bunch of offer refused messages until I toned the deal down a little. --86.137.118.24 22:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

It does, at least on the Xbox version. I'm using The Dividing Line as a test. Just as myself, I can sell at 69% currently with a Mercantile rank of 52 and Disposition at 100. With a 50 point luck boost taking me to 100 Luck, I can sell at 73%. --86.137.118.24 23:29, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Of course it does. Luck increases the effective value of all your skills, meaning that it increases your mercantile and speechcraft skills, both of which improve prices. --Nephele^Talk 23:47, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Then the particular effect should be mentioned here, shouldn't they? --86.141.184.222 16:53, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Almost certainly not, because if you try boosting Luck when your Mercantile and Speechcraft skills are maxed out at 100, you should see absolutely no improvement. I haven't actually done this, mind you, but enough people have attested to how Luck works that I'm comfortable believing them. If you'd like to test yourself by maxing out Speechcraft, Mercantile, and the vendor's Disposition, then drinking a Luck potion, please let us know what your results are.--184.32.142.229 17:27, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Luck increases the effectiveness of all the skill (except Acrobatics and Athletics) by 1 skill point for every 4 points of luck above 50. This also works the other way around; having a luck under 50 reduces your effectiveness. So the Lucky Old Lady spell raises your effectiveness to what it would be 5 skill points later. However, the increased effectiveness is capped to that of 100 skill points, so the skill increases beyond 100 skill points do nothing. The Mercantile Effectiveness Formula should use the Luck-affected skill instead of the one shown at the stats page. Any skill points beyond 100 make a difference, but that is reverted when luck makes its difference. However, if something has caused luck to be below 50, the skill points above 100 help offset it. The reason for jump height and running speed increasing when acrobatics and athletics go past 100 is that luck does not affect them in the first place. Oh, and the speechcraft skill doesn't have any actual effect on the prices you get. FallingKnife 20:10, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Findings based on disassembly of the game engineEdit

Nothing terribly much, but code analysis suggests that the game won't let you sell equipped items (makes sense) or poisoned items. Not sure about the latter; it's possible I misread a certain bitmask and it's actually checking ExtraCannotWear instead of ExtraPoison. Need to double-check. Anyway, the phrase "won't let you sell" here specifically means "the items in question should not appear in the relevant menus." DavidJCobb (talk) 06:33, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Max gold fearEdit

There is a mention of a merchant in an off limits cell, with 65,535 gold - this is a special value, the largest value an unsigned 16-bit integer can store (0 thru to (2^16)-1 inclusive) - so I was worried there was a gold gap at 65,535 (adding one to an unsigned value in languages with C semantics is defined to wrap to in this case 0)

It turns out that you can exceed this, it's just an unusual value to set, or was set by like something that inputs 16 bit unsigned numbers and with 0 tapping "-" wraps - very odd.

Either way it'd be worth mentioning "this does not imply that is the gold limit" for the handful of readers who'd see it.

• If gold is stored as a signed integer, the range is approx 0 to 4.3bn or -2.1 to 2.1bn - it's very likely to be one of these
• I believe (have heard through friends ages ago) that the level limit is 255, I believe this because 0 to 255 is the range of an unsigned byte (8 bit integer) "unsigned char" typically)

217.45.105.131 04:14, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

When you say there is no gold cap, is this in terms of inventory? Or did you test raising a merchant's available gold beyond this integer? —⁠Legoless (talk) 12:52, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Disposition ClarificationEdit

On the page for disposition it states that the value can go over 100 however at least for the haggling formula it does actually cap at 100. It took me a few hours to nail down why my calculations were not working since I had also forgotten to factor in luck for both player and merchant. Once I did correctly apply luck for both parties it became very obvious that disposition was being capped at 100. Since I don't know if that is true or not for any of the other things the game uses disposition to calculate I figured it should at least be made mention here rather than on the disposition page itself. 24.241.52.56 12:39, 21 November 2021 (UTC)