Merchants forever keeping all items ever sold to them may sound good on paper, but unfortunately it becomes a massive issue real quick that ends up crippling the game's functionality and even performance if the player enjoys exploring, looting and then selling that loot to their favorite merchant in the game.
The issue is that the game encourages building a positive attitude with a merchant by gifting them stuff, which then reduces their own prices and increases the value of our own items, so naturally selling to our favorite merchant with maximum attitude is the logical thing to do as doing so maximizes profit and minimizes costs.
Unfortunately this creates three major issues;
Browsing through a merchant's inventory becomes a huge inconvenience due to all of the sold items that the player ever sold to the merchant
Pickpocketing drastically suffers and becomes inconvenient because the player has to go through 2000 of their own items to find the one they want to steal
The vast amount of items that are never cleared out start causing massive frame-drop stutters whenever the player gets within the rendering distance of the merchant, because it loads all their 2000 items whenever they're rendered.
Here is an example of my two favorite merchants Dammon and Arron. Their inventories are so massive that every time my character comes within their rendering distance the game just takes a massive dump on the framerate due to 2000 items being loaded each time.
Because of this the Druid's Grove in my playthrough now exhibits 5 different massive stutter points which drastically drop the framerate each time Arron is rendered into view. An even worse case is with Dammon in Last Light Inn because he is constantly moving around, so he keeps causing massive stutters every few seconds while the player is inside of the Inn itself since that's exactly the border of his rendering distance.
It would be really nice if this could be addressed and optimized by having sold items clear out after X amount of rests, for both convenience and performance sakes. There is simply no need for merchants to indefinitely hold items sold to them, as the whole point of selling items to them is to get rid of useless junk.
Somewhat related, but when I got to the minsc fight, the Zhentarim merchant was there and I didn't want to kill her either, so I knocked both out.
I learned that knocking out the merchant lets you loot their whole stockpile, including everything you previously sold them, so I was there for a while relooting everything and sending it all to camp :x
I really wanted something like this in the game, too. In order to avoid accidentally losing something that I'd like to buy back, maybe don't do it on rests but with a conversation option with the merchant: "Could you declutter your inventory, I won't need to buy buck anything I've sold you.", etc. Or with a button somewhere in the traiding screen.
Of course, don't remove any quest items. Will be a nice optimisation for the save file size. I haven't noticed stuttering, but that also. And improved clarity in the shop inventory.
But what if you urgently need to buy 57 short swords?
More seriously, they could make so that a merchant never has more than four of any weapon or armour item. Also it's not like there is an over abundance of merchants in the game so you can spread the load a bit.
Originally Posted by JandK
I haven't tried, but I wonder if you could put all the stuff you're selling in a pouch and then just sell the pouch? .
That may unclutter the inventory screen but the items would still have to catalogued by the game so the performance hit would probably still be there.
But what if you urgently need to buy 57 short swords?
More seriously, they could make so that a merchant never has more than four of any weapon or armour item. Also it's not like there is an over abundance of merchants in the game so you can spread the load a bit.
Originally Posted by JandK
I haven't tried, but I wonder if you could put all the stuff you're selling in a pouch and then just sell the pouch? .
That may unclutter the inventory screen but the items would still have to catalogued by the game so the performance hit would probably still be there.
I second this suggestion, though I might also add that maybe merchants should only clear out some items.
- non-magical weapons and armor - clutter items like cups and plates - standard potions
Things like unique magical items and special things like infernal iron should be held onto so that players can buy them back later if they realized they really need it.
Bumping this, I keep selling stuff to the Grove merchant and he’s chock full of stuff!
I get being able to buy something back if you accidentally sold it (my shovel for one), but there must be a better way of at least sorting the inventory.
I personally think it would be helpful to have a sort/filter option just like you have in your inventory. So you can filter by scrolls, potions, equipment, uncommon, rare, etc. I feel like that would be so easy to implement given that the tool is already there in your own inventory screen. And it would make it so much easier to sort through exactly what they’re selling.
Yeah, this feels very needed. It's gotten to the point where I make a point of selling vendor trash to merchants that will disappear after the current act, despite the game having a system that encourages me to build loyalty with persistent merchants. The act of making them friendly with me makes their inventories horrible to navigate and hurts game performance.
I think the game should flag certain items (basic unenchanted weapons/armor/jewelry, beggar clothes, trinkets, ingots, paintings, and clutter) as non-persistent, and delete them after a few short rests. These items are only ever relevant at the very start of Act 1 (if they ever have a use at all) and no player has a reason to need them again. Potions, scrolls, enchanted/unique items, food, and all quest objects (including things that aren't specifically quest objects but do have quest uses, like the owlbear egg) should stay.
Just common sense it. The player may want to buy back Komira's Locket at some point, but they're probably okay with never seeing those 12 Goblin Scimitars again.
