Hi there!

My first post here, even though I've followed these forums for several years to be up-to-date regarding the latest Morrowind mod development. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a thread concerning my little problem... although I recall reading something about this somewhere sometime... I think. That's why I registered here just now.

Problem: The higher my disposition with a merchant, the worse the prices he buys my stuff at. Thus, it seems to be related to Speechcraft as a higher Mercantile skill does give me better prices (tested with Zenithar's Frock).

Modlist:

Also, I'm using the latest MGEXE and the MCP.

edit: Updated my Modlist with the Load Order.

Sorry, no idea about your issue, but if you're using mlox, you can simply copy/paste your load order from it.

Morrowind Code Patch has mercatile fix which addresses your problem. Check if you have it enabled.

Edit: Actually, scratch that. This fix is for situations when higher Mercantile skill leads to worse prices. Still worth checking though.

What's the version of MCP you are using?

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1449619-introduce-yourself/ to the http://www.gamesas.com/topic/724862-forum-rules-and-general-information/!

It's a forum custom to give away to new members so... http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/dogate_til_fishystick.jpg

What Arkngt X said about pasting your loadorder from mlox. MGE-XE has nothing to do with either speechcraft or merchantile, only mods can alter those skills expect for MCP of course.

There could be several reasons e.g you joined a rival faction, the merchant doesn't like you one bit, that merchants merchantile skill is a lot higher than yours; why you get worse prices you higher the disposition for a NPC is.

When I look at your modlist I see one mod that could cause this and that's BTB's Edit. Have you tried to remove BTB's Edit? Also, I'm not sure if you should use MPP 1.6.6 with BTB-Edit at all.

Updated the first post!

I'm using MCP 2.2b15. The Mercantile Fix is the only fix I did not enable... specifically to not screw with Economy Adjuster. If I try enabling it, but want to disable it again afterwards, do I have to "uninstall all" in the MCP first or is it enough to untick the Mercantile Fix and then install the MCP again?

I suspected EcoAdjMerchantSkills as well. Deactivating it didn't help though. On the other hand, shouldn't the script implemented by the mod already be in order? So that just deactivating it wouldn't change anything? I'll deactivate some more Mods and see if it changes anything on my current save. If not I'll try a new game (backed up my saves of course).

Well, I am in all factions except Redoran and Telvanni. But still: You are saying that my prices with a single merchant should be worse when I have a higher disposition with him and better when he hates me? That does not make sense no matter the factions or Mercantile skills. Though it seems, that maybe I didn't explain the problem adequately: I barter with any merchant -> On a disposition of 100 he gives me 600 for my 1000 drakes sword. -> On a disposition of 40 he gives me 900 for the same sword. That shouldn't happen .

Thanks for the Fishy Stick... I have always been so jealous of them in my read-only time .

After some testing:

I unticked the following mods:

_029_ EcoAdjCrime (Tresspass Edit).esp
_030_ EcoAdjMerchantSkills (Disposition Edit).esp
_032_ BTB - Character.esp
_033_ BTB - Spells.esp
_034_ BTB - Alchemy.esp
_035_ BTB - Equipment.esp
_036_ BTB - Settings.esp

On my current save nothing changed. On a new game, my disposition to Arille was handled as it should --> higher dispo, better prices.

I ticked them again:

On my current save, my disposition to Arille was handled as it should... that was interesting. It didn't work with other early game merchants from Balmora. This means that there is something about Arille that is different from the other merchants. I remember there being something about that in one of BTB's readmes. I wil look into that.

later: The functions StartScript HF_MerchantFix or StopScript HF_MerchantFix regarding BTB's Merchant Edit didn't do anything.

some more findings: Training prices are calculated normally everywhere, it really is just bartering. Arrille is the only NPC of 5 I could find with a level of 15, the others are level 7. His Mercantile and Speechcraft skills are not that different from other Merchants I can barter with normally.

wait! I was going to use MCP along with BTB's merchant edit. Are they not compatible!??

Huh... the Mercantile Fix of the MCP corrected it. And here I was thinking I shouldn't use it because it would conflict with Economy Adjuster. If anyone else ran into this problem, believing the same, here is how to fix it.

So yes, JohnnyBravo, they don't seem to conflict with one another. Still, I'm looking into my load order and the MCP's fixes again now, to make sure I didn't screw with anything else.

The mercantile fix will work fine with economy adjuster. The only MCP feature to worry about in this case is the one that alters greeting mechanics.

I think it's only in the beta versions of MCP though. Perhaps another fix to avoid if using BTB's mods is the 'NPC AI casts zero cost powers' as it'll be very annoying.

I'm glad it worked!

This mod thoroughly messes with merchants' disposition and the prices they offer for your junk goods. The original mod was made before Hrnchamd fixed merchants with his MCP I believe, so I think it is pretty much redundant. Yes, BTB has updated it later, but here is my uneducated, intuitive guess, grounded only in my vast experience as a player: both MCP and HotFusion's Economy Adjuster (which I never used myself, I admit) change the way merchants behave, and thus they pretty much incompatible. Let's have a look.

What MCP does:

Mercantile fix - Merchants no longer pay less for an item with your increasing mercantile skill.

Permanent barter disposition changes - Makes the disposition changes of merchants towards you for failed and successful bargains permanent rather than temporary.

Plus some more fixes which could potentially conflict (because, as we know, changing something in one place can produce unexpected results in another), like Disposition fix, Merchant equipping fix and Talked to PC extension, which Greatness7 described.

What HotFusion Economy Adjuster - Merchant skills, edited by BTB does:

Raises the speechcraft and mercantile skills of every merchant, trainer, and service provider in the game.

Reduces the effectiveness of bribery and removes the disposition bonus to a merchant for each successful barter.

The first time you initiate dialogue with a given merchant or trainer, the mod runs a script to apply the above changes. (By the way, this is effective only if you start a fresh game.)

Both these mods (MCP can also be called "mod") aim to fix the same thing, the "mercantile bug", which BTB described as follows:

All this looks pretty conflicting to me. MCP fixes merchants, so no more fixes for them are needed.

As for the increased difficulty of the game's economy, which Hotfusion's mod provides, The BTB's Game Improvements mod (which you already use) handles that very nicely, so well actually that you will never ever have enough septims. So no extra mod is needed.

Hope that helps!

Can I have one of those, too? Nobody has ever given it to me, so I feel alienated.

Sure. http://www.imperial-library.info/sites/default/files/dogate_til_fishystick.jpg

Thanks! I always thought that it's a nice tradition.

I still feel that I should have less money even with both of those mods. On level 40 I have around 71k gold, even though I used those trainers so often to get a x5 multiplier. My worst ability -- apart from Luck -- is Willpower with 87.

So, as long as there is no conflict, I will keep using Economy Adjuster, as well. Otherwise, I'm afraid that money just loses its value.

PS: Glad you finally got your fishy stick .