Depserately confused about the Barter Skill

[FxyO]

So i got the barter skill +1 on one of my characters, regardless what character i select the vendor sells and buys the items for the exact same price across all characters.

Iis this talent bugged?

[hirsute]

Bartering lowers your buying prices or raises the selling prices but it' not the only factor. If your character has poor reputation it could end up counteracting the benefit of your bartering bonus.

The reputation your character has with that specific vendor can be seen as the number next to a yellow star in the top right of the trading window.

[Kodaxmax]

your better of speccing into stealth or lock picking to steal stuff. The amount of money you get from that is 10x better than barter skill.

[Lurker]

lockpicking is useless

[Prissy Old Lady]

The barter skill is used for you to determine how much you WANT to pay as opposed to the price the vendor has set as the selling price. The higher your bartering skill you can offer less money they will find "acceptable" for an item. So lets say an item costs 5g. You can try offering the vendor 4g and see if they accept it.

Hold on to items you find or win that have barter skill, (and charisma and lucky charm), on them and put these on before you speak to the vendor.

Always speak to the vendor with the character who has barter skill. (You can trade with just about everybody in the game. If they have the "trade" symbol on their character's chat box you can barter with them).

Add some charisma on this same character. It helps to be charming to everyone you speak to.

When wearing or having points in Lucky Charm you will see the quality of items the vendor has for sale has improved such as more magic-infused, more epic and more more legendary items.

[baardvaark]

Haven't used barter in the EE, but from what I understand it's sort of bugged to have dramatically less of an effect than it says. Like, 1% decrease in buy costs instead of 10% per point. Also, you have to initiate the trade with the character with points in barter. Overall, the skill isn't really worth it (and neither is lockpicking or sneak). You can make plenty of money without trying hard at all.

Originally posted by Prissy Old Lady:

When wearing or having points in Lucky Charm you will see the quality of items the vendor has for sale has improved such as more magic-infused, more epic and more more legendary items.

Lucky charm only gives you a chance to find extra items in containers (but no epic+ items from lucky charm there either). It doesn't affect vendor loot at all. Unless you can somehow prove it has some subtle effect on vendor loot (would take a lot of statistical analysis probably), but there are specific treasure tables in the game files for lucky charm and no evidence it has any other effect than adding items to containers.

[Id3alistic]

I wish these skills had more impact in the game.

[Kodaxmax]

Originally posted by Id3alistic:

I wish these skills had more impact in the game.

don't we all :C

Seems like most if not all of the utility skills a pretty bad. (except pet pal of course).

[Prissy Old Lady]

Originally posted by author:

Lucky charm only gives you a chance to find extra items in containers (but no epic+ items from lucky charm there either). It doesn't affect vendor loot at all. Unless you can somehow prove it has some subtle effect on vendor loot (would take a lot of statistical analysis probably), but there are specific treasure tables in the game files for lucky charm and no evidence it has any other effect than adding items to containers.

ACK math...hehe. Can't prove it that way. I just noticed an increase in the better items on vendors with more magical items, epics and now legendaries when I added another point of Lucky Charm to my barter character. It surprised me what one more added point made. My barterer now has 3 points, 1+ each from base, gear and Romantic.

Maybe we need to experiment with this with more than one person. Can someone else out there look on a vendor list, get out, put on a Lucky Charm item, get back on vendor and see if there's a difference?

[Prissy Old Lady]

Update on my observations about Lucky Charm. I went to the vendors, looked at their inventories with with 3+ Lucky Charm and then same vendors with 2+. There was no difference in the quantity and quality of items on their lists. I was wrong. :) Sorry if I mislead anyone.

[Zigti]

Originally posted by kodaxmax:

your better of speccing into stealth or lock picking to steal stuff. The amount of money you get from that is 10x better than barter skill.

Oh plz, try to play rp once.

[Zigti]

Originally posted by Prissy Old Lady:

The barter skill is used for you to determine how much you WANT to pay as opposed to the price the vendor has set as the selling price. The higher your bartering skill you can offer less money they will find "acceptable" for an item. So lets say an item costs 5g. You can try offering the vendor 4g and see if they accept it.

No, i tried, i put 3 point on barter, the price diminish a little but the vendor won't accept even 1 gold less than the price he has in mind.
I calcultated, after putting 3 point in barter, with a vender with 10 in appreciation, instead of 30% i got 11%, when appreciation up, the % up maybe at 100 it's 30% and i get the price i should have with 3 damn point in barter, but to get 100 i have to give the vendor 2000g.. so it's srsly useless.
So i'll ask too, is it a bug?

[Kodaxmax]

Originally posted by Freezia:

Originally posted by kodaxmax:

your better of speccing into stealth or lock picking to steal stuff. The amount of money you get from that is 10x better than barter skill.

Oh plz, try to play rp once.

Well th game punishes you severely for not min maxing, makes it hard to RP.

[FrauBlake]

A bunch of abilities seem to exist only that there are more of them to pick to make the game look 'richer' than it actually is.

Sneaking was very strong in classic, but it was made worthless in EE with the removal of AP cost reduction. All together, a lot of changes in EE seemed extremely rushed, deadlines for the console versions and the whole Sony and M$ certification process might have been a reason.
And of course, version 2 was already in development when EE was made.

I think that Bartering was a lot more useful in classic than it became in EE.

The uselessness of the 'RP skills' is not the only thing that punishes RP compared to min maxing. The fact that combat is absolutely required to even level up and alternative solutions don't give enough xp is RP counterproductive too.

[Zigti]

i don't really get the min/maxing things, if it's about being able to finish the game, i know the original one wasnt that hard, and the new one i curentlly doing with a friend in tactician, doesnt look so hard either, well for now anyway. I do not steal, just recently it struck me that i always take all loot i can, for no reason, just like a kid crushing insects, and i wont do it again, if not in rp, and my friend understand that now he could get hurt if he's doing this, at least in front of me.

And yeah combat is mandatory in divinity, and social skill aren't that useful, not that much npc anyway, way behind PoE, but really playing with a friend is the best feature, Rp is always possible with willing people, but as a pragmatic source hunter i need money too..
I never tried barter in classic, someone did? was it really better?

[Chrest]

Originally posted by FrauBlake:

A bunch of abilities seem to exist only that there are more of them to pick to make the game look 'richer' than it actually is.

...

The uselessness of the 'RP skills' is not the only thing that punishes RP compared to min maxing. The fact that combat is absolutely required to even level up and alternative solutions don't give enough xp is RP counterproductive too.

Totally agree, and I would add the whole talent and trait system into this specific critic.

And as far as RP is concerned, yeah. I personally think however that it would be better to get rid of the XP system rather than harmonize the XP given. Even if you harmonize it, such XP system forces you to play the game in a forced order. Why does a generic spider in phantom forest have more than twice the health and damage of Braccus Rex?