[Bug] Officer Vai and Bandit Scalps

Gallowglass

There are three statements which look rather similar but mean different things:

A) "Officer Vai will purchase only bandit scalps" - meaning she will purchase nothing except bandit scalps.
"Only Officer Vai will purchase bandit scalps" - meaning no-one else will purchase bandit scalps (but saying nothing about whether or not Vai might also deal in other items).
C) "Officer Vai will only purchase bandit scalps" - meaning she refuses to do anything else with bandit scalps (such as sell them).

Observed behaviour: the patch log says C (it's a direct quote), but that was already true before the patch (and still true after the patch). What has been implemented in the patch is both A and B, even though that's not what the patch log says.

Expected behaviour: assuming that the idea was to prevent the sale of other miscellaneous items at the advantageous prices offered by Vai, then A should have been implemented (and the patch log should have said A). Implementing B in addition is surely an error, since bandit scalps continue to drop (and continue to be shown as having a value) but there's now nowhere you can sell them after Vai leaves (or before she arrives), so they're then garbage in spite of having a value shown. (In contrast with this, other garbage items, such as cursed scrolls, are shown with nil value.) It used to be the case that you could also dispose of bandit scalps in a couple of other places (such as Feldepost's Inn), although for less than Vai would pay, and that behaviour ought to be restored.

Avenger_teambg

She purchased books, skins and other misc items before the patch.
She is supposed to buy only scalps and not selling anything.

Avenger_teambg

The fact that bandits still drop scalps after their hunting season is clearly a problem, but an old problem (and this is still open in the bugtracker).
No one should buy scalps, as they are only worth something for Vai.

SirK8

Yeah the problem is though, now you can't sell scalps anywhere else, which I don't think should be the case. If I remember correctly she even states that while others may purchase them, she'll give you the best price.

Gallowglass

Thanks for responding, @Avenger_teambg. "Vai buys only scalps" is what I said I was assuming the expected behaviour ought to be.

However, the patch has also prevented anyone else from buying scalps, whereas before the patch a few other places (e.g. Feldepost's Inn) would also buy scalps (although they paid less). I think this further change may have been made by mistake, since scalps are dropped both before you meet Vai and after Vai has left, so it'd be sensible to give us back the option of disposing of those scalps to other shops. I think it's reasonable game logic that Feldepost's Inn should buy scalps, because we're told in-game that he deals in "trophy items".

Whether or not this additional change is reverted, the patch log description is inaccurate and ought to be clarified.

Avenger_teambg

>No one should buy scalps, as they are only worth something for Vai.

I don't think a second hand market is acceptable, at least where people buy books.
Until now i thought, the "trophy items" meant rare magical items.
It is technically possible to allow some new merchants to buy scalps, but i wonder who would be suitable.
Vai pays that much because it is proof to her that you do her "peacekeeping work".

Gallowglass

@Avenger_teambg: in some other places which deal in rare magical items, they're referred to as rare magical items. Only Feldepost's is described as dealing in trophy items, so I always interpreted that as a deliberate hint in the original game that Feldepost's deals in hunting trophies. And that turns out to be true, since he buys Wyvern heads and Winter Wolf pelts ... and Bandit Scalps, until now.

Thus I reckon it was quite deliberate in the original game that he bought scalps, and therefore that Beamdog has inadvertently changed an intended detail of original content. It's a pretty minor issue, of course, but it's not an enhancement and I think you ought to revert it.

hook71

"Shopping? Then you must stop by Feldepost's Inn. They have a number of trophy items for sale, some are even magical in nature."

I have a hard time interpreting this as hunting trophies. Do you really consider a scalp a hunting trophy by the way? Where is the second hand market for those?

Gallowglass

Well yes, @hook71, trophy items of which "some are even magical in nature" clearly implies that they also stock some other items which qualify as trophies but are not magical in nature. So the first thing which occurred to me as a meaning for "trophy items" other than magical items was that maybe they dealt in hunting trophies ... which indeed turned out to be the case. (Perhaps in real life in modern times, that wouldn't be the first meaning which would pop into the minds of many urban dwellers, but even today and even in real life it's still a meaning which would instantly occur to a lot of rural people.)

And yes, in the context of the Forgotten Realms and the plotline of Chapter 3, a Bandit Scalp is certainly a hunting trophy. It's a medieval culture where life is pretty cheap, and the main point of the Chapter is to hunt Bandits. The whole point of a hunting trophy is to show that you have hunted successfully, and since scalps are precisely the "proof of success" for which Vai is offering a bounty, they automatically qualify as the standard trophy from a Bandit hunt.

I don't agree that the existence of a second-hand market is essential to the definition of a hunting trophy, and indeed the main purpose of a secondary trade in hunting trophies is to enable people to look like successful hunters without actually having to do the hunting. Nevertheless, for whatever it's worth, the market-makers for secondary trading in scalps were (until the latest patch) Feldepost's Inn and at least one other store ... although at the moment I forget where else, was it the FAI?

Baalzie

The other merchant who bought scalps were the trader in Nashkel. He who wants the winterwolf furs.