Yep, actually that part is really annoying. We have pretty wealthy masters of own profile in the game: like tailor, blacksmith, armor master and etc. And they all just sell more or less common stuff. Ok, I don’t use heavy armor because of roleplay reasons, so maybe I don’t face that problem to the same extent as players in “classic armored swordsman” style. But I still have a lot of problems with finding equipment to suit my playstyle too. The ONLY useful things, I can buy, are dark saxon gambeson and some of least noisy brigandines (still, the best one can be obtained only through looting or treasure hunting). Want to buy some dark padded coif? No, go and search for some idiots on the road, and pray that you will meet exactly average brigands, not high level plate armor guys, or even worse - cumans. Want to be fashioned archer-hunter and stuff like that, so black chaperon caught your eye? “What is it” would wonder EVERY tailor in the game? Sure, they sell hats in general, and chaperon type too, but NOT this exact color. It seems to me like black chaperon can be obtained in two particular cases: 1) you visit Skalitz early and RNG spawned there grou of high level bandits and dead merchants. Merchants would have chaperons of various colour on them, and black may happen too. 2) leader of the band in the camp not far from Sasau, to the north-east, wears one. Hell, I had to pay them a visit at night just to STEAL GODDAMN HAT. I want to find a dark aketon, to wear, just because “why not”. Want to try RP self-restriction, just in order to not turn into wealthy guy, wearing so good stuff, that someone like Hans Capon should feel himself poor (yep, dark saxon gambeson is NOT the cheapest one in it’s niche), but not be poor guy in clothes looking like looted from some equally poor forest bandit either. But no, you can’t buy dark aketon, so roam on the roads (play in Hardcore, and, well, random encounters are not so often, at least, it feels to be more rare) and pray to RNGsus.
THAT is not fun. At all. Sure, building your own set is some sort of gameplay, but when you need “average” gear, and still can’t buy it, situation kinda feels odd. Ideally, there should have been 3 different categories of stuff: 1) basic common clothes, armour and weapons, you can buy from most traders and find here and there 2) uncommon things - well, speaks for itself, so they MAY happen to appear in the trader’s list of goods and then disappear after some time, they can be looted but more rare to be found, and, well, enemies with such are tougher 3) unique things - one of their own, NOT sold anywhere, so you can only find them on the toughest enemies or take from treasure chests. Actually, whole treasure stuff should be fully about last, third, category. Why would I buy anything from a merchant if I can get EXACTLY same piece of equipment from the chest, somewhere in the woods, and I know, it would be there, every time I restart the game?
Someone really should rethink that part of the game and shift balance to more sane direction. Either devs or modders in the future. Traders should sell majority of ingame common equipment and from time to time have uncommon ones (could be tied to reputation - you have good one, you get better offers not in terms of price but in terms of choice), and treasures should be treasures. Something valuable because being unique, one of it’s kind in the world of the game. Right now I bother with treasure hunting just because of dice for the minigame, because I’m 100% sure, what dice would be in certain chest. All other things there are useless to me - meh, just more money, I’m not going to use anyway.