Hey Anderonblue! Thank you for your finding. Merchants are not always present 24/7 day and also they like to wander off (as people may like to do after a hard day work) so the mapin icon is not always present on the mini-map
If you feel that some merchants are always there and there icon should always be displayed on the mini-map please report those merchants and we look into it.
I'm not the OP, but I have experienced this. It's not the merchants traveling.
The icons (in this case, everything in the eastern half of novigrad - including the pub, the barber, and 2 of the shops for instance) will only appear on my map while I'm nearby. As soon as I move away, they disappear from my map. However, as soon as I return to that area the icons will re-appear on my minimap as well as my "big" / global map.
It's very frustrating to say the least, as I still haven't been able to find a single blacksmith in novigrad, and basically need to run around the entire city just to temporarily see the store icons.
edit : I'm happy to upload a video if that would help, and my platform is PS4
---------- Updated at 05:59 PM ----------
I'm not the OP, but I have experienced this. It's not the merchants traveling.
The icons (in this case, everything in the eastern half of novigrad - including the pub, the barber, and 2 of the shops for instance) will only appear on my map while I'm nearby. As soon as I move away, they disappear from my map. However, as soon as I return to that area the icons will re-appear on my minimap as well as my "big" / global map.
It's very frustrating to say the least, as I still haven't been able to find a single blacksmith in novigrad, and basically need to run around the entire city just to temporarily see the store icons.
edit : I'm happy to upload a video if that would help, and my platform is PS4
I filmed a short video to illustrate the problem. It's not annotated, so here's a quick description of what takes place :
the video begins by the armorer in novigrad
I confirm that the armorer icon appears on the map
I move a distance away to confirm that it still appears while within visual range
I continue moving away, and confirm that it has now disappeared from my map
I used the armorer as an example, but this behavior holds true for a _ton_ of merchants across the world, including oxenfurt (no blacksmith icon anymore), most of novigrad (what you see on my map is all I can ever see unless I'm literally on top of the store)
[video]https://youtu.be/nLCHmN0XHQU[/video]