I thought it had been mentioned before that the discount buff was eventually going to be phased out and gotten rid of by making it less and less common when buying items from the NPC shops. I'm just kind of curious if this is still going to happen? I haven't really heard much news about it for a while.

While I haven't heard anything about it, I'm definitely getting it WAY less often than I ever was before they mentioned backing it off - more often than not I get through about 75% of my quests before it comes up, and sometimes I don't get it at all. (I can't speak for it on a daily basis, though, because I only get a chance to blitz quests about one day in ten, and on days that I only do 2-3 quest types I'm almost certain not to get the buff.)

recently I've been getting it within my first few quests o-o

special snowflake tho :P

Yeah that's part of why I was asking, because I've noticed that myself I normally get through the majority of my quests before getting the buff, and some days I don't get it at all.

Occasionally I will still get it pretty early on, but for the past while it's seemed to take longer (more purchases) before it gets triggered.

In my experience, buff is less likely to happen now even if I go thru all my quests (almost daily)than some months ago but I can get it every day after like 5 minutes of restocking. So, always starting the day with that for now.