Herb identification

WarrioroftheWind_ESO

When I started playing the game I had item glow and lootables on, and I put a single point into detect herbs. When the first major patch came out that offered the discount respec, I ended up taking that point out and turning off item glows because I felt it was detrimental to immersion. I choose to play this game more like a single player than a MMO, so I tried to minimize any invasive alerts. I decided if I found resources I'd have to do it the hard way: by identifying and recognizing their shapes and colors. I have points invested across the board in all professions but my focus started in alchemy and I consider that my 'main' profession.

Some herbs are easier than others to identify by sight alone. Bugloss is purplish with 3 flowered stalks, cornflower is bright blue with large flowers, lady's smock is thin with a cluster of white flowers at the top, imp stool orangeish and short and plump, namira's rot brownish and slightly bigger, luminous russula conical and brown etc.

There's two herbs in particular I've found increasingly hard to get lately, and it's bad considering they're the most coveted herbs in existence. Mountain flower and columbine. I'm not sure if it's the areas I currently quest in or the design of native plants, but they're very difficult to make out against ambient grass. Now someone might say "turn grass off" or "spec into detect herb". I choose not to, as I said I try to identify by shape alone, but their colors and size often kind of blend in too much with surrounding foliage. Most of the time only time I find either is if I literally trip over it. Columbine is very short and the red blossoms low to the ground. Mountain flower's single red tongue kinda gets overlooked in a landscape with alot of grass with reddish/purple hues. I had the same problem with kreshweed for clothing, that also had reddish flowers, or spidersilk in a landscape with white flowers.

I would happily buy from guild traders the only problem is because these two herbs are so heavily used, traders seem to only want to sell them for astronomical prices. I'm talking easily 10k gold for 15, 20k for 50 etc. Which absurd because I see people selling/ buying stacks of 3stat restores for 10k/100ct.

I don't expect spawn rates to be increased or anything of the like, just maybe a graphical tweak to make them more distinct. I can spot mahogany out the corner of my eye, backtrack and swing to a cliff for quicksilver, run happily to a yellow-orangeish flower only to find it's silverweed, but for the life of me mountain flower and columbine are a pita to find.

Darthryan

Um not sure what u want here. You have the tools to be able to spot these better. Just use em and you will profit. If they try to tweak the way they look, they will mess something else up and we will see more.bugs. I vote no.

MichaelShimmel

your problems finding those are 2 fold. Fist is like you state you don't have the points in detection, and they are the hardest to see. Second they are the most valuable and the people that cherry pick for the valuable items go for those so there are less in the world.

Now that doesn't help you and they way you want to play unfortunately, the only way to help you is use the skill. (Think it of gathering an inane magical attunement to plants because you have studied them so much.)

I don't think they should tweak those to make them more visible it just makes it easier for the people that farm resources and don't spend skill points.

That and:

mriguy1981 wrote: »

If they try to tweak the way they look, they will mess something else up and we will see more.bugs.

Nestor

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

Mountain flower and columbine.

I am currently not doing alchemy (skill point scarcity) but I seem to trip over these things all the time. I will have to start gathering them when I see them. I agree these are harder to see from a distance, but up closer not as much.

I had the glow turned on until I learned how to recognize the ingredients and more importantly where they are typically growing. Most Alchemy ingredients grow in certain types of areas, so learn to recognize those, then look for the plants that should be growing there. The most obvious example is Water Hyacinth and Nirnroot which always grows in or near water. But things like Stinkhorn always grows near trees (most mushrooms in fact). It seems to me that Mountain Flower grows on hillsides. Same with Columbine and Bugloss.

Sure there are exceptions, but alchemy ingredients tend to follow a pattern.

DenverRalphy

With the exception of Water Hyacinth and Nirnroot, the rest are all well camouflaged depending on where you're looking for them. Columbine and Mtn Flowers are hard to spot in zones with tall grass, but easy to spot in grassy areas with short grass and no flowers. Bugloss is really easy to spot in areas with little colorful ambient flora, but zones with clumps of ambient flowers that are non-interact-able make them hard to spot.

I would tend to think that making them easier to spot by making the colors brighter or graphical tweaks etc.. is counter intuitive to immersion if that's what you value, as that would effectively be accomplishing the same thing as the Keen Eye passive without having to spend points in it.

When my alchemist finally got 3/3 in Keen Eye, even though I was already becoming pretty adept at spotting herb nodes, I couldn't shake the impression that the nodes had been increased from what I was used to. It was crazy how many nodes I realized I'd never spotted. Even those herbs that I thought were easier to spot.

WarrioroftheWind_ESO

That's the point I was trying to make. ESO is supposed to be focus on visuals, not UI, and I would have the herb tracking if the graphic for it wasn't so glaringly distracting. The little shimmering flame just doesn't do it for me for the type of experience I'm looking for. My argument is those particular two don't stand out well against the landscape. IF prices on guild stores were more reasonable I'd buy them there but I'm not paying 20k gold for 50 of'em. that's theft.

Hearkening back to older ES games, Skyrim herbs had distinct colors and outlines (also grew in patches, not one by its lonesome). Oblivion, EVERYTHING was lootable, same thing with Morrowind. The single node model doesn't really fit even in a MMO for an ES game.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

That's the point I was trying to make. ESO is supposed to be focus on visuals, not UI, and I would have the herb tracking if the graphic for it wasn't so glaringly distracting. The little shimmering flame just doesn't do it for me for the type of experience I'm looking for. My argument is those particular two don't stand out well against the landscape. IF prices on guild stores were more reasonable I'd buy them there but I'm not paying 20k gold for 50 of'em. that's theft.

Prices at Guild Stores are quite reasonable. I won't pay more than 40g - 50g at the most and buy plants all the time. The big three will often be more, but just look around. I have seen literally an order of magnitude in variation in one location. 2000g for a Taderi and across the road 40g, well almost an order of magnitude.

JessieColt

Your best bet is to find an Alchemy Research web site and see if they have images of the Herbs. You can then study what they look like to better help pick them out of the surrounding flora when you are in game.