Forced Auto-loot should be implemented for all players when harvesting nodes and looting chests!!

Lady_Rosabella

So my husband and I have played Summerset, almost non-stopped since the PTS Tuesday and I have to say that, with the fact that jewelry nodes as well as giant clams being so few and far between, something should be done with the fact that people are only taking certain things from them and leaving behind junk.

As two people who has essentially played since launch, subscribed since launch, and had purchased two hard copy Collector's Edition Morrowind expansions last year, we are loyal ESO fans. But, the fact that players will only take items from chests, nodes, etc and leave behind junk has been an issue for as long as I can remember. Summerset is no different. As it is, a player can spend days upon day searching for enough jewelry seams to complete their writs and level up Jewelry crafting, not to mention wandering along the coast searching for the Giant Clams in hopes of getting the new alchemical ingredients, there simply is not enough of them around. We have had luck with the jewelry seams in other zones in Tamriel, but the few we have found in those places will be even harder to find once Summerset goes live.

So back to the reason for this post. We played until 4 a.m. EDT this morning, we've done that every day since Tuesday because on Monday we couldn't get into Summerset due to some sort of bug that kept several Morrowind testers from being able to access Summerset. Late last night we essentially ran along the whole coast of Summerset searching for Giant Clams and at one point there were two people in front of us doing the same. We followed along for about an hour, hoping to find clams they may have missed. On several occasions, these players would come upon clams, and even a couple Pewter and Platinum Seams and would bend down to harvest these nodes, take out what they wanted, and leave junk behind. My husband and I would follow them and see the clams or seams they loot, but when we would walk up to these and search, there would NOT be ANY Dust material left inside or any Powdered Mother of Pearl or Clam Gall.

I know that, with the Giant Clams it states that:
"These clams, when looted, may yield up to two of the following:
Two new alchemy reagents: Powdered Mother of Pearl and Clam Gall
Clam Gall is an offensively oriented reagent, while Powdered Mother of Pearl is more defensively oriented, granting new combinations of survival effects
Fish meat, for provisioning
Bait, including fish roe, guts, and worms
Grease solvents for alchemical poisons
Or, very rarely, clam-themed furnishings for your home"

But when you walk up to clams that players have just looted and there be only ONE Fish Roe inside and the next clam, they just looted, be only ONE Alkahest, you know that they have taken out just the Powdered Mother of Pearl or Clam Gall. Same for the Pewter and Platinum Seams along the boulders, just in from the coast. As we followed these players around, we came upon 2-3 seams they looted and when we opened these seams right after, there wasn't ANY Dust left inside, just junk. These same two people would even open chest along the coast and leave green and purple weapons or armor pieces inside and as some of you may know, there's a chance of getting the new motifs in these chest, in the past few days, my husband and I have looted three of the new motifs from unlocking chest.

Now before people go crazy on me and talk about limited bag space and all the other reasons that players may not take everything from inside nodes and chests, these are just excuses. I know that everyone may not have maxed out their bagspace and capacity riding lessons and I know that not everyone can afford to purchase the personal banker or merchant, but EVERYONE has the ability to "Destroy" items in their inventory. There is no excuse for not taking everything from a node or chest. It is my understanding that when you do not remove everything from a node or chest that it will not respawn another until they have been emptied. And as so many others in the PTS zone and on this forum have stated, and I agree, there are simply not enough of these nodes and clams around as it is, so those people who do not empty them when you come upon them, are not only hurting yourself but other players by not looting everything inside.

@ZOS_GinaBruno and @ZOS_JessicaFolsom, you really should force auto-loot on all players when harvesting nodes and unlocking chests. If someone is having an issue with bagspace, they can simply go into their inventory and select items to "Destroy" instead of leaving items behind and keeping other players from harvesting and/or collecting the things they want or need from chest and nodes. My husband and I have still not decided whether to purchased the hard copy Collectors Edition of Summerset, much less the digital upgrade, partly because, at this point the ability to create and/or improve jewelry and make potions with the two new alchemy ingredients seems to be to much of a grind to achieve and will take almost all of our playing time to farm for the mats we need and not enjoy the other new things that come with Summerset. We just do not know if spending that much real money is worth it to us.

Edaphon

Why not just add a 20 second timer to any nodes/mobs/containers that starts after at least one item has been looted? If no one picks up the other items in time they disappear.

That would give you plenty of time to loot the other items if you have been interrupted by a mob or something else and would prevent "dead" nodes from accumulating all over the place.

RoyJade

I don't think forced autoloot is the solution. But two other solutions may work well :

- first, a swift reset of every partially looted nodes. If these nodes were resetted after one minute or half a minute after being partially picked, we wouldn't run so often on junk nodes. It would be a fast and easy implementation, without needing to spend time on the inventory and destroy useless item.

- second and probably best, make nodes player instanced, as the survey are. Everyone will have their own nodes that no one except them can pick, which would completely stop both the semi-empty trash nodes AND the total lack of nodes around the world (so no more competition for the fastest node runner ingame or chest stealing, and so on). It would requires more work than the previous solution, but the amount of problem it would solve is huge.


And if none of these solutions are used, then the forced autoloot should really become a thing. In this case, perhaps a "mark item as junk" would be good.

Rouven

Just to peruse previous "auto-loot" post.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/324332/all-shared-resources-should-be-forced-auto-loot/p1

Edit: Actually I thought there was one more recent. Anyways, more of an fyi.

Royaji

I still want to know, who is more "toxic"? A PvPer who got killed by Zaan or a node farmer who found crawlers in his Columbine...

xaraan

I mean, I guess this is a solution, but I think they should just have a super fast cool down on despawn once gear/stuff is left in a node/chest. That way if you want to leave something, then whatever, be rude - but have the chest or node vanish in like ten or fifteen seconds after the 'harvest' window is closed.

SirAndy

Partially looted nodes respawn just as fast as fully looted nodes ...

Lady_Rosabella

@Edaphon and @RoyJade these are also good solutions. At this point, especially with how how it is to find nodes, especially the nodes for Jewelry Crafting, I would be happy with any solution to this problem that has been around for so long. Thanks for replying!

Rouven

SirAndy wrote: »

Partially looted nodes respawn just a fast as fully looted nodes ...

Can we loot that horse?


Personally I like individually instanced nodes, but I guess that changes some economical aspects as well.

Lady_Rosabella

Rouven wrote: »

Just to peruse previous "auto-loot" post.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/324332/all-shared-resources-should-be-forced-auto-loot/p1

Edit: Actually I thought there was one more recent. Anyways, more of an fyi.

Yea, I knew that this topic had been covered in the past, just thought I might make a post in the PTS forum for Summerset as well. Thanks for replying! :-)

myskyrim26

I agree that the problem of leaving items in chests in nodes should be solved.
Forced autoloot seems to fine at a first glance. But... What if my inventory will be full? The items will be destroyed? Inventory management is a hard thing. If I loot a chest or node and my inventory becomes full, I destroy something to take all the things. Now, imagine forced loot: I've found a chest with BA motif ans some trash, the trash is looted and my inventory fills up... and the BA motif just disappears.
I'd prefer a Neverwinter Online model: overflow bag. When the inventory is full but you're forced to loot something, these items go to overflow bag. You can't take any more loot if overflow bag has at least 1 item. So you have to free some inventory slots to empty overflow bag. Works pretty fine.

bongtokin420insd16

playing devil's advocate here:

I use auto loot all the time. When i get the full inventory screen i either destroy, use, or sell/store and then move on. sure, not everyone has the merchants, but the other options are still viable.

VaranisArano

The answer is for people to not be selfish. If you open a node/chest, you empty it because no one wants to take out your trash. Even your mom doesn't actually want to take out your trash.

The problem, of course, is convincing people not to be selfish (because, having debated them in the past, they invariable shoot back with "You're the selfish one for wanting me to cater to you!"

I get it. No one likes taking out the trash. But if you leave your trash behind for me, you'd better believe I think you are a selfish jerk too lazy to pick up after yourself.

Smaxx

Edaphon wrote: »

Why not just add a 20 second timer to any nodes/mobs/containers that starts after at least one item has been looted? If no one picks up the other items in time they disappear.

It's been confirmed a while ago – don't have a link at hand, sorry – that something like that is exactly the case. There's no difference whether you take everything or only part of the contents. After a given time after first looting the whole thing will disappear.

VaranisArano

Smaxx wrote: »

Edaphon wrote: »

Why not just add a 20 second timer to any nodes/mobs/containers that starts after at least one item has been looted? If no one picks up the other items in time they disappear.

It's been confirmed a while ago – don't have a link at hand, sorry – that something like that is exactly the case. There's no difference whether you take everything or only part of the contents. After a given time after first looting the whole thing will disappear.

That given time, IIRC - that thread was a while back where someone timed it, is more like 5 to 10 minutes. Its not 20 seconds, that's for sure.

xaraan

Smaxx wrote: »

Edaphon wrote: »

Why not just add a 20 second timer to any nodes/mobs/containers that starts after at least one item has been looted? If no one picks up the other items in time they disappear.

It's been confirmed a while ago – don't have a link at hand, sorry – that something like that is exactly the case. There's no difference whether you take everything or only part of the contents. After a given time after first looting the whole thing will disappear.

I thought the issue was not that it will respawn the same as if it had never been looted, but that it won't respawn as fast as if it was gone.

B/C that does seem to be the case first hand. I've harvested nodes in an area and if you skip certain things like a flower you don't want, it will stay there while the other stuff has respawned with new nodes and you'll see it there for a few cycles until is just has a hard respawn. But if you pick it it will respawn with something new same time as everything else.

And leaving say, worms in the flower will keep that flower there for the hard respawn instead of the no-node exists: respawn.

If this is not true, I'd definitely like to know from ZoS or see hard evidence, b/c in game I've watched harvested nodes respawn faster than one you skip a million times.

colossalvoids

Actually it's a strange "problem" for me personally. If you looted the node or a chest it will respawn as fast as partially looted or just opened one. Timer begins at opening as I recall.

yodased

They reset after 5 minutes. I have literally stood next to a chest as it disappears and a new one appears.

The solution is to not follow a person on a farm run looking for left overs.

Go to a didferent spot or realize they were there first

Lady_Rosabella

SirAndy wrote: »

Partially looted nodes respawn just a fast as fully looted nodes ...

Then I must say, the respawn timer is crazy long because, as a test as 2:45 a.m this morning, my husband and I left a partially looted water hyacinth next to a clam that had spawn, we left all the items in the clam, which included a Clam Gall and Guts, the water hyacinth had only worms in it, (had been partially looted by someone else). We came back along that shore at 3:50 a.m. and the water hyacinth, with the worms and the clam were still there, but the clam only had guts left inside. These partially looted nodes might respawn, but I don't think they do at the same rate as fully looted ones.

Number_51

It's a solution to a non-existent problem. As was said earlier, partially looted nodes do respawn just as fast as fully looted nodes. So, essentially, you're taking a "nothing is better then something" position. I understand you may not want what was left either, so if you're truly in favor of "nothing is better then something" how bout you just skip the node (or... you know... leave the something for someone else).

As a player who fishes on occasion I'd be happy if everyone left crawlers and worms on the nodes, even if the took everything else.

NewBlacksmurf

Not really, just despawn after 60 seconds is all that needs to occur.

That will encourage us to grab while in the box as well as resolve the complaints of left over trash

LittlePumpkin030

RoyJade wrote: »

I don't think forced autoloot is the solution. But two other solutions may work well :

- first, a swift reset of every partially looted nodes. If these nodes were resetted after one minute or half a minute after being partially picked, we wouldn't run so often on junk nodes. It would be a fast and easy implementation, without needing to spend time on the inventory and destroy useless item.

- second and probably best, make nodes player instanced, as the survey are. Everyone will have their own nodes that no one except them can pick, which would completely stop both the semi-empty trash nodes AND the total lack of nodes around the world (so no more competition for the fastest node runner ingame or chest stealing, and so on). It would requires more work than the previous solution, but the amount of problem it would solve is huge.


And if none of these solutions are used, then the forced autoloot should really become a thing. In this case, perhaps a "mark item as junk" would be good.

The first suggestion might cause people just wait on one node to respawn all the time and loot again the best stuff out of it. I think best would be that they dissapear after a bit and then have regular respawn timer on it.

RoyJade

LittlePumpkin030 wrote: »

The first suggestion might cause people just wait on one node to respawn all the time and loot again the best stuff out of it. I think best would be that they dissapear after a bit and then have regular respawn timer on it.

Yes, I should have said "the node disappears after one minute or half a minute". That was my base idea, but my english mastery is not yet perfect (nor good, I'm afraid).
Thanks for the clarification.

GoonyGoat

As it was said above, it's the same amount of time to despawn, I don't think shortening the timer is a good idea imo, as what's to stop peeps just camping the nodes. Least now it's probably tedious to camp... Unless you're botting

Flynch

As the respawn time isn't changed whether the chest has been emptied or already opened, I do think the best way to stop 'getting our hopes up' when we see a container is to have it visually despawn (as mentioned) after about 20-30 seconds.

Plenty of time for someone to shuffle around their inventory if they intend on clearing the container's contents, and is short enough that it should have vanished by the time another player stumbles across the disappointing 'used' chest.

FineFeathered

yodased wrote: »

They reset after 5 minutes. I have literally stood next to a chest as it disappears and a new one appears.

The solution is to not follow a person on a farm run looking for left overs.

Go to a didferent spot or realize they were there first

How many spots are there in game, actually, to go to, after we realize you were there first? hate to say, that's balderdash. Take it all and learn to manage your inventory. I'm voting for the OP's idea. Share the wealth, force a respawn by taking it all.