Crafting surveys need a rework

Audrena

LegendaryMage wrote: »

It's an old and outdated system designed to keep players 'exploring' while leveling up their characters, bumping into new quests and such, but no one really does that.

Err... I do that. And I enjoy it!

Having an excuse to go somewhere random in the game world has led me to unlocking new wayshrines, discovering new quests, and generally appreciating the scenery... but then I've always been one of those MMO players for whom it's more about the journey than the destination

themaddaedra

Audrena wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

It's an old and outdated system designed to keep players 'exploring' while leveling up their characters, bumping into new quests and such, but no one really does that.

Err... I do that. And I enjoy it!

Having an excuse to go somewhere random in the game world has led me to unlocking new wayshrines, discovering new quests, and generally appreciating the scenery... but then I've always been one of those MMO players for whom it's more about the journey than the destination

I did that until i put feet on every single corner of Tamriel too, and it's a nice world to explore imo ^^ But surveys have nothing to do with it. It can be done in a thousand different ways, none of them would require a survey.

LegendaryMage

Audrena wrote: »

LegendaryMage wrote: »

It's an old and outdated system designed to keep players 'exploring' while leveling up their characters, bumping into new quests and such, but no one really does that.

Err... I do that. And I enjoy it!

Having an excuse to go somewhere random in the game world has led me to unlocking new wayshrines, discovering new quests, and generally appreciating the scenery... but then I've always been one of those MMO players for whom it's more about the journey than the destination

I'm glad you do. I did for the first few times too. Now I wish it was more time-friendly if done regularly.

Colecovision

I don't compare the surveys to having the mats handed to you. At that point, why have us use our own mats at all. Just show up, craft with their mats and leave with the gold. If they go to that, I'll do it, but it seems like less of a game.

I think it's more reasonable to compare surveys to farming that amount of mats without surveys. The survey is an inside tip for a farming location. You're still the farmer and without the surveys it would take forever.

I did 15 writs a day for the anniversary event and it almost made me quit the game. If the entirety of crafting writs (including gathering mats) for 15 toons isn't fun, then stop. I'm not being "If you don't like it, quit" guy. I'm saying that personally it was ruining the game for me, I don't think it's a fun way to play and I encourage anyone who doesn't love the whole thing to change things up a bit.

jedtb16_ESO

Colecovision wrote: »

I don't compare the surveys to having the mats handed to you. At that point, why have us use our own mats at all. Just show up, craft with their mats and leave with the gold. If they go to that, I'll do it, but it seems like less of a game.

I think it's more reasonable to compare surveys to farming that amount of mats without surveys. The survey is an inside tip for a farming location. You're still the farmer and without the surveys it would take forever.

I did 15 writs a day for the anniversary event and it almost made me quit the game. If the entirety of crafting writs (including gathering mats) for 15 toons isn't fun, then stop. I'm not being "If you don't like it, quit" guy. I'm saying that personally it was ruining the game for me, I don't think it's a fun way to play and I encourage anyone who doesn't love the whole thing to change things up a bit.

yeah this...

i have 11 toons, all are jack of all trades.

i have done all the writs everyday, mainly for events. if i did all the writs on all toons everyday i would make over a million a month, just from that. i don't do it because it would be like having a job. the surveys are a bonus.

Soella

Audrena wrote: »

Err... I do that. And I enjoy it!

Having an excuse to go somewhere random in the game world has led me to unlocking new wayshrines, discovering new quests, and generally appreciating the scenery... but then I've always been one of those MMO players for whom it's more about the journey than the destination

Exactly the reason I would love to be able to sell surveys - there are many players who don't mind them.

AlnilamE

themaddaedra wrote: »

How is it gonna hurt your style of play if they are reworked? It's a simple change. People keep saying i don't have to collect them, well if they change nothing stops you to run around for mats still if that's what you like.

I, for one, enjoy going out into the world and gathering my surveys when I accumulated a number of them. I like maps and orienteering so even the challenging ones are fun (I'm looking at you Malabal Tor Alchemy Survey!)

I'm also really enjoying the fact that the jewelcrafting surveys are NOT maps, but rather letters. It's a nice change.

Okarith

One way to improve would be to make it so if you have more than 1 of the same survey you get increased amount of resources, rather than running away and coming back. Sometimes you have to run a ridiculous amount away to trigger it. This would save a lot of time.

Recremen

I love how everyone in here recognizes that surveys are a giant hassle and generally not worth the time to do, but half of y'all are just throwing your hands in the air like "Nothing can be done! Seems like a good system even though I acknowledge it has deep flaws which prevent it from being enjoyable and engaging!"

Seriously, good on OP for recognizing a problem and requesting a change. Systems should be engaging and interesting and have adequate rewards, so if a system is failing in that regard somehow it makes perfect sense to suggest a fix!

Bc_bmx

I would Like to see the surveys changed in function. Say you have ten stacked up, you go to location and hit the first node, it's base value is the total of all 10 you have in your inventory. Saving much time and not being a dreadful thing to do.

Prof_Bawbag

Soella wrote: »

I usually save all my surveys until I have 3-4 copies of each, and once in a while pick them all. It takes about 3-3.5 hours, and definitely is way too much.

I see a few possible improvements:
- make them unbound so we can sell them;
- decrease drop rate of surveys but increase what we gain from them - my favorite;
- allow us somehow choose regions where we are getting them.

Everyone would just opt for crag surveys. That place would be overflowing. I mean, why would anyone opt for a shadowfen smithing survey over a crag survey? I think some of the surveys would be better served if they were relocated to more accessible parts of the map. I bin the alchemy ones, usually the enchanter ones and never really do the surveys that involve a long trek from any given wayshrine. Especially ones that involve having to cross a large patch of deep water.

The worst surveys by far are the Wrothgar ones. A lot of those involve some mountainous trek that involves having to make sure to take the proper hard to see footpath. Otherwise it's easy to find yourself with a mountain or 2 between you and where you actually need to be. I detest almost every Wrothgar survey. It's made worse by the fact they're broken into 3 parts. At least with Crag surveys you stand a chance of being rewarded for your trek.

Prof_Bawbag

AlnilamE wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

How is it gonna hurt your style of play if they are reworked? It's a simple change. People keep saying i don't have to collect them, well if they change nothing stops you to run around for mats still if that's what you like.

I, for one, enjoy going out into the world and gathering my surveys when I accumulated a number of them. I like maps and orienteering so even the challenging ones are fun (I'm looking at you Malabal Tor Alchemy Survey!)

I'm also really enjoying the fact that the jewelcrafting surveys are NOT maps, but rather letters. It's a nice change.

But the letters aren't the issue. There's zero challenging about the Malabal Tor alchemy survey. It's just a waste of 5 or so minutes. A challenge insinuates there's an element of risk and reward attached to it. There's nothing of the sort. Just a brain dead trek that a lot of people have zero desire to do. Collecting TV stones and buying alchemy bags can be challenging, running past some spriggans isn't.

rumple9

I agree with op. It is so time consuming. I just destroy alchemy surveys because you hardly get anything from them and enchanting surveys because they are worthless

moonsugar66

themaddaedra wrote: »

They are now a huge time consuming trouble...

Destroy them?

Not trying to be a smart alec but I would seriously just rid myself of the excess rather than have the devs work on making changes. I have 10 characters and I value the amount I'm getting. Makes gathering what I need hassle-free.

AlnilamE

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

How is it gonna hurt your style of play if they are reworked? It's a simple change. People keep saying i don't have to collect them, well if they change nothing stops you to run around for mats still if that's what you like.

I, for one, enjoy going out into the world and gathering my surveys when I accumulated a number of them. I like maps and orienteering so even the challenging ones are fun (I'm looking at you Malabal Tor Alchemy Survey!)

I'm also really enjoying the fact that the jewelcrafting surveys are NOT maps, but rather letters. It's a nice change.

But the letters aren't the issue. There's zero challenging about the Malabal Tor alchemy survey. It's just a waste of 5 or so minutes. A challenge insinuates there's an element of risk and reward attached to it. There's nothing of the sort. Just a brain dead trek that a lot of people have zero desire to do. Collecting TV stones and buying alchemy bags can be challenging, running past some spriggans isn't.

At the end of the day, even the hardest to get to surveys give you way more mats in the time it takes to collect them than running around the world gathering. So they are not a waste of time.

AzraelKrieg

Good to see we don't need to wait for Elsweyr for the necromancer class to be live on the forums

BringerOfOmens

The only thing I find a bit frustrating about the current implementation is when you have multiple surveys for the same area. I tend to have to log and back in to get the next survey to reset the area. The distance you have to move away from the area seems to be inconsistent and generally a good bit away.

It would be nice if "use" of another survey actually reset the nodes rather than having to relog or run away and wait and run back.

mxxo

themaddaedra wrote: »

They are now a huge time consuming trouble, especially for people who do writs on 15 characters. There are already too many daily quests in game at the moment, that there are not enough hours in a day to do all of them while sparing some time to sleep and eat. Pledges, writs, CWC, Orsinium, Vvardenfell, Summerset, guild dailies... Not even counting Cyrodiil ones. This system needs to be eased at some point.

I believe reworking surveys would be a nice step because it's really annoying to run all over Tamriel every day for something that can easily be given in a box or something. My suggestion would be removing surveys and bringing loot boxes instead, which would give you the amount of materials you will find in a survey.

What?

You dont have to do it on 15 chars, you dont have to go every day for surveys and you dont have to do all the dailies.

richo262

I'd prefer they scrap the 'hireling' passive in lieu of a hireling that you can feed 1 survey to every 12 hours, or go get it yourself.

phileunderx2

I think the surveys are fine. I collect mine usually once or twice a week and I'm done in about an hour. Don't let them pile up.

moonsugar66

richo262 wrote: »

I'd prefer they scrap the 'hireling' passive in lieu of a hireling that you can feed 1 survey to every 12 hours, or go get it yourself.

Better yet (because I like the hireling passive as is) the devs could make them unbound so we can trade them like we can treasure maps.

fgoron2000

BringerOfOmens wrote: »

The only thing I find a bit frustrating about the current implementation is when you have multiple surveys for the same area. I tend to have to log and back in to get the next survey to reset the area. The distance you have to move away from the area seems to be inconsistent and generally a good bit away.

It would be nice if "use" of another survey actually reset the nodes rather than having to relog or run away and wait and run back.

that's the frustrating thing for me too...I used to relog too, til I found out that they would respawn if I got far enough away...I believe that there is some sort of seam between cells that you have to get past in order for them to respawn, and those are all different based on individual survey spawn topographies...that's probably why it's inconsistent...I'd also heard that it's a line-of-sight thing, but i've never been able to verify or disprove that either...I always have a bunch of surveys for a particular spawn point when I farm the surveys, and I mean like between 10 and 20, so it's always worth me taking a few runs away & back to get the feel of where that seam is...

I have a few approaches to mass-farming them. First, I'll keep surveys of a specific skill tree on the same character that is my main crafter for that tree. They're always easy for me to find, that way, without having to hunt multiple inventories. I'll rethink that at some point in the future if it becomes an inventory issue for me, but so far it isn't really. If I'm looking for mats, then I'll do a location that I have the most of at a single spawn, and this'll usually be 10+ surveys. Another thing I'll do is, if I'm farming for nirncrux, I'll save the various types, and then when I have a nice supply, then I'll take all of the nirn-spawning Craglorn surveys and put them all on one character and farm the zone for a little while. Although I know that you farm a lot more nodes this way than when you farm individual nodes, so that it would be logical for nirn to drop more frequently, even taking that into account, the nirn drop RNG still seems higher to me per node, than for the regular nodes. In other words, you'd expect nirn to drop from surveys 6 times as often as individual nodes, but it does seem higher than that to me for surveys.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

I think the crafting surveys are fine the way they are. Surveys are one of the activities I use along with daily quests to fill time while waiting in the PF queue. None of them are onerous and like treasure maps gets me back to areas of Tamriel I would normally visit if left to my own devices.

danno8

This thread died back in July.

You guys practicing for the new Necro class or something?

AlienSlof

No n - don't take away my surveys! It was bad enough when they reduced the drop rates and added the stupid shipments of refined stuff. I like to do surveys when I'm in 'chillout explore mode'.

Only change is make them not bound - so ppl can send them to me instead if they don't want 'em!

Grynnyl

A simple change that would make them more desirable would be if they were able to be sold, like the treasure maps.

Taleof2Cities

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

But the letters aren't the issue. There's zero challenging about the Malabal Tor alchemy survey. It's just a waste of 5 or so minutes. A challenge insinuates there's an element of risk and reward attached to it. There's nothing of the sort. Just a brain dead trek that a lot of people have zero desire to do. Collecting TV stones and buying alchemy bags can be challenging, running past some spriggans isn't.

The level of laziness that even experienced players try to achieve is astonishing.

Are you one of those players that won’t use a guild hall that’s not close to a wayshrine?

If you don’t want to do surveys then simply destroy them.

Shantu

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

themaddaedra wrote: »

How is it gonna hurt your style of play if they are reworked? It's a simple change. People keep saying i don't have to collect them, well if they change nothing stops you to run around for mats still if that's what you like.

I, for one, enjoy going out into the world and gathering my surveys when I accumulated a number of them. I like maps and orienteering so even the challenging ones are fun (I'm looking at you Malabal Tor Alchemy Survey!)

I'm also really enjoying the fact that the jewelcrafting surveys are NOT maps, but rather letters. It's a nice change.

But the letters aren't the issue. There's zero challenging about the Malabal Tor alchemy survey. It's just a waste of 5 or so minutes. A challenge insinuates there's an element of risk and reward attached to it. There's nothing of the sort. Just a brain dead trek that a lot of people have zero desire to do. Collecting TV stones and buying alchemy bags can be challenging, running past some spriggans isn't.

After a few characters, a significant portion of this entire game is a "dead trek that a lot of people have zero desire to do" (like leveling up multiple characters). It's called grind. It's a hallmark of all MMO's. it's designed to keep players (leveraging obsessive behavior) in the game. The longer you're in game, the more likely you are to spend real cash and, therefore, increase profitability of the game creators. RGN (which we all hate) is implemented to further drive that concept.

There are a plethora of ways to streamline in game activity so it's not so time consuming. But until a particular feature falls flat and players simply refuse to engage in it, it will not change. It's simply one of the cornerstones of profitability (albeit an endlessly annoying one) in all MMO's.

technohic

Stop trying to ruin my immersion.

Panomania

I dont mean to belittle your angst....but to me this feels like,

ZoS: "Here, have some free stuff!"

You: "CURSE YOU ZOS!! YOU WILL RUE THE DAY!!"

Or something