Crafting Surveys Drain Your Soul

Mashille

It's 1:40am and I've been doing my crafting surveys for almost 4 hours now.



I'm losing my brain, nothing seems real anymore... GET ME OUT OF HERE I'M LOSING MY MIND!



Why are these things still a thing? Just give the materials to me in a box or something.They were kinda cool when first introduced but when you've been doing them for 4 years they are the most soul draining pieces of trash that you grow to despise.

Kel

Have you tried....
Not doing them?

Just sayin

Osteos

Ha. My inventory is jammed with them from week one but my procrastination skills are superior.

MartiniDaniels

Oh, I just gathered 6xAlchemist in Auridon. Enjoying the view, it's good to see open world and not only Vivec and dungeons/trials/cyrodiil:

Sylvermynx

I love them. They give me some down time. I only run them on my main on each account, and I usually save up a few. Of course.... during these event cycles "a few" can turn into WAY too many. But I just do a few an hour, and hope my 25 toons don't get many in between....

Mashille

ZOS Changed my title to "So many surveys" and didn't even capitalize each word of the title. For Shame! I will have to fix it myself

Loves_guars

This is the main reason why I stopped doing daily writs. I don't have the strenght to delete the surveys, so I force myself to collect them but even when I love sightseeing Tamriel, I find it extremely tedious, even with the addons.

ryzen_gamer_gal

everything about this game is tedious

ryzen_gamer_gal

so what you do is this: give them all to one toon. once a day you play that one toon and before you sign off you do all the writs in one area (more if you can stand it but at least one area) soon you will find them all finished that you gave to that toon (but you would have deposited more in your bank in the interim. Eventually you will catch up.

Vapirko

Stop doing writs on 14 toons. I do write on one or two toons a day and I love my surveys thank you.

Mashille

@Vapirko

That's like saying "Stop running VMA, I don't run it and I'm perfectly happy with my Crafted Swords."



They're essential if you're an avid theory crafter and require a large amount of Mats and Gold Upgrade Mats, the game should't discourage you for playing it more, rather than less. And if that is the case it's bad game design and as it currently stands, if you do a lot of writs, for money or materials they are mind numbing and overly time consuming to complete.

I_CraftwithPntButter

I have been adding crafting stations to my home since i bought the Coldharbor Estate, so I have done my fair share. However given that doing them is tied to a goal/ purpose, makes it less of a chore and easier to gather mats then spending hours farming.

Erinia

Most annoying is Why!? why i need every time run away and back, away and back, if i have on me 2-3 of same survey.... It could be ok otherwise, but this moment is horrible. Why it just couldn't give me multiple amount of materials, according to amount of this certain surveys - i am already there, on this point of map, i found it, please, don't forse us to run around many times trying to respawn copy of it...

LurgidBean

I'm not looking forward to the grind...I forgot to do my almost 100 surveys before my ESO+ expired. Ugh...
Plus the extra surveys from grinding the events!!
I'm either going to have to give in and buy another month of ESO+...or keep limping along playing inventory management until the next free trial (or painfully delete things...)


OT- re: free trials. 60% of the reason I didn't renew ESO+ was that they stopped giving free crates during trial periods and had 3(?) Trial periods in quick succession.
[Since you didn't ask the other 40% is budget...but if I got free crates like when I started subscribing, the value/cost balance of my subscription goes up and I'd could justify it over the course of a year.]

Anyway, now that I stopped subscribing it feels like it has been SO LONG since a freebie and these surveys are so much of my inventory!
But once it comes, I expect to spend 8+ hours (console) schlepping along picking flowers.

Bouldercleave

I'll GLADLY take the surveys because I remember when they didn't exist and I had to grind for over a week to get enough leather to make my first set of cp160 gear.

I now have 8 fully leveled crafters and survive off the surveys supplementing my harvesting.

JadeCoin

Surveys give me another undeniable case of Add-On Envy. I've been trying to memorize the locations of all of them so that I don't have to rely on the maps anymore. But when there are 18 of them in Wrothgar, they get jumbled up in my head.

The game does need to keep materials somewhat rare, and putting them behind time-sinks is one way to do that. It's just unfortunate that the time spent on this can't be at least somewhat interesting. They've given old systems new twists in the past. Maybe it's time to give this one a refresh?

phileunderx2

Don't let them pile up.

Vapirko

Mashille wrote: »

@Vapirko

That's like saying "Stop running VMA, I don't run it and I'm perfectly happy with my Crafted Swords."



They're essential if you're an avid theory crafter and require a large amount of Mats and Gold Upgrade Mats, the game should't discourage you for playing it more, rather than less. And if that is the case it's bad game design and as it currently stands, if you do a lot of writs, for money or materials they are mind numbing and overly time consuming to complete.

But I am perfectly happy with my crafted swords, vMA swords are terrible.

peacenote

Ha. I hear you but would take the surveys over not having them, every time.

There are one or two specific survey locations that really annoy me. One is a Wrothgar alchemy survey where you have to run all the way around and up a mountain to kinda fall back down to the middle level of the mountain. At least, that's the fastest way I've found to do it... and it's not fast.

However my personal biggest survey gripe is how the nodes disappear if you get interrupted mid-gather. I used to do my surveys while in queue in the dungeon finder. However I lost most of my nodes one too many times when the dungeon popped faster than I expected. I get why it happens, but I should be able to pick flowers or chop some wood while waiting for the queue without being penalized! And yes, I could click not ready, but after three or four fails you tend to assume it's not going to happen for a bit.

Arunei

Maaaan, I usually keep up on my surveys, but the first week of the Jubilee had me buried under more than 100. Took me several days to get them all done.

What I don't get is...why can't we just get coffers with these mats in them instead of getting surveys that we have to run all over creation to harvest? It would make things so much easier @__@.

Linaleah

this is why I have a second screen and netflix account. well.. not the only reason, but it certainly helps. surveys are tollerable when your mind is occupied with something else. whether its catching up on TV shows, or movies, or audio books, keep your mind distracted and just do them on almost autopilot. that is my suggestion anyway. still find it better then straight up farming, cause at least i', guaranteed a certain amount of mats when I get to the location, instead of riding around hoping no one else took the node that if i'm lucky gives me a 6 of a mat instead of 2-3 per loot

Salvas_Aren

Don't do surveys one by one. Hoard fat stacks and collect the nodes 10 20 times in a row.

tinythinker

Mashille wrote: »

It's 1:40am and I've been doing my crafting surveys for almost 4 hours now.



I'm losing my brain, nothing seems real anymore... GET ME OUT OF HERE I'M LOSING MY MIND!



Why are these things still a thing? They were kinda cool when first introduced but when you've been doing them for 4 years they are the most soul draining pieces of trash that you grow to despise.

If they drain your soul it's your own fault for taking it back from Molag Bal. You were getting along just fine without it

JamieAubrey

There's an addon that does it for you, you run up to the board press E it will take them all and you do the same at the craft table and after a few seconds it will have crafted what you need

kargen27

Erinia wrote: »

Most annoying is Why!? why i need every time run away and back, away and back, if i have on me 2-3 of same survey.... It could be ok otherwise, but this moment is horrible. Why it just couldn't give me multiple amount of materials, according to amount of this certain surveys - i am already there, on this point of map, i found it, please, don't forse us to run around many times trying to respawn copy of it...

Was a time when you would have to leave the zone then go back. Running around a tree and back is a great improvement. Not running at all would b e even better but I can usually score a couple more resources on my way around the tree.

IsharaMeradin

kargen27 wrote: »

Erinia wrote: »

Most annoying is Why!? why i need every time run away and back, away and back, if i have on me 2-3 of same survey.... It could be ok otherwise, but this moment is horrible. Why it just couldn't give me multiple amount of materials, according to amount of this certain surveys - i am already there, on this point of map, i found it, please, don't forse us to run around many times trying to respawn copy of it...

Was a time when you would have to leave the zone then go back. Running around a tree and back is a great improvement. Not running at all would b e even better but I can usually score a couple more resources on my way around the tree.

If the load screens were not annoyingly long at times, you can port to an unowned home and then exit it to be placed right at the map's location with the next set of nodes ready to be plucked. Personally, I find it faster to go some distance away and go back. But it is an option to avoid the running away...

SFDB

I prefer them rather than having to fight other players for nodes. Also I get nirncrux a lot more often with surveys than with just trying to farm in Craglorn.

Taleof2Cities

Kel wrote: »

Have you tried....
Not doing them?

Just sayin

Exactly.

If players want the survey rewards they will do the surveys. The player typing this reply certainly does all surveys.

However, my money’s on the OP simply bragging about how much he or she grinds crafting writs ... with a thinly veiled disguise of theorycrafting. Avid theorycrafters know you theorycraft online (such as the UESP build page) ... or on PTS where the mats are free.

BergisMacBride

I do my surveys from 13 chars daily so they don’t build up. Couldn’t tolerate it or the writs without add-ones. Usually takes about 45 minutes for 7-12 I average each day if I don’t stop to side farm, etc...

Farming gear, rapids and all champ passives to minimize time spent.

Ones I use:

Dolgubon’s LazyWritCrafter
WritWorthy (Master writs)
Lost Treasure
Harvestmap (for chests, thieves troves)
EasyTravel (port to guildie for when survey is farm from a wayshrine)

It can be a pain if I let them buildup and I have lots of duplicates, which is why try to do them quick and fast each day.

Runefang

Yeah I recently did a few hundred of those... that was great fun. I originally made an Orc StamSorc for the purposes of farming Craglorn, little did I know he'd turn into a survey hunter instead. It certainly helps to have good foot speed.

Salvas_Aren

JamieAubrey wrote: »

There's an addon that does it for you, you run up to the board press E it will take them all and you do the same at the craft table and after a few seconds it will have crafted what you need

That's the solution for no problem mentioned here.