Resource Theft and what ZOS can do to prevent it

TheAstaroath

I was harvesting resource nodes outside Rimmen in Northern Elsweyr today.
I had begun my harvesting trip with an available inventory space of 100.
For over an hour I was minding my own business, harvesting resource nodes, without a care in the world,
when I suddenly saw a Psijic Cache having spawned in the place of a Runestone node.
I went to it as fast as I could, reached it, OPENED it (emphasis on OPENED), and saw its contents:
1 Jejota, 1 Oko, 15 Odra, 1 Purple rarity Exceptional Infused Ring, and 1 Blue rarity Darloc Brae Ring.
As I had reached 99 out of my 100 inventory though, I decided to close the node and destroy any unwanted
materials and items I had by that point, in order to harvest the entire node.
In the literal MILLISECOND that I closed the node and pressed I to open my inventory though, another player swooped in out of nowhere
and took the node right before my very eyes. A node that, as I already mentioned, I had already OPENED.
OPENED as in "by right of conquest it now belongs to ME". OPENED as in "FINDERS KEEPERS, [snip]!". You get the point.

Now, please try to imagine that a similar situation happens to you, not ingame, but in actual real life.
You wake up one good sunny day, brush your teeth, get out of your cozy house, and start walking down your neighbourhood street,
right outside your home. As you walk, you suddenly spot a 100€ / 100$ bill lying on the street. You hurry to it, reach it,
PICK IT UP, you are now HOLDING it right in your FINGERTIPS, you are LITERALLY TOUCHING IT, when suddenly from the opposite side of the road,
a random man charges at you (NOTE: it is NOT the man that originally lost the 100 €/$ bill, it is just a random passer-by just like you),
howling at the top of his lungs "MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE !", tackles you and grabs the bill RIGHT from your FINGERS.

I don't know about you, but personally I would immediately consider this hostile action against me THEFT OF PRIVATE PROPERTY,
therefore I would attempt to use LETHAL FORCE to put the [snip] down and retrieve what is RIGHTFULLY considered my PROPERTY.

The true question now is, WHY in real life I have the right to protect my property, but in ESO I do NOT ?
And I assure you, it is not the first time that I face this situation in ESO of course.
I count a whooping 15 times I had this exact same thing happen to me in a span of 3 years of ESO gameplay time.

Personally, as not only an ESO player, but a human being with human rights, I wish to propose to ZOS to take action
in order to protect NOT only ME, but ANY player that has faced or will face a similar situation,
by introducing one or all of the following mechanics:

When a player opens a treasure chest / resource node, that node is Bound to that player either for:
a) an X amount of time, let's say 2 minutes, in which time no other player can access the Node.
b) resource nodes now have a player proximity mechanic, where the Node is Bound to the player that accessed it
as long as the player remains in X meters from the Node, let's say 10 meters.
c) Resource Nodes are unique for each and every player, similar to 4-man Dungeon treasure chests. Each and every player
can access a personal version of each and every node. The node that player A opened in position X is
either invisible or has different contents to player B,
and if player B opened a node in position Y, it is invisible or has different contents to player A.

[Edited for profanity bypass]

Veinblood1965

Funny thing is I was about to post a similar story. I was out harvesting nodes on my trusty steed pickles the other day outside Rimmen and came across this finely attired character who was just standing there digging into their bag. I noticed a node right at her feet so being the fine upstanding citizen I am I grabbed it and RAN! I felt bad except my poor starving children in Riften are without food and shoes due to the horrible weather there this time of year and the Purple rarity Exceptional Infused Ring, and 1 Blue rarity Darloc Brae Ring would go a long ways towards abbreviation of their plight. After reading this post I am willing to sell you the Jejota, Oko, 15 Odra, , and Blue rarity Darloc Brae Ring at a discount rate however I'm keeping the Purple rarity Exceptional Infused Ring for my wife who needs a shiny to keep her happy. Feel free to send me 5,000 gold on PS4 my game name is Nodestealer

Raisin

He didn't take the note from your fingers. You put it back down to get out your wallet and someone else swooped it up from the ground. And you certainly have no legal claim to the bill at that point. Being able to hold onto it in the first place is basically the feature you're requesting.
I'm... Meh about it. I get the feeling of ownership and it's generally *** of people to do. But it's also just a matter of *** happens. You're clearly writing this from a (fairly understandable) point of absolute rage and it's a bit much to make this a big deal about your rights as a human being, raging on about violence, needing to be protected etc. It's a minor inconvenience in a video game. *** move yes, theft no.

I'd say the best option I your first one, but it should be 30 seconds at most. I believe option C goes against the intent of the system. Option B would just suck if someone can block a resource by standing near it forever, maybe the game gets iffy about detection, etc. A seems most sensible and reasonable to me.

MEBengalsFan2001

Sounds like you should invest in more inventory space and having a crafting bag. Both ensures this won't happen again.

Nairinhe

1. Make sure you always have free inventory space
2. Take most valuable stuff first without closing your node
3. Get over yourself. Nothing belongs to you and you are not entitled to anything, unless it's already in your pocket.

theyancey

Poor planning and inventory management on your part.

ChunkyCat

nerf the nodes

stewhead2ub17_ESO

theyancey wrote: »

Poor planning and inventory management on your part.

This. Stop crying and move on. You put it down. It's not someone else's responsibility to check with you.

Titansteele

Well written, am amusing way to put your point across. You seem like a lot of fun and have a great imagination. I am however with Raisin as the scenario doesn't quite match as nobody took anything out of your inventory, that was safe and secure.

In the wilds of Tamriel it is an eat or be eaten world, until those shinnies are in your bag they are fair game! It is topical that Elsweyr is the backdrop of this story as those cats nick everything that isnt nailed down!

I would vote option D) - Do nothing

January1171

Part of the game is that nodes can be taken by other players before the items are in your inventory. Playing the game means being aware of that and playing to it: auto-loot, managing inventory, etc

Nestor

This has happened to all of us, be mindful of your inventory levels. Never set out to farm a zone with less than 40 spaces open.

If you cannot afford more bag space, use a mule character to store things on. My first 6 months in the game, every single gold piece went to bag space. This was before Legerdemain where we could print money. It takes about 770,000 gold to fully upgrade a character and your bank. Maybe more with the increase in bag space.

Stop at every Merchant you see on the road and sell any excess swag. Never hold on to that which you won't use. Visit every crafting station you see to decon excess gear to level crafting, or better, research traits.

Only keep crafting mats you will use if you do not have eso plus. Since you can use the outfit station to change motifs without using style mats, only keep one of those. Sell the rest.

vamp_emily

Life is hard some times.

Lucious90

Welcome to the world of an MMO. Sucks man, get ESO plus, the crafting bag has changed my life. I own all of the chapters and DLC and STILL pay for it just for the material bag

Matthew_Galvanus

what ic ant understand is why you sont subscribe to ESO plus for the crafting bag. had you done so this would have never been an issue, but it all boils down to a you snooze you lose. get over it.

Foxhearted

Something similar happened when I opened a treasure chest in Summerset. A millisecond after I opened it, one of those beautiful creatures called imp attacked me and some very lovely player snagged the chest while I had to fight the imp.

So yeah. I agree option A is a good option, be it for a few seconds.

Mudcrabjedi

But like....why didn't you atleast take the infused ring? This has been a thing since game launch...

I dont mean to be rude, but you have to think ahead and if you have 99 out of 100 inventory, take the most valuable item and THEN back out to destroy stuff.

DMuehlhausen

Sub and this won't happen

Otherwise you didn't keep up on your available inventory and missed out.

They are digital items and not the end of the world

FierceSam

It’s not really ZOS’s responsibility to deal with this.

The fundamental issue is some players behave like this. It’s up to other players to explain to them that it’s highly objectionable.

NordSwordnBoard

You only own (lease, technically) the things in your inventory, everything else is fair game until its in there. Poor etiquette by the node ninja, but they can't go against their own nature.

They made nodes anti-care bear on purpose for some economic reasons most likely.

Brandathorbel

Honestly, its not worth Zos time to bother with this.

A jerk is just being a jerk. Its like the guy that grabs the chest behind the thing you are fighting so you can grab the chest.

People are selfish and they will continue to be selfish.

What is needed is the ability to send a message in the game that sends a shock through the controller of the other person.

doomette

FierceSam wrote: »

It’s not really ZOS’s responsibility to deal with this.

The fundamental issue is some players behave like this. It’s up to other players to explain to them that it’s highly objectionable.

Alas, some people just don’t have manners and don’t care. Always keep a mudball handy. It won’t solve anything, but at least you’ll get to splat them with a face full of muddy justice.
Node ninjas are the wooooooorst.

eklhaftb16_ESO

Yes, ZOS certainly goes out of its way to make other players a pest and a nuisance. Maybe it's just me, but no other non-PvP game managed to make me annoyed by the mere sight of another player. Folks in the chat are fun and pleasant, but people in the world are the worst. They enter a delve or a public dungeon just before you, immediately start sprinting and AoEing and leave you nothing but empty corridors; they cast streak or maneuvers to get to a gathering node faster than you even though they clearly see you're headed for it; they hover over you like a creep as you're unlocking a chest, ready to snatch the content if you close the loot window...

All those examples have two things in common. One, people are acting like ***. Two, ZOS does nothing to defuse their asshattery; actually, many design decisions even amplify it. For example, the fact you have to abandon the loot window in order to access your inventory. That would only make sense if our characters had only one arm, with a hook instead of fingers.

Skwor

You released the node, end of story. Everything else is sour grapes. The other person had every right to loot the node.

asuitandtyb14_ESO

What could they do? Well for starters, design resources to act like every other resource in every other MMO. GW2 is around the same age, have you ever gathered resources in that? Everyone in the area sees the same resource, but it's privatized to each of them. This isn't a player issue, it's a lazy dev issue.

dennissomb16_ESO

As stated nodes etc have been a one person item since game release and it means other players can scoop it while you are doing other things like fighting off the mob standing on top of it. Annoying for sure. ZOS could change it (blizzard went from single player nodes to multiplayer nodes more then 10 years after WoW was released) in this game but is it really worth the developer resources to do so.

SeaGtGruff

A similar thing happened to me one time in Stros M'Kai, and it had me seeing red for several minutes before I cooled off and shrugged it off. The thing is, the human race is filled with all sorts of people, and you can't do anything about the fact that a lot of them are utterly rude. The best thing you can do is resolve not to be such a person yourself.

Take consolation in the fact that resource nodes spawn regularly-- even if Psijic nodes spawn less regularly than others since they're shared with runestone nodes. And it might help if you pretend that the person who swooped in and "stole" "your" node out from under you was starving and near death, reduced to an animalistic survival level-- not for the purpose of feeling any moral superiority or thinking of them in a demeaning light, but to possibly help you feel more altruistic and understanding.

SidraWillowsky

I too become apoplectic when people snipe my nodes. It's such a small thing but I get really ragey when people can't NOT be jerks for like... one second. They're consciously going out of their way to be a jackhole 99% of the time (I know that sometimes you don't see someone or something like that). I have deliberately node-sniped exactly once, and I felt so guilty that I confessed to my trade guild and asked in zone chat about sniping so I could give the person the stuff I got (no response).

That said, it doesn't happen with regularity for me, so I don't think the system needs to be made more complicated. I find it cathartic to go on an all-caps, expletive-riddled /yell at zone chat cursing all who node-snipe to getting eaten by harpies and then having to spend all of eternity fighting wave after wave of those Kunta Gravajdilsajds mosquito things.

And YES, I am on a high horse here regarding node-sniping... I'm a jerk in many other ways BUT NOT THIS.

Brandathorbel

Skwor wrote: »

You released the node, end of story. Everything else is sour grapes. The other person had every right to loot the node.

but most people won't because they realize its a jerk thing to do.

NeroBad

Its annoying but I'm against your suggestions. The first two has so much Troll potential makes them really dangerous. The third one could be viable, but it would create a bot heaven.

Once I engaged two mobs who were sitting on a Corn Flower, while I fought them someone used the opportunity to grab it despite the fact that i was standing on the flower showing that I'm not just here for the mobs. I rushed after her/him (funny how he/she was neglecting other resources while I tried to reach) and whispered that it was a really rude behaviour (no bad word was used), the response was "f*** off". My only consolation that most of the times in my experience such rude people are angry/sad people who have really few happy moments, and like to make other people angry that way they feel some power, despite the fact that it won't help their miserable life.

So I would suggest that whisp them tell them in a normal language that such action is really rude, and watch a funny video to lighten your mood.

DelosTheta

Thank goodness people only do this in the game, and not in the real world, for example at Walmart on Black Friday.

Neoauspex

Did you challenge him to a duel?