survey maps in Blackwood suck...

SeaGtGruff

Try to do the first survey of each type at night, when it should hopefully be much easier to see the glowing nodes from a distance. Once you've seen where each of the 6 nodes is, it should be easier to find them all again during the daytime.

seldomseenkd

It's the same guy who puts stealable items around the writ delivery crates, and deliberately has an NPC walking and standing in front of them to get in your way.

A certified rotter for sure.

Elsonso

matterandstuff wrote: »

Yeah, tenthing as to how terrible of an idea this was.

Absolutely no one was suggesting "hey, you know what would make doing surveys better? randomly spraying them out over a larger area and hiding them amongst terrain features!"

Blackwood surveys are going to be continually annoying to do unless the character has the foraging-highlight skill for every single type of survey they do.

I really hope ZOS never do this again, and even better, recognise the stuff-up and fix it in Blackwood.

I said this back a bit, but just toss them.

ZOS may track how many people are doing surveys, and which ones. If you just grumble and do it, you are a ticky mark in the 'people do Blackwood surveys' column. If you destroy them, you don't end up in that column and, if they track destruction of surveys, you end up in that column.

Skjoldur

Lugaldu wrote: »

Doing the surveys is generally not very fun ... why can't we send Mirri and Bastian to do them for us?

That's a really good idea. Kinda like SWTOR companions went on missions. -- It was SWTOR, right? After so many MMO's I always end up mixing their features...

phaneub17_ESO

Skjoldur wrote: »

Lugaldu wrote: »

Doing the surveys is generally not very fun ... why can't we send Mirri and Bastian to do them for us?

That's a really good idea. Kinda like SWTOR companions went on missions. -- It was SWTOR, right? After so many MMO's I always end up mixing their features...

That's what Hirelings already do, they're gathering it from somewhere, I think.

Mayrael

Lugaldu wrote: »

Doing the surveys is generally not very fun ... why can't we send Mirri and Bastian to do them for us?

Oh man this. I'd buy the chapter for a second time if they would add this.

thomas1970b16_ESO

I like it, makes us work a bit for the shinies.

Bat

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

Oh wow, did they space them out so far from each other that trying to find them causes surveys to be registered as completed? Lol, this is bad, this is really bad.

Bat

Arunei wrote: »

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

I believe the surveys are consumed upon collecting the first node. I had it happen once that I was collecting a survey some number of years ago and crashed in the middle of getting them, had two or three nodes left. When I logged back in the nodes were gone and my survey was gone as well.

That's more likely to do with the fact you crashed and likely put in a new instance (= you went away from the area where you started harvesting your survey). A survey will stay in your inventory until you've either completely depleted the nodes or you've moved away from a certain radius in which the nodes were spawned. I've checked this a few times and the surveys don't disappear from the inventory until completion of one of those two.

ApoAlaia

Bat wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

I believe the surveys are consumed upon collecting the first node. I had it happen once that I was collecting a survey some number of years ago and crashed in the middle of getting them, had two or three nodes left. When I logged back in the nodes were gone and my survey was gone as well.

That's more likely to do with the fact you crashed and likely put in a new instance (= you went away from the area where you started harvesting your survey). A survey will stay in your inventory until you've either completely depleted the nodes or you've moved away from a certain radius in which the nodes were spawned. I've checked this a few times and the surveys don't disappear from the inventory until completion of one of those two.

That is... peculiar.

To be fair I haven't paid that much attention before - shame on me - but just two days ago I wanted to get the item id of the Blackwood Alchemy survey after getting my coordinates but like the numbskull I am I went ahead and picked up a node before doing so. Lo and behold the survey was gone from my inventory.

Bat

ApoAlaia wrote: »

That is... peculiar.

To be fair I haven't paid that much attention before - shame on me - but just two days ago I wanted to get the item id of the Blackwood Alchemy survey after getting my coordinates but like the numbskull I am I went ahead and picked up a node before doing so. Lo and behold the survey was gone from my inventory.

That actually is peculiar that you have another experience; I play with the gamepad UI on PC so maybe that has something to do with it? If of course they haven't made changes to how this works recently, then that's the only thing I could see would make a difference if you don't play in that same UI.

ApoAlaia

Bat wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

That is... peculiar.

To be fair I haven't paid that much attention before - shame on me - but just two days ago I wanted to get the item id of the Blackwood Alchemy survey after getting my coordinates but like the numbskull I am I went ahead and picked up a node before doing so. Lo and behold the survey was gone from my inventory.

That actually is peculiar that you have another experience; I play with the gamepad UI on PC so maybe that has something to do with it? If of course they haven't made changes to how this works recently, then that's the only thing I could see would make a difference if you don't play in that same UI.

I honestly don't know. As I have never looked into this before - as I said shame on me that this is the first time in all these years that occurred to me to contribute the coordinates for an addon - I really don't know what the expected behaviour is.

Bat

ApoAlaia wrote: »

I honestly don't know. As I have never looked into this before - as I said shame on me that this is the first time in all these years that occurred to me to contribute the coordinates for an addon - I really don't know what the expected behaviour is.

I'm also often curious as to how things work so I did try things out in regards of surveys a while back; what happens to my survey in my inventory after I deplete one of the nodes? - ah, it's still there, so can I leave a survey open after depleting a couple of the nodes, and come back to collect the remaining ones at my convenience? -, but it's admittedly been a while and they might have implemented some change to how this works since.

NoxiousBlight

Just wanted to add my voice to the conversation. Blackwood surveys are absolutely terrible. I did one last night for the first time and was absolutely flabbergasted at how annoying it was to find all six nodes.

What does it add to the game to make the survey take longer and frustrate the player? We are already doing our survey "chores" so to speak, no need to increase the hassle.

phaneub17_ESO

Patch notes are up, looks like nothing has been done about Blackwood Surveys. It also looks like they probably didn't fix the Western Skyrim problem of it consuming multiple surveys, but have to see that when the servers come back up.

ApoAlaia

NoxiousBlight wrote: »

Just wanted to add my voice to the conversation. Blackwood surveys are absolutely terrible. I did one last night for the first time and was absolutely flabbergasted at how annoying it was to find all six nodes.

What does it add to the game to make the survey take longer and frustrate the player? We are already doing our survey "chores" so to speak, no need to increase the hassle.

The only sensible one I found was Jewellery. It was really convenient that one.

I just don't know what the game is trying to tell me with the rest.

For instance the Enchanting one, where I have to go around the entire perimeter of the building to pick up all the nodes. What is the message here?

There is obviously one because the placement is very deliberate, I'm just not capable of decoding it so far.

davapoole

i thought i was getting a treasure map and saw one piece of wood so got that then saw anther way away. but suddenly saw the cross i thought was a map had gone and started looking for the wood. then saw pristine wood on them. but they are anything upto 50-100 meters apart all hidden behind trees so very easy to mis them. i think i got all 6 but no idea. as was about the third piece that i saw it was a survey. this is pathetic as the drop rate thats supposed to be higher for deconning materials seems way lower for gold mats now. so they make it that you dont even get all the pieces. i have harvest map and the one setting i had off was the unknown node as usually in each zone it knows the nodes spots. but this option showed me where the wood was so i think i got them all. but a bad idea spreading them so far apart that the keen eye option probably doesnt show you them all as they are all in every different direction they can be there is no grouping at all

Galbsadi

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

To be fair, there are other zones-- including in the base game-- where some of the survey nodes are spread out rather than being jammed together in a small area.

That said, I haven't done any of the Blackwood surveys yet, so it will be interesting to see just hiw spread out the nodes are.

[snip]

I've done both, and the base game surveys aren't spread out AT ALL compared to Blackwood. Not even the worst offenders.

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

davapoole

Arunei wrote: »

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

I believe the surveys are consumed upon collecting the first node. I had it happen once that I was collecting a survey some number of years ago and crashed in the middle of getting them, had two or three nodes left. When I logged back in the nodes were gone and my survey was gone as well.

if you disconnect after starting the survey is always lost and think is same on maps in you open it but not took it and crash. but they always are gone when you log back in no matter how quick . once started to take any you lose the rest if connection lost

purple-magicb16_ESO

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

So instead of being clustered together, the 6 nodes are spread out over a wide area. I found 4 out of 6 nodes of a Blacksmith survey, 2 fur traps and 3 fiber nodes from a Clothing survey. I ran around trying to find the ones I miss, but even with full glow I couldn't find the 3 I missed. Who decides to spread these out over a wide area?

It doesn't get any better because the alchemy one is exactly the same. All spread out and I really had to search for quite some time to find them all, and I have the skill that makes them more visible too. Yeah, I don't know what they were thinking when they laid them out. People don't want these survey maps to play hide and seek with, they want to collect their reward and get back to the real game.

Galbsadi

purple-magicb16_ESO wrote: »

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

So instead of being clustered together, the 6 nodes are spread out over a wide area. I found 4 out of 6 nodes of a Blacksmith survey, 2 fur traps and 3 fiber nodes from a Clothing survey. I ran around trying to find the ones I miss, but even with full glow I couldn't find the 3 I missed. Who decides to spread these out over a wide area?

It doesn't get any better because the alchemy one is exactly the same. All spread out and I really had to search for quite some time to find them all, and I have the skill that makes them more visible too.

yeah, the only one I found reasonable was the Jewelcrafting one. (And that one is still spread out a bit.)

davapoole

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

I believe the surveys are consumed upon collecting the first node. I had it happen once that I was collecting a survey some number of years ago and crashed in the middle of getting them, had two or three nodes left. When I logged back in the nodes were gone and my survey was gone as well.

That's more likely to do with the fact you crashed and likely put in a new instance (= you went away from the area where you started harvesting your survey). A survey will stay in your inventory until you've either completely depleted the nodes or you've moved away from a certain radius in which the nodes were spawned. I've checked this a few times and the surveys don't disappear from the inventory until completion of one of those two.

That is... peculiar.

To be fair I haven't paid that much attention before - shame on me - but just two days ago I wanted to get the item id of the Blackwood Alchemy survey after getting my coordinates but like the numbskull I am I went ahead and picked up a node before doing so. Lo and behold the survey was gone from my inventory.

if you use map pins or lost treasure the map icon vanishes after a set time and you can alter how long it stays on map in its esc/settins/addons/lost treasure which i will be altering as you have no idea after a few seconds where the zone should be centered around

davapoole

Galbsadi wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

To be fair, there are other zones-- including in the base game-- where some of the survey nodes are spread out rather than being jammed together in a small area.

That said, I haven't done any of the Blackwood surveys yet, so it will be interesting to see just hiw spread out the nodes are.

[snip]

I've done both, and the base game surveys aren't spread out AT ALL compared to Blackwood. Not even the worst offenders.

[Edited to remove Rude Comments]

i agree nothing in base game comes close to blackwood the way they are spread over huge areas

Sju

The jewelry survey in Greymoor is like this, I was hoping it was a bug or mistake. Looks like they want to make this annoying for us too.

Galbsadi

davapoole wrote: »

if you use map pins or lost treasure the map icon vanishes after a set time and you can alter how long it stays on map in its esc/settins/addons/lost treasure which i will be altering as you have no idea after a few seconds where the zone should be centered around

while that might work in general, part of the struggle might be worsened by the fact that (1) with these being spread out so far it takes quite some time and (2) I'm pretty sure LostTreasure hasn't gotten around to adding blackwood surveys yet (I still get them as bug report submissions for the author to add them as of a day or so ago, and haven't seen an update on Minion yet).

Coatmagic

The survey maps for Blackwood DO go poof before you are done collecting.
It happened to me with all 3 of the ones I did the other day.

I thought the ones in Skyrim were ridiculously far apart but the ones in Blackwood are to the point of stupidity.

kringled_1

Galbsadi wrote: »

davapoole wrote: »

if you use map pins or lost treasure the map icon vanishes after a set time and you can alter how long it stays on map in its esc/settins/addons/lost treasure which i will be altering as you have no idea after a few seconds where the zone should be centered around

while that might work in general, part of the struggle might be worsened by the fact that (1) with these being spread out so far it takes quite some time and (2) I'm pretty sure LostTreasure hasn't gotten around to adding blackwood surveys yet (I still get them as bug report submissions for the author to add them as of a day or so ago, and haven't seen an update on Minion yet).

Lost treasure updated on Thursday of last week, and includes Blackwood pins. I know the 3 CE maps show up, and the two surveys I've gotten (Alchemy and Enchanting). I can't personally verify anything beyond that because I haven't found the relevant surveys/treasure maps.
Both of those surveys were definitely a lot more spread out than usual, but I found 6/6 nodes for both. A bit slower than other surveys but once I've dug them up a few times I'll remember the node locations well enough.

Zephiran23

Did a Blackwood blacksmithing survey 1 on an alt who was collecting ebony and dwarven ores. Those are hard enough to spot without the passive, I made the additional mistake of doing it at night. There was a lot of running around trying to work out where the other 4 nodes were after I found the 1st couple clumped together. I did not feel that this added my quality of life in the zone.

There's been enough complaints about surveys in these forums and elsewhere that there can be no way the people responsible weren't being made aware before the zone was created. Somehow they made it worse in this chapter. Although I haven't noticed as many problems with companions getting in the way as I have in almost every other situation I'm trying to interact with the environment.

ApoAlaia

davapoole wrote: »

ApoAlaia wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

EmpressMeg wrote: »

I found 2. 2 of the enchanting nodes, what nonsense is this? And the enchanting survey report in my inventory is also gone.

I believe the surveys are consumed upon collecting the first node. I had it happen once that I was collecting a survey some number of years ago and crashed in the middle of getting them, had two or three nodes left. When I logged back in the nodes were gone and my survey was gone as well.

That's more likely to do with the fact you crashed and likely put in a new instance (= you went away from the area where you started harvesting your survey). A survey will stay in your inventory until you've either completely depleted the nodes or you've moved away from a certain radius in which the nodes were spawned. I've checked this a few times and the surveys don't disappear from the inventory until completion of one of those two.

That is... peculiar.

To be fair I haven't paid that much attention before - shame on me - but just two days ago I wanted to get the item id of the Blackwood Alchemy survey after getting my coordinates but like the numbskull I am I went ahead and picked up a node before doing so. Lo and behold the survey was gone from my inventory.

if you use map pins or lost treasure the map icon vanishes after a set time and you can alter how long it stays on map in its esc/settins/addons/lost treasure which i will be altering as you have no idea after a few seconds where the zone should be centered around

This is helpful, thank you

MyNameIsElias

I've collected the blacksmithing, enchanting, & alchemy nodes so far and the far spread of nodes is extremely frustrating. This is terrible gameplay design for something that is supposed to be a reward for doing writs.