Farming multiple copies of the same survey map at once

Akskad

As a senior player, I happen to have a large quantity of every possible type of surveys, and I know I am not the only one in this situation.
When you have multiple copies of the same survey, you have to ride away an unspecified, temperamentally variable distance, and come back for the survey to respawn. It takes literally hours to ride back and forth, back and forth, for each one of your many survey copies.

Is this fun or a good use of our time? I would rather be doing something else, really.

There are then some surveys located in impossible locations, like the alchemy one in Eastmarch, on an island in the middle of the lake. You cannot ride there back and forth: you have to swim first, then ride away, ride back, swim again to the island: minute after minute elapses, slowly... your life is wasted. I have given up on those surveys.

Dear ZOS, we really need to change this and make it possible to complete how many surveys we want and are in our inventory in one go.
Doing surveys one by one is still ok-ish if you are a new player and you have only a couple. Other than that, it is a waste of time, of our lives, and kills the wish to play.
They also take up space in our inventory, a much needed space.
Please address this as part of some future improvement.

Thanks

zelaminator

You don't have to move that far away to respawn a node, not on that island either.. 95% of your issue though, could be solved by doing the writs a little more often

Gythral

Visit an unowned home & return (and pray you dont get booted for 15mins) sometimes is faster!

but it really needs revisiting in the code!

AbysmalGhul

It would be nice to get multiple copies in one go, but as a developer, I wouldn't think this would be a a hot topic....considering you can do this as you get them.

Khenarthi

I have given up on all surveys and 3 of my 60-slot chests are dedicated to accumulating them, in the hope that one day it will be possible to send a companion to grab the survey drops, or something similar. I have some surveys with over 60 copies... I'll never get around to collect them otherwise, there's so many more fun things to do on my limited spare time.

Bat

Akskad wrote: »

When you have multiple copies of the same survey, you have to ride away an unspecified, temperamentally variable distance, and come back for the survey to respawn. [...]

I've noticed that altitudes seem to have a greater impact than distances! Hope this helps in the meantime.

nwilliams2107b16_ESO

Khenarthi wrote: »

I have given up on all surveys and 3 of my 60-slot chests are dedicated to accumulating them, in the hope that one day it will be possible to send a companion to grab the survey drops, or something similar. I have some surveys with over 60 copies... I'll never get around to collect them otherwise, there's so many more fun things to do on my limited spare time.

As the companion system here is a cut and paste copy of SWTOR's companion system, just not as good, hopefully they will implement the companions doing them, they do in SWTOR.

matterandstuff

I generally just do them when I'm in the mood for it, but if I'm cranky or the survey is located in a place where leaving and coming back is a right nuisance (that Eastmarch one was memorably annoying, but also half of Malabal Tor) I just log in and out of my character to reset each survey until they're done. I rarely hold more than 10 at a time so it's manageable that way.

ApoAlaia

I got into the habit of doing my surveys daily and in recent memory I only held on to surveys in the weeks leading to the release of CP 2.0 because I find this 'temperamental' behaviour you quite eloquently describe vexing too.

The only exception to the rule are the few surveys in the **** end of nowhere (Stonefalls and Malabal Tor Alchemy surveys and pretty much every survey but Clothing in Reaper's March come to mind) where letting two or three build up, and sprinting out of the 'respawn radius' a couple of times is still more time effective than getting to where they spawn from the nearest wayshrine.

Don't get me wrong, this if implemented would be great, it would free a chunk of my 'chores time' to do other less 'chore' things, I just personally don't see it happening.

It would be as out of place in the context of the game as the nudity in the pilot episode of the Stargate SG1 series was.

it just doesn't gel well with how all the rest of the game mechanics work.

If something along these lines would ever be implemented you would have a chance of picking up multiple surveys worth of resources from a given node but also a chance of not picking up anything at all and 'burning' the whole survey in the process.

Mayrael

Yeah, I definitely feel you OP, it's really annoying. I usually do it when I'm in a lazy mood, Netflix on the TV and something stronger in my cup, but should it be like this? Shouldn't the game be something we enjoy and not an unpleasant chore? But then where to put the boundaries? Is doing daily writs different from collecting surveys? It's not really that easy to tell the difference, but the option of companions collecting surveys for us really appeals to me

biminirwb17_ESO

I do surveys one day a week, that way they never get too out of hand. Plus they are there to make shiny gold thingies in trading guilds.

Rasande_Robin

This would be the perfect opportunity for us to send companions on Missions.
At the cost of losing some rapport for doing boring stuff such as picking surveys.

And sending them on other quests ofcourse.

NupidStoob

You can also relog. I made a farmer with speed setup just for surveys. It's also Argonian for that island survey and the two in Shadowfen across the lake so it's a lot more bearable.

I agree though the system is ***, they should just remove surveys all together. Writs are ridiculous reward to investment wise and probably the biggest source of inflation we have in the game.

zelaminator

NupidStoob wrote: »

You can also relog. I made a farmer with speed setup just for surveys. It's also Argonian for that island survey and the two in Shadowfen across the lake so it's a lot more bearable.

I agree though the system is ***, they should just remove surveys all together. Writs are ridiculous reward to investment wise and probably the biggest source of inflation we have in the game.

Remove them? I hope you have tons of gold stored to buy mats then.. Also, you're gonna owe me 650K a week in writ income

ApoAlaia

If these reports can be replicated it would seem that they are implementing your request OP... at least from a certain point of view:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/577971/survey-maps-bug#latest

jaws343

Needing to ride away is a bit misleading. What you need to do is break line of sight. In some locations, that ends up needing to ride away. But some, like the little island locations, just need you to circle the island, as long as there is an obstruction between you and the location. Works the same for treasure maps. The Eastmarch location is one of the few unfortunate ones.

Obsidian3

Is that right? Because it seems some Surveys, like the Jewelry seams in Vardenfell & Rivenspire all you have to do is turn your back and walk away a few steps. Others like the clothing surveys in Shadowfen and the Rift you have to ride half way across the map to get it to respawn.

Remember the bug with Enchanting Survey in Glenumbra, where you had to leave the map to get it to respawn! Haha good times.

jaws343

Obsidian3 wrote: »

Is that right? Because it seems some Surveys, like the Jewelry seams in Vardenfell & Rivenspire all you have to do is turn your back and walk away a few steps. Others like the clothing surveys in Shadowfen and the Rift you have to ride half way across the map to get it to respawn.

Remember the bug with Enchanting Survey in Glenumbra, where you had to leave the map to get it to respawn! Haha good times.

Glenumbra is now one of the ones where all you need to do is circle the small island that the jewelry survey is on and it respawns immediately.

ApoAlaia

jaws343 wrote: »

Needing to ride away is a bit misleading. What you need to do is break line of sight. In some locations, that ends up needing to ride away. But some, like the little island locations, just need you to circle the island, as long as there is an obstruction between you and the location. Works the same for treasure maps. The Eastmarch location is one of the few unfortunate ones.

Example: 'Woodworker Survey: Stonefalls'

I walk a short distance from the survey, behind the nearby building, thus breaking line of sight. Does not respawn.

I walk down the hill, thus breaking line of sight, does not respawn.

I did not specifically go looking for the one survey that breaks this rule you mention, it is literally the survey I am doing right now of which I happen to have two copies.

I do not have two copies of any other survey in my inventory right now as I do them daily but I will build up some because I have a feeling that this 'line of sight thing' is a case of observation =/= causation.

It certainly does not match my experience and in fact this whole wringer of having to 'ride away' (in my case 'sneaksprint away') an indeterminate and wholly inconsistent distance from the spawn point is one of the things that compels me to doing my surveys daily.

Recremen

Yes please. The surveys already stack, it's so weird that you can't just get them all done in one go. Obviously they'd need to change the implementation for alchemy mats a little bit (Make it a "Cluster of Plants" perhaps?) but that's already getting abused with the reset exploit and should be changed to begin with.

danno8

ApoAlaia wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Needing to ride away is a bit misleading. What you need to do is break line of sight. In some locations, that ends up needing to ride away. But some, like the little island locations, just need you to circle the island, as long as there is an obstruction between you and the location. Works the same for treasure maps. The Eastmarch location is one of the few unfortunate ones.

Example: 'Woodworker Survey: Stonefalls'

I walk a short distance from the survey, behind the nearby building, thus breaking line of sight. Does not respawn.

I walk down the hill, thus breaking line of sight, does not respawn.

I did not specifically go looking for the one survey that breaks this rule you mention, it is literally the survey I am doing right now of which I happen to have two copies.

I do not have two copies of any other survey in my inventory right now as I do them daily but I will build up some because I have a feeling that this 'line of sight thing' is a case of observation =/= causation.

It certainly does not match my experience and in fact this whole wringer of having to 'ride away' (in my case 'sneaksprint away') an indeterminate and wholly inconsistent distance from the spawn point is one of the things that compels me to doing my surveys daily.

I agree with your experience. I need to count to 7 or 8 while riding a full speed horse on sprint in any direction in order to have the nodes respawn. If I try less than that, when I ride all the way back it often will not have respawned.

Breaking line of sight just doesn't work at all for me. I wish it did.

lordvieckys

I would suggest an alternative approach. Still time consuming but not that much.
Just log out and log in back to find the survey respawn again. I am doing this only most of time if wayshrine is not nearby, and I am having 280+ pings.

merpins

Maybe a companion thing where you can send your companion out to do a survey for you; takes a real-time hour, and you can send up to 3 different companions out at a time to do surveys. Kinda different, but would be nice to have a passive way to get surveys done when you have a lot. It would also add companion functionality for end-game veteran players that don't otherwise use companions.

hrothbern

I would be happy getting for 5000 Crowns an assistant like now the Bankers, Merchants, Ragpicker etc who would help me.

I do however not want to break the effort and immersion of going to the survey location in the wilderness.

What I imagine is that you go to a survey location, call your Survey Assistant, "handover" the surveys you have your inventory, and "leave" your Assistant.
After a cooldown of 20 hours, the Assistant has dug up all handed over surveys of that location and when you call your Assistant again, you get the harvest and can deploy your Assistant again at another location.

Rittings

Honestly, with another new zone, another new set of surveys - it's not just time consuming, it's inventory consuming too. It's really a very harsh grind on everything.

I'd like to see the following... as a MINIMUM implimented -

One survey. If you get a clothing suvey, it just states "Clothing Survey" and stacks as usual... upto 100-200.

That survey can be completed at ANY of the clothing survey locations you personally desire. No more travelling around to find locations - you can have your favourite and use your favourite method to respanw the survey and be done so much faster (still a chore, but would be so much quicker and cleaner).

NotaDaedraWorshipper

jaws343 wrote: »

Needing to ride away is a bit misleading. What you need to do is break line of sight. In some locations, that ends up needing to ride away. But some, like the little island locations, just need you to circle the island, as long as there is an obstruction between you and the location. Works the same for treasure maps. The Eastmarch location is one of the few unfortunate ones.

This is not true. There are loads of surveys where you don't have to break line of sight to reset them and many more where breaking line of sight does nothing. It's more about changing the loading area, which vary a lot in where they are, hence all the varied distances.

DarcyMardin

It is very annoying, I, too, tend to let these maps pile up, and then I *really* dread doing them. If I see a lot of other nodes or chests nearby, I usually go collect those and then return to the lush nodes, but that only works once. So I prefer the “jump to an unowned home and then exit” method, which means I have to wait thru a couple of loading screens.

All in all, I wish they would come up with a better and less time consuming way for us to collect our survey nodes. I’d also pay crowns for an assistant who does this.

Tandor

Khenarthi wrote: »

I have given up on all surveys and 3 of my 60-slot chests are dedicated to accumulating them, in the hope that one day it will be possible to send a companion to grab the survey drops, or something similar. I have some surveys with over 60 copies... I'll never get around to collect them otherwise, there's so many more fun things to do on my limited spare time.

What that demonstrates, of course, is that you don't actually need them. Why people hoard them I've no idea, either do them as you go along or destroy them as you go along.

I can just imagine the server crashing when some bright spark decides it's a good time to take dozens of surveys to one location and press the "complete all surveys" button !

NeKryXe

Akskad wrote: »

When you have multiple copies of the same survey, you have to ride away an unspecified, temperamentally variable distance, and come back for the survey to respawn. It takes literally hours to ride back and forth, back and forth, for each one of your many survey copies.

I usually do the writs everyday on 10 characters, and because of this bad game design I end up deleting most of surveys. Once I had hundreds and hundreds of it stored, but it's a pain to collect multiple copies and for some crazy reason we can't even sell it or give to a friend with more patience to do it.

votan73

My idea would be: Do all surveys of a location you have in your backpack at once. I mean: The quantity of a node is multiplied by the number of surveys. And the whole stack is used.

sithus1966_ESO

I always wanted this, even if it overrides the Plentiful Harvest perk and just gives you the generic number of mats from each node.