Surveys should not be bound

robertlabrie

Make surveys unbound and tradable. This will help bring down the mats prices in PC/NA and you'll still have people doing surveys. Maps are tradable. Should be pretty easy? update tblItems set account_bound=0 where.....

c'mon!

Northwold

Agree. Or make them easier to use. Looking at some random fuzziness and trying to decipher it, then looking up the precise map location online, is just a complete waste of time. Just mark them on the game map.

Androrix

Northwold wrote: »

Agree. Or make them easier to use. Looking at some random fuzziness and trying to decipher it, then looking up the precise map location online, is just a complete waste of time. Just mark them on the game map.

Ugghhh...Blacksmith surveys. Written in thick crayon on a map that bears minimal relation to the game map or the visual geography, especially where sightlines are obscured. I guess if you do them repeatedly you can figure it out more quickly, but I have given up on several because of the migraine they induce switch-swotching from survey to map to visual. Uggghhh again.

TaSheen

I did surveys to begin with by figuring things out from the maps. Then, lucky me being on PC, I got an addon. Now close to 6 years later, I don't bother with the addon any more because I know where they all are now, and which ones I'm not going to bother with for various reasons, like where situated, too many mobs to wade through, etc.

I wouldn't mind if they were sellable for sure, because for instance I have one main who hasn't had a clothier survey in SIX MONTHS.....

Heartrage

This and make treasure maps stackable.

UNSeki

I agree with all of the suggestions in this thread so far (making them tradeable, marked on the map, and stackable).

In the very odd case that someone legitimately has fun with those DAILY taks, we could be at least given the option to switch map reveal on the gameplay menu. For the vast majority of players, that would be a great quality of life improvement.

Tandor

I disagree, surveys should not be tradeable. If you want to do surveys do them, if you don't want to do them then don't.

Heartrage

Tandor wrote: »

I disagree, surveys should not be tradeable. If you want to do surveys do them, if you don't want to do them then don't.

This is no argument against tradeable surveys. Making them tradeable only let people that like doing them do more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to do them.

DMuehlhausen

robertlabrie wrote: »

Make surveys unbound and tradable. This will help bring down the mats prices in PC/NA and you'll still have people doing surveys. Maps are tradable. Should be pretty easy? update tblItems set account_bound=0 where.....

c'mon!

No they should be. You can sell the stuff you harvest from them.

Dagoth_Rac

robertlabrie wrote: »

Make surveys unbound and tradable. This will help bring down the mats prices in PC/NA and you'll still have people doing surveys. Maps are tradable. Should be pretty easy? update tblItems set account_bound=0 where.....

c'mon!

How would this lower price of mats? The mats you get from a survey are not bound. Why would someone spend gold on surveys, run around and dig them up, when they could just pay gold to buy the mats directly? I would have no issue with them making surveys unbound, but I am not sure how well they would sell. People hate surveys. They only use them because they are free. It might be different if surveys had a chance of unearthing rare and lucrative items like motif pages, but you know just about exactly what you are getting from a survey...

Tandor

Heartrage wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I disagree, surveys should not be tradeable. If you want to do surveys do them, if you don't want to do them then don't.

This is no argument against tradeable surveys. Making them tradeable only let people that like doing them do more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to do them.

I don't find that a very convincing argument for tradeable surveys to be honest. Where does it end? Some players like running multiple characters, some like to run a single character only. Should character slots be tradeable? It would let people that like using them use more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to use them. It's not a particularly good argument in my view, whether applied to character slots or surveys.

kringled_1

It would probably lower the price of mats because the people who would sell the most surveys aren't picking them up anyways, so there would be a net increase in the incoming flow of materials.

Northwold

Tandor wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I disagree, surveys should not be tradeable. If you want to do surveys do them, if you don't want to do them then don't.

This is no argument against tradeable surveys. Making them tradeable only let people that like doing them do more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to do them.

I don't find that a very convincing argument for tradeable surveys to be honest. Where does it end? Some players like running multiple characters, some like to run a single character only. Should character slots be tradeable? It would let people that like using them use more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to use them. It's not a particularly good argument in my view, whether applied to character slots or surveys.

Not seeing how the old trope of "where does it end" works here. Treasure maps are already tradeable. Honestly, people will be marrying their pets next.

I_killed_Vivec

Oooo... do I get to sell off all my enchanting surveys for tons of gold?

No, coz they aren't worth the electrons they take up. As for selling the mats you can get, who wants to buy tons of green and blues? I sell them as vendor trash whenever I get an endeavour that requires selling to a merchant. I wouldn't mind if an enchanter survey guaranteed at least one kuta, but they don't.

The third (essentially useless) point you can put into hirelings should buy the option to have hirelings fulfil any surveys in your bank.

rpa

Shadow Rider passive from DB is great for things like Blacksmith Survey: Malabar Tor (ifirememberright)...

Snamyap

If they'd do that the amount of complaints about having to run back and forth to do multiple copies of the same survey are gonna skyrocket. I don't care if they become sellable, I don't mind doing them myself, but I really wish they'd come up with a fix for the copies.

mocap

Just looked at prices on TTC, oh my...
500k for Chromium Plating on PC/NA
250k on PC/EU

Didn't know things that bad.

Morimizo

rpa wrote: »

Shadow Rider passive from DB is great for things like Blacksmith Survey: Malabar Tor (ifirememberright)...

If you clamber up the rocks on the southern side, you only have to fight one enemy (unless you sneak of course). I might have done this a---erm---"few" times.

And +1 to making these tradeable/sellable. Though, admittedly, I believe precious few items should be bound at all (exceptions would include specific trophies for challenging content). Markets should be open to maximize profit for everyone's chosen aspects of the game on which they focus.

Necrotech_Master

if your on PC use lost treasure addon lol

this addon does mark on the map where treasure maps and surveys go

i personally almost never have surveys because i dont do normal writs (i get the surveys from events usually lol)

tmbrinks

I_killed_Vivec wrote: »

Oooo... do I get to sell off all my enchanting surveys for tons of gold?

No, coz they aren't worth the electrons they take up. As for selling the mats you can get, who wants to buy tons of green and blues? I sell them as vendor trash whenever I get an endeavour that requires selling to a merchant. I wouldn't mind if an enchanter survey guaranteed at least one kuta, but they don't.

The third (essentially useless) point you can put into hirelings should buy the option to have hirelings fulfil any surveys in your bank.

That 3rd point won't be useless next patch... they're reworking hirelings.

Hapexamendios

I don't have any problems with them being bound. They're intended for the person doing the writs to use.

kargen27

Northwold wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Heartrage wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I disagree, surveys should not be tradeable. If you want to do surveys do them, if you don't want to do them then don't.

This is no argument against tradeable surveys. Making them tradeable only let people that like doing them do more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to do them.

I don't find that a very convincing argument for tradeable surveys to be honest. Where does it end? Some players like running multiple characters, some like to run a single character only. Should character slots be tradeable? It would let people that like using them use more of them by buying them from the players that don’t want to use them. It's not a particularly good argument in my view, whether applied to character slots or surveys.

Not seeing how the old trope of "where does it end" works here. Treasure maps are already tradeable. Honestly, people will be marrying their pets next.

Treasure maps you find while out and about in the world. Surveys are rewarded as you craft. An MMO needs players doing a variety of content and repeating content. Surveys are a way to get crafters out in the world. I know some will argue if tradable there will still be people out and about. True but not in the same numbers. Three people doing ten surveys each makes the world feel more populated than one person doing thirty.

People already complain about how easy it is to make gold from doing writs. Selling surveys if they ever become worth anything would increase the amount of easy gold crafters can generate. I doubt the surveys will be worth much. Maybe for the first week or two but not for much longer than that. If they work as suggested and bring down the prices of materials then they will not be worth purchasing.
I play on PC so surveys are fairly painless. Sounds like consoles could use some love though in making finding the things easier or more convenient.

robertlabrie

Few things:

• Master writs are tradable already so "intended to be done by the person who got it" doesn't make sense
• Having hirelings do your surveys will never take off -- they need players in the game world and surveys help drive that
• Someone else made this point already but people who don't do surveys might sell them, increasing the supply and lowering prices. Raw mats like ancestor silk and platinum dust are valuable IDK who is getting green and blue anything from surveys. Each one guarantees 110-120 raw so pricing would be easy not a lot of RNG in play here

Honestly don't understand the hostility, thanks to the supporters. Devs if you read these give it a thought.

kargen27

It isn't hostility it is simply a differing opinion.

Master Writs offer a dynamic surveys do not. It takes time, sometimes a lot of time, to learn the proper traits and styles to do those writs.

rpa

One change I'd like to see is survey nodes occasionally drop furniture mats too.

DreamyLu

To OP's request: I disagree. The game has an economy and it should remain free and alive.

It's part of the game balance that some players farm resources, selling them for gold, while others don't bother farming but on the other hand, pay to obtain them. That's the counter part for skipping a part of the game content. And it's also normal that mats rare and hard to obtain have high prices. This rewards an additional effort.

I mean, to collect resources/mats is a basic part of game content. The effort shall exist no matter what option we chose. Either we farm, or we pay. Each shall decide if his/her effort will be to invest gold or farm mats.

UNSeki

DreamyLu wrote: »

I mean, to collect resources/mats is a basic part of game content. The effort shall exist no matter what option we chose. Either we farm, or we pay. Each shall decide if his/her effort will be to invest gold or farm mats.

This is exactly what is being proposed here. Either you farm the surveys yourself, or you sell your surveys and buy materials.

Since surveys require time investment and a bunch of wayshrines unlocked to be utilized, wealthier players are frequently discouraged from doing them, as they see no benefit to it (not to mention people are busy in real life and not everyone has time to devote to all manners of farming and dailies). On the other hand, this would drive survey prices to be naturally lower than directly buying the materials, and less wealthy players could see a reason to buy stacks and farm either for themselves or to sell the materials for higher prices.

And thus players don't have to delete something useful from their inventory because it's bound.

Supreme_Atromancer

Yes, I think its a great idea.

I very much enjoy running overland, being in the world, and doing some sort of low-key gameplay that actually rewards those things is good, for me.

If surveys became tradeable, I could buy ones that occur in zones I enjoy being in, perhaps even sell the ones for zones I don't want to do.

Some people have them accumulate, taking up a hell of a lot of precious bank/inventory space. Other people simply destroy them. ZOS have said that they recognise that inventory space is sometimes a pain point, and while they are reluctant to increase space for a bunch of reasons, this seems like it could be one solution that could be considered.

So, why not?

I don't think its going to destroy the economy and make the world suddenly feel empty at all.

@Tandor - I agree with @Northwold's colourful take. The slippery slope argument is ridiculous. Imagining that somehow ZOS would suddenly and irrevocably be bound to green light every remotely similar request no matter how contrived simply because they agreed with this one seems pretty nonsensical. It should be judged by its *own* merits and drawbacks, not also by the merits and drawbacks of every contrived scenario that could possibly be imagined.