What is the node timer?

ImmortalCX

I farm to make gold when I don't have enough energy to run dungeons or other things. I have noticed lately that many of the nodes are picked clean. Across many zones.

So either more players have returned to the game and are also farming, or possibly, they changed the node replenishment timer. It is also possible that botters are running through them.

Has anyone measured how long it takes to replenish a node?

If ZOS were to make this period longer, I am trying to predict the affect it would have on the economy. It would make mats more expensive, yet I haven't seen an increase in pricing. The nodes don't directly introduce gold to the game, they just produce a sought item which will cause gold exchange. If these items become more rare, it would raise their price, but if there arent enough of them, then the crafting economy would price out less wealthy crafters. So there is a specific amount of crafting mats that are needed by the game so that they do not become worthless or too expensive. A balancing act.

My guess is that they have figured out how many materials are needed to keep people crafting and able to complete writs. If they are giving out free mats in the event, they would have to increase the spawn timer to counterbalance this, which is why nodes are not producing.

Or it could just be more farmers, botters, etc. But this is something that seems to have happened abruptly. Its interesting to speculate on how it works.

katanagirl1

I don’t think they adjust the node spawn rates for anything, it’s just first come first served. It would require a bunch of conditional code to implement, or they would have to reset the zone I guess. Doesn’t seem worth the effort.

I’ve done a lot of farming and it seems to be around 10-15 minutes as a rough estimate, except for Cyrodiil. I can’t figure out that zone, it doesn’t respawn like others.

Arunei

How long ago did you notice your routes/farming areas seeming empty? If it was only within the last month or so, there's a good chance it's because people were ramping up harvesting mats in preparation for the Jubilee. Not only will people use them for their own crafting for the next few weeks, people will sell the mats for others who are spamming writs but for whatever reasons didn't farm themselves.

ghastley

I don't know about the material nodes, but the fishing holes are respawned to keep a constant number of active ones in the zone. This is most likely respawning the oldest one cleared. It would not be surprising to find the same method used for other respawns.

That would mean there is someone ahead of you, on the same route. Turn round, and go the other way?

ImmortalCX

Arunei wrote: »

How long ago did you notice your routes/farming areas seeming empty? If it was only within the last month or so, there's a good chance it's because people were ramping up harvesting mats in preparation for the Jubilee. Not only will people use them for their own crafting for the next few weeks, people will sell the mats for others who are spamming writs but for whatever reasons didn't farm themselves.

You know, when i consider players with 20 master crafters, this makes sense. They would have no time to farm enough.

I have done many months of farming loops and it never really dawned on me why ppl buy. I just assumed they were lazy.

UrQuan

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

How long ago did you notice your routes/farming areas seeming empty? If it was only within the last month or so, there's a good chance it's because people were ramping up harvesting mats in preparation for the Jubilee. Not only will people use them for their own crafting for the next few weeks, people will sell the mats for others who are spamming writs but for whatever reasons didn't farm themselves.

You know, when i consider players with 20 master crafters, this makes sense. They would have no time to farm enough.

I have done many months of farming loops and it never really dawned on me why ppl buy. I just assumed they were lazy.

As someone with 60 master crafters (across 3 accounts) that I've been doing writs on, I never buy mats except for mudcrab chitin. I get all the mats I need and more from hireling mails and surveys. Except for mudcrab chitin. But then I collect my hireling mails year-round, and I don't do writs every day year-round, just during events or when I can complete endeavors by doing writs, or occasionally when I just randomly decide to do them. I suspect the people buying the mats are people who don't log in year-round, and just pop up here and there so they don't get stockpiles of mats building up for events, and/or people without ESO+ who don't have craft bags to hold all those mats.

SeaGtGruff

Which zones are you farming in? The smaller zones are usually the best ones to farm because the nodes tend to be closer together. That usually means the starter zones, but small DLC zones such as Hew's Bane are also good for farming.

barney2525

its not the Timer its just Luck.

Happens to me all the time when I'm collecting from Artaeum. You end up following someone else so you deviate your path.

Elrond87

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

How long ago did you notice your routes/farming areas seeming empty? If it was only within the last month or so, there's a good chance it's because people were ramping up harvesting mats in preparation for the Jubilee. Not only will people use them for their own crafting for the next few weeks, people will sell the mats for others who are spamming writs but for whatever reasons didn't farm themselves.

You know, when i consider players with 20 master crafters, this makes sense. They would have no time to farm enough.

I have done many months of farming loops and it never really dawned on me why ppl buy. I just assumed they were lazy.

with the 20 i get so many survey reports so just use them when needed don't have a need to buy any