After spending so many hours running after surveys, I still had the rug pulled from under my feet by a small piece of paper.

It was not in my plans to check the map at all. After all, I have a backlog of questing and playing the game that goes back to CWC. But I caved in, decided I'd go grab a companion to see what the fuss was about, and in the meantime I took a detour to grab a survey I seemed to have in my bag.

As I said, I have picked so many surveys it's pretty much engraved in my brain. I count the nodes without even thinking about it. Imagine my surprise when I grabbed all the nodes in the area and ended up with two.

Two.

Wait.... Two? Where are the others?? Oh no.

I had to run around in increasingly wide circles looking for the telltale glow. Luckily, it was in an area with no grass or it would have been ten times worse. I understand the reasoning behind it, sort of. Let's place the nodes so it sort of looks like they're fallen branches from the nearby trees. The problem is there's a single node per tree... And the trees are very far apart.

Surveys, while they make sense from a crafter's point of view, are definitely more of a chore than an actual reward. Back when we had them in about 15 areas they were okay. Then we started having more and more zones, adding to the number of slots taken by them.

"Why don't you just go and pick them up whenever they're received?" Because it is much more time consuming to do it that way than to stack a pile of the same survey and go grab them all in one go. Adding more zones means more inventory pressure. Scattering the nodes this much is indeed adding insult to injury.


Don't people complain that gold is worthless? Why not add a mercenary service of sorts, in some cities or such. Hand over your surveys plus a fee for each (bulk comes discounted!) and receive the contents in your mail box some time later? I'd go for that.

Yay, thank you!

Thank you so much for listening to our feedback! Goes a long way truly.

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to confirm we've seen this thread and that the survey node spacing will be adjusted in a future patch. Thank you for your feedback!

@ZOS_SarahHecker

Thanks for the update! Would you be able to pass along any info about the other major survey-related pain point, which is that we can't clear out a full stack all at once? It would be such an amazing and universally-loved feature if we could grab resources from the nodes equal to the full stack of surveys we bring for that location, instead of doing the run-away-and-come-back trick to get the next set of survey nodes to spawn. Is this under discussion at all?

Gaterbug30 wrote: »

... list of the ones I do delete ( Malabal Tor alchemy...

Off-topic:

Some folks aren't aware of this, but you don't have to cross the bridge and go through the cave system to get to this survey.

On the west side of the river you can climb the terrain with a minimum of fuss and access it much quicker.

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]

As I said, I haven't done any of the Blackwood surveys yet, so I haven't seen how spread out the nodes are.

But I've done a lot of surveys in the base game, and there are definitely some where the nodes are spread out. Most of them aren't like that, but some are, and the first time I did those surveys it took me a bit of searching to find all of the nodes. After that they weren't a problem, because I knew where they were.

It's just really frustrating and insulting that someone might thing, at this late stage, the putting that much work into the rewards for crafting activity might be "fun".. has whomever designed this actually done writs and surveys? It's time-consuming. It really is, and it's time that could be spent doing something that isn't just chasing someone's decision that going far from a wayshrine and wandering around looking for nodes is a good use of time. The first time? Annoying and frustrating, especially as it breaks the pattern of almost all previous surveys. Then imagine doing this a hundreds of times for years to come.

With max CP buffs into riding speed and such it takes 50 seconds to go from the wayshrine to the blacksmithing survey location in the image I've shared. It took about 1:10 to find this 6th node.. with 3 skill points into keep eye.



It's outside of the line of sight of all the other nodes, presumably meant to be behind that outcrop but actually mostly buried. "Fun" I can't wait to go grab that node 100 times in the future.

What is so confusing about the idea that those who do writs on 18 characters a day, a huge time-sink, in order to semi-efficiently fuel doing endgame content with versatile build options, want a writ board with crafting stations all lined up in one little row, no running around, and Remains-Silent without a ride across town, a loading screen, and a jog through an outlaw refuge, to do our daily writ business? Once done with these activities more often than not I no longer want to go play with friends or guildmates. I do this while in offline mode to concentrate and ensure no one interrupts to get it done as fast as humanly possible. Every. Single. Day. Likewise, why must I log in and look at mails of crafting mats to get them? Luckily, the rewards are small enough that I will just take the 18 per day that doing writs necessitates and not increase that to 36 log-ins and the attendant loading screens to glean those meagre rewards. What does it contribute to the game or players' enjoyment to add even more time spent doing chores to ensure future fun by diligently collecting these crafting activity rewards? Granted, for those who do not need tons of upgrade mats the time investment is not so severe, but no segment of this activity is fun and it just seems like a punishment inflicted by uncaring and lazy design. Or perhaps masochism.

runa_gate wrote: »

It's just really frustrating and insulting that someone might thing, at this late stage, the putting that much work into the rewards for crafting activity might be "fun".. has whomever designed this actually done writs and surveys? It's time-consuming. It really is, and it's time that could be spent doing something that isn't just chasing someone's decision that going far from a wayshrine and wandering around looking for nodes is a good use of time. The first time? Annoying and frustrating, especially as it breaks the pattern of almost all previous surveys. Then imagine doing this a hundreds of times for years to come.

Meanwhile, I find it fun to go out into nowhere and collect resources and kill a few monsters after a particularly busy day at work. I save the surveys and do them in batches.

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hey all, just wanted to confirm we've seen this thread and that the survey node spacing will be adjusted in a future patch. Thank you for your feedback!

Good news! Uhhh. Wait. Does this mean closer together, or further apart?

Instructions unclear, moving the nodes even further apart

Ok this really made me laugh out loud....

I would not call it fixed, just improved. Some of the surveys are still spread out, so I still delete all my Blackwood surveys and don't go there.

This is why I have 1500+ surveys sitting in the bank...really should have done them when things were doubled.

huntgod_ESO wrote: »

This is why I have 1500+ surveys sitting in the bank...really should have done them when things were doubled.

Surveys aren’t doubled by events but do have a chance to be improved by the harvesting CP. Now I do like to collect during double drops for all the other harvesting along the way, but it doesn't make a difference for the survey materials themselves.