Total invisibility in PVE zones?

MreeBiPolar · August 27

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

Kartalin · August 27

There was an exploit that bot farmers used way back at launch where their characters would move quickly just under the ground and just barely surface to harvest resource nodes. Like just their name and the top of their heads emerging from below the node. Maybe it's been reproduced?

I guess it could be lag also but unlikely to the degree that you missed 4 nodes being harvested.

Players won't be invisible to other players in PVE at least.

AlnilamE · August 27

Which part of Bal Foyen? All of it? Or just near the docks and near the fort?

Because the quest line makes you choose between saving one or the other, so the zone is semi-instanced in those areas. It could be someone farming normally that completed the quest and is in the instance you can't see.

Near the fort there is (or was, it's been a while since I've seen it) a chest on the cliff that you could see from a distance but it would disappear when you got close if you had chosen to save the fort.

If you want to test this, find someone who made different choices from you for that zone and group with them to see in which parts of the zone you become invisible to each other.

frogthroat · August 27

I have seen something similar in ... at least Auridon? The difference is that they vanish when I try to interact with them. Like it would be an empty node. I haven't seen any vanish on their own. Just when I try to interact. Only a few times, but enough that I find it odd. And only after U47 release so perhaps something broke there?

LootAllTheStuff · August 27

frogthroat wrote: »

I have seen something similar in ... at least Auridon? The difference is that they vanish when I try to interact with them. Like it would be an empty node. I haven't seen any vanish on their own. Just when I try to interact. Only a few times, but enough that I find it odd. And only after U47 release so perhaps something broke there?

I've also had this happen once or twice, although I don't think it was in Auridon - DC or EP zones more likely.

PeacefulAnarchy · August 27

Nodes can despawn on their own if partially looted, but what you describe is almost certainly what AlnilamE described. Several sections of the zone (and many other zones) are split instanced for quest progression. The zone is the same and you can chat in in chat with each other and the nodes are shared, but you can't see each other. If you go with a friend with different quest progression you can even see each other disappear when you reach the split.

The_Boggart · August 27

You can see nodes that have been partially harvested but when harvesting the remainder RNG could give an empty return

Dojohoda · August 27

Yes, there are/can be areas within a zone that checks if you've completed a quest or not. Little story: After the 2-passenger mounts came out and when I'd give a friend's new character a ride to pickup skyshards and to public dungeons, every time I entered one of those quest zones, he'd get kicked off the mount. I'd go back to pick him up and ride around it. (I was always on my main character that's done all the quests)

But, yes, nodes might despawn as you approach that sort of quest zone.

Gabriel_H · August 28

The starter zones are more than a little buggy. In Betnikh you can run up to a mob pack and it will disappear, run 15m away and it reappers. I've seen mats do the same thing.

MreeBiPolar · August 28

I know quest state related instancing, but it only behaves that way if you move. And those nodes (chests, mobs, etc) you can see in one instance, you can't see in another.

Grizzbeorn · August 28

That happens somewhat regularly to me in any zone where I'm farming resource nodes. Not in huge clumps, but one here and one there.
Just every so often when I hit "E" to gather a node, it turns Empty rather than give the resource. It also happens occasionally when looting containers.

kargen27 · August 29

I've wondered if nodes are shared across different instances of a zone.

With the being at different stages of a quest thing that used to play heck with our hide and seek events. Also made fishing events interesting. Half your group could disappear but you could see their bobbers in the water.

Necrotech_Master · August 29

bal foyen is one of those zones/quest areas which have instancing

however as far as i know the instancing only applies to the quests, but other players would appear invisible to you if you were not in the same phase

not sure if material nodes are affected by phasing, if they are not, there could have been another player in different quest phase harvesting around the same time as you

SeaGtGruff · August 29

Nodes can and do despawn by themselves on a timer.

Apparently there is a cheat program that lets players travel underground, although I don't know whether the game lets players interact with objects while they're underground. For instance, some months ago a PvP player was caught on camera stealing a scroll from a keep in Cyrodiil, because they needed to come up from underground in order to pick up the scroll, so another player was able to record the cheater rising up from under the floor, taking the scroll, then going back under the floor to travel underground with the scroll. As I understand it, many resource nodes are actually placed partially underground, so it might be possible for a player to be underground and still be able to interact with most resource nodes.

However, I'm actually more inclined to think you were simply seeing nodes despawn on their own. It's happened to me often-- I see a node, run up to it, and it disappears right before I get to it. I've also seen a lot of nodes appear out of nowhere. It's just the game despawning nodes that have been sitting for too long. Unharvested nodes do not sit there forever.

I mean, we can't unequivocally rule out the use of a cheat program, but what you've described can just as easily be explained by the game's normal way of doing things, so there's no specific reason to think it's someone using a cheat program.

DoofusMax · August 29

I only have one "farming" route which is mainly an "if I'm going to be there anyway..." sort of thing, but it traverses a zone. It doesn't happen often, but I do hit the occasional node which despawns as soon as I try to harvest it. My suspicion is that it's just data lag where someone harvested it, but the time between their harvesting and my arrival was short enough that it hadn't despawned on my end, but my system got an "Oops! That's not supposed to be there" packet when I tried harvesting.

MreeBiPolar · August 29

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

bal foyen is one of those zones/quest areas which have instancing

however as far as i know the instancing only applies to the quests, but other players would appear invisible to you if you were not in the same phase

not sure if material nodes are affected by phasing, if they are not, there could have been another player in different quest phase harvesting around the same time as you

I know for sure the nodes are located in different instances and are not visible between them because I often play with my daughter and we pretty often have quest or other reasons for instance desync.

From what was described here as possible reasons, I think it was most likely that cheat used though because of that reason and a few others, in particular:
* Bal Foyen being pretty heavily harvested so it wasn't likely a timer desync;
* It following a moving pattern, not nodes vanishing randomly all over;
* Me seeing it happen just three times, but for a while, and all three times, it was during about the same hours when NA is off-peak.

madman65 · August 29

There is an Add-on called auto loot, you can set it to loot what you want. This probably what is happening to the nodes. I know I have ran across nodes that had nothing but bait. If auto loot is being used then I would state that it is the culprit. I have also ran up to a node in Deshaan and it would disappear because it had been looted already.

SeaGtGruff · August 30

As I said, nodes despawn on their own. I think that 9 times out of 10 that is probably what's happening. The game constantly despawns old nodes after a while and spawns new ones elsewhere. It does treasure chests the same way. If you want to see it in action but want to avoid the possibility of other explanations, such as cheat software, then go on PTS and hang out near a node or treasure chest without looting it, and eventually you'll see it disappear. Bots and cheaters could still be active on PTS, but it would serve no purpose since there's no way to transfer the loot to a live server and the player database regularly gets copied over.

shadoza · August 30

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

I have noticed this happening with nodes in other areas. I thought it strange; it was not in a quest area.

tomofhyrule · August 30

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

That's 100% an instanced area.

The basegame zones do have some instanced areas, and they can extend a bit farther than you'd expect given where the quests themselves are. One of the easiest to see is in Bleakrock if you go directly from the questgiver for Deathclaw up the path to the town's burial tomb - the point right as you get through the rocks and onto the path is the delineation for "the town is normal" versus "the town is under attack," and if you see nodes as you're walking up to that point, they'll despawn as you cross that boundary.

MreeBiPolar · September 2

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

That's 100% an instanced area.

The basegame zones do have some instanced areas, and they can extend a bit farther than you'd expect given where the quests themselves are. One of the easiest to see is in Bleakrock if you go directly from the questgiver for Deathclaw up the path to the town's burial tomb - the point right as you get through the rocks and onto the path is the delineation for "the town is normal" versus "the town is under attack," and if you see nodes as you're walking up to that point, they'll despawn as you cross that boundary.

That's the point, I know how instancing works, I have described how it works, and how it is different from what I've observed -- the nodes were vanishing while I was standing right at them.

tomofhyrule · September 2

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

That's 100% an instanced area.

The basegame zones do have some instanced areas, and they can extend a bit farther than you'd expect given where the quests themselves are. One of the easiest to see is in Bleakrock if you go directly from the questgiver for Deathclaw up the path to the town's burial tomb - the point right as you get through the rocks and onto the path is the delineation for "the town is normal" versus "the town is under attack," and if you see nodes as you're walking up to that point, they'll despawn as you cross that boundary.

That's the point, I know how instancing works, I have described how it works, and how it is different from what I've observed -- the nodes were vanishing while I was standing right at them.

Vanishing as you’re standing next to it is a timeout.

A lot of people believe that taking one thing from a node (or chest) and then leaving the trash will make it persistent, but it’s been tested that it does start a timeout counter when it’s activated. Everyone has their own view on the ethics of leaving a white glyph in a chest or a worm in a columbine node, but that’s the likely answer.

I’ve rarely seen some times when I go up to a node and activate it and it just vanishes instead of opening. I believe that’s the same issue, just a visual bug where the node despawned server-side but the client-side node was still mistakenly there.

MreeBiPolar · September 2

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

That's 100% an instanced area.

The basegame zones do have some instanced areas, and they can extend a bit farther than you'd expect given where the quests themselves are. One of the easiest to see is in Bleakrock if you go directly from the questgiver for Deathclaw up the path to the town's burial tomb - the point right as you get through the rocks and onto the path is the delineation for "the town is normal" versus "the town is under attack," and if you see nodes as you're walking up to that point, they'll despawn as you cross that boundary.

That's the point, I know how instancing works, I have described how it works, and how it is different from what I've observed -- the nodes were vanishing while I was standing right at them.

Vanishing as you’re standing next to it is a timeout.

A lot of people believe that taking one thing from a node (or chest) and then leaving the trash will make it persistent, but it’s been tested that it does start a timeout counter when it’s activated. Everyone has their own view on the ethics of leaving a white glyph in a chest or a worm in a columbine node, but that’s the likely answer.

I’ve rarely seen some times when I go up to a node and activate it and it just vanishes instead of opening. I believe that’s the same issue, just a visual bug where the node despawned server-side but the client-side node was still mistakenly there.

That would have made sense if it was just one node somewhere now and then. What I saw, was nodes "despawning" en masse, and it happening along some kind of a route, not even randomly all over. For it to be the mechanism you state, all of them needed to:
1) spawn extra drops like the worms you mentioned, which is not so common for ore/wood/clothing/jewelry nodes; then
2) someone loot them ALL, leaving whatever extras were there (heartwood, etc?), in quick succession
3) do all that several times
4) no one else looting any of those nodes before they expire.

Kind of a huge stretch.

Islyn · September 2

MreeBiPolar wrote: »

I've been farming mats in Bal Foyen for the pursuit last couple days (yeah, leaving it until the end) and noticed an odd thing, with them despawning apparently on their own. First time it happened, I shrugged it off, but then it happened several times more, and it was following a pattern pretty much of someone moving to pick them. I am absolutely sure it wasn't someone using cloak or Collopi Essence, since these are still pretty visible, and I even stood right in the clump of 4 nodes a couple times to check, and they vanished right before me, with not even a hint of a player present, neither visual, nor any other detection like hitbar, or name tag, or anything whatsoever.

Seen same in same area.

freespirit · September 2

As someone mentioned earlier bots used to(and possibly still do) have a way of being below the ground whilst farming.

I used to see nodes vanish a lot and not just in "instanced" areas, don't see it that often these days but I do still see it occasionally.

Wrothgar was a zone I used to see it a lot in, probably back when the area was heavily farmed for chests, in the days Briarheart jewelry and daggers were worth the effort!