Improve survey skills

Since most players can see the various nodes, perhaps we can use survey skill as a modifier to the number of mats harvested/mined/logged

e.g With a mining survey skill of 80, I get a x 1.5 to total of ores mined. 3 gold ores -> 5 ores. (rounded up)
You can have a sota curve to determine this modifier.

Its a simple to implement. It helps increase productivity.

Wish chris would consider this.

 

For mining, it could have been a system much like UO's, except mining would simply control % chance, but everything was initially either an iron or copper node, and survey increased the likelyhood of finding an extra nugget or two of the base ore per successful harvest, as well as revealing silver and gold nodes for what they really are later when the survey skill reached a certain level.

Another possibility would be that while there are certain static nodes (like now) everywhere, as your survey skill increased there would be nodes that, while in nearly the same place as the normal node, are not visible to or harvestable by anyone not possessing the right level in survey.

Just a couple of ideas that had been floating about before... since survey is a nearly useless skill for almost all the harvesting trees. Maybe they will listen now? Who knows... only time will tell.

 

Adding a multiplier should be easier compared to anything else.

 

Survey as implemented just makes no sense whatsoever.
Nodes in SotA are static. They are either there, or not there, but the locations don't change.
Once you spend enough time in a particular zone, you know exactly where to look.
Scoffer I believe has even named all of the ores in Elysium. They are his friends.

Having a skill that costs producer exp to raise, that does nothing except add a barely noticeable sparkle effect to things that don't move, is just pointless.

Several years ago, for one patch, they broke something somehow, and the nodes had this REALLY OBVIOUS glow/aura. I remember thinking, FANTASTIC, that actually really helps see stuff in places like Spectral where the iron nodes can blend in to the surrounding cave. But nope, it was a bug, apparently, and was completely removed. Just like when they made the "wet plants" fill the entire planting bed within "wetness" instead of just a tiny wet circle around the base of the crop (that can't be seen at all on fat crops like cotton) I was like..FANTASTIC, I can see what's watered ...nope! Was a bug. Removed. Absolute bafflement, because both of these examples were actually significant improvements from a visibillity perspective.

So ...survey.

Firstly, if its purpose is to find stuff, it needs to make it really obvious - not an intermittent barely visible sparkle.
But even with this, after you learn a zone and where stuff is, it is pointless again unless its going to let you spot if a particular node is up from really far away.
If we had a functional minimap I'd suggest a good use of survey would be to show active nodes on the map (many games do this, its fantastic) but...yeah, our map doesn't work and shows no sign of working any time soon. Look at ESO addon 3d-harvesting pins for an example of fantastic node visibility from a distance. But then...if this is something that can be done with an addon, then why have it as a skill you can put experience into?

It seems that perhaps the best direction in light of all of this would be to change survey or remove it from the game entirely and replace it with something actually useful, like an increase to harvesting crit chance or increase to chance for secondary materials (beetles, suet, etc.) But even if this is done, it will probably be a barely noticeable barely quantifiable effect even at grandmaster, since that's how most skills go in Sota. (I pushed one of the swift gatherings to 120 and even with a stopwatch can't notice anything different - the speed increase is actually less significant than my reaction time on pressing start/stop on a stopwatch...for 9 million producer xp.)

TLDR:
Make survey relevant/obvious or remote it/replace with something better
General grumbles about how barely noticeable effects on harvesting passives are.

 

Rather than a node mat multiplier, it'd probably work better if it increased the re-spawn rate of nodes slightly. Maybe around 0.1% per level so at level 100 it'd increase re-spawn rate by 10%. This would better represent the ability to "survey" and find nodes.

 

I like your idea. But I doubt they can pull it off easily. They took weeks to fix the spawn rates in spectral mines eons ago I recall. sigh....

 

That would be helpful, but I'm not use how useful outside of mines or fairly small scenes. But; still better than what it does now.

ESO has a Survey type skill, but it was actually useful, at least early on. Nodes lit up super obviously if you were close enough, and increasing the skill upped the distance you could be at to still get them to glow. There's a ton of types of node, and they change as you level up, so I found the skill useful when I first started playing. I unlearned it later, though, since once you've hit 50 they stop changing, and by that point you can spot a node from a mile away. But at least it did what it said; the glow didn't jsut pop in occasionally. The SotA version was pretty much only useful for garlic (before they made it bigger and more obvious, I was surprised at how many garlic plants I had run by obliviously) and maybe Mandrake and Nightshade when they're hidden with other plants. And even then, you had to be looking right at them when the sparkles appeared, or you'd miss it.

Oh, and serpent's scales, because those things are so rare, and it's hard to spot them even when you know where they are. They really should add some lesser beasties that drop those, it's super tough to gather them at low levels when the weakest thing in the game that drops them is wyverns.