Survey Distance?

What exactly is the benefit of this skill?

 

Resource nodes glow. My guess is that the glow is only applied when it is close enough that your character notices it. This skill would increase the distance so the nodes glow from a far.

 

Thanks.. I was just deciding on what inates I cant shut down...

 

I am not fond of this function and see no use for it right now.

I use the lowest graphics setting available because I play on a laptop that doesn't have the greatest graphics card. All I see with the survey distance is a few sparkles with no glow, and the sparkles don't even appear at a distance. They only appear when I'm right on top of the node or corpse, and even then there is a few seconds delay before they begin to show. Does this same delay occur on systems with high capability graphics cards? Kill some wolves or a bunny and see how much time it takes before the survey sparkles to appear. I'm curious!

If I'm standing right beside the node or corpse, then I obviously don't need survey distance because I already see it. Can't see distance trees anyway in pitch black dark of night. Only way to see those is to get right on top of them, or try to memorize the layout of the scene for node locations.

Survey has only been slightly helpful regarding plant harvesting like garlic and mandrake in the dark. In each scene it seems these plants are different sizes. Some seem so tiny in one area and almost giant in comparison in others. Perhaps this is just my perception, but it does really feel this way.

Replace survey altogether with something else, perhaps a skill that gives us a slight chance to get more goodies. Not to be confused with Meticulous Collection that gives you more of whatever you're already harvesting, but something else entirely separate. A rare crafting ingredient, maybe. After all, once in a while you see "Critical!'' during harvesting and yet you do not get anything extra special with that crit that I can see anyway. Either remove that Critical notice or put something in there we can actually get with that crit. It sucks to see ''Critical!'' and you only get one animal hide, one cotton, one herb or one wood. What's so critical about only getting one thing? *yawn*

Say you're chopping a tree, the new skill would give you a chance to harvest a seed for agriculture that drifted in by chance on the wind/weather or bird droppings and landed on a tree. Or a more rare insect that gives you a dye color, and it lives in the tree bark. When the insect is ground in the mortar and pestle, Voila! a powder for dye. We're already getting insects with wood chopping but I see no recipes that use the borers. Maybe you can put them into a cooking recipe. Crispy deep fat fried wood borers! LOL

Perhaps fabric/leather dye minerals from mining that need grinding into powder like aquamarine blue. Special gems for jewelry making (Hopefully that will come soon. We really need belts and rings. ). Diamond dust for polishing/final touches on weapons or extra shiny armor.

Don't have to use my suggestion replacement, but the survey distance skill should be ripped out altogether and/or replaced by something else entirely in my opinion.

 

I imagine this might be of more use if the resource nodes had more visual variety but at the moment if I'm looking for lumber, I look for a tree with red leaves and I can spot that from across the map. Same more or less applies to ore nodes, just look for the miscoloured lump. So... Yes presently the survey skill is less then useless.

 

I have a very high end graphic card and system, and I don't notice anything with survey distance beyond the aforementioned little sparklies when standing right on top of the node.

As for the crits, all it does is shorten the abysmal long timer to the node harvest. I agree it should actually DO something rather than just make it an instant collection.

Lots of things I'm not a fan of in the current design for harvesting... but that's completely off topic.

 

I have a vague recollection that high end nodes might actually be invisible if your survey skill isn't high enough for them.

 

Was that live or was it just being discussed as a possibility? I hadn't heard that, but I've missed out quite a bit due to being away for a few months.

I've always thought an option like that would be nice, but would be kind of immersion breaking (a tree is always there but only selectable if you notice it is kinda strange).

 

I did actually encounter it in the wild, but it's been many releases. They may have backed off it, or i may just not have noticed any more.

 

Would be nice to confrim this from a dev?

 

I believe the functionality of this skill is not fully developed yet. It hasn't gotten any better since they first added it to the game. I think over time we'll see a vast improvement to where if your skill is high you'll be able to find resources far away like a shinning beacon that says "we're over here waiting for you to gather us!"

 

So for now I shall lock that off on all my gathering...

 

In R20 you could easily get survey distance up, and you could see the sparklies from a decent distance. Now it seems like you need at least 30-40 to be useful, and the way that use-based skill-ups work means it's gonna take a while to get there.

It's probably not useful for mining nodes, though some of those iron nodes can be hard to see. And you really don't need it for trees; you'd have to be blind not to see those. It could be useful for foraging if only so you can actually see a garlic from time to time.