I've always been broke & a cheap-skate, so I tend to harvest items myself in my downtime.
I will very rarely seek to harvest in bulk, and only if it's for a recipe or skillups that I need - and will stop once my needs are met (not for the purpose of hoarding / selling on the market).
It's once I start seeing the same names monopolosing the nodes that I start to get a little antsy (I understand that this may be their niche market but... I still get annoyed if it happens too often).
Harvesting is usually so simple and satisfying. Plus, you can do it in passing while on an adventure. And it can be a good way to make some extra money - I'm much more likely to be the guy that just sells all his mats to crafters.
Although my brother seems interested in crafting, so maybe we'll have a symbiotic partnership where I supply him with free mats and he provides me with free gear :P
Like to harvest myself, figuring out the most efficient cycle, mixing it up by gathering the different materials, avoiding anything that might hit me ;) It's nice to do alone, but I like the idea presented somewhere else for which you could group and everyone benefits in the harvest.
Only problem I've run into is getting to storage and realizing, "Oh great, where am I going to put more stuff!"
I'm torn on this issue. When I don't have much to do going out and harvesting can be a really relaxing process and you can make some quite good money doing it but when I am really stuck into a long crafting session I'd rather stay in the zone and just work hard on crafting so in those times I'd rather buy the resources from another player (assuming I have the money of course).
I never have really liked harvesting but I find that I always spend more time doing it than i would have imagined in each game I play with it. I guess I am sort of turned off by it after all the forced harvesting for epics and or pota gear in vanguard. I prefer more when it is not a required element to advance your character.
My OCD goes off if I don't harverst everything I can, it's like passing up on free money right?
With the option to do all types harversting in one character my bag space can RIP (*cries in a corner with bags full of rocks and herbs and leather and vegetables and logs and fish*)
I have always been a fan of harvesting/crafting. I will gather while adventuring, but also set aside time strictly for resource harvesting to keep the guild vaults full. That being said there are plenty of times I have paid other players for resources. If I am just short of the quantity needed or missing a rare component and not feeling up to fighting the RNG gods. From the information I have gleaned so far it looks like resource variety will reflect the diversity of biomes and with no global AH there will definitely be a need for players to move harvestables between major cities.
I like to harvest when I don't have a long time to play. Great way to use a 30-40 min play session. That being said I have and will buy from others when I'm working on crafting and just can't get the supplies I need or I'm wanting to craft not harvest and don't have the mats I need for it.
If I have the ability to harvest everything I can I will have bag issues. In other games I have played you could only take so many harvest abilities. My main in my last game had three harvest abilities to help off set my crafters and I had alot of them (22). Regardless I don't sell my harvest materials and I'll usually buy materials from the auction house on top of that once I bring my crafters into full swing (Have to keep my losses minimal since I don't craft for profit). When searching for group or waiting for a raid, harvesting and crafting once I have enough materials is what I do (plan on playing atleast 72 hours a week).
My wife lives to harvest, but I generally only do it to level up skills. Its basically a mindless activity, like her cell phone games. So, she loves it.
So, I pay my kids to harvest for me and then buy whatever they don't get
However, as the tradeskill officer in my guild, I would lead the harvesting raids.
I don't harvest often. When I decide that I want to play a game, but don't want to interact with others it helps me relax and get in the right mind set. Also I love having to search for supplies to make a great suit of armor or something cool. It becomes like farming monsters for me.
In short, it has its place. The game would feel a little empty without it, even if I don't do it often.
I prefer WoW tradeskills over EQ tradeskills. I liked the harvesting system in WoW more than the dropped loot items in EQ. I didnt play Vangaurd but I hear that their harvesting was pretty good. What ruined harvesting on WoW was the bots that would continually roam a zone grabbing all the nodes. I know they were banned when caught but another would just start back up a few minutes later.
Can you there be instanced nodes? Maybe a way to check for "I am Human" when harvesting? Not sure what that would look like but something computer program would have a tough time replicating.
Happy to do it myself, and would spend a lot of time on it IF: (IMHO)
-harvesting should be: move to an appropriate location, object and/or kill a creature, THEN use an inventory item or skill and you have a chance to obtain the resource from the location/corpse in a radius. This allows either killing to obtain resources, and/or exploring to obtain resources. A rock on the ground or a rock monster you just killed. Either will work, and this way, you don't have to put the harvested items on the global or regional adventure loot tables. Finding, targeting & clicking on a very tiny often glitchy/buggy interactive item or ground spawn? Not required or desired.
-An item or skill should be used as described above to have a chance to find the resource, per player. Static nodes & competitive gathering with punitive respawn timers? Nope.
-Shared/co-op harvesting is fine, you could just make it so it increases quantity, rare rates, or both, if many players attempt to find resources at the same location/from the same kill. However, understand that with such a system, unless you specifically code around it, full groups/raids just for harvesting will be controlled by a single player and will 'exploit' such a system 24x7.
Now, if it's going to be the toxic 20 year old "click on this rock first, mine, mine, MINE!!" idea? (again, IMHO)
-If you spawn resource nodes as a group, do not require the entire group of resources to be harvested before all nodes are deleted and respawn. Also, if a resource node hasn't been harvested within an hour, and no player is within LOS, delete it and respawn it.
Why? Because despite your best efforts, sometimes nodes spawn in strange places, and this prevents those nodes from never being harvested. The goal here is to make it so that just because one player "cherry picks" or harvests only one kind of node in an area as soon as the server/zone comes up, everyone else on the server isn't penalized by having to harvest all the crap leftover before new nodes spawn. This is currently the case with many MMO's that have harvesting.
-if you're going to have harvest nodes you must click on, make their location random. And by random I don't mean "placed within a 1 meter radius of this static, known location" kind of random, I mean really random. Here's your algorithm for node placement: NOT WITHIN 5 meters of: any dynamic model, any tree, any water, or any world geometry that isn't the ground. Start with that. If that works, lower the value to 3 meters and try again. Also, there's nothing wrong with nodes that are less than one meter off the ground, but higher than that, nope. Bad location. There is nothing wrong with confining node spawning to a particular area to reduce server load, but within that area, it really needs to be random locations.
-Common harvests, rare harvests, very rare harvests for all harvested resources. Or just common/rare, that works too. And the ability to trade/convert 100 or 1000 common for one rare, that'd be nice.
-If it is possible to kill certain mobs and harvest them for even ONE type of harvested resource (ore from rock monsters) then ALL harvested resources must have many many many harvestable mobs at all level ranges, AT LAUNCH.
-As a harvester becomes better, they should be able to harvest MORE of a resource in a single attempt, especially lower tier resources. Optionally, it should take less time, as well. It should never take longer than 4 seconds to perform any harvesting action.
-After a player has started harvesting a resource, no other player can interact with that resource for a fixed period of time, or until the original player is finished, whichever comes first. (something like harvesting time + 5 seconds would probably work for the fixed period of time, if harvesting takes any time.)
-No-one should be able to harvest while their pet(s) are in combat.
-No-one should be able to harvest while they are on the hate list of any mob.
-No-one should be able to harvest while they are moving.
-All harvested resources should stack into piles of at least 100, or an extraordinarily large number, to save on bag space. This should not be something that needs to be adjusted after launch. Do it right the first time.
-All harvested resources should not take up common inventory space, that is, they should not compete with loot from monsters. One bag for harvested stuff, one bag for quest stuff (hidden or visible) and at least one bag for loot. See GW2.
-Any interaction by a player with a harvestable resource should break all invis, stealth, or similar effects.
-All harvested items have an NPC vendor sellback price of exactly zero. The only market to sell harvested components to is other players, for whatever value the market will bear.
-Refining (if it exists) should be tied to the Harvesting skill directly. No need for an extra refining profession, just refining actions as part of the harvesting profession.
-Filtering visibility of harvesting nodes needs a sanity check against performance/graphics/distance culling. However, allowing a player to only show nodes of a particular type and hide all others might be a nice feature. In some MMO's today, harvesting objects render farther away than ground cover which leads to some unintended side effects.
-Personal and/or shared nodes completely eliminate any toxic behavior related to harvesting, and as a result, any CSR load due to the same. If you don't use personal and/or shared nodes, you are, by design, implementing a system that will create toxic behavior and CSR load. Don't do it! :)
Never minded harvesting, i allways do ALOT of tradeskilling in these games and think harvesting is a natural part of this, but what i dont like is when alot of the things you need are "rare"or "contested" so its allmost impossible to get the stuff you need, i dont remember at the top of my head what game this was but there are some that makes every node available to everyone in that way that if i harvest a node you can come along and harvest the same node and it doesent affect my harvesting.
But what ever way Pantheon desides to go with the harvesting system i just hope they will ensure there is enuff around and that its in sensible places.
I loved the resource and harvesting system in Star Wars Galaxies... The actual crafting side of it was pretty run of the mill in terms of functionality, and the combat was terrible.. But the resource / gathering system?.. Fun, Engaging, and with a bit of competition by rewarding the diligent and enterprising with the best hauls of the rarest materials.
In that game, I was very much a harvester. I loved it. I preferred it over most other activities. Could make fortunes just by being a competitive harvester.
In other games?.. Meh. Sure, I'd do them, max them out, gather enough for myself until I became financially comfortable, but the fun of it wore out quickly and indeed became BORING, and always turned to paying the AH'ers for raw mats over continually doing it myself. (Looking at WoW-esque systems here)
I prefer to haevest my own resources. If they are plentifull or easily found. If they are hidden or hard to get to then it is easier to buy them. I do believe that harvesting isd an essential part of the game. Depending on the crafting aspect, harvesting is usually fun and can be done as a sidline to exploring and combat. Having nodes in seperate sites, like they did in Horizons, was ok but it took the danger out of harvesting. Please make nodes scattered over the main areas and plentiful enough so you are not fighting others for the few nodes in the areas. Also static spawns are ok but random spawns are great.
Harvesting is a necessary solo activity in a group centric game. It's a break from having to group and still finding something fun and useful to do. Hopefully, group harvesting won't be a thing in this game because that just forces people back into group mode. Sometimes people need a break, often times, even. Yet, if group harvesting is in and it's the most efficient, and sometimes only, way to obtain the best resources, than harvesting is going to be an unnecessary forced grouping in an already group centric game. I'm a group oriented guy, but I need my harvesting and crafting to be soloable downtime. If it's not, it's a wasted opportunity, as it is the easist and most logical way to insert soloable gameplay in a group centric MMO.
So, a big fat yes to harvesting my own resources or farming crafting drops.
I like to harvest but as others said resources can be contested and that gets a bit annoying. I actually like how Black Desert does it. Your life skills have a level and they increase in exp as you use them,
you also can hire workers to go farm matarials for you as well. Rift has the feature too, I don't know if it would be too dificult to implement some type of system were you can still harvest yourself and also
hire workers to go do it also, just an interesting thought. Or perhaps we can grow some of the resources we need and that way some of those rare mats are not so contested.
