Reset timer for unbound magic?
I’m not sure about when Unbound Magic ‘bubbles’ reset, but could you have hit the daily cap on Unbound Magic gathering?
No, I had just started. The first 4 trees were empty, and I guessed I was inside some reset time. Server reset was past by about 2 hours.
I mentioned the UM bubbles because they are what count for the daily. The UM bonus you get when harvesting nodes does not count, whether or not you are using UM tools.
I actually didn’t know there was a daily cap on unbound magic. What is it, and is it per zone, or gamewide?
(edited by Michael.9403)
It’s 500 per account per day. It’s unclear, to me, whether that is just from ‘gathering’ or from acquiring Unbound Magic in any way (i.e. salvaging Map Currency, tools, etc.)
Perhaps, the timer is 24 hours. Did you look in the trees after the 2 more hours had passed?
Not yet, and I’d suspected 24 hours a few times in the past. However, that is such a stupid design point I gave ANET credit for not doing it and felt I was must be wrong.
If it were 24 hours that means all your collecting would be pushed later and later into the night until you had to skip a night to get back to your normal play time. Then you’d have to do the gathering early so you didn’t get pushed back and have to skip every other day.
(edited by Michael.9403)
It’s 500 per account per day. It’s unclear, to me, whether that is just from ‘gathering’ or from acquiring Unbound Magic in any way (i.e. salvaging Map Currency, tools, etc.)
I’ve gathered a lot more then 500 per day so there must be some loophole somewhere. When I was grinding hard (now I’m in maintenance mode) I’d use UM tools and gather everything in sight, whether I needed it or not. With the tool bonus, a token node can give 10 each whack, and elder trees 1 to 3 per whack, etc. I’d get around 3000 per night over the then 3 extant LS3 zones.
Then, the cap is probably just from ‘gathering’ the ‘bubbles’.
There is more than one cooldown. It gets more than a little confusing if you try to plan out your farming too carefully.
The short story is: if you find all the ‘nodes’ empty, try to get on a new map (waiting or guesting being the easiest ways to do so).
The longer story is: there are several factors depending on the type of resource.
Most upper tier mats (including unbound magic) have a “time out” that is at least 8 hours and some think is 23 hours (the last time I did extensive testing, it was considerably less, but that was a few years ago). That time out only affects the same map instance — if you get on a new map, you might not need to wait as long.
In addition, many mats (again, including unbound) have some sort of cap that resets at daily.
And as noted above, the newer mats/currencies also have local caps: you can only farm so many per day per section of the map. This also resets with the daily.
So for example, you can theoretically farm up to two ori and two ancient nodes in Frostgorge. You might farm one ori right after reset, swap toons, and return an hour later to find yourself in a new map. The seemingly-identical node might be refreshed, so you can mine it. However, when you find the second ori node later, you won’t be able to farm — the new instance allows you to farm the same spot, but the daily cap prevents you from using more than 2 nodes regardless of how many instances you visit.
Unbound magic suffers from a local cap, from a map-wide cap, and the usual refresh-takes-a-while on the same map.
To reiterate:
- All nodes have some sort of minimum refresh rate. For upper tier mats, rich nodes, node farms, and the like, it’s somewhere between 8-23 hrs; for others it’s less. You can accelerate that refresh by swapping instances.
- Nothing allows you to farm more often than any daily cap.
- Certain nodes are capped per map.
- A few nodes are capped per part of a map.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
Tonight I planned to gather winterberries in Bitterfrost, and unbound magic in the trees overhead. While I could gather winterberries, I could not see any unbound magic bubbles in the trees. I specifically wanted the daily magic gathering, and the winterberry stuff was because I was in the area.
The time was 2 hours past reset, and about 2 hours prior to when I had done the same route the night before. I noted the IP was the same as the previous evening. (not unusual).
I have gathered enough unbound magic and zone tokens (petrified, winterberries, blood rubies, etc) to earn 5 full sets of jewelry, and from time to time have had issues with unbound magic not showing up that I should have gotten the timer for myself.
However, I didn’t. Can someone enlighten me in terms of time since last gathering (given an intervening reset) and in terms of new map vs old map?
TIA
Yes, I did know to go underwater to get the daily, but I’d really like to know the reset so I get the tokens and magic at the same time.
I’ve had something similar happen to me in Bloodstone Fen. What happened is you ended up on the same map that you had previously been on when you gathered unbound magic before reset. If the map closes and/or you get dropped into another instance of the map, the unbound magic will be there again. But if you continue to land on the same map instance, the unbound magic will reset 24 hours after you collect it.
<snip>
To reiterate:
- All nodes have some sort of minimum refresh rate. For upper tier mats, rich nodes, node farms, and the like, it’s somewhere between 8-23 hrs; for others it’s less. You can accelerate that refresh by swapping instances.
- Nothing allows you to farm more often than any daily cap.
- Certain nodes are capped per map.
- A few nodes are capped per part of a map.
Summary: Delays using reset timers are understood. Absurdly stupid reset times (23-24 hours) hurt all the player base without gaining anything for the game itself. Players have a finite game play period in a 24 hour day, and a delay of that magnitude just pushes events out of their play window.
Thanks for taking the time for all the detail.
In the 3 winter months, I’m pretty much in the game a few hours most days/nights. Otherwise, I spend every other month in a remote outdoor project that’s an internet challenged area. I don’t do GW2 other than an occasional daily. So I’ve spent since Dec 20 doing LS3, all episodes. LS3 gave me the opportunity to equip my characters with ascended backpacks and full sets of jewelry. At the start, I had exactly 1 ascended backpack and 5 characters with 3 ascended jewelry pieces each, spread over 10 characters, one of each type and a 2nd ranger. All had ascended weapons and coats, all were elite, and I could halfway play some of them. Now I have 10 characters with full ascended backpacks and full sets of ascended jewelry and a full spare set without the stats selected. Adding zone passes, home nodes, etc and rounding, that’s about 150,000 unbound magic, roughly 1500 each petrified wood and blood rubies and double that of winterberries. There is probably an entire report that could be written on how to break all that down into practical tasks to make it doable as a whole, and with the ability to break off at any time and come back an hour or a day later. I’ll leave that to later.
Along the way I learned about zone caps, reset timers, level caps, etc except as noted, I ignored the unbound magic timer, using the expedient of running another character instead of the one being blocked. ANET was clearly slowing down the game in a different manner than thy had tried in HoT, but still, it was there.
I am now down to trickle mode, harvesting karma in the 4 zones by doing the quicker of the dailies, and gathering UM and zone tokens as I do them. Better to gather them than just run by. I’m not interested in running multiple characters across multiple zones to avoid whatever the reset time was on bubbles of UM, and I had to face it, and so inquired here.
What I see above confirms my own observations. However, I took no exact times, so can’t tell if its 23 hours, or 24 hours, or something between. Either is an absurdly stupid design point. It hurts the entire gamer population, something that should be strictly avoid by competent designers.
Everyone has some play time dictated by sleep time, and work or school requirements. They have a window or two per day and play inside it. Activities having anything near a 24 hour reset means that whatever task they do last in their play window CANNOT be done even one minute earlier the next evening. The result is the event starts later and later, until it rolls out of the time to play window and into sleep or work and gets missed.
Real games solve this problem by making it 18 hours, and there is never a problem. The game gets the delay it wants, and the players can still things daily in their time available windows.
I wonder frequently: Is anyone still in charge there? Does anyone stand back and look at what they are really doing?
(edited by Michael.9403)
Um, Daily reset happens at the same time every day. Why does gathering pose a problem if Dailies do not?
Um, Daily reset happens at the same time every day. Why does gathering pose a problem if Dailies do not?
Each LS3 zone has a daily that collects unbound magic bubbles (total of 4 dailys) and pays with a chest. The bubbles do not reset when the “server reset” happens, but instead reset as a function of when you last harvested them. At least ad hoc evidence suggest 23-24 hours. Ergo, they cannot be done until the bubbles reset and if you come back too soon they will not be. My example was an hour or two earlier than the previous night the winterberries had reset when the server did but the bubbles had not. This caused me to inquire if anyone knew the reset time for the bubbles, hence the OP and the thread.
The daily we’ve all done in Tyria resets with the server, and can be done in a few minutes after server reset.
Also be aware that occasionally a map will stay open for a long time and the nodes get “stuck” in “already gathered” mode. When this happens, no amount of waiting will reset them allowing you to gather again. The only fix is to wait for ArenaNet’s multi-server system to shut the instance down thereby fully resetting the instance.
This is a pretty uncommon bug, but it does happen from time to time.
Server: Devona’s Rest
Regardless, those with a window of time for game play must wait until reset. If they did the Daily (or gathered items on a 24-hour schedule), they would have to wait (the full 24 hours at some point). I don’t really see the difference.
If nodes are on a 23-hour schedule, it’s possible to move up the gathering slowly, until one could gather twice in the same day.
Regardless, if you are suggesting the Devs change/shorten the reset time for gathering some items, I wish you much luck. Perhaps, they will abide. =)
Then, the cap is probably just from ‘gathering’ the ‘bubbles’.
Yes, thanks. I guessed that after I thought about what you said. We had to both be right, so that’s what fell out of it.
Most of my UM came from gathering nodes of some sort. The tools contribute 1-3 to anything gathered, including in Tyria and the home zone. Gathering token nodes seems to be 7-10, and events give bonuses up to 20 (or more). I only chase bubbles because they are what’s needed for the magic gathering dailies in each zone.
(edited by Michael.9403)
Regardless, those with a window of time for game play must wait until reset. If they did the Daily (or gathered items on a 24-hour schedule), they would have to wait (the full 24 hours at some point). I don’t really see the difference.
Sure you do.
Assume I play from 8 to 10 every night, and that server reset at 7:00 gates everything.
I can gather anything anytime in my play time and do anything else I want.
Now assume that, besides reset, I have to wait 24 hours since my last gathering. So if I gather at 9:30 one night, I can’t gather at 8:30 the next night even though I’m in game playing. I have to wait to at least 9:30 and since I’ll may be doing Habion, taking 10 mins, I can’t start until 9:45. I didn’t have the chance to gather before the boss fight, because the 24 hour lockout forced me to wait even though I’ve passed into a new server reset time.
Fast forward to the next night and I’ll blow out of my play window. No, I’ll stay and do it. Next night, same until I can’t gather until 2 in the morning.
It doesn’t matter where my play window is with regard to the server reset. It could even be the next day. However, adding a 24 hour reset on top of that slowly pushes me and everyone else out of that. In practical terms, so does 23 hours. As long as things are gated to server reset, which is fine, adding an additional time delay on top of that has to be careful not to drive everyone but those who play 24/7 out of the opportunity.
Edited. I tried to type “e t c e t e r a” but it showed up as exkitten for reasons unknown
(edited by Michael.9403)
@Michael: you just need to be on a different map. There should be several instances of whatever map you’re working on. Use any LFG to piggy back onto a new map and you shouldn’t have the problems you’re describing.
The 8-23 hour “cool down” for nodes on the same map has been around since launch, probably since BETA. It’s not new, so I can’t imagine it occurred to the developers that it would matter when they applied the same mechanic to UnB-Magic. And largely, it doesn’t matter to a lot of people — only to people who play every day at significantly different times and who farm all the unbounds in each area.
I’m not suggesting I like the mechanic (I don’t). I am saying it’s not a new issue and it doesn’t affect everyone.
Accordingly, I am not holding my breath for ANet to tweak, let alone fix things. I am instead using work-arounds, notably finding a way to swap instances of the same map (or skipping a day).
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”
I don’t think they will fix it. 8 hours I remember, as it’s on some open world chests, which I camp when in the boonies because that’s all I can do. I’ve never run across 23 I don’t think, but then Orr Truffles was something longer than 8.
My OP really just wanted to know what it was.
I still consider 23 hours a poor design, as it protects nobody, including ANET and hurts plenty.
I still consider 23 hours a poor design, as it protects nobody, including ANET and hurts plenty.
I’m no fan of the system either. All the same, changing it isn’t free and I don’t think it’s a such a widespread or critical issue that it’s worth prioritizing an overhaul instead of any of the other 54,327 suggestions offered here.
John Smith: “you should kill monsters, because killing monsters is awesome.”