Guild Wars 2

While doing some harvesting around the Malchor’s Leap wood farm, I noticed with a few characters that if I were near an ore node, but moved away a ways without collecting it, when I came back the node was gone…. it became treated as though I had already harvested it when I hadn’t.

This occurred with all 4 characters I logged in this morning.

Thanx,

~EW

There are a couple of semi-documented limits on harvesting in various maps.

• In Southsun, we are limited to 3 blooming passion flowers & 15 regulars. This is account bound.
• In Orr, there’s a limit of how many ori and ancient nodes we can harvest; this is character bound.
• Also in Southsun, there’s a limit to how many elder wood can be harvested. Also character bound if I recall correctly.

I’m sure there are other limits that most of us just never hit — you can imagine that this sort variety of Diminishing Returns code is mean to limit the economic impact of botting and over-farming.

If you weren’t farming a ton of metal nodes, then there’s also a bug that appears to be here to stay. Some nodes will appear as harvestable briefly, even though they aren’t on this instance of the map. I confess I don’t entirely understand why this happens — apparently something to do with possible assets sometimes being loaded because they are cached on your client side.

Or in other words, it’s possible that you’re seeing a ghost of mithril nodes past. (Even more likely: of Candy Corn nodes from Halloween to be.)

Unfortunately I don’t think any of that is the case, which is why I think it’s so weird.

It was mithril nodes, and I was keeping to around the wood farm spot… there’s usually only 3-6 ore nodes in the immediate vicinity from my experience.

Standing at the wood nodes, there was a mithril node SE, SW, and North.

The first character I saw the node SE (visually in the distance and on my mini-map), but decided to come back to it after I did a circle…. I went to the SW node, to the N node, then came back to SE and the node was gone.

So, when I logged in another character and appeared, the map was the same one as the one I had left… with a node to the SW, SE, and N. This time I went for the SE node, then the SW, and when I came back up to the N one, it was gone…. but the visual image that it had already been mined was sitting there. I walked up to it to try and mine it just in case it was just a visual fluke, but it wasn’t and I couldn’t mine.

Similar happened with the other 2 characters I logged in to harvest before heading to work…. I could harvest 2 of the 3 node spots in the immediate vicinity.

If there were some sort of resource limit, wouldn’t I have hit it with the wood before the mithril?

I’m wondering if it’s possible some of the nodes were somehow linked? So that harvesting one triggered the other to be registered as harvested?

~EW

I am not crazy , but i swear , i see candy corn nodes popping out of nowhere left and right. Appear and disappear in a blink of an eye All nodes comes from the fourth dimension , harvest them as fast as you can while they appear in ours .. lol

Farming Flats.5370:

I am not crazy , but i swear , i see candy corn nodes popping out of nowhere left and right. Appear and disappear in a blink of an eye All nodes comes from the fourth dimension , harvest them as fast as you can while they appear in ours .. lol

You’re not crazy — even ANet devs see that happening in the live game.

That’s definitely an example of the “resource ghosting” that I mentioned. :/
AFAIK, it’s an artifact of the game’s architecture, so it’s unlikely to be completely resolved for GW2.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

If there were some sort of resource limit, wouldn’t I have hit it with the wood before the mithril?

You… think… ANet is… consistent? Oh that’s adorable !
I swear if I had a copper for every time I’ve typed “ANet Inconsistency™”, I’d be in the top 0.01% of wealth in this game.

More seriously, sure, on the face of it, you’d think that mithril & elder wood would have similar limits. On the other, there are some bigger non-node faucets for ore (e.g. both armor and weapons for metal, just weapons for wood), so maybe there’s a reason to have different map limits.

As I mentioned before, outside of southsun and T6, the limits aren’t well documented.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

The first character I saw the node SE (visually in the distance and on my mini-map), but decided to come back to it after I did a circle…. I went to the SW node, to the N node, then came back to SE and the node was gone.

So this disappearing node wasn’t within visual range? Just mini map range? That would be consistent with “resource ghosting”. (Or did you mean it looked “mined” when you finally arrived, as you describe below?)

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

So, when I logged in another character and appeared, the map was the same one as the one I had left… …This time I went for the SE node, then the SW, and when I came back up to the N one, it was gone…. but the visual image that it had already been mined was sitting there. I walked up to it to try and mine it just in case it was just a visual fluke, but it wasn’t and I couldn’t mine.

That’s consistent with hitting some sort of diminished returns.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Similar happened with the other 2 characters I logged in to harvest before heading to work…. I could harvest 2 of the 3 node spots in the immediate vicinity.

Just to be clear, are you defining “immediate vicinity” to be within range so you can see the name of the node (via alt-key or the UI option)? Or close enough for mini map icon?

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I’m wondering if it’s possible some of the nodes were somehow linked? So that harvesting one triggered the other to be registered as harvested?

I haven’t ever heard of that happening for harvest nodes, although it has happened in this game with a few ground chests (those are just a different type of ‘node’ of course). However, your experience is consistent with your theory.

I think, however, that the more likely explanation is DR, mostly because it explains the evidence and resource node DR has been previously documented (although not specifically in Orr).

tl;dr this is one that I’d like to see ANet spend a little time investigating. Even if just to tell us that there is node DR for mithril and no, they aren’t going to tell us exactly how it works. (Or to confirm that you found a new type of bug.)

I’ve never tried to figure out the limits because it’s just far too much, well, farming for my taste. I can manage a couple of toons hitting a couple of nodes and after that, I’m ready for a nap.

PS thanks for taking the time to describe in detail what you saw — that is helpful for troubleshooting

PPS if/when it happens again (and you have time), use the in-game /bug reporting tool — if there’s an actual ‘issue’, /bug will provide ANet with valuable data, including the map and be able to trace your steps to see if, indeed, there were 4 available nodes and you were only able to access 3 (or if there were only 3 to start with, even though you saw 4).

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

If there were some sort of resource limit, wouldn’t I have hit it with the wood before the mithril?

You… think… ANet is… consistent? Oh that’s adorable !
I swear if I had a copper for every time I’ve typed “ANet Inconsistency™”, I’d be in the top 0.01% of wealth in this game.

*blushes

Yeah, that was silly of me LOL.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

The first character I saw the node SE (visually in the distance and on my mini-map), but decided to come back to it after I did a circle…. I went to the SW node, to the N node, then came back to SE and the node was gone.

So this disappearing node wasn’t within visual range? Just mini map range? That would be consistent with “resource ghosting”. (Or did you mean it looked “mined” when you finally arrived, as you describe below?)

I was part of the way to the SE node (grabbing a plant), so I could see on the screen and highlight the untapped node. That node was also on my mini-map. It was at the spot SE of the lumber area where there’s a gap between the south cliff at the bottom of the map and a small outcropping of rock/coral. Instead of going to the node, I decided it’d be the last node on my gathering loop… because I’m weird like that. So I cut over to the SW node which was in that rocky area on the cliff above the river. And, then I went to the N node that was just past the broken wall. Both locations took the SE node off my mini map (I keep it completely zoomed in)… When I came back for the SE node it was no longer on my mini-map when it should have been, and the node itself looked mined instead of what it did previously.

When I did the different circle on a different character I didn’t have that initial visual on the N node ; but it was on the mini-map. So when I went from SE to SW to N, N disappeared of the mini map when I was in range to have it on there, and when I got to it it appeared to have been mined.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Similar happened with the other 2 characters I logged in to harvest before heading to work…. I could harvest 2 of the 3 node spots in the immediate vicinity.

Just to be clear, are you defining “immediate vicinity” to be within range so you can see the name of the node (via alt-key or the UI option)? Or close enough for mini map icon?

Good question…. I mean that it’s within (or just outside) of what my mini-map displays when my mini-map is zoomed in all the way. So when I was standing at the lumber spot itself, all 3 nodes were on my mini-map, but just at the very edges. Going to any one of them put the other 2 off what my mini-map is displaying to me.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I’m wondering if it’s possible some of the nodes were somehow linked? So that harvesting one triggered the other to be registered as harvested?

I haven’t ever heard of that happening for harvest nodes, although it has happened in this game with a few ground chests (those are just a different type of ‘node’ of course). However, your experience is consistent with your theory.

I think, however, that the more likely explanation is DR, mostly because it explains the evidence and resource node DR has been previously documented (although not specifically in Orr).

Fair enough. If I had more coffee at the time, I might have had the presence of mind to at least take some screenshots… oh well.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr this is one that I’d like to see ANet spend a little time investigating. Even if just to tell us that there is node DR for mithril and no, they aren’t going to tell us exactly how it works. (Or to confirm that you found a new type of bug.)

They might have…. Last night I was on 2 maps for that area that had different resource allocations than the one I was on yesterday morning. Usually the same resource map sticks around for about a day. Last night I was kinda hoping I’d land in the same map as I did in the morning just to get that screenshot opportunity. Granted, there could be many other explanations as to why the problem map was only around that morning… but a guy can hope.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

I’ve never tried to figure out the limits because it’s just far too much, well, farming for my taste. I can manage a couple of toons hitting a couple of nodes and after that, I’m ready for a nap.

Hehe, that’s why I farm on the weekdays after work… it’s calming and winds me down for bed. The extra income is a nice perk, too.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

PS thanks for taking the time to describe in detail what you saw — that is helpful for troubleshooting

PPS if/when it happens again (and you have time), use the in-game /bug reporting tool — if there’s an actual ‘issue’, /bug will provide ANet with valuable data, including the map and be able to trace your steps to see if, indeed, there were 4 available nodes and you were only able to access 3 (or if there were only 3 to start with, even though you saw 4).

No worries. Thank you for taking the time to talk about it; it is appreciated. Should it happen again I’ll attempt to remember to screenshot document it… lack of coffee notwithstanding.

~EW

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Farming Flats.5370:

I am not crazy , but i swear , i see candy corn nodes popping out of nowhere left and right. Appear and disappear in a blink of an eye All nodes comes from the fourth dimension , harvest them as fast as you can while they appear in ours .. lol

You’re not crazy — even ANet devs see that happening in the live game.

That’s definitely an example of the “resource ghosting” that I mentioned. :/
AFAIK, it’s an artifact of the game’s architecture, so it’s unlikely to be completely resolved for GW2.

Thing is that was fixed before, for about a year, but we’ve had it happen continuously the past 2 years.