Respawn rate of nodes in Sundered Frontier

[JonasLupus]

First off, I apologize if this topic has already been covered.  I've searched the forums, EQ2 Traders and Zam and cannot seem to find exactly what I am looking for.  Also, if the topic has been covered, please point me in the right direction.

Anyway, I have noticed in the past week that the respawn rate on nodes in SF seems to be tied directly to the number of people in the zone.  At first, I thought I was crazy and just passed it off as another toon harvesting in the area that I had not yet seen.  In fact, I finally saw the person harvesting so my fears were somewhat relieved.  At this point, their were 16 people in the zone.  As the night wore on, more people kept leaving the zone until it finally dwindled down to just myself and 4 other people.  This is when I started getting that sinking feeling again.  The nodes I was harvesting didn't seem to be popping on the same timer any more.  I ran my loop 4 times and saw only a few nodes respawn.  Again thinking it had to be an unseen harvester, I sent a shout and asked if their was anyone else harvesting.  I got responses from all the players and only one confirmed they were harvesting but they were doing it in a completely different area and they too were experiencing this odd behavior.  Now, of course assuming the other players were truthful, something didn't feel right.  After 20 minutes of waiting around, I failed to see all of the nodes respawn again and didn't see another toon either.

Can someone please confirm or deny my thinking?  I just want to know for the sake of my sanity.  Thanks!

[Barx]

Of course they're related. My understanding of things is this: If the total population of nodes is X, the chance of you seeing nodes popping up by you depends strongly on how many people are harvesting that same pool.

If it's just you harvesting, you're decreasing the number of nodes, causing more to spawn to replace it. They might spawn near you for you to harvest, or they might spawn a ways away. If they spawn away from you and there is no one harvesting by where it spawns... then it's a node that is "lost" to you. The total number in the zone (or region, whatever the 'pool' of nodes is) isn't changing, but by picking away at a specific area you may 'drive' more nodes to spawn and sit elsewhere.

Now if someone else is harvesting that elsewhere, they drive more nodes towards you, so it seems that nodes spawn faster by you. This effect depends strongly on the pool size. If the pool size is small, you might be able to cover the entire thing and thus get basically every spawn. If the pool size is large (say an entire zone or entire large reason) and you're only harvesting a small area then you're going to see an apparent lower spawn rate because of nodes spawning and piling up elsewhere.

In regards to SF, the spawn rate seems plenty good to me. I've had no issues with finding nodes to harvest.

[Momerath]

Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Of course they're related.

No they are not. If you harvest a node, a specific time later that node is replaced. Depending on the zone, it may show up in a different spot, but the number of people harvesting has no effect on how long it takes that particular node to show.

I've done some timing in the SF zones because of the original post, and didn't notice any difference in node respawn based on the number of people in the zone (from 6 to 47 people).

[Domino]

Momerath is correct.  There is absolutely no relation to the number of people in a zone or actively harvesting, it's a fixed timer.

[denmom]

What I'm finding are people staking out nodes and sitting on the respawn.

Around Ruins of Old Paineel, there is a molten formation that always spawns in the corner of a rock outcropping.  There's a ghost nearish, but you can stand in that and harvest.  There's another two molten nodes on another rock outcropping near the teleporter.

I've seen people standing on those molten nodes, afk tagged, they harvest the molten, sit, wait for it to repop, harvest, wash rinse repeat.  The ones who do this aren't the typical botters otherwise I'd have turned them over.  They're people in guild tags that I know are the older raid guilds on Unrest.

I've found a few others doing similar with the other nodes.  The fishing areas in Kerra Isle are constantly being depleted by one person running from one side to the other and taking every node they can, even fishing on a node that someone else has started just to get what they can.

[JonasLupus]

Thank you for all the replies.  It does asuage my paranoia a lot.  I figured that was the case.  And thank you Ssyxz for actually doing timed runs. 

[Barx]

Momerath@Lucan DLere wrote:

Barx@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Of course they're related.

No they are not. If you harvest a node, a specific time later that node is replaced. Depending on the zone, it may show up in a different spot, but the number of people harvesting has no effect on how long it takes that particular node to show.

I've done some timing in the SF zones because of the original post, and didn't notice any difference in node respawn based on the number of people in the zone (from 6 to 47 people).

At no point was I saying there was a real effect, merely an apparent or illusionary one. However, after thinking about my thought experiment a little bit more, I've concluded that the exact opposite would occur -- if you're the only one in the zone you might, in theory, see an apparent greater spawn rate if you only harvested part of the pool.

It's easiest to imagine what I'm talking about with this thought experiment. Imagine you are in a zone with a single node type and you are the only person in the zone (and thus the only one harvesting). Lets say there are 10 possible node locations, and you harvest them all initially. Lets say that 2 nodes spawn per minute, and furthermore lets say that now you sit in one place and observe only 5 out of the 10 node locations. In the first minute, lets say a node spawn in one of those 5 and in one of the 5 you do not see. You harvest the one you see. Now, the next two nodes that look to spawn are now probabilistically favored to spawn in your sight: of 9 possible places for each to go, 5 are in your sight while 4 are not. Eventually anonther node will spawn out of your sight, and the probability will be even better; 5 spots in your sight to 3 that are not. In theory, one could reach saturation, where all 5 'unseen' locations have nodes on them and the 5 spots you are looking at are always receiving the 2 nodes per minute. If someone was harvesting those other 5 nodes, you would expect to see only 2(5/10) = 1 spawn per minute in the 5 node locations you were watching.

Of course, all of that thought experiment assumes an equal chance at each node, a constant spawn rate (which should be the case as Domino has said) and neglects the (relatively minor) effect of nodes despawning.

[JonasLupus]

I completely understand your thought process Barx and would 100% agree with your initial answer the way you intended it if we were talking about tiers 1-5 (and maybe 6 in certain areas).  But node spawns from T7 on are in fixed locations.  No matter how many people are harvesting the area, the same nodes will spawn in or around the same exact spot (or at least this is my impression so please correct me if I'm wrong).

My initial question was more an observation I made while harvesting T9, specifically the area around the briaroot horrors and malignant seedlings in Tox.  I run that loop constantly and two times now, when the zone is low on pop, I ran into an issue where the nodes appeared to not respawn as fast.  That observation now seems unfounded thanks to both Domino and Ssyxz, so maybe your second post is more to the point of what I was seeing.

Since we are on the topic of nodes spawns and Barx got me thinking more about their respawn rates, maybe Domino can answer this hypothetical question:

Suppose the area I mentioned above has all of its nodes harvested at the EXACT same time.  When it is time for them to respawn, will all of the nodes repop at the same time or will the time differ?  Specifically, are all nodes tied to the same respawn timer or do root nodes spawn slower than ore nodes, etc.?

Thanks again for all the replies!

[Loendar]

I just wish the rare spawns weren't quite as 'rare' as they appear to be.  I have two toons that need the exact same rare (Kaborite) and I have gotten ZERO of those since the expac was released.  I harvest non-stop and barely get any rares at all but none of the ones I actually need.

To make matters worse - I'm significantly over the cap for my level (470/470 mining at level 85) and it doesn't appear to make any difference at all.. nor has it made any difference for my guild mates who haven't gotten any of that rare either.  I understand the concept of 'rare' and all but this seems to be way over the top.

In RoK you would get rare materials as quest rewards because SOE seemed to understand at the time that people would need tons of the foul things just to get back to a break even point on their toons.  In SF you don't get them at all nor is harvesting them a viable option for me as I spent 8+ hours running from node to node yesterday without anything to show for it.  Fun? I think not.

On an unrelated note, does anyone else think that item art is lacking this Expac?  Every set of armor from the various quest lines is identical to every other AND all the weapon items/drops look exactly like item graphics from when the game came out.  To say that is disappointing is an understatement....

(Editted to be more 'friendly&#39

[Clav]

Loendar@Unrest wrote:

To make matters worse - I'm significantly over the cap for my level (470/470 mining at level 85) and it doesn't appear to make any difference at all..

As I understand it, your chances to get a rare aren't affected by your skill relative to your level, but rather your skill relative to the trivial rating of the node.  And for what it's worth, I get rares all over the place with 579 mining skill.

[Sar]

oh yea once you hit 90 youll have a better chance at finding them.. i dont even waste my time anymore til i hit the cap

[Verky]

Pheep@Unrest wrote:

What I'm finding are people staking out nodes and sitting on the respawn.

Around Ruins of Old Paineel, there is a molten formation that always spawns in the corner of a rock outcropping.  There's a ghost nearish, but you can stand in that and harvest.  There's another two molten nodes on another rock outcropping near the teleporter.

I've seen people standing on those molten nodes, afk tagged, they harvest the molten, sit, wait for it to repop, harvest, wash rinse repeat.  The ones who do this aren't the typical botters otherwise I'd have turned them over.  They're people in guild tags that I know are the older raid guilds on Unrest.

I sometimes do this when I am busy doing something else. Just stand there and harvest, and work on something else, while I am waiting.