There is no screenshot of a situation that I have been increasingly finding with Herb nodes in The Hollow City (Cold Harbour) -- because, literally, there is nothing to see. Since often my characters have regularly gathered Herbs in The Hollow City, during at least the past least three years, I have come to believe that I've seen everything. But, apparently not yet.
![:neutral:]( ":neutral:")
What happens is:
- I see a Herb as it is spawning, or already spawned (my character has the maximum Keen Eye passive trait for each Crafting skill set that has one).
- So, I move the character near enough to display the Interactive Prompt "Collect".
- When I press the key bound to the Interactive Prompt, my character stops moving, but the Herb vanishes -- usually in a puff of smoke.
- Of course, there is no animation of my character collecting the Herb, nor is there any audible confirmation of succeeding, and the Herb is not added to the character's Craft Bag.
On the face of it, this could be (and probably is) the result of some flaw in the ESO game software and system which ZOS/Bethesda run.
Notes:
(1) Although not very often, the Herb vanishes either
before I press the key to Collect it, or apparently it vanishes simultaneously when I do so. If I do press the key before the Interactive Prompt also disappears, the character stops moving. Perhaps I might (but usually not) see another player's character in the vicinity of the node when that happens.
(2) Often another player's character is in the vicinity. Usually I see them continuing to move away from the site as if the character did not stop to gather the Herb, and there was no animation of the character stopping to do that which I could see. Sometimes the other character is mounted, and there was
not any animation of the character dismounting and gathering it, followed by an animation for summoning the mount. Often the character's mount makes a lot of noise when it appears, and in these situations, I have not heard any. Regardless, there is also not any "kabonk" sound which signifies a conflict that temporarily disables my character's ability to gather another Herb(s).
(3) On occasions in times past I have observed (and reported) players whose character could and did gather Herbs while continuing to move. And I have seen (and reported) players whose characters gathered Herbs while mounted without dismounting, although ordinarily the mounted character stopped moving at the node to collect the Herb. However, I have always been able to see them do that while my character is some distance away from the spawning/spawned node. In the most recent situations, I do not
see any other player's character either approach or stop at the node while my character is either approaching it, or after I have already pressed the keybind for the Interactive Prompt, which causes my character to stop moving and gather the Herb.
Again, sometimes no other player's character is in view. Perhaps it is possible that some player is running software that modifies the game client, which uses internal "God mode" options to always gather a Herb, and perhaps do that unseen. Such a feature
could be exercisable at the player's option, else gathering would occur with the normal animation(s).
(4) I am quite aware of the significance of FPS and Network Latency upon whether what is displayed is the actual -- but ever-changing -- game-state produced by the megaserver for my character's current position. The respective game client meters for them are always displayed on the HUD, unless I am interacting with a UI (
e.g., the Bank, Guild Bank, or Guild Store). Which is to say that I have plenty of experience with regard to taking them into account as to whether whatever I see might be outdated, whether an illusion. Be that as it may, they do not seem to have any effect upon whether this "disappearing spawn" event occurs.
See also:
PC NA Buggy Nodes
Please advise. If you want screenshots that show other player characters which were currently gathering Herbs in The Hollow City at the time that one or more Herbs vanished when my character attempted to collect them, then please let me know. I will not name them or display the screenshots in a public forum. Albeit, I would not doubt that any one or more of them is capable of using some exploit, whether I have enough evidence of such for their ingame actiities to be investigated.
Thank-you for your time and attention to this issue.
