I have been meaning to write about this for some time.

Gathering, much like any other action in this game, and more specifically the speed at which you can gather, is directly (and adversely) affected by latency. From the time it takes when I first click on the node until it bring up the DoL window, to the time it takes to register that I have told the game I want to harvest from X slot on the current node, to the time in between mining attempts... even the time it takes to mount and dismount with mounts to travel in between nodes, or my favorite where it lags slightly so my screen shows me getting on my mount so I move forward and then the game registers it as an action cancelled and I jump off the mount again....

With a system that is all about getting as many mining attempts in within a strict time frame (and those opportunities costing us the time and effort of capping red scrips weekly), having to also compete with a force that is outside the players control is not a fair system.

I have a friend that lives really close to the servers, and we tested several times how many extra nodes he was able to complete in a 5 min window. The result? He was able to completely deplete an extra 4 nodes on average every time. That may not sound much at first but if you consider the sheer number of extra favors I would have to burn over time to make several pieces of gear just to compete with someone without latency issues is disgusting.


Typically you need 40 botany and 40 mining items per piece. Say that I would average at 2 items per favor, that would be forty favors (approx) to get one piece of armor... Now, if we multiply the number of node attempts per favor that I miss out on by the number of favors I need to spend for a single piece (on average) that's 160 missed opportunities PER PIECE to have additional hidden nodes spawn. That's not an insignificant number at all....

I'm not saying the concept of the system is flawed, but utilising a system that gives people an advantage over others simply because they live closer to the server and experience less latency is not a fair nor just system.