Talk:Dragon Crystal Node

Just did a bit of testing and was able to harvest 25 nodes (spread over two characters). After the 25th node, another one showing on the minimap disappeard. I did THK meta shortly after and the nodes that usually spawn in that area after meta did not show up for me. Thehipone (talk) 20:11, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Nodes changing location

Maybe I have a glitched map instance or there is some other weird reason, but I swear I saw these nodes change location when I was not in the "area" within a couple of minutes. For example, when you are in Deldrimor Ruins, you will see four nodes on the minimap (at least that's what I had consistently). If you then log out or even go to a different part of the same map instance for a few minutes and come back, the nodes will potentially be in different locations. This "move" will have happened independent of the character, so another character logging into that area will see the nodes in the "new" locations as well. What is additionally interesting is that if you mine some or all of the nodes and then the nodes only partially move to new locations, the mined nodes (in the old locations) will not respawn for the character that mined them (as expected). So maybe there's some sort of phasing going on where you only see up to X (X = 4 in Deldrimor Ruins) of all the possible node locations but can mine each location only once per character, as with all resource nodes?

You can see this in this imgur album where I took screenshots few minutes apart in the same location: https://imgur.com/a/WpznkQF. All I did was log out and the three nodes on the minimap are all in completely different positions now (again, this also happens when you just go to another part of the map). This does definitely happen in Hundar Pike, Deldrimor Ruins and Thunderhead Keep (the north meta area, if the meta was successful). It is not tied to any event as far as I observed - initially I thought the Rift event in Deldrimor Ruins might move the nodes or respawn them, but no change there.

Additionally, I think that if you stay in place and babysit one specific node constellation, the change will not happen. But since the change is visible to other players, doesn't that mean everyone has to leave the area? To be fair, I realized this whole thing while mapping the Node locations in general in the early morning EU time, so it is not impossible that I was the only one around at that time. Thoughts? --BelleroPhone (talk) 09:20, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

As an addition to the phasing hypothesis from the last paragraph: I went to a map and did the southern Oil Floes meta. Among other things, at the end three nodes spawn at random locations around Freedom's Catchment. I grabbed one, left two alone and took the waypoint to Symphony's Haven. After three minutes, I flew back to the POI again. Now I saw three nodes again, one of them in a different location. So in a sense, I must have mined one of the "currently phased" three nodes and when I came back, the node I had mined apparently was not selected to be visible so in total I was able to grab four nodes overall. --BelleroPhone (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

Maybe nevermind the phasing idea - I was able to mine nodes in the same location several times. All it takes is to be 3 minutes away from the area (maybe 2 is also enough), then you can go back and the nodes will have respawned/moved to other spots. I was just able to grab 10 nodes around Freedom's Catchment simply by "refreshing" them. Weird. --BelleroPhone (talk) 12:45, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I can confirm the same behavior around Thunderhead Keep, the area of the northern meta. To test it, you complete the meta so that the six Crystal Nodes spawn, make note of their locations and/or mine them, go to History's End waypoint, wait there for around 3 minutes and go back. If no players were in the Keep area at that time, six new Crystal Nodes should have spawned and you can gather them again. This one is a bit more difficult since the Nodes generally despawn 10 minutes after the Brandstorm arrives (30 minutes in total after meta start) and you can hinder yourself by going back too early, but it works the same way I saw in the other area. Is this maybe a general glitch of resource nodes? The common factor is definitely the presence of players - after the doors close, you can quite reliably tell if someone enters the Keep area via that sneak path around the mountain. --BelleroPhone (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2026 (UTC)

I can the the nodes to respawn completely with as little as 1:30 min "cooldown", that is no players in the area. The regular resource nodes are unaffected by this, only the Dragon Crystal Nodes are. I am reasonably sure that there have to be no people in the (named) Area, it is not enough to stay outside of the node visibility range on the minimap. --BelleroPhone (talk) 20:20, 31 May 2026 (UTC)