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I've discovered this game not long time ago and played a bit, still limited to Silan.

While many aspects of the game looks interesting, harvesting bogs me. It is slow, need prospecting prior to extraction, amount of materials acquired is rather low relative to hunting. Plus hunting gives weapon/magic points.

Another problem is lack of map marks by player, f.ex. 'buo fiber'. Hard to find harvesting locations again if it was an accident at the first time.

All in all hunting looks like far better way of spending RL time.

Am I missing something?

1. just right click your map and place a map marker, you can even choose colors ... 
2. I've never been into digging/crafting myself but i'm one of the only ppl ingame that doesn't digg/craft, it get's better past a certain lvl and well if you don't wanna be a leach digging/crafting in this game brings you a long way but it certainly isn't mandatory
(oh well I've been sitting at the stables for 6months to a year now just chatting without lvling, just killing the odd boss or rezing somebody, what do i know about this game)

Digging is exceptionally painful on Silan, particularly once you've become accustomed to digging on the mainland at higher levels. Once you get through the pain, it is very rewarding as you can supply some of the best crafting mats in the game, and usually all of the mats used for creating grinding equipment.

There are online resources, like http://ryzom.silenda.de/ and http://www.ballisticmystix.net/, that can assist with finding material locations. Learning how to find them is also a very important part of the process, and should you decide to continue with digging and crafting, it is a part you should become very comfortable with.

But Sub is right ... you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. That's the beauty of a game like Ryzom. You should do the crafting and harvesting missions on Silan for the personal knowledge and concepts (again, it's not required, just advised). But once you leave Silan or once you complete those missions, you never have to look back at it again.

You can contribute to your friends or your guild or random strangers in various ways besides digging and crafting.

I am just a few weeks out of Silan and had similar thoughts: I want to craft, but why forage if all I get is one crummy piece of material and I need like twenty to make something!

I tried hunting only but around 50 or so I found I was always lacking in one or two types of materials for crafting. Cycling groups became a hassle because they were not necessarily close to each other.

I asked a passing homin one day for help and he gladly showed me a node of each type I could train on for a while. After some time of harvesting, I noticed I could start getting five or more per extraction - and quit hunting for materials altogether. It became easier to find nodes and, using recipies given to me, I was able to make desirable items instead of junk.

Reiterating what everyone else said: you don't have to forage if you do not desire. If you do, I find that many harvesters are happy to help another out. Ask your guildies or a passing stranger wielding a pick - you may learn something and make a new friend.

Yeah. Past level 50 or so, you are pulling 5+ mats per extraction. At that point, digging becomes a generally more productive method of gathering mats than hunting.

And yes, you can make marks like "fine buo fiber" on your map. :)

At some level you will even get sufficient SP to buy material tracking abilities that allow you to find specific materials within a range of up to 500m. And digging does not stop at 5 materials per source. And prospecting is quickly done once you get some prospecting time upgrades.

Material amounts looted from animals don't change on the other hand.

. . . and animals tend to fight back

So does quite a few of my sources, when I look the other way for a moment.

Thanks for replies.

I'd like to continue with digging, since such activities plus item crafting are quite fun, but digging on Silan is sooooo slow that it kills a lot of fun. At least I can expect it to become more and more rewarding.

Is it actually possible to improve harvesting speed and rate? I can see it under 'Upgrades' section under Foraging, but can't find a way to train it. Looks like another Silan special, first being lack of ranged weapons

ACtually, you can increase speed and rate on silan (a little bit), the stanzas are hidden in actions, however, so you should inspect each of the actions and see what stanzas are in it.

I second the statements of the folk who already answered. I enjoy digging, other people don't. It is true that even at the master level, you need to keep your eye on the source and apply careplanning quickly and accurately. If you have an alt or good friend who's willing to careplan for you, you can get a lot more materials per node by using more aggressive stanzas. This is not (imho) as important in safe locations as it is in those locations that are periodically the home of aggro beasts.

In the end, it's all about what you feel like doing, and that changes with time, level and whim. I've known homins who were *SURE* that they would never do anything but melee and who did that for a long time and who are now learning to harvest.

Harvesting is one of the easiest skills to train on the mainland if you decided to give up on the missions on Silan.

(ymmv, imho, etc.)

I suggest for a young homin starting out to try and find a higher lvl player to careplan for.You get the benefit of the vets knowledge and more mats per hour if you split and the vet gets nice easy digging without having to watch their nodes(as long as your a good cper). The easiest way to keep up with the vets targeted node is a macro to find them and a second to target their target.

The way I see it is there is a balance between hunting mats/digging mats. Digging mats can be a faster way to get large quantities than say running around looking for named or boss mobs, but killing named or bosses generally give mats with better stats for crafting equipment.

There are exceptions of course but if you are looking at crafting as being the end goal, it is best to do both. The beautiful thing about Ryzom is that you dont have to. As Suboxide said you can quite easily just do what gives you the most enjoyment out of the game.