It's annoying not knowing when you've picked something or not because it looks the same.

Please Bethesda can you include a very simple thing. When you pick a plant, the part that you take (like a mushroom head) disappears and when you open a chest, crate etc the lid moves to show that it has already been opened. They can reset again on respawn.

Another nice addition would be the ability to harvest plants automatically within a given radius so you don't have to click every single plant.

Maybe the auto harvest could be a thing you buy or have to make and keep in your inventory and the radius increases as you upgrade it.

does the chest open when you've emptied or just removed some of the contents, but left something in. Surely you could end up more confused. Afraid I have to completely disagree with the auto harvesting. Surely ingredients for the delicate science of alchemy should be hand picked carefully, and if that is laborious, that's the price you pay for all those lovely potions. Have to agree with picked mushrooms and flowers with the petals removed though. That makes total sense.

We already know from F3 that empty containers will be marked, which is a good thing. I agree with an option for auto-harvesting, but you should at least complete a quest for it.

Part of the plant disappearing after Harvesting? Definitely, there was a mod for that and it helps a ton. Otherwise they should just do what they did in Fallout 3 for containers and just put an "Empty" tag in the name when you are looking at it.

As for Auto Harvest, it would be neat as an high end perk to Alchemy, something you have to work for.

Yeah but that's kind of nasty compared to a visual representation of an opened container. Also you have to go up to a container to see if it's empty, but with a visual sign of being opened you could walk into a room and see you've opened everything straight away and it would look nice to see changes in chests etc.

The container should animate when you open it too.

Auto this, auto that doesn't sound good for me when it comes to role playing. I like it the other way, to actually put time and effort into the game. I agree with plants changing aspect when picked.

Good ideas all around. I can do without animations, but visual reps for containers - including plants - would serve both purposes - visual and gameplay.

Fallout New Vegas already did it in a similar fashion in terms of visual differences. So maybe Bethesda has adopted a similar approach to harvesting as Obsidian did.

I wouldn't like any auto-harvesting though, that would just be lazy. The game should not reward you by automatically putting ingredients in your pockets just because you happen to pass within 10 meters of them. It should reward you for actively taking the time to stop and gather the ingredients in my opinion

It's not as if walking past a smithy automatically puts a few free swords in your pocket either

But it would be an item you buy or whatever; a choice, not a mandatory game mechanic. Like choosing to use a sword or an axe.

You don't want it, you don't have to get it.

I can see why some people don't want auto harvest, but it would be good for those of us who don't have time to go around picking plants but still want to enjoy alchemy to its fullest.

How does the autoharvester work, exactly? Is it like a trained octopus that sits in your back pocket?

100% agree. I wouldn't want auto harvesting.
I wouldn't want auto looting either.
No auto.

the first thing I modded in oblivion was what asked for it is PARAMOUNT.

I think it was part of the OOO overhaul mod, not sure but whoever did it is a genius, seeing that the chest was already open and parts of the plants vanishing was the greatest.

Well considering we have magic called Telekenesis, I'm guessing it would just be a magical item imbued with Telekensis ability on plants.

And for those who would like to know more about what I'm talking about, they are mods for Oblivion that I currently use, here are the links...

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3979
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2037
http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=17984

I love riding through the wilderness and having plants harvest automatically within a radius of me so I don't have to keep jumping off my horse and it cuts my play time down. I simply don't have the time to go collecting ingredients if I want to get on and play the game and do quests etc but neither do I wish to not use Alchemy to it's fullest.

It's like Fast Travel. It's there, but it's a choice if you use it or not.

Still have to disagree I'm afraid. You put your cursor over a mandrake, press a button, and hey presto a mandrake root you can use to brew a panacaea for all diseases save vampirism and lycanthropy. Definitely no sleeping dogs, chunks of meat or retreating out of earshot. I would make it even harder : you have to buy a Druids sickle or something similar to harvest any plants at all, using 3 or 4 lbs of your Encumbrance, and upgrade it to silver or gold or whatever at the same levels as the better alchemy apparatus, to harvest rarer ingredients.

With the speedtree and its tree physics, maybe we could even hope for woodcutting and growing plants and trees? Optimistic but there is so much that can be done in this true open-world series.

I would prefer no auto-harvesting.

But, for those who want to be alchemists without harvesting, they could have alchemists stock more raw ingredients so people can just buy them at a hefty markup.