Are Harvesting Rates Actually 2X?

[KRONOSDOUBLE]

It was announced a few months ago that the new permanent 1x rate for official servers would be 2X what it was previously. So if you hit a tree and used to only get 4 wood per hit, you should get 8 now, right?

 

If that is the case, then why do we only still pick up 1 stone on official servers like before? Shouldn't that number now be 2?

I'm sure SOMEONE out there will point out the obvious and say your a bob if you are still grabbing stone with your hand and not using a hatchet or a doded to farm it way faster, but the point is relevant. 

How are we supposed to be sure that the rates are doubled when the simplest thing you can grab at the beginning of the game says otherwise? Should we not be able to grab 2 stone instead of 1?

[invincibleqc]

3 minutes ago, KRONOSDOUBLE said:

If that is the case, then why do we only still pick up 1 stone on official servers like before? Shouldn't that number now be 2?

Back in 2016, they doubled the harvesting rates for the first time:

Shortly after, they made it so hand-picking stones will always give 1 stone no matter if the base rates are increased:

On 3/27/2017 at 10:50 AM, Jatheish said:

263.0
- Single stones on the beach now give one stone when picked up instead of 2 (default rates).

This was done for obvious immersion reasons. Basically, stone picking is always 1 as base. But is multiplied by HarvestAmountMultiplier that is set to 1.0 by default, or 2.0 during Evo Events. That setting is the only thing that will affect hand picking stones and you can see the current value on officials at the following address: http://arkdedicated.com/dynamicconfig.ini.

[GP]

Yep that's right, stone picking should only be used to test whether EVO rates are active, and never to test base rates.

[Piffguru]