So having never really bothered with alchemy since Oblivion I discovered something that I was really quite annoyed about with the ingredient collecting in Skyrim. There is no "chance to harvest" anymore. In Oblivion your alchemy skill being low meant there was a chance you would not get a successful sample when collecting forna and ingredients. This is not even an issue in Skyrim, I can go up to the rarest herb in existance and happily and successfully collect it without an issue. To me this is a great example of "dumbing down" that so many gripe about in Skyrim. Personally I wasn't that bothered about the removal of mysticism and the way skill and levels worked in Skyrim compard to Oblivion, but to me this is just really poor.

Who agrees? And if not why not?

The "failed to harvest" was just annoying since it took three clicks instead of one. it was only a time-sink. I'm glad they removed it.

When your alchemy skill gets high enough, you can get a perk that doubles your yield when you harvest ingredients. You are going to hate it even more. You liked Oblivion. You even liked this useless and annoying characteristic of the game. Nostalgia much?

I found it disappointing yes, like "Awwww I wanted that! D:" but I feel it should be like this still, it adds to emersion being a novice alchemist and it only happend very rarely at mid level on the rarest of ingredients. There was actually a way to ensure you got it. I would find a near-by ingredient and pick that, then pick the rarer one, might've been my imagination but it seemed to help.

They also removed the ability to click on every single mushroom to try to harvest it. I think it evens out in the end. I went to play Oblivion the other day, and was amazed at how I could harvest an entire group of ingredients, since you take a large number of them in Skyrim to get one.

I feel this is a job for the Skyrim Modding community! It has to be possible, right?

Honestly, I kind of prefer it this way, and I've been playing since Morrowind. Most of the ingredients don't really have a way that you can screw up the collection process and render it unusable. The only ones that I could see that happening with are the ambiet critters, such as torch bugs, and that depends on if it being smashed is an issue. The real issue would be storage and transportation of your samples, not getting them. Really, the age of the sample and how well it was preserved would most likely be the main issues an alchemist faced with ingredients. The real issue with Alchemy would be making the end product, stuff like improper proportions, not mixed well enough, etc.. I do believe you could fail at making a potion in Morrowind.

Some very good points raised there Sir_MAD, I like the idea of perishable ingredients. I find the challenge of catching the toch bugs and butterflies very satisfying, except I always eat them on my Khajiit because, well... it's in character I always felt the successful harvest thing related to not destroying the source, ie:When picking certain mushroom breeds, if you don't pick it in a certain way, no spores will drop and it won't grow back.

I'd love to see a mod that adds a perishable time frame to ingredients and a skill base to pick them.

Does not remember fail to harvest in Oblivion and I bought most ingredients in Morrowind, however Skyrim has an fail to harvest as you has to hit some of the plants pretty accurate to harvest.
This is very noticeable in hearthfire garden where you have to aim carefully to not bring up the clear field message.