Spawn Rates ~ Insane Length

[Ric]

I'm not too sure what other treasure hunters have had in terms of luck lately, but this week, Kenpen and I have been writing down the spawns in various particular dungeons, noting what the monsters in the first area were, and then checking them in 4-8 hour periods.

To sum it up, we've noted in just about every dungeon that the rate of which a monster spawns to the next 'tier' has become very, very lengthy.  To our knowledge of how hunting has been, there haave been three tiers of spawn:

Bad spawn
Good spawn
Uber spawn

To make a good example of what we've been noticing, I'll use the purple dungeon from the entrance.  The first group of monsters tends to be the following:

Bad spawn 6 juju zombies
Good spawn 6 skeletal archers
Uber spawn 6 Morghs

Now let's say that at noon, we enter the dungeon and find the following monsters:  3 juju zombies, 3 skeletal archers.  What that means is the total spawn rate for the dungeon is half-bad, half-good.  Should someone wipe out the dungeon, then at the first spawn rate, we're back to 6 juju zombies, and the process starts over again.

Let's say now that we decide that the challenge and loot won't be interesting, so we leave the dungeon alone and decide to come back 8 hours later (Not an exaggerated time either).  When we return, we're now seeing 1 juju zombie, 5 skeletal archers.  After 8 hours, the spawn has only shifted two monsters.

~

This has been the luck we've been seeing over and over this week.  I don't know if the spawn rates were tweaked since someone reported that they were becoming too fast, but right now, it's really, really harsh.

Note:  I'm not asking for someone's nasty opinion about how we're terrible power-gamers becuase we keep track of the spawns.  I'm checking to see if other people that know what I'm talking about in regards to the spawn rates have seen similar issues lately.  8 hours for 2-3 tier-shifts is a bit beyond intense, as that basically means that you have to wait about 2-3 days to hit a dungeon and obtain good loot, hoping that no one even touches the dungeon in that 2-3 day period.

[kenpen]

Yah, if you've been keeping track of the dungeon spawns, throw a post up here. I'm not finding full level spawns anywhere. Two weeks ago, I could throw a rock and hit SOME place that was at a high spawn. Now I'm checking these places and they're back to being junk again.  Four days ago was the last time I found a full spawn, at the lich. And that's been the only dungeon I ever bother taking out anymore. I haven't bothered to do anything else in a good while. Alhoon hasn't been worth it for like, 10 days. Vampires I haven't seen above one blaspheme per group (it was one blaspheme today.) I saw one morhg (per group) the other day, but again... not worth killing the dungeon down with that level of spawn. Ice Queen, golem-wise... super good! Spawn wise, though... super bad.

So. Who else, if anyone, is dungeoning these places regularly? Let's pool data.

[Kaspar]

Did you check the Spawns inbetween those eight hours? Somebody could've ran in and had a field day, causing the spawn to reset obviously, in the middle of that eight hours.

[Ric]

As I stated, we've been doing random hour checks, depending on when we're free from RP to check them.  Sometimes few hours, sometimes 4, 8, etc.  Trust me, I've been writing them down on paper every time, and each time, I've noted that when I checked them again, the spawn rates were the same, just that one or two monsters would shift up to the next tier.  There's no way it could be a coincidence that the spawns recycled and returned to the same spot each time.

We can tell when someone's nailed the dungeon between our searches, becuase when we return, we're back to 6 low-spawn monsters.

Example,

First check:  3 low spawn monsters, 3 medium spawn monsters

Next check:  6 low spawn monsters.

Conclusion:  Someone nailed it in between the first and second check.

[kenpen]

If someone runs in, it doesn't reset all the spawn. It's based on some sort of sum Hit Dice formula, near as I can tell (or possibly, their challenge ratings... comes out to the same thing really.) So, if there's like... I dunno, 100 HD of monsters in the dungeon, and you kill 40HD of them, when you go out, after 6 minutes, it adds up the remaining monsters, comes up w/ 60HD, and then begins redistributing them into their little pools based on some sort of simple algorithm.

I don't think people are hitting them in-between, most of these times. A few times, someone is... If you check these enough, you can tell when someone's gone in and decimated part of the spawn (or even just a few of the bigger monsters.) The decrease is significant to the way the spawn looks.

People are wiping out part of the alhoon, once a night. They're not killing the whole thing, but they're bumping it down. Still, shouldn't take 18 hours for it to get back up to the same level. They were doing the same thing two weeks ago, and it was filling up way more quickly.

[shadymerchant]

I've seen Alhoon dungeon sit from 5 am to 11 PM untouched and still not be at full spawn, nor have anything of length. Of course, being a good dungeon, it's rare that it will ever sit beyond a few hours, rendering it almost always low spawn.

[kenpen]

Yeah, I don't know what it is with the alhoon, really.
There are times there that the spawn completely freezes. Other times, it builds veeeery slowly. For a period of weeks, it would randomly jump to a higher spawn... but, it seems, those days have passed us by yet again.

Here's to wanting all battle horrors, all the time.   

[Rex]

Battle Horrors are out getting Blind Sense, Silence , Acid proofing, and Greater Disjunction added to their abilities.  After that, they swing by Oz and get their armor polished.

~Rex

[Ric]

In a previous spawn-upgrade (the one where there was a thread about one person stating that the spawn rates were too quick), the rates were very resopnsive.  If you left a dungeon alone for about 4-5 hours, you wouldn't come back to a 'small' upgrade, but a massive one, and that was good.  If you checked a dungeon out and saw the rate was low in the morning, you could go back, gather a bunch of people and have a big adventure and hit the place with good/uber spawns and everyone walked away satisfied.

[k_moustakas]

well, there is the issue with Lana joining the people doing alhoon and lich :p

On a side note, the purple dungeon spawn is connected to the abandoned farmhouse spawn for certain AND might be connected to the vampire spawn, so...
But I have seen vampires at full blaspheme spawn like a week a go.

[Ellana Twiggy]

Typically, the alhoon, litch tower, vampire crypts and so forth are periodically raded and completly descimated.  Ellana has a very good group of traveling companions now, and all of which are seemingly capable of working together and whiping out the dungeons. However, i have noted, that it seems that the spawn rate and treasure is also dependent on the levels and numbers of people in it as well as timing.
Nearly everytime we have assembled to go dungeoneering we have had high spawn in the morning, eastern time (between about 6-10 am est) or atleast a very decent moderate spawn.  I think honestly, it takes a good 6-8 hours to build back up to higher spawn if none touch it.  If it is constantly raided however, then it will of course take longer.  
Typically, when going dungeoneering as well, we will hit up as much as we can so long as the group stays together, so it is a large group running around barovia and hacking up the nasty evil things, atleast until something insteresting happens due to a dm watching, at which point we will often begin having casualties. :-p
But it certainly adds to the effect and fun when you find something totally unexpected. Like multiple litches in the alhoons lair. . .gods. . .that was terrifying. . and very deadly.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

The spawn rates are completely unmoved by who is entering the place.

The spawn rates has a fluctuation feature that makes it occasionally grow rapidly. However, the entire system is centered around moving away from repetitive farming. It is often a good idea to communicate with others of where they've encountered high resistance that they had to pull back from if you are looking for a greater challenge. This could even foster some form of roleplay.

[Ric]

While that's an understandable idea, Soren, I think it's just become too much meta-gaming at the end of the day.  Almost all the time now, players send tells all over to people known for dungeoning with the following questions:

A.  What dungeons have you checked out today?
B.  How long ago did you check out each dungeon?

It feels a bit sloppy in that aspect, especially when trying to setup an IC adventure.  It more or less becomes an ordeal where you have to send one person from your adventure group to move ahead of the team to check out the dungeon, and if it's too much of a low spawn, then the party has to try elsewhere.

It's a lot more painless when the rates remain smooth and good, since it takes away the nervous feeling of wondering if parties are wasting their time moving all the way to faraway dungeons (Barovia/Alhoon/Baratak), only to encounter trash mobs.

[kenpen]

Of course, it's always the most fun when some DM notices you're partying somewhere, and runs through to set up the place... then stalks you the entire time to make it scaring, challenging, and worthwhile. Heretic is really good about doing that, I've noticed.

[Ellana Twiggy]

Indeed he is, so is mac. I love it when the dm's get involved like that, its so much fun usually.

[k_moustakas]

the silliest thing about the purple dungeon is, people go and do the farmhouse. Good for them, it's one of the best places to go have a bit of fun (swamp comes close second) but that causes the whole of the purple dungeon to go static for hours

[Axel]

While that's an understandable idea, Soren, I think it's just become too much meta-gaming at the end of the day.  Almost all the time now, players send tells all over to people known for dungeoning with the following questions:

A.  What dungeons have you checked out today?
B.  How long ago did you check out each dungeon?

But why do you share this information in tells? You've just been thrown a great opportunity for meaningful interaction between PCs.

]It feels a bit sloppy in that aspect, especially when trying to setup an IC adventure.  It more or less becomes an ordeal where you have to send one person from your adventure group to move ahead of the team to check out the dungeon, and if it's too much of a low spawn, then the party has to try elsewhere.

The first part of an adventure is figuring out where the action is, e.g. by sending out scouts or gathering information from other adventurers. By making the spawn constant we'd take that obstacle away from the adventurers and make PoTM a more action oriented server since people wouldn't need to interact with each other in order to figure these things out.

It's a lot more painless when the rates remain smooth and good, since it takes away the nervous feeling of wondering if parties are wasting their time moving all the way to faraway dungeons (Barovia/Alhoon/Baratak), only to encounter trash mobs.

But do you really want painless, smooth and good? Don't you find success without obstacles boring?

[kenpen]

Hm. I think of things like this.

When I get up in the morning, I've got a limited amount of time and patience for cooking breakfast. Now, I may not know what kind of breakfast I want. Do I want some eggs? Do I want some toast? Do I want some bacon?

Sure, let's pick eggs! I get out my pan, get the surface all buttered up, get out my spatula, and crack my egg...

And a half-formed baby chicken falls out. Now, my appetite for eggs is ruined. Because I didn't want half-formed baby chicken, over-easy. I wanted eggs.

No big deal. I also wanted toast! So, I take the butter from the pan, get out the bread...

And it's covered in mold. Well, bugger me. Now I can't have toast either. So, the old fall-back... bacon! I get the bacon out, determined I am actually GOING TO EAT BREAKFAST before my patience runs out entirely and I have to leave the house. And, what's happened? The bacon is rancid. Well, slap me on the butt and call me "Sally." At this point, I'm hungry, haven't had a satisfying breakfast, and I no longer have time to cook my own. I have to get some McEggs or something on the way to work.

That's the way dungeon-crawling is. Even if you manage to get a party together for long enough to walk somewhere, and RP the entire time, the chance of the dungeon being at a good spawn (or, challenge level, if you will) is random. Not really random, actually... with the things are currently, chances are the spawns are less than full. So, you get there and the dungeon is torn apart already...

By the time you and your party has walked to the next place, you run the risk of someone dropping out of the party and - if the party is balanced at all - people had their purpose and any one person dropping out means part of the experience is going to be ruined. Thief drops out? You're getting no loot. Fighter drops out... you're not going to be able to kill anything. Support sorcerer or priest drops out... your fighter is going to get slammed by the fact he doesn't have a +2 weapon, protection from evil, or any number of other things. And if someone drops out, rather than let the whole affair go tits up and leaving everyone left unsatisfied, chances are you're going to end up calling another person OOCly and concocting some reason for them to meet you, just to keep the experience satisfying.

So, that's why the smart consciencious people communicate OOCly about the spawns before they head out.

Randomness and the thrill of not knowing what will happen can be fun, but you -sorta- want to have an idea of what's going to happen. When I wake up in the morning, I want to know I've got *something* palatable to eat. I don't want to wake up, thinking "WOW! It's so exciting! I can't remember if I actually have food in the cupboards!"

That's not exciting. Most of the times when you do that, you just end up hungry and grumpy all day.

[Rex]

Back when NwN first started, I played in a place, that literally solved the issue with an OOC mechanic.  They put in a lever, in the various "adventure areas", that you could pull, and it would Spawn Encounters scaled to the party level, and scale treasure, equal to the monsters treasure rates via the books.

Sure it was an OOC mechanic, but it solved Grinder Issues, put everyone on equal footing with the MMO people, when Item saturation got to be to much of a problem, the DM thieves guild stepped in, that sort of thing.  To me, it was far less of an ooc intrusion, then the having to send a tell to the grinders to see if they flatlined a dungeon already.

OR, walking into some 17th level coming out of a low level dungeon, since there WAS no such thing as a low level dungeon with the switch flip system.  Really encouraged Groups as well.

~Rex

[Lyrithean]

Only problem I see with that is the plethora of jerks that will get to high level, walk into the dungeon and pull the lever, then walk out. Of course if the lever reset the dungeon whether or not there was a spawn in it, this wouldn't be a problem. Could also see spawn spamming happening, where people hit the lever, walk in and clear the dungeon, then hit the lever again, wash rinse and repeat. Of course if these issues are taken into consideration before implementation then they won't happen

Personally, I'd like to see spawn spillover from Areas. (ie if the spawn amount becomes too numerous then creatures will actually start leaving the dungeon, those that can survive outside depending on their daytime/nighttime affiliation. Wolves for Werewolf caves during the day, werewolves at night etc etc..) This could be used as an indicator as to what might be found inside.

[failed.bard]

Personally, I'd like to see spawn spillover from Areas. (ie if the spawn amount becomes too numerous then creatures will actually start leaving the dungeon, those that can survive outside depending on their daytime/nighttime affiliation. Wolves for Werewolf caves during the day, werewolves at night etc etc..) This could be used as an indicator as to what might be found inside.

Variable caves in the sullen woods will go outside once the spawn gets near maximum, and the were cave is already indicated by type of wolves/werewolves outside the cave, as well as how far towards town they've spread.  I think they only spawn up towards the vampire crypts entrance on higher cave spawns as well.

  I would like to see something similar with some of the other caves and variable caves.  Thouls could raid the south eastern farmlands, beetles could make it to the outskirts in search of food.  Spawns from the cave towards zeklos keep could threaten the children at the orphanage.
  It would give a sense of purpose to clearing some of these areas.

[Ric]

But why do you share this information in tells? You've just been thrown a great opportunity for meaningful interaction between PCs.

The role-play of interaction for dungeons is still there.  Usually what happens is, I'll gather a group of PCs to adventure with, and then as we're deciding on a place to go explore, I start sending tells to all the players I know frequent dungeons to see what's been hit/not hit so we don't get dissappointed when we find nothing at a particular chosen dungeon.  The IC interaction is never really affected by this, and in all honesty, most people don't even realize that I'm carefully taking a small OOC measure to insure we have an enjoyable dungeon crawl and not a bore-fest.

The first part of an adventure is figuring out where the action is, e.g. by sending out scouts or gathering information from other adventurers. By making the spawn constant we'd take that obstacle away from the adventurers and make PoTM a more action oriented server since people wouldn't need to interact with each other in order to figure these things out.

Except the problem with that, Axel, is that seems almost unrealistic ICly.  The idea of sending scouts in-characterly to check the 'spawns' feels on par with me just sending a tell saying "What's the spawn like?"  Realistically, no adventurer is ever going to say "Awh, only battle devourers and not skeletal?  We're not doing this!"  It just seems like a goofy thing for a thrill-seeker to say.  Any thrill-seeker would go for a thrill, even if the spawn was bad.  The point is that OOCly, the players don't want to fight monsters that are half their challenge rating.  So to prevent this, and to make things easy, people check with each other on a tell-scale.  Sending scouts just doesn't seem comfortable:

"What are we waiting for?" 
"We sent a scout to see if it's worth doing the dungeon."

But do you really want painless, smooth and good? Don't you find success without obstacles boring?

I may have worded this wrong.  I'm not saying that 'obstacles' are bad.  What I'ms aying is there are no obstacles when you enter a dungeon on low-spawn, therefore the adventure and fun becomes boring.  When there is a low spawn, the 'thrill' and motivation for a party drops, especially among the veteran players who know the difference between a high spawn and a low spawn.  In a low spawn, the players force themselves to do the dungeon anyway, and the tells begin circularing about how boring the hunt is becuase the spawn is low.

There was a 2-week period that happened in either May or June (I can't remember now), where the spawn-rates were fantastic.  Everytime you enter a dungeon, the monsters were at full spawn, therefore the challenge was high, and the loot was great.  What was so amazing  about this for the first few days, was that all the thrill-seeker players (including me) were binding together going "This is great, with the spawns constantly good, there's no need now to make OOC arrangements to get a good hunt.  We can just go at anytime."  Yes, some people said it was going to create a lot of loot, but my opinion is:  Does it really matter if a player gets a good item?  If he went with a good party and did his part, doesn't he deserve it? 

The common problem which has always surfaced in every single loot-discussion for this server is the idea that if one 'kind' of player (People who have powerful solo-builds) can get access to mass amounts of loot, we have to nerf it down so they can't get as much.  The problem with that is:  The players who don't solo, who don't have uber power-builds, and who like to take large parties end up screwed over ten-fold becuase of that logic.  If the power-looters end up filthy rich in loot, that's fine.  You know why?  Becuase the power-looters that solo already have sick loot, and they will always have sick loot, regardless of how fast the rates are.

[Bad_Bud]

I disagree with the last part, there.  I kind of like the way the current treasure economy works.  If you can't find what you want, chances are you can find something to trade for it or you can buy it with coin.  I think it's even kind of satisfying when you find a max spawn.  It adds to the excitement and gives me a feeling of accomplishment.  I think it's unrealistic to think you can just go out walking towards dungeons and sending scouts to check them, because chances are you'd be at it for hours before you found one worth doing, but when you do, it's like "All right!  Let's hit this place up for all it's worth!"

It's not like there are no good items out there floating around, and the only reason not having an item might be frustrating is because you might be wanting to have a *gasp* solo-power-build???

Also, if I already had all of the items I could ever want, why would I care about max spawns other than for getting levelups with less dungeon time?  It always seems like a good idea to find reasons to get what you want faster, but once you're there you'll have less to work for.  If you liked dungeoning before because of the mystery and excitement, chances are you wouldn't want to go away if you had every item you could ever want.  You might also be so strong because of said items that the dungeons would not be a challenge.  I think what's being said here is yet another thing that seems like what you want, but if the devs ever made the changes, suddenly we would all be unhappy again.

[Rex]

Only problem I see with that is the plethora of jerks that will get to high level, walk into the dungeon and pull the lever, then walk out. Of course if the lever reset the dungeon whether or not there was a spawn in it, this wouldn't be a problem. Could also see spawn spamming happening, where people hit the lever, walk in and clear the dungeon, then hit the lever again, wash rinse and repeat. Of course if these issues are taken into consideration before implementation then they won't happen

Personally, I'd like to see spawn spillover from Areas. (ie if the spawn amount becomes too numerous then creatures will actually start leaving the dungeon, those that can survive outside depending on their daytime/nighttime affiliation. Wolves for Werewolf caves during the day, werewolves at night etc etc..) This could be used as an indicator as to what might be found inside.

You got one Pull per "group".  After that, 24 Hours before you can Yank again.  So you can't rinse and repeat.  You could though, be cruising through an "empty" area between point A and B, and then some high level yanks the lever and you need to run for your life (all spawns scaled to the highest level in the group), but it was very efficient with very little hiccups.  Also, Nothing would spawn until you "entered" the area (lever was just outside it), so you couldn't just run from area to area and populate the monsters then laugh as everyone died.

~Rex

[Ric]

I disagree with the last part, there.  I kind of like the way the current treasure economy works.  If you can't find what you want, chances are you can find something to trade for it or you can buy it with coin.  I think it's even kind of satisfying when you find a max spawn.  It adds to the excitement and gives me a feeling of accomplishment.  I think it's unrealistic to think you can just go out walking towards dungeons and sending scouts to check them, because chances are you'd be at it for hours before you found one worth doing, but when you do, it's like "All right!  Let's hit this place up for all it's worth!"

Right, that's fine and dandy.  My last point is a debatable topic.  I only threw that in there to conclude the other matter at hand that Axel brought up with the process of a dungeon crawl using some OOC measures (the measures being taking the initiative to find out if it's worth investing 1-3 hours of our game-time going through a dungeon).  I've got nothing wrong with that logic, since I and several other players that like to hunt prefer to role-play more than hunt.  Therefore, if the spawn isn't high enough, we continue role-playing until it is.

I've been on hunts where we spent up to three hours gathering the party we wanted and then going, just to find that someone else just solo-raided it.  You go on hunts like that, and then you wonder why players prefer sending tells to other hunters to see whether or not a dungeon's been hit.

Also, if I already had all of the items I could ever want, why would I care about max spawns other than for getting levelups with less dungeon time?  It always seems like a good idea to find reasons to get what you want faster, but once you're there you'll have less to work for.  If you liked dungeoning before because of the mystery and excitement, chances are you wouldn't want to go away if you had every item you could ever want.  You might also be so strong because of said items that the dungeons would not be a challenge.  I think what's being said here is yet another thing that seems like what you want, but if the devs ever made the changes, suddenly we would all be unhappy again.

I don't really care about having all the loot in the server.  The thing is, the 'real' fun is the surprise of finding items you haven't seen before, and then using them for creative things.  I'll tell you right now: There's better things than equipping items that are rare that you may come across.  When I find a Cadalbolg, I get uber excited.  Sure, I'm not going to use the sword, but I'm still excited, regardless.  Why?  Becuase I can do something else that benefits my character more.