Have you ever tried to farm common animal variant[1] drops?
If not, I’ll sum it up for you: the experience is abysmal.
It feels as though as animal spawns are affected by the presence of players in the same way that item and chest spawns are. It might not be the case, but at the very least that’s what it felt like when I found a party of three AFK fishers on Whitesummit with no animals to be detected anywhere—even after waiting a good fifteen minutes there.
This is very obviously wrong, especially when dark sea animal items are more common than them.
This is the reason as to why I suggest increasing their spawn rate[2].
Of course, I know how annoying it is to be in Sameria with a thousand boars chasing after you, so it should depend on the island’s size/amount of animal spawns.
Apologies in advance on the chance that I’m wrong.
…Why are you farming animals in one place though? Shouldn’t you be switching island and stuff instead of camping?
Animals are similar to plants and ingredients, not really constantly respawning static npcs like bosses meant to be spawn camped.
I only want loot from one of them, so why would I go to places it can’t be found at? It isn’t intuitive.
Besides, there’s always a chance for another player to stay there and effectively prevent their spawn to begin with, which is kinda stupid.
Well I dunno what to tell you but I genuinely don’t think animals are meant to be farmed via spawn camping, moreso ‘loot’ you fall upon when travelling. When you want wheat, you dont just camp Ravenna’s farm doing nothing for 20 min in-between, you just check every once in a while instead.
And wheat—very much like pumpkins now that better ingredients exist—is an edge case in which people won’t usually be looking for it and instead take it as a side dish to their main goal, but even then, what even is the design philosophy behind that?
All preset enemy spawns are readily available. Windrow bandits respawn and can be farmed, Omoru respawns and can be farmed, and the only ones that can’t are those found exclusively in the Dark Sea or on Ships—both of which are activities that actively require one of your own.
Even then, you can now passively gain a bunch of items that are affected by the respawn delay from both fleets and gifts alike, making animal drops (alongside some others such as atlanteans’) the outliers.
AND even then (again), how does it better the game for them to be that way? It’s pretty damned annoying and only serves to both artificially inflate playtime and inconvenience the player—there’s a reason as to why I’m making a suggestion about it (because it doesn’t feel right).
If I want a cosmetic vanity item that can already rarely be obtained by defeating an enemy that’s found on a specific island, I’d want the enemy to at least be available to begin with.
I don’t want to sound entitled or mad, but I just don’t get it. What’s the point? How does it better the game? What’s the intended experience and why is it intended to begin with?
Stricly speaking from my perspective—that of a player—the only point of it is to make it more time-consuming and therefore rarer despite them only being cosmetics, worsening the game as a result because I get punished for playing it.
Yeah, except those are strictly for some armor pieces. Like bosses, constantly respawning static npcs. Not consumables like potion ingredients and food. This is what animals are about, the clothing pieces are kind of a side thing.
I don’t even know why you’d need spawn rates to be increased, what are you grinding?
If it’s for meat, then no reason it shouldn’t abide by the same rules as any other food (i.e. measures to make spawn camping less efficient). So move from place to place like you would for any other decent ingredient.
If it’s those vanity pieces, I really don’t think they’re rare enough whatsoever to justify a buff, they are so easy to get without even trying just by sailing around and doing charts.
There is also no reason to farm meat from such animals to begin with as:
Ancient Cave Bears can be endlessly farmed for one of the best meat ingredient in sea clusters
The dark sea offers the best meat in the entire game
Alternatives such as Krakens exist
Skyhall, fleet, and gifts are enough to obtain some of the best ingredients in the game (much better than sea-cluster meat)
Samerian boars can be endlessly and quickly farmed by server-hopping
And even then, you could also:
Lower the amount of meat obtained per animal slain
Decrease their energy gain
Decrease their rarity/effect
Have it require something else (e.g. skinning the animal)
You have to deal with:
Variant RNG
Spawn Cooldown
Drop RNG
Compared to preset enemies that have:
Drop RNG
Actual stats
Compared to the dark sea that has:
Drop RNG
Spawn RNG (only for mob drops)
Actual stats
Many more rewards
Same purpose, way more time-consuming (not difficult), way less useful, and way less rewarding.
I also don’t need to remind you that pitiless, rarely-rolled RNG can also most definitely ruin someone’s AO play session to begin with as seen in my and many others’ personal experience.
Strawman aside, my suggestion is about how it is presently nigh-impossible to obtain certain common-rank animals’ loot because of their awful spawn rate and spawn location. Either because they have too few spawns, because players are often found on these islands, or a mix of both.
ancient bears dont attack players if they have their inventory open
i say this because I had it open and when I exited out my inventory bag thing I actually jumped since the bear let out some loud roar and an ear-deafening clawing noise as I took 800 damage by a creature that covered half my monitor while visibility was zero
