Named spawn rate tied to your Hunter Achievement status?Follow

I would have written off the differences in spawn frequency to RNG. We know that any zone has multiple simultaneous spawn tables that are used to replace killed mobs. In the case of "a sarnak courier" in LoIO, there are ~ten mobs on the table. If all possible table values have equal chance of being selected "randomly", 1 named in 10 possible choices should, over a long statistical average, appear once every 10 spawn chances. But just like the skill Hide which probably has a 25% success rate, in use, it doesn't feel that way at all. You can hit Hide a dozen times before it works, because the RNG is rolling 25-99, the more likely result, that many times.

There is another bias that is introduced when you are looking for 25 different named. You zone in and find 5 up, clear the zone and come back later. You are now looking for 20 named and 4 of those are up. By the time you are just looking for 1 named to complete the achievement, the chances of you finding it specifically is much lower than finding some of the other 24 up. The first 5 you found easily probably didn't have any greater chance of being up than the last one you are looking for.

Another similar mechanic are collectible ground spawns. Clearly 1 of the set is rare and the rest are random. I have assumed that these also use tables where there are 2 tables: 1 with the entire selection of items minus the rare, and 1 with all of the items including the rare. Randomly selecting either table per spawn loc would make the rare about as difficult to find as the sarnak courier - obtainable but rare. The fact that the uncommon sarnak courier has yet another table for loot is what makes the goblin ring spectacularly rare.

But, it's Everquest, and they certainly did have other mechanics to determine special spawns such as randomized timers since last kill, time of day in Norrath limitations (e.g. Cragbeast Queen), forced respawn at a randomized but set interval, and many more. But adding special exceptions like those bog down code speed and probably were used minimally. Probably not for just 1 of 25 named in a zone, unless that 1 was special.

I had been thinking about these mechanics just this week because I ran into someone camping the Goblin Gazughi Ring. I camped it once as well, briefly and unsuccessfully. You can pour hours and days and weeks into special rares like these, and like all rare things you do feel huge relief and achievement when you finally get the drop. From a purely pragmatic standpoint though, spending $100 on kronos and trading for someone else's time investment could be considered a wise move now that items in game have been monetized to x hours @ minimum wage.

So take a alt to the zone and kill the PH's who does not have any hunter kills for that zone you need and see if they pop faster. then log over and you won EQ.

Happening again in Plane of Shadow with the last two I need, Xoria Vor and Zel Kaxri. Have cleared PHers for both of these now at least a dozen times with no happiness.

I never worked on any hunter achievements til recently. So far, I can't say I've seen this at all.

To be sure, some will be very easy (first time looking, they're up on track, badda bing, badda boom ;)

Some spawn after one clear or two, some take a bit more. Obviously, the ones which take more times to spawn will be the last ones you kill. It's like the old saying, a lost item is always found in the last place you look!

But you have to look at the whole group of names. The number of spawns will follow a bell curve, some on the low end, most in the middle, some on the high end. The fact that you're seeing such a distribution means that the RNG is likely working just like it should be.

For the ones I finish with in each zone, a dozen clears isn't out of the ordinary.

Edited, Jan 30th 2019 9:33pm by tatankaseventh

OK, I see your point, but I still think it's just random. There's only one way to prove it.

Partner up with someone in a zone where neither of you has any named. Divide the names into groups of three, and go through those groups of three in the opposite order. If you both see the same results (last group takes longer than all the others), then since each other's "long spawn" group is the other guy's "short spawn" group, you'll have something.

If you're on Tunare, I'd be happy to participate. Though, technically, we don't need to be on the same server, it's the same code all the way around.

edit - you also need a way to score it and keep it normalized. For instance, if name A has 2 possible PHs, and name B has 4, then the number of spawn cycles isn't enough. You'd need to keep track of the individual spawns.

And what if somebody else clears the spawn? Ah, there's the rub!! Try that, too. When you get to that last couple of names, have an alts with no hunters done, clear the PHs ;)

edit 2 - one more data point: I just finished Morrell's Castle yesterday. Last one I had left was Om*** the Devoted (whatever the name was). PH is a devoted guard. I cleared 19 PHs til the named spawned. I only noticed 2 PHs at first, so there was 4 rounds of clearing 2. Then one round of 6, and the last 5 were in the same set where the named spawned. Let's just say 6 rounds of clears. That doesn't seem too bad. The other two I had which took a while were Jenni Hollowfield and Soul Taster. Jenni took 7 clears (4 PHs, but I cleared 7 the last few times, some dispute over the PH name), and Soul Taster was kinda funny. That took 10 rounds (3 PHs). The last time I cleared the PHs, I noticed after I was done that a group was there killing (I suffer from "tunnel vision" a lot, I get in a groove and I miss things ;) I apologized and assured them I wouldn't be back, and they asked what I was looking for. When I said Soul Taster, they laughed. It had popped numerous times while they'd been there the previous few hours. They sent me a tell the next time it popped, and I got my hunter! So, does that prove your theory? I don't know. I don't play for long sessions, so when I say I cleared PHs 10 times, that could be over several days. Do other people kill my spawns? I don't know. But, the game would have to know WHO killed the PH, and then have a variable chance to spawn the name. I don't see that happening.

Edited, Jan 31st 2019 7:19pm by tatankaseventh

But Sippin's argument would be, why is he always running into the really hard-to-spawn names, at the END of each level, when he's taking them in groups of threes? He's just always randomly leaving the hardest to spawn til the end, by chance?

That's the question at hand. Hence my proposal to test it.

You're not gonna like me.....

Last 4 named in SS (so, last names left in HoT):

The Dream Collector, killed in 3rd cycle of 4 mobs
The Dream Destroyer, killed in 5th cycle of 2 mobs
High Priest Casmion and Archmagus Nesalie, killed in 2nd cycle of I don't know how many mobs. I went through the whole tower section, killing all the royal high priests and royal arch mages, and whatever else aggro'd me. Jumped back to the bottom, and both names were in that first respawn.

Sippin, I really think you're having a bad run with the RNG. But as I said above, I'd be happy to run a test with you in the zone of your pick (RoF or lower, preferably, don't know that I can take out names in TDS and above).

PS - don't ya hate the guy, who, when someone says "what are the odds of that", he tells them? ;)

edit - this was one session, and I was the only person in the zone.

Edited, Feb 1st 2019 2:33pm by tatankaseventh

Well, as I said in my offer, I'm not sure being on different servers matters, unless you think the code adjusts not only based on who killed the PH, but also what server it's on. As long as they're both LIVE servers, of course.

It did occur to me that expac could matter, that they could adjust/change spawn code on an expac by expac basis. Who knows?

So, if I understand correctly, you haven't touched Evantil, Breeding Grounds, or Heart of Fear yet. I'd be happy to try a test in one of those. You post the groups in the order you'll do them, and I'll do the same groups, in the opposite order.

Frankly, I have no idea if I may have one or two names down, just by chance, in those zones. I'll check my logs or pop in game to check, and will update this post later.

Sounds good. I just checked my notes (logs, actually).

No names down anywhere in Grounds or Evantil. In Heart of Fear, I have one name down (Hoary Gargoyle) in Rebirth. So the other 17 are still needed. Overall in RoF, I have very few names done, so it's a wide open expac for me. Might throw the results off, assuming how far done in the expac you are is a factor.

I did learn one other interesting thing..... while searching for the names in my logs, I see that there are a lot of spells named after the named mobs in Breeding Grounds. I kept seeing lots of hits on my searches, but not because I'd actually fought the mobs ;)

BTW, nobody commented on this I said in a post above:



This IS indisputable and I'm sure every player who has done this kind of quest in a group has encountered it. I'm pretty sure I did back in House of Thule, where Tatanka has been hunting. My point is the mechanisms for tying named and their drops to the players doing the hunting are already in game. Yes, THIS is a bit different since the group members are all flagged by being in the same quest. But...

In order for the spawn rate to be affected, one of two things has to be true. One, the server actually keeps track of who killed the PH. Two, it has some kind of proximity factor for each spawn point. Neither of these are practical, and no one would attempt to make it a factor. The problem is, what if someone else comes in the same zone with none of the Hunter Achievement done? How does that affect the 'calculation'?

Clearly RNG snipe is to blame.

Your experience is irrelevant. I once flipped a coin 10 times and got heads 8 out of 10. Statistically that is nearly impossible. But my experience is irrelevant because the odds still remain 50%.

As I said, either they coded kills to keep track of who killed the PH and then apply some algorithm to weigh the odds of the next spawn to be the named based on that persons progress in the Hunter Achievement. Or, they have to apply some algorithm based on who is within proximity to the spawn point and weigh the odds of the next spawn being a named accordingly. The complexity of either logic precludes it being even remotely worth it. There is absolutely nothing to gain by attempting to code spawns that way.

Sorry for your bad luck, but it is the RNG.

There's lots of (mostly really old) posts under items/mobs/quests here full of bizarre speculation. Almost never turning out to be true... though someone did predict the Underfoot expansion with pretty solid accuracy of some details years in advance...


Anyways, Sippin has a high post count of solid contributions aka not prone to hallucinations and weird ideas. Doesn't mean what this feels like is what is happening, but what if it is?

The topic is interesting... if people want to try and replicate or refute what Sippin is saying about the particular named spawns it really wouldn't take that many people trying it (on fresh characters that haven't done it) to get a better sense of what may be going on.