MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?

more of a server issue than a spawn issue

some servers won't spawn them on at least some boats

likely a bug as it wouldn't make sense as an intentional move given that some servers are typical meg hunting

the most recent patch amplified it

gotta say though, as a multiple year long organic solo meg hunter it doesn't bother me much that it's effecting server alliance meg hunts lol

@personalc0ffee said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

Every 1 hour or so, per boat in the immediate spawn zone, and not being in any location that would affect the spawn like islands, forts, rocks, etc.

That's how it used to be before S9, and made even worse after the S9 Patch. 1 Meg per boat, with about a ~45 min cooldown.

With all 6 ships on the server together, there would be 6 spawns back to back (within minutes of each other) barring a Kraken, then your per-boat cooldown, and like clockwork 6 more would spawn back to back as each boat reached it's cooldown.

This just is not happening since Rare made their "adjustment".

@grantsby said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

@personalc0ffee said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

Every 1 hour or so, per boat in the immediate spawn zone, and not being in any location that would affect the spawn like islands, forts, rocks, etc.

That's how it used to be before S9, and made even worse after the S9 Patch. 1 Meg per boat, with about a ~45 min cooldown.

With all 6 ships on the server together, there would be 6 spawns back to back (within minutes of each other) barring a Kraken, then your per-boat cooldown, and like clockwork 6 more would spawn back to back as each boat reached it's cooldown.

This just is not happening since Rare made their "adjustment".

it shouldn't happen that way anyway

meg spawns should be designed around organic play and helping to support players get their individual commendations with consistency as they put in effort

not designing what is convenient for alliance server shrouded ghost hunts

meg hunting hasn't been organic-friendly for years at this point

should just create a meg voyage where only the crew that does the voyage gets credit for the kill and then throw random megs in the mix that aren't as predictably timer based.

People trying to get their commendations done organically and not even seeing megs for days or weeks at a time while alliance servers just sit there and pop them based on a timer is poor design imo.

@goldsmen said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

It seems to me like the spawn rate increased after the season started. Before season start it would seem like 1 meg every few sessions for me, and after the change i tend to get 1-2 megs per session with only occasional sessions having none. I have yet to play since the last minor update but i have heard that world events are bugged currently, so maby that has some to do with the matter.

they didn't really increase the spawn rate much in season 9 what they really did is opened up a lot of areas for spawned that had been bugged for a couple of years at this point which makes a very big difference in seeing the megs, but the spawning timer was about the same. There are also occasionally random spawns outside that timer but still quite rare

It was fairly counter productive in the end because they intentionally or unintentionally nerf'd megs to where they leave if the target ship sinks/leaves, this makes "stealing" a meg much much more difficult and unlikely organically.

with the most recent patch for whatever reason some servers work as usual and some are duds that just don't spawn them on at least some ships at all

It would be nice if they just brought back pve spawns from a few years ago, they have a lot of nerfing involved now that prevents the meg/skelly skip/kraken scenarios of the past, likely because new players and some vocal pvpers were giving negative feedback about it.

The best emergent threat time of this game is when spawns were common and they could create these giant chaotic situations to interfere with pvp imo

A lot of that red sea run/chase drama could have been prevented without all the pve nerfs that allowed people to run/chase for an hour or more with very little pve

@goldsmen said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

@wolfmanbush said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

@goldsmen said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

It seems to me like the spawn rate increased after the season started. Before season start it would seem like 1 meg every few sessions for me, and after the change i tend to get 1-2 megs per session with only occasional sessions having none. I have yet to play since the last minor update but i have heard that world events are bugged currently, so maby that has some to do with the matter.

they didn't really increase the spawn rate much in season 9 what they really did is opened up a lot of areas for spawned that had been bugged for a couple of years at this point which makes a very big difference in seeing the megs, but the spawning timer was about the same. There are also occasionally random spawns outside that timer but still quite rare

It was fairly counter productive in the end because they intentionally or unintentionally nerf'd megs to where they leave if the target ship sinks/leaves, this makes "stealing" a meg much much more difficult and unlikely organically.

with the most recent patch for whatever reason some servers work as usual and some are duds that just don't spawn them on at least some ships at all

It would be nice if they just brought back pve spawns from a few years ago, they have a lot of nerfing involved now that prevents the meg/skelly skip/kraken scenarios of the past, likely because new players and some vocal pvpers were giving negative feedback about it.

The best emergent threat time of this game is when spawns were common and they could create these giant chaotic situations to interfere with pvp imo

A lot of that red sea run/chase drama could have been prevented without all the pve nerfs that allowed people to run/chase for an hour or more with very little pve

I get that all they did was fix some trouble areas, its just easier to say they fixed it.

The context of it all is pretty important because there are specific issues that weren't actually "fixed" which is low and inconsistent spawn rates for organic style players that thought they would be seeing increases, what they really got was the same or worse spawn rates, just when it happens it's in more areas.

So technically some players could see better spawns if they exclusively sailed in bugged areas, but a lot of organic style players won't see much improvement or even worse after the recent patch.

This is why people are starting to say "where are the megs" more often after season 9 changes and the recent patch.

Even more to add to this , they don't have an Emissary for Hunter's call so no quests to summon a meg on demand.

@personalc0ffee said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

@grantsby said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

@personalc0ffee said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

Every 1 hour or so, per boat in the immediate spawn zone, and not being in any location that would affect the spawn like islands, forts, rocks, etc.

That's how it used to be before S9, and made even worse after the S9 Patch. 1 Meg per boat, with about a ~45 min cooldown.

With all 6 ships on the server together, there would be 6 spawns back to back (within minutes of each other) barring a Kraken, then your per-boat cooldown, and like clockwork 6 more would spawn back to back as each boat reached it's cooldown.

This just is not happening since Rare made their "adjustment".

Perhaps it is a balancing measure against Meg Hunt server alliances.

I don't think so... my evidence being there are 3 basic types of Meg Hunt servers (all of which having 5 or all 6 boats on the server) Whether all boats sit in one place, sail around the edge of the map, or weave in-between islands (this being the most "organic" method if comparing to "normal" RNG gameplay, the results are the same:

Ever since the game update 2.8.1 on 4/16/23 - there are reports of only 1-2 megs spawning per boat on the server, even in an elongated, say 10hr session. Prior to the patch, and certainly prior to the launch of S9 on 3/16/23 megs would be eligible to spawn on each boat (if you were in open water) once per 45m-1h, so if you had all 6 ships you could get 50-60 megs in the same 10 hours.

But now, 1-2 per boat per server is the max you get, so if you're hunting megs you have to hop to a completely different server after you kill your first meg. That is not how (I believe) they intended the patch to go.

@grantsby said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

Ever since the game update 2.8.1 on 4/16/23 - there are reports of only 1-2 megs spawning per boat on the server, even in an elongated, say 10hr session. Prior to the patch, and certainly prior to the launch of S9 on 3/16/23 megs would be eligible to spawn on each boat (if you were in open water) once per 45m-1h, so if you had all 6 ships you could get 50-60 megs in the same 10 hours.

But now, 1-2 per boat per server is the max you get, so if you're hunting megs you have to hop to a completely different server after you kill your first meg. That is not how (I believe) they intended the patch to go.

You're really making a case to leave it as it is with the alliance server perspective lol

What happened here is that alliance servers are seeing reduced results because they lock down a server for long amounts of time, essentially alliance servers are seeing a drought that organic style players have seen for a long time.

People that change servers from time to time (as organic style players do) and go through the merge process as intended will see some megs, not great spawn rates but will see them.

Alliance servers are being negatively effected specifically from the lack of organic play and locking down a server, not exactly an issue or "bad" thing.

@hijack-hayes said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

I've seen more than before this season, but for months before that I would see them rarely. Although even with the increase in the spawn rate I am still nowhere near as many as encounters as I would like.

The interesting thing is that it's now the complete opposite of how it's been for a few years. Now the better odds are a few different servers a day and sinks/merges aren't necessarily counter productive

Spawn rates need a bump to help support people commendation chasing but the new randomness has grown on me as someone that has hunted megs specifically for years.

I like that it's more difficult for alliances to cheese, I like that organic hunters like me are now in a more unpredictable hunting environment as it breaks up the monotony. I like that it doesn't make sinking/merging as much of a thing now, less predictable the better imo.

It's still not completely random as there is still some predictability to it and times but I hope they go in the direction of very random spawns, just bump them up a bit.

A lot of players that play organically might play a couple+ sessions a day for shorter amounts of time or they might get sunk a time or two or merged a time or two so if they randomize it then it'll support them more than just "wait on a server for an hour or two and don't sink/merge" which was largely what it was for a long time.

@fameheart said in MEG Spawn rate is BROKEN! Where is the increased spawn rate we were promised with S9?:

Having a special Meg day once every few months would be nice a special day where spawning is very good for all the megs

A Meg Day would be cool, or even improving HC as an actual faction/emissary where you could purchase a voyage similar to The Shrouded Deep Adventure where you could acquire a voyage and at the completion it would spawn a meg.

But not so time consuming like the adventure where you had to shoot the special flare in all 4 regions of the map, kill the meg, and then activate the SG at Merrick's ship. Somewhere inbetween, but guaranteed would be nice

DATA UPDATE: Over the past week I have been testing my BROKEN Meg Spawn theory.
Launched into the game 28 times, sailing from a min of 60 minutes up to 3 hrs, trying to spawn megs. My ship size varied between Sloop & Brig, and crew size varied from 1-3.

Out of 28 sessions:
8 - TOTAL # spawned & killed
1 - spawned on another ship closeby who sailed cowardly towards the nearest island. tagged & attempted to re-agro on our boat but never did & despawned
0 - number of sessions that spawned multiple megs on our boat without changing servers
0 - krakens spawned while in open water in-between World Events

14- sessions sailing around the edge of the map
14 - sessions sailing around the open world in-between islands
(virtually no difference in the spawn rate)

1 - additional Meg Hunt Event that spawned 1 meg on each of 6 boats within the first 90 minutes of being on the server, and then Zero megs for any ships over the next 3 hrs. (6 megs not included in the above total)

I really hope RARE just gives Hunters voyages for beast hunting eventually <_<
Would finally make leveling the faction worthwhile and also give people who want to fight megs and krakens megs and krakens to fight.

Another week gone by, and another week sailing solo sloop - all the way up to full gally crew for at a minimum of 3hr sessions, several sessions Zero MEGS, and on the sessions that we did kill a meg, only 1 ever spawned, within the first 45 minutes.

Of the sessions that spawned 1 meg, we sailed for at least 3 hrs after the kill, and never got another.

Meg Spawn Rate is still broken.