Herb spawn rates lower compared to fall/summer

[Quidoba]

>>>Copying this from a different thread to get more eyes on it.

Qualitatively herbs are spawning less frequently than they were in the summer.

I've done loops in WPL for the better part of a year now. There are noticeable less herbs around when doing those loops lately. I thought this was because of competition due to the increased price of plagueblood, so I wrote it off. But recently I've been making rounds in Winterspring, Swamp of Sorrows, Wetlands, Desolace, Tel'abim, EPL, and camping mushrooms in Hinterlands. Even accounting for some competition (which seems less than in the summer), I see a noticeable decrease in herb spawn rates.

If no one has been through the area recently, then I get all the spawn points. This actually happens quite frequently when I first get to a zone, or log-in at the zone. To me, this indicates that competition is down not up. And theories about spawn campers is unfounded. However, If I do repeated loops through the zone (even with zero competition), I see respawns only painfully slowly. Sometimes, a whole loop of the zone after my first pass will produce zero herbs, even with zero competition. This is not normal.

I sat at skull rock in Hinterlands for 2 hours to try and get a more quantitative measure. 16 mushroom nodes spawned in 2 hours. That's 8/hr. I don't have a recorded data point from this summer/fall, but this seems way lower spawn rate than I remember.

We are so used to blaming the "Chinese farmers", or conspiracy theorizing about "Scalpers", but sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one. HERBS ARE SPAWNING LESS QUICKLY.

- People camping herb spawns is a symptom, not a cause.
- Scalpers being able to manipulate the smaller pool is a symptom, not a cause.

Look at the AH price for ALL herbs. They have all gone up in price, even low level, and mid level herbs.

Honestly, the only reason this effect is not more pronounced in mid-level and low level herbs is probably due to the massive growth in Lasher farms, and the herbs they drop.

Demand for herbs is the same as it's ever been inspite reduction in the player base since its summer peak, maybe even increased due to summer new player influx just now progressing into later raids.

The supply of herbs has decreased.

This is NOT due to "Chinese farmers". If anything the number of gold selling farmers would have gone down with the population decrease. Plus more farmers would mean lower prices, not higher prices.

This is NOT due to "AH scalpers". They would lose money fast if the baseline supply was still strong. but it isn't.

There is a bug in this system. Or maybe there was a population scaling added over the summer, that is scaling too low now that population has dropped.

Herbs are not spawning at the same rate. Prove me wrong. (seriously bring me some data)

Developers: Please investigate this issue.

[Burunduk]

No need to investigate this issue.
We all know who ruins TWoW, it's not a secret.

[Drubarrymooer]

Lol it's not a conspiracy theory that there are scalpers. There quite literally are. A few have even admitted to it in these threads. I know the people that bought out black lotuses for 15g/ea and relisted them at 35 which settled to a 25g norm for awhile. I know the people directly responsible for the arcane crystal buyout when ES was coming out and arcane crystals went from 40g/ea to hundreds.

Yes, supply is an issue, but lashers at least adds to the supply yet folks are looking to eliminate that.

There are most definitely players, albeit not the majority, that scalp items. As we've shown in several threads, there are buyouts and relists at 100, 200....500% increases.... If not more.

As for the anti China rhetoric, players that engage in it can eff right off the server. There are other homes on the Internet that put up with that BS

As for observational data, I'm not sure how reliable it is on your part. I'm not saying you're wrong... Just that we need hard numbers in order to help facilitate change

[Quidoba]

Lol it's not a conspiracy theory that there are scalpers. There quite literally are. A few have even admitted to it in these threads. I know the people that bought out black lotuses for 15g/ea and relisted them at 35 which settled to a 25g norm for awhile. I know the people directly responsible for the arcane crystal buyout when ES was coming out and arcane crystals went from 40g/ea to hundreds.

I don't contest this. But scalpers thrive most in times of supply scarcity. (or in times of spike in demand, but I don't think we are seeing that for standard raid consumes). So scalpers are present, they are a problem, they always have had an effect, but they are only able to be such a problem right now due to reductions in supply. That's my theory anyway.

[Quidoba]

The price of herbs should be determined by how much people are willing to do the mind-numbing work of riding in circles and picking the damn things.

The price of herbs now are determined by how much people are willing to ride in circles and have their heart broken by not seeing a single herb spawn. It's no wonder we are seeing prices go up. The value proposition has changed. Herbing has become one of the least fun, least rewarding, things to do on this server.

[Quidoba]

Well i joined the darkside and started doing Lasher farms. I was hesitant, given I generally agree with the idea of avoiding participation in inflationary raw gold farms. After doing a couple rounds of Lasher farms I've changed my mind on that. If anything, an increase in people doing lasher farms would generally have a deflationary affect on herb prices outside of the few high level herbs that don't drop in DM (icecap, mountain silversage, plaguebloom, and black lotus)

The raw gold from a round (<1hr) of DM runs is not actually all that high (~40g/hr), and is probably only around double how much raw gold you would get from open world farming most mobs (~20g/hr). The big value of lashers is the herb drops.

DM lasher farms is probably what is keeping low and mid level herbs relatively cheep (which covers many consumables). If not for lasher farmers, I bet we would be seeing across the board increases in potion prices, instead of just the few high-end ones.

I maintain my view that herb spawn rates are slower than at least some point in the past. I'm not going to be spending nearly as much time riding around and picking herbs, as it is a relative waste of time until things are fixed. For those who remain picking, I hope you can maximally benefit from your effort thanks to the current high prices/low supply and continued discouragement of competing herbalists.