Let's talk about Hunts - a detailed rundown of their assumed mechanics

[Vandesaan]

Correct. Garlok and Nandi are both timers uncontrolled by us. I've been telling people that way before the server maintenance proof -- even though nobody believed me until that happened -.-

There was no proper way to verify it since people will not stop doing the "trigger". Finally it was possible, and we got verification. For once maintenance came with a blessing.

incorrect - you still have to summon your minion near nandi for the s rank to spawn after maintanence - ive spawned nandi 4 times in a row... :\

Garlok doesnt matter with weather change, or rut fate, itsall about the fire arrow on garloks lair.... i walked to his lair earlier, fire arrow'd turned around and bam he was infront of me

Uh... huh. If you do a thing enough, you will end up with a coincidence that causes the spawn to happen at the same time as the thing you are doing.

[Ogun_Riastradh]

incorrect

Correlation does not equal causation, and just look at the evidence for the "soft" maint.
And as for Nuny, there does seem to be something associated with the change in activity and possibly the patches. I've been running around South Than while his window was open and saw very few people around. Very few FATEs and leves were being done, but I know we've tried tons and tons of FATEs. I have also seen Albin just sitting around untouched, but it could be a coincidence. I can't imagine it depends on a massive amount of people because as it has been said, we don't think hunts were designed with large hunt groups/ls in mind. A small group of people were intended to come upon it and then summon the others to kill it, IMO.

[Toberu]

I have a theory about Nunyunuwi. The big drop off of spawns happened after patch 2.35. One of the major changes in that patch was the change to spirit bonding. It's possible that spirit bonding gear is the key to spawning him. Since most people that have been trying to spawn him in big battles and such would be in gear that can't bind in the overworld, it would lead to less sightings overall. With the random spawns being attributable to low level players questing in gear that easily binds in ST.

I'm going to test this out tonight before the maintenance to see if I can get him to spawn. At this point anything is worth trying.

[Vandesaan]

spiritbonding

I still believe it being a lack of a large number of players being gathered at one point to complete something. This happens naturally in East Shroud because of Lazy Laurence and people trying to beat that, among other FATE things and that the zone is directly next to Gridania, so people will generally be there more. Southern Thanalan is super far off and the general consensus in the community seems to be that the zone is super boring and they don't want to be there.

Gather 8 people. Run around completing FATEs one by one until they start scaling. Call in the cavalry to a super scaled FATE and complete it, and keep doing this once they are scaled up. It might do things.

[Ogun_Riastradh]

Gather 8 people. Run around completing FATEs one by one until they start scaling. Call in the cavalry to a super scaled FATE and complete it, and keep doing this once they are scaled up. It might do things.

Haven't you posted that you had a party or two do this for 17 hours straight or something like that without success?

[Vandesaan]

Haven't you posted that you had a party or two do this for 17 hours straight or something like that without success?

Yes, but it is the only thing we know has worked previously. Look at the original theory for it as suggested; doing a specific FATE chain every time it shows up. Do you understand WHY they picked that chain for it? Because you scale up that one set of FATEs so as many people can participate in it as possible when it shows up again, and it is ridiculously close to the Aetheryte so people won't have qualms about showing up for it. In hindsight whoever came up with it was an accidental genius or knew exactly what they were doing.

[HiryoRandgris]

I'm not going to comment on Flame Arrow in Garlok's lair but we've had too many people, even in this thread, who press minion roulette on the spawn locations and have it pop instantly. I'd sooner believe that these "maintenance spawns" were isolated incidents. Either
A) The people claim they were alone in the zone(with no /sea screenshots) and they really werent.
B) It spawned just before the server went down due to mining bots who keep minions out in or to look legit, etc
C) It spawned during maintenance for an unidentifiable reason, yet unrelated to time.
D) It spawned when maintenance ended as players/chocobos/minions entered the zone. (It is probably not possible to prove Nandi may spawn via character models entering its spawn location)

[Vandesaan]

I'm not going to comment on Flame Arrow in Garlok's lair but we've had too many people, even in this thread, who press minion roulette on the spawn locations and have it pop instantly. I'd sooner believe that these "maintenance spawns" were isolated incidents. Either
A) The people claim they were alone in the zone(with no /sea screenshots) and they really werent.
B) It spawned just before the server went down due to mining bots who keep minions out in or to look legit, etc
C) It spawned during maintenance for an unidentifiable reason, yet unrelated to time.
D) It spawned when maintenance ended as players/chocobos/minions entered the zone. (It is probably not possible to prove Nandi may spawn via character models entering its spawn location)

The only reason I have such a firm belief in it after seeing it happen and getting so many reports of it is because we believe in there being S rank "pairs".

Fishing: Thousand-cast Theda and Zona Seeker
Gathering: Bonnacon and Croque-Mitaine
Player action (food/maps): Brontes and Agrippa
Death and/or near death: Safat and Mahisha
Moon phases: Mindflayer and Croakadile
Singled out with the weather: Laideronnette

Then there's the questionable remaining 6
FATEs(?): Wulgaru and Nunyunuwi
Item acquisition/leves(?): Minhocao and Lampalagua
Timer based(?): Garlok and Nandi

[Kiara]

FATEs(?): Wulgaru and Nunyunuwi
Timer based(?): Garlok and Nandi

Hi Vandes and All,

Perhaps SE has another layer (sub-system) besides the Spawn Condition, that might force spawn an S if it hasn't appeared after a while (just to give the players something to do)?

I still think that regardless of Spawn Condition, there's still the RNG aspect: So even if players got the Spawn Condition (Trigger) correct, it wouldn't just be set at 100%.

Look at Brontes - I know some JP players who went through over 1,200 Eggs (and other foods) during the supposed open window (we had full LS's doing this) and nothing. And then seemingly randomly, a day later, it spawns (w/ other people eating food).

Looking at other systems in the game, it's the same w/ SE and their "RNG / Rolls": I've had 95% Chance to Gather some items, and I missed 3 Times in a Row (this has happened a few times). (>_>)

And I've also had 5% Chance to HQ and HQ'd something 4 (FOUR) Times in a Row. LOL. Sigh.

Just saying that there's a real possibility RNG / Roll Chance to Spawn also throws a wrench into everyone's investigation into Spawn Conditions. You might've gotten the right Spawn Condition, but RNG Roll wasn't in your favor. Then... [X Duration / Window Closed to "Roll" Again to Spawn] and then it checks again.

[Ogun_Riastradh]

Hi Vandes and All,

Vandes has written that this may be the case, or it could just be that a certain threshhold needs to be met. That's why sometimes you can catch one Glimmerscale and see Xona, while other times it could take 20. That is why you repeatedly test these ideas to confirm the theory and eliminate RNG as a factor. If you are consistently seeing extremes, i.e. 1 egg or 1,200 eggs for Brontes, it's probably something more than RNG. There is likely something else that needs to be considered, such as it can't be 1 person eating 1,200 eggs or it has to be a new food effect instead of spam eating with buff still up.