Malbatross Spawn mechanics

[Cuikui]

Should the Malbatross just despawns instead of being relocated ?

For the first spawn of the Malbatross we have: 25% of all the fish shoal are selected as potential spawn locations, then the Malbatross spawns in the first spawn location visited by the player. That way the player have a 25% chance to find the Malbatross in each fish Shoal. Everything good so far.

For the other spawn: After 3 days of inactivity the Malbatross is moved to another random shoal. Now the probability to find the Malbatross on a specific shoal is 1 over the number of shoal. This probability is much lower than 25% (usually there is more than 4 fish shoals in a world), the Malbatross is harder to find after being relocated. Here is the problem.

A solution: Instead of being relocated, the Malbatross just despawns and will respawn using the same mechanics as the first spawn.

 

[lakhnish]

Hmm, For the 3 days of "inactivity", isn't it more than 3 days technically? Since it relocates after getting 3 days worth of sleeping, not really after 3 days of inactivity. That makes it more like every 6-10+ days really, depending on the lengths of the nights, no?

There's still the 1 over the number of shoals to consider, so it's not a bad suggestion. I'd have to play around with it some more.

Maybe the relocation aspect is for the "aesthetic"/design? Bird feasts upon the fish on the shoals and moves from shoal to shoal, having its fill?

I don't know if Ocuvigils on boats will show the bird's location either (can't check atm).

[Cuikui]

There is too different things named "sleep". One is the sleeping mechanics as you think of (panflute, at night, etc). The other is called "entitysleep" and correspond to something like beeing offscreen or beeing inactif (not 100% sure what trigger it). So I think we are close to 3 days between moves.

But whatever the time it takes to relocate that do not solve the problem that it is more difficult to find after the first relocation.

 

 

 

[Bird Up]

Finding all the shoals on a sluggish boat is painful. It took me 8 days after day 28 of sailing to find Malb in a normal game. Ended up finding and defeating him in Spring. I wish they just made him spawn day 1 as an optional boss like beequeen/toad/dfly. He's super easy, and it'll take you 28 days to find him anyway lol. If I ever try to find him again, I'm definitely playing Woodie for the water walking weregoose x_x

All that aside, Malb respawning on one specific shoal sounds even more awful. Hope it changes. The ocean is still so time consuming to traverse.

[Cuikui]

The last update solved the problem. Thanks Klei.

Now the Malbatross relocation uses the same mechanics as the first spawn.

 

[Cuikui]

Is there a little loop hole in the Malbatross spawn mechanic when fishing Deep Bass?

With the new update, there are two spawn mechanics for the Malbatross. One where 25% of shoals are potential spawn location when a player gets close. Another where Deep Bass has a 10% chance to spawn the Malbatross when fished in a shoal.

If you fish a Deep Bass when the Malbatross is ready to spawn (_time_until_spawn=0) and the 10% chance succeed, the Malbatross spawns. After 3 days without fight, it despawns and 25% of shoals are selected as new potential spawn. Here no problem.

If you fish a Deep Bass when the Malbatross is not ready to spawn (_time_until_spawn>0) and the 10% chance succeed, the Malbatross does not spawn (as expected), but the 25% spawn shoals are replaced by only one shoal. You can fish once, see nothing special, but you just destroyed the 25% spawn mechanics, here is the problem according to my understanding.

If there is really a problem, a possible solution is to check the 10% chance only when the Malbatross can spawn immediately (_time_until_spawn=0).