Question, does Bearger not spawn unless...

[Gilderdrake]

...you're near stored food or at least a structure? One evening during my second Autumn I started hearing him roar. I wasn't quite at camp yet and neither was my friend that I play with. So I figured I'd be smart and wait it out away from my camp. I kept hearing him roar, but morning came and he never showed. I thought that was odd so I went about my business. The next evening I hear him making noise again, my friend can't hear it, but I tell her to stay away from camp regardless and so do I. Again the night passes without incident and morning comes. At this point I figure the thing has already spawned elsewhere or isn't going to spawn at all, which is fine by me. 

The next night we're both at base and I start hearing the roars again. Just to be safe I take my friend and run a short distance from camp and put down a temporary fire, but when we return in the morning the Bearger had finally spawned, completely ignored us and went right for our ice box. Guess we didn't run far enough away that time. In the process he destroyed one of the crock pots we'd set up. Moles feasted on the remains of that while the Bearger completely divested us of prepared food.

I didn't think I could take the thing in a fight, but I was annoyed at it basically spending several days faking us out and screwing with us, so I lead it away from what was left of the camp and engaged it in mortal combat. It died, I just barely lived while my friend scrambled to replenish some of our food. First boss I've ever killed.

So is that normal? Are bosses programmed in such a way that they will delay their spawn in order to catch you off guard? To prevent the players from making them spawn somewhere more convenient? I'll add that the Deerclops spawned while I was far away from my base, but it walked right past me to get to the nearby Pig village. Maybe I'll relay that experience later, it was pretty funny.

[Extant]

I don't know when it changed, but Bearger's spawn mechanic these days in DST is very erratic.

Sometimes he will growl on and off for a period of several days - my longest record being 6 days before he finally spawned.

Other times, he will only give his first, faintest growl before spawning in that location as soon as the player walks far enough away.

I don't believe this change was intentional as Deerclop's spawn mechanic is still well-behaved just like in single player DS (giving 30 seconds of warning before appearing somewhere in the vicinity of one of the players).

I've tried standing near the bee biome filled with numerous bee hives before when he was growling, but it didn't seem to make him anymore inclined to spawn.

It is for this reason that I prefer to keep Bearger alive and well in my long-lasting worlds. I have him assist in chopping birchnut trees (instead of evergreen trees) on occasion if the logs that my cave stalker provides me isn't sufficient.

Edit #1

I should probably mention to bring a weather pain if you plant a birchnut forest near him to chop down later.

It's rather difficult to get him to take out the poison birchnut trees sometimes because he will not aggro onto them and the birchnutters will constantly make him lose the player's aggro.

[CaptainChaotica]

Hmm.  Thanks for the warning.  It sounds like what happened to Stumpt at the end of their last playthrough is NOT at all rare these days!  (Kept looking for Bearger on purpose in the forest, where are you. Bearger, stupid thing, I wanna kill you, show UP already!) and then, MANY DAYS INTO FALL, like closer to _winter_, he appeared right smack at the base where they didn't want him to and destroyed everything.)

...and I'm used to him showing up on the very FIRST day of the second fall, for my experience...

I too like to keep him alive, and back in good ol' Camp One-Foot-in-the-Grave's server (which I can no longer load due to a mod becoming incompatible with the game's new code) I'd had the same bearger alive for YEARS.  He just wandered around the forest.  Killed hounds for me sometimes.  Nice guy.

...Notorious

[Extant]

12 hours ago, CaptainChaotica said:

Hmm.  Thanks for the warning.  It sounds like what happened to Stumpt at the end of their last playthrough is NOT at all rare these days!  (Kept looking for Bearger on purpose in the forest, where are you. Bearger, stupid thing, I wanna kill you, show UP already!) and then, MANY DAYS INTO FALL, like closer to _winter_, he appeared right smack at the base where they didn't want him to and destroyed everything.)

...and I'm used to him showing up on the very FIRST day of the second fall, for my experience...

I too like to keep him alive, and back in good ol' Camp One-Foot-in-the-Grave's server (which I can no longer load due to a mod becoming incompatible with the game's new code) I'd had the same bearger alive for YEARS.  He just wandered around the forest.  Killed hounds for me sometimes.  Nice guy.

...Notorious

He is a nice guy. I just wish his schedule was a little more consistent.

I kept him alive for almost a thousand days in my most recent world simply because of his odd wake-up pattern. I did get a bit impatient on chopping/digging up trees that were taking up space in an area that I wanted to expand my base into. Eventually, I caved in and telefocused him to the trees and had him clear them for me.

He ended up spawning somewhere around a dozen treeguards and, inevitably, fell rather quickly to them once I stopped taking him for a walk. Of course, the following Autumn he only gave me 1 warning growl before spawning directly in my base and ate about 160 rot that was lying on the ground.

Thankfully he only broke 3 of my chests before I could walk him away and telefocus him back into the 2nd decidious forest in my world which I dubbed 'the burger pad'. I hope I won't have to snackrifice him to anymore treeguards from now on.

Plz halp. Treeguards bulli poor burger.

[CaptainChaotica]

Treeguards bullying Beargers, bees bullying geckos (in my latest world)...WHERE WILL IT END?!

Also the whole thing about how Tallbirds kill their own offspring; that's kinda messed up.

...Notorious

[minespatch]

On 7/2/2018 at 8:44 AM, Extant said:

bulli poor burger.

[CaptainChaotica]

(cracks up)  There's this one player on YouTube that kept CONSISTENTLY referring to the Bearger as the "Burger" and it freaking drove me _nuts_.  I'm trying to remember who it was...southern accent, playing alongside a British guy, just barely watched it goddammit why can't I recall either name...

FOUND IT!  Took me long enough.  Guude!  GuudeBoulderfist with Millbee. I know this is kind of a necro, but seeing the Bearger as a burger just reminded me too much of that Let's Play.  According to Guude, the Bearger has ALWAYS been a "burger"!  : P

...Notorious