I don't know if this is just me or not, but I noticed that when I am hunting in survival mode, I tend to find animals much more commonly when I move around a lot than when I am staying in one general area. I notice this especially once I settle down in a base.
Mobs almost never randomly spawn while I'm sitting in one spot. When I am standing still, or moving within the immediate area, I only occasionally see 1 or 2 mobs, but when I am exploring farther into the map, I can see about 15 mobs at once, all within the immediate vicinity. This goes for hostile mobs as well as neutral or passive mobs. Maybe it's just me, but the statistics are more extreme than what I'd call chance.
This isn't much of an issue mid-game, but it can be troublesome on the first night when you don't have the resources to explore much and food is your top priority.
How to reproduce:
Use the player to spawn in a new world.
Stand still for about 10 minutes, or move within the immediate area, and take note of how many mobs you see.
Walk, or sprint (just move relatively hastily) in a straight line for 10 minutes, and take note of how many mobs you see.
If the mob count for the walking trial is significantly higher than the mob count for the standing trial, then you know what I'm talking about.
This bug can be fixed with a simple balance patch. Try making the chance of mobs spawning when loading a chunk equal to the chance of mobs spawning randomly within render distance.
This may be just me, just by chance, or maybe it's even a feature to encourage players to explore more. I don't know, but you probably do, so I wanted to give you a heads-up.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Comments 4
I think mobs should spawn upon rendering chunks, but it should be balanced so players don't notice the difference between mobs spawning when they stand still and mobs spawning while they explore the map. I don't think players should have to walk super far before they start seeing mobs. It makes your first few nights really hard when you need food, because you only start exploring after you've established your first base.
A popular youtuber made a similar comment. Antvenom's video about problematic mob spawning
I think this is by design, I've always been under the impression that those mobs are populated by world generation rather than the mob spawning algorithm but I'm not sure first-hand.