Cool story brah.
But thatās not how the game was designed. Itās always been a fixed spawn rate regardless of server population, not a flexible one. The problem is the rate no longer reflects the intended supply per player if population were at max capacity.
Smaller servers have economy issues where there arenāt a ton of rare items/recipes, and selling valuables is difficult with so few buyers. They are compensated for this by having a larger supply of rare spawns per player. On the larger servers the rare spawns are artificially made more rare, but itās much easier to sell goods and sell them for higher prices. Itās a fair tradeoff.
The problem is the intended supply of rare spawns does not exist because the intended server caps do not exist. That problem is independent of the economy dynamics between server populations.
(From another perspective, the scarcity of rare spawns like black lotus helps encourage people to transfer & balance out server populations which would not exist if the spawn rates scaled on server population)
The best and most fair system is to have a fixed rate based on server cap size, regardless of # players on that server. Thatās how its always been, the only difference is that the cap changed so the spawn rates should change with it.
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With BWL looming in the near future I would like to point out a NEEDED change at this time.
The PROBLEM -------------------
We had DYNAMIC spawns of mobs due to increased server population.
We need increased spawns of black lotus.
We have gone from 2,000 players on a server to double or triple that on a server.
There are 4 zones with 7-10 spawn point nodes and they only spawn once an hour.
Thats 4 lotus an hour per serverā¦ 24 hours = 96 a day
A perfect 1 hour spawn and instant pick of all found gives a maximum if 672 lotus a week.
this is unsustainable for 600+ active raiders to get a flask a week on a server.
if they want 2 flasks the number of spawns wont cover it.
the 2nd PROBLEM. ------------------
Bots. China bots. gold bots. farm bots and lvl1 Dead rogue ghosts on spawn points.
You know we have a bot problem blizzardā¦ You KNOW you arenāt taking any corrective action on these accounts because you want the sub money.
You know people are bottling them 24/7. you know it is taking them away from players. you know it screws up the economy (lotus is about 70g on my server and rising).
You know this is putting $$ CASH money into the Chinese gold farming.
If you are not going to take corrective action to resolve this, than at least give us a hand keeping our business away from them. You could very easily write a code to make node spawns invisible when dead/ghost.
You could also force rez dead lvl 1 rogues and hearth them every 2 days logged in or out. and pretend you are helping them.
" you seem to have a problem finding your body and rezzing so we rezzed and hearthed you! " they are camping them and causing problems for raiders who cant farm their own matsā¦
The SOLUTIONS ---------------
Lets get solution oriented here.
#1 #nochanges I am all for no changes. so first solution is to reduce server population back to max vanilla caps. no more 5-10K people on a server.
Lets be honest here though. you wont do that. because we know in a short time server pops are going to drop off quick. leaving ghost towns like you had in retail.
so NOT a good solution. and wont work in the long run.
#2 LAYERS!. . - noā¦ no nononā¦ they will be abused . they were abused. letās not revisit layering.
#3 Increase spawn rates! in relation to increased server population over classic.
you double/tripled the server population. We need this resource double or tripled in spawn rate. just like you increased the spawn rate on mobs ( Dynamic spawns! ) . Honestly though since 80-90% of the spawns are going to botters/farmers and campers this is only really going to increase their fervency of the camping and botting and farming. This wont put more lotus into the hands of the player base and herbers that need them. it wont realistically increase the chance that your average herber that wants to make a flask for a raid will see oneā¦ you will just see botters/farmers/campers get 2 instead of one.
Leaving what i see is 2 solutions that May get the desired outcome.
#4 - CHANCE of black lotus when farming herbs in Silithus, Winterspring, Burning Steppes and Eastern Plaguelands. Give them a 1% chance to drop as a bonus roll to any herb farmed in those zones. It means you have to farm the WHOLE zone. not cherry pick 7 know lotus nodes to camp. it means more herbs for everyone. Treat it like wildvine or swifthistle. it means i need to hit 100 nodes to get one. thats doable. even a 1.5% change so i need to hit like 66-75 nodesā¦ It pushes campers off the KNOWN TO EVERYONE nodes. it pushes botters into botting all nodes which will help the entire economy, by pushing more herbs into it. and gives the average herbing person a chance to get a black lotus providing they are in the right area.
#5 - Personal lotus loot with cooldownā¦ So you like the specific lotus nodes? dont want people camping āeasyā nodes for that 1% chance at a lotus? Fair enough.
Have lotus spawns be personal with a cooldown. If you are checking out a lotus spawn point and it is active. you can see it as a lotus. others see icecap or mountain silversage. YOU get a lotus and see a lotusā¦ After you pick it that specific spawn point will have a 2 day cool or or even 72 hours to prevent a daily farming the same node. every day back to backā¦ it prevents camping nodes or botting the same one over and over back to back. And you receive a 1 hour lotus cool down. you wont see another lotus spawn any where for a minimum of 1 hour. this prevents predictable lotus spawn campingā¦ it ALSO means the lvl 1 dead ghosts that" see" a lotus wont do any good to the lvl 60 that needs to log in to loot it because its not their spawn or their cooldown is not upā¦ and you fix the dead ghost camping the node issue.
It means i can log in once a night for an hour and do some herb laps and maybe get a lotus on my screen.I have seen 2ā¦ ever.
This is a real issue. It is getting worse. and it is going to be a SEVERE problem in BWL and AQ and naxx if the increased server population is not address in relation to black lotus availability. I hope a discussion here can help show blizzard there is a problem and possibly help them with some possible solutions.
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One time I got 4 arcane crystals within 10 minutes.
Another time I got zero for a week.
Your anecdotes do not add anything to the discussion. And did it ever occur to you that if it were as easy to farm as you try to make it seem, then they wouldnāt be selling for 120g each?
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I prefer the current system. Gotta keep those prices high so I can pay all those level one ghosts who are spotting nodes for me.
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Iām not saying it should or shouldnāt be any way. I was just saying what i was responding to.
Not use flask for content that doesnāt need it? Stop buying. The price will drop. Nope. Those that āhave to have themā will just buy more gold from Susan to buy the black lotus that Susan is farming. Smdhā¦
Told you guys. RMT would be controlling this economy. They are.
You are lucky then, flasks are going for 150g-200g on my server and pretty much every caster, healer and tank are buying multiple flasks in prep for BWL progression. (our guild has 2 full raids a week)
On a regular MC clear pretty much every caster is flasking.
people should stop buying flasks since they are completely optional even in BWL you can flask tanks but it wont be necessary. if no ones buyin the bots will farm something else.
How about like no
Overall, I am just personally happy that there is a discussion going on about it. Extended server caps, with resources at their original spawn rates, makes me pretty sad.
I want my authentic vanilla experience.
Yes, it is an anecdote, but its purpose is to illustrate my overall experience, which is this:
Herb botting is nowhere near as prevalent as some people make it out to be on these forums.
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You got 3 in less than 3 hours, yet, I havenāt seen a Black Lotus in 2 months.
Herb botting is nowhere near as prevalent as some people make it out to be on these forums.
You are basing this off one lucky streak that happened last week. How many have you managed to get since then? 
Itās funnyā¦ Iāve never seen a BL spawn in classic. I went farming last night across Unāgoro, WPL, EPL, Felwood and Winterspring and got like a dozen stacks of herbs though in about 3 hours.
Iām aware BL probably isnāt in all those zonesā¦ but either wayā¦ still aināt seen one yet.
I agree thoughā¦ making it an extra herb would be lovely. Prices would go down and everyone would be happy.
Only because black lotus prices didnāt skyrocket until last week. If you dont think botters are interested in an emerging 500g/hour market and wont adjust their tactics, youāre being naive.
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BL wasnāt the only prices that went up. I was literally standing in the AH buying Dreamfoil for 15g a stack and Silversage for 10-12g a stack. Elemental Fire 2-2.5g per and then making Greater Fire/Arcane Elixir pots at a rough cost of 2.5-3g per and selling them for 4-4.5g perā¦ making 100-150g an hour.
Standing in the AH.
Canāt do that anymore though. Profit is gone. Dreamfoil and elemental fire prices have doubled. Iāll go farm it myself before I pay 25-30g per stack and make pots at 0 profit.
All because of the BWL announcement?
Active level 55+ characters.
This is data blizzard surely has 
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Everyone keeps talking about black lotus issues. Iām on a very high pop realm (Fairbanks). The 2nd or 3rd most populated if Iām not mistaken. With a bit of gold farming I can easily buy up enough black lotus to keep myself flasked for 6 hours/week at 100-110g per black lotus. If I push it I can buy enough to stay flasked for 14+ hours per week.
Maybe itās just because people arenāt heavily using flasks yet, but I donāt see a problem. Farming 500g a week is not hard.
While I am somewhat in favor of this, you have to acknowledge that everything that is gathered on the server is also affected by the server population. This brings up the whole #nochanges slippery slope. If they change black lotus, what is next? More rich thorium for arcane crystals and increased normal herb spawns? Mountain Silversage is 20g/stack on my server and is definitely not authentic.
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Rich thorium already has some dynamic respawn mechanism. Thereās always at least 1 rich node at a time in EPL, for example. When someone grabs the last one another instantly appears.