Are Diamond Lesser Kudu broken in single player???

[TheShadowOrca]

Started my diamond Kudu grind around early September and have been putting in about 2ish hours a day in my free time towards the grind,
as of now I have over 600 kills towards kudu alone and haven't had jack squat in terms of spawns.
In the first 100ish kills I had 2 level 5 guarantee trolls both with est below the 151 mark, and haven't had a rare spawn on my map at all.

I've only been shooting the males and as of the last 200 kills I've been using herd management to try and increase my chances but still haven't had nothing.

It's starting to tick me off because I've heard of dry streaks between diamond spawns when watching herd management online, but everything I've heard about the dry streaks is that you should still be getting trolls in between kills, and I've never heard of a 200 without trolls dry streak with herd management ever.

So far the only rare I've got was from a multiplayer server I joined, so I'm wandering if only the kudu initial spawns work and the kudu respawns are busted in single player or something, cuz I can't even't find videos on youtube of people getting diamond kudu off a grind.

Idk, I've searched my whole map for drink zones and basically got them all so I don't really have anymore to find, I might just wait till I get another chance to join a multiplayer server or something cuz I cant do it with my internet.


TLDR: I think kudu respawns are broken in single player, cuz I've killed over 600 kudu on my map without a rare or diamond, and havent had a troll in 500 kills.

[DopaTrain]

I'm not sure there's anything to this grind theory. I've got lots of diamond but never had to grind for them.

[Findus]

600 without a diamond would be unusual (although it took me while to get my Lesser Kudu diamond as well if I recall correctly, can't give you a figure, though) but could just be bad luck, assuming you really found all of the drink zones. That doesn't mean Kudu aren't broken, of course, and maybe someone has made a similar experience, but let's assume they aren't for a moment:

Starting herd managent in such a situation sounds like a good idea, but for it to take effect will take a while. I haven't really used herd management so far, so I can't speak from personal experience, but with 200 kills in, it seems to me like you are just starting out and can't count that as 200 kills with herd management in full effect, especially if you are starting from a bad distribution. You'll have to gradually shift the levels to both extreme ends and extremely low level animals can be just as rare as diamonds.

[astreamuser]

I wouldn't be surprised if herd management doesn't work. I've read lots of stuff about it, but most of them didn't really make any sense from a mathematical standpoint.

[McMurgh]

Originally posted by astreamuser:

I wouldn't be surprised if herd management doesn't work. I've read lots of stuff about it, but most of them didn't really make any sense from a mathematical standpoint.

It does seem to work when applied to a massive scale like at what the pro influencer grinders operate. Appears that after many many thousand kills, there emerges a noticeable difference in results between someone who applies it, like Mr. iBuyPremiums, or someone who doesn't, like Mr. KillClynton.

[astreamuser]

I haven't watched any of them, but as i understand it, If it makes a difference then it's because they are increasing the chances of getting a diamond later in the game? Does this change the overall probability of getting a diamond though? I mean, we do need to factor in all the previous kills.

[Geronimo]

@ shadoworca, what do you personally mean by herd management?

Could it be the case that your interpretation of herd management is creating your problem? Or that herd management itself is creating issues, in correlation somehow with your individual hunting style?

I have not done any amount of grinding, and I don't know what the methodology is behind herd management. What I do know, is that, without mods, or using any tactics such as employed by video streamers somehow stacking trophy animals in their maps in a few areas, which may or may not be legitimate, I am able to have diamonds spawn regularly after only 20 ish or so kills.

My understanding is that when an animal is harvested an opening for a new spawn is created to maintain a specific maximum population. And the replacement animal will be either of the same level, or a level higher.

However, these new animals are not placed onto the map immediately, but are placed in a queue pool, from which the respawns are selected.

Now, does is this pool accounted for, and set aside from the beginning of the game? Does the AI take a certain number of animals from the maximum cap and place them in a reserve pool?

If not, than this queuing we experience later in game is not initially in play at first.

This seems illogical.

But if it is preset from the start, how does the game decide upon what levels will be reserved? Is it one of each level?

These are pertinent questions which remain unanswered. The only facts we have to go by, is the data we can observe in the population file in the game folder.

I don't use it, or know where to acquire it, and the only time I've seen it was as posted by a forum member doing an experiment with respawning. I assume the posted information was unedited. And what it does reveal is an accounting for repopulated animals, which doesn't show specific levels or locations, but only that a certain number of a certain gender of a certain species was repopulated.

So from this file we can know that animals are repopulated, however, that repop does not coincide with the number of animals killed prior to the following repop. Which suggests that there is some undetermined delay between kill and respawn.

And if this is the case than more questions arise.

So, not only are we left wondering about the respawn level, and where it spawns onto the map, but also about how long it might take to happen.

Now, regarding gender repopulation, some players have asked if you can invite males to spawn, when there seems to be only females on the map.

According to EW, only the same gender is respawned.

And this period where the map suddenly seems devoid of males, could correlate with a combination of repopulation delay, where too many males have been taken from the map, and not enough are timely ready to be taken from the queue pool.

In other words, at some point of killing a number of males of a particular species, there will be a sudden period of their presence. And to compensate for this many players will fast forward time, along with restarting the game, which does seem to start producing results after some 5-7 in-game days.

This does seem to correlate with a repop delay period.

Now, as for herd management, I assume this refers to suggestions where the player tries to maintain a balanced number of all levels, so they can increase the odds of having the AI choose a specific level to respawn from the queue pool. And it seems to play like this, if you see four level 3s, than you take one of those in hopes of it being replaced by a level 4.

However, you have to also make sure that you haven't killed any level 2s which might cause the next repop to be a replacement of that as another 2 or 3.

So by ensuring that there are no openings in lower levels, there is more of a chance to have higher levels respawn.

Is this what is being referenced when speaking of herd management?

If so, than it's really still just harvesting a specific lower level in the hopes of having a higher level spawn next from the pool, where you are also trying to ensure that lower levels aren't killed and won't be added to the repopulation need.

It all seems rather simple until you start running into these issues where some people manage to create stacks of high levels present on their maps, and others seem to kill incessantly without ever seeing any higher levels.

So what is different?

I can't help wonder how anyone can kill so many animals in a short period without affecting the dispersion of the population, let alone the repopulation.

And I have to wonder if that incessant amount of killing isn't causing many players' problems. Where these streamers and grinders are utilizing some mod or cheat that enables their ability to stack, or somehow alter the vanilla process of repopulating killed animals. And if the ignorance and lack of such tactics isn't the actual difference between why some achieve success at grinding while others do not.

Especially given that in my case, as well as a few others I know, we are regularly able to harvest trophies averaging far less kills than those who are grinding.

Something is amiss here, which doesn't seem to involve the vanilla programming.

My advice to the OP is to forget the videos, and try to uncover what other factors beside respawning might be creating the lack of diamond scores from your harvests.

For example, it could be that you're just not waiting long enough in an area for the higher levels to show up. Or that when they do, you're not looking for them in different places than the herds they might be attached to. Often the higher levels might tend to remain in cover further back from their herds. And you're just not spotting them. Add to that the fact that higher levels can be more alert, aware and cautious, and you can assume that your approach and impression on the environment might be an issue.

[McMurgh]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

So by ensuring that there are no openings in lower levels, there is more of a chance to have higher levels respawn.

Is this what is being referenced when speaking of herd management?
..
I can't help wonder how anyone can kill so many animals in a short period without affecting the dispersion of the population, let alone the repopulation.

And I have to wonder if that incessant amount of killing isn't causing many players' problems. Where these streamers and grinders are utilizing some mod or cheat that enables their ability to stack, or somehow alter the vanilla process of repopulating killed animals. And if the ignorance and lack of such tactics isn't the actual difference between why some achieve success at grinding while others do not.

Especially given that in my case, as well as a few others I know, we are regularly able to harvest trophies averaging far less kills than those who are grinding.

Something is amiss here, which doesn't seem to involve the vanilla programming.
..

It seems you are representing the theory they go by correctly until you summarise.

Assuming everything is above board (because what kind of masochistic form of ineffective cheating would involve sitting through thousands of hours repeating the same action?) the HM grinders narrow the number field onto which the Random Number Generator can produce results. They force the dice to roll only 5s and 6s. Thus they will more frequently than the casual gamer roll a super 6.

Seems that it's only in scale it is different from what myself and many others do -always go for the biggest animal of the herd, and I gather this is why one day there appears a diamond in a herd where there wasn't one before. And why one day, after years, a great one casually strolls by.

I agree with your advice to the OP.

If indeed every drink zone is discovered and a diamond isn't still out there waiting (because that by some people's theory would impede on the probability of more diamonds spawning) then it's just a matter of poor luck. I would look at your 5 trolls with optimism -it's actually just as good as diamond, just a few crappy decimals short, so what you're doing is working!
And the rares, are ..very rare. the probability is usually a small handful among a thousand, and this will have nothing to do with killing only bigger animals.

[TheShadowOrca]

Originally posted by McMurgh:

Originally posted by Geronimo:

So by ensuring that there are no openings in lower levels, there is more of a chance to have higher levels respawn.

Is this what is being referenced when speaking of herd management?
..
I can't help wonder how anyone can kill so many animals in a short period without affecting the dispersion of the population, let alone the repopulation.

And I have to wonder if that incessant amount of killing isn't causing many players' problems. Where these streamers and grinders are utilizing some mod or cheat that enables their ability to stack, or somehow alter the vanilla process of repopulating killed animals. And if the ignorance and lack of such tactics isn't the actual difference between why some achieve success at grinding while others do not.

Especially given that in my case, as well as a few others I know, we are regularly able to harvest trophies averaging far less kills than those who are grinding.

Something is amiss here, which doesn't seem to involve the vanilla programming.
..

It seems you are representing the theory they go by correctly until you summarise.

Assuming everything is above board (because what kind of masochistic form of ineffective cheating would involve sitting through thousands of hours repeating the same action?) the HM grinders narrow the number field onto which the Random Number Generator can produce results. They force the dice to roll only 5s and 6s. Thus they will more frequently than the casual gamer roll a super 6.

Seems that it's only in scale it is different from what myself and many others do -always go for the biggest animal of the herd, and I gather this is why one day there appears a diamond in a herd where there wasn't one before. And why one day, after years, a great one casually strolls by.

I agree with your advice to the OP.

If indeed every drink zone is discovered and a diamond isn't still out there waiting (because that by some people's theory would impede on the probability of more diamonds spawning) then it's just a matter of poor luck. I would look at your 5 trolls with optimism -it's actually just as good as diamond, just a few crappy decimals short, so what you're doing is working!
And the rares, are ..very rare. the probability is usually a small handful among a thousand, and this will have nothing to do with killing only bigger animals.

Sorry bad phrasing on my part, I only killed 2 trolls in the first 100 kills.
Ever since then there were no more trolls, rares, or well diamonds.

I'd be happy if I was getting trolled, because I'd mean that the respawns are indeed working, I would just be getting unlucky with the individual trolls/diamonds.

But as of those first 100 kills I've been drawing dry.

[TheShadowOrca]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

@ shadoworca, what do you personally mean by herd management?

Could it be the case that your interpretation of herd management is creating your problem? Or that herd management itself is creating issues, in correlation somehow with your individual hunting style?

I have not done any amount of grinding, and I don't know what the methodology is behind herd management. What I do know, is that, without mods, or using any tactics such as employed by video streamers somehow stacking trophy animals in their maps in a few areas, which may or may not be legitimate, I am able to have diamonds spawn regularly after only 20 ish or so kills.

My understanding is that when an animal is harvested an opening for a new spawn is created to maintain a specific maximum population. And the replacement animal will be either of the same level, or a level higher.

However, these new animals are not placed onto the map immediately, but are placed in a queue pool, from which the respawns are selected.

Now, does is this pool accounted for, and set aside from the beginning of the game? Does the AI take a certain number of animals from the maximum cap and place them in a reserve pool?

If not, than this queuing we experience later in game is not initially in play at first.

This seems illogical.

But if it is preset from the start, how does the game decide upon what levels will be reserved? Is it one of each level?

These are pertinent questions which remain unanswered. The only facts we have to go by, is the data we can observe in the population file in the game folder.

I don't use it, or know where to acquire it, and the only time I've seen it was as posted by a forum member doing an experiment with respawning. I assume the posted information was unedited. And what it does reveal is an accounting for repopulated animals, which doesn't show specific levels or locations, but only that a certain number of a certain gender of a certain species was repopulated.

So from this file we can know that animals are repopulated, however, that repop does not coincide with the number of animals killed prior to the following repop. Which suggests that there is some undetermined delay between kill and respawn.

And if this is the case than more questions arise.

So, not only are we left wondering about the respawn level, and where it spawns onto the map, but also about how long it might take to happen.

Now, regarding gender repopulation, some players have asked if you can invite males to spawn, when there seems to be only females on the map.

According to EW, only the same gender is respawned.

And this period where the map suddenly seems devoid of males, could correlate with a combination of repopulation delay, where too many males have been taken from the map, and not enough are timely ready to be taken from the queue pool.

In other words, at some point of killing a number of males of a particular species, there will be a sudden period of their presence. And to compensate for this many players will fast forward time, along with restarting the game, which does seem to start producing results after some 5-7 in-game days.

This does seem to correlate with a repop delay period.

Now, as for herd management, I assume this refers to suggestions where the player tries to maintain a balanced number of all levels, so they can increase the odds of having the AI choose a specific level to respawn from the queue pool. And it seems to play like this, if you see four level 3s, than you take one of those in hopes of it being replaced by a level 4.

However, you have to also make sure that you haven't killed any level 2s which might cause the next repop to be a replacement of that as another 2 or 3.

So by ensuring that there are no openings in lower levels, there is more of a chance to have higher levels respawn.

Is this what is being referenced when speaking of herd management?

If so, than it's really still just harvesting a specific lower level in the hopes of having a higher level spawn next from the pool, where you are also trying to ensure that lower levels aren't killed and won't be added to the repopulation need.

It all seems rather simple until you start running into these issues where some people manage to create stacks of high levels present on their maps, and others seem to kill incessantly without ever seeing any higher levels.

So what is different?

I can't help wonder how anyone can kill so many animals in a short period without affecting the dispersion of the population, let alone the repopulation.

And I have to wonder if that incessant amount of killing isn't causing many players' problems. Where these streamers and grinders are utilizing some mod or cheat that enables their ability to stack, or somehow alter the vanilla process of repopulating killed animals. And if the ignorance and lack of such tactics isn't the actual difference between why some achieve success at grinding while others do not.

Especially given that in my case, as well as a few others I know, we are regularly able to harvest trophies averaging far less kills than those who are grinding.

Something is amiss here, which doesn't seem to involve the vanilla programming.

My advice to the OP is to forget the videos, and try to uncover what other factors beside respawning might be creating the lack of diamond scores from your harvests.

For example, it could be that you're just not waiting long enough in an area for the higher levels to show up. Or that when they do, you're not looking for them in different places than the herds they might be attached to. Often the higher levels might tend to remain in cover further back from their herds. And you're just not spotting them. Add to that the fact that higher levels can be more alert, aware and cautious, and you can assume that your approach and impression on the environment might be an issue.

Thanks for going so in depth with your response, but McMergh explained it as well as I would've.

From what I've seen for the concept of herd management, there's a hard limit to the amount of animals that can be on your map at once for each species, as goes for a level for the individual animals.

Basically let's say you have 50 male Lesser Kudu on your map, you can ignore the females because females always respawn as female,
By leaving all level 2s and 1s males you create a scenario where the max amount of low animals of that given species has filled up that specific animal's spawns, in our case Lesser Kudu,

So let's say around 70% of your 50 male Lesser Kudu are 2 or below in level, any level 3s or higher will no longer respawn as anything lower than a 3, as the 'quote unquote' limit has been reached for the amount of low levels that can spawn.

And from what information I've seen, animals killed will always respawn with a random score distribution, in most case slightly lower or higher.

And as for stacking, there doesn't seem to be a limit on higher level animals, only the lower level ones, probably an intentional game design to make the process of getting a diamond less reliant on luck if I were to guess.

But most of this is just the info I've gathered from watching videos from Cotw youtubers with more diamonds and great ones than I'd probably be able to gather in my life time lol,
the concept of herd management and how respawns work is still a one of the biggest mysteries of the game, and without any concrete proof from the crew at EW, it's probably gonna stay that way for most of this games life span if I were to guess.

[Geronimo]

@Shadow, you're welcome. I don't mind putting in some effort with regard to certain topics as I always hope that somehow logic will unravel the mystery in the long run.

A bit delusional I suppose, but if fulfilled, well worth the time and effort.

My biggest problem is probably my chosen style of playing the game because I don't research anything involving grinding/farming or modding and that leaves me ignorant of alot of potential information regardless of its credibility.

I remember when CoTW first came out there were videos of streamers trying to hijack the mechanics, and I would see someone killing a level 8 in one area and than running to another nearby zone to look for the level 9 respawn which they believed would spawn there. And I thought to myself, this is not hunting.

In the early days of the game I held hopes that sharing our ingame experiences would reveal some benefits to playing it, but I never imagined how that would actually evolve into the present, most popular methods of grinding.

I'm sure there's alot of readers that must wonder why I don't seem to know about this glitch or that trick, when there are so many videos available on the subjects. And I really don't have any personal disregard for mods or get-around tactics. I do use such things in some games myself. But in particular immersion type theaters I personally tend to relish the immersion over the end goals.

So, in this particular case of simulating an actual hunting experience, and being a real hunter and outdoorsman myself, I just couldn't enjoy the game when having to be mass slaughtering for the sake of achievements. For me, the realistic dynamics are lost at that point, and that aspect of the experience are as much a priority as any trophy.

I find that utilizing these get-around tactics to achieve trophy goals simply fast-forwards you through the game, and you inevitably miss enjoying it's entirety for the sake of a few monumental moments.

So, Im left asking all the deeper, pertinent questions that many have no need to ask because their methodologies bring them to their goals without actually having to immerse themselves in the deepest experiencing of the entire game's offerings.

I realize that choosing to remain ignorant might be unnecessarily burdening, but I also think that these dynamics that go unanswered are still worth these indepth discussions.

[TheShadowOrca]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

@Shadow, you're welcome. I don't mind putting in some effort with regard to certain topics as I always hope that somehow logic will unravel the mystery in the long run.

A bit delusional I suppose, but if fulfilled, well worth the time and effort.

My biggest problem is probably my chosen style of playing the game because I don't research anything involving grinding/farming or modding and that leaves me ignorant of alot of potential information regardless of its credibility.

I remember when CoTW first came out there were videos of streamers trying to hijack the mechanics, and I would see someone killing a level 8 in one area and than running to another nearby zone to look for the level 9 respawn which they believed would spawn there. And I thought to myself, this is not hunting.

In the early days of the game I held hopes that sharing our ingame experiences would reveal some benefits to playing it, but I never imagined how that would actually evolve into the present, most popular methods of grinding.

I'm sure there's alot of readers that must wonder why I don't seem to know about this glitch or that trick, when there are so many videos available on the subjects. And I really don't have any personal disregard for mods or get-around tactics. I do use such things in some games myself. But in particular immersion type theaters I personally tend to relish the immersion over the end goals.

So, in this particular case of simulating an actual hunting experience, and being a real hunter and outdoorsman myself, I just couldn't enjoy the game when having to be mass slaughtering for the sake of achievements. For me, the realistic dynamics are lost at that point, and that aspect of the experience are as much a priority as any trophy.

I find that utilizing these get-around tactics to achieve trophy goals simply fast-forwards you through the game, and you inevitably miss enjoying it's entirety for the sake of a few monumental moments.

So, Im left asking all the deeper, pertinent questions that many have no need to ask because their methodologies bring them to their goals without actually having to immerse themselves in the deepest experiencing of the entire game's offerings.

I realize that choosing to remain ignorant might be unnecessarily burdening, but I also think that these dynamics that go unanswered are still worth these indepth discussions.

Y'know I respect that, It's a very honorable way to play this game,

I think back very fondly to the times when I first downloaded this game, playing without the strategies and knowledge I have now.
I could probably shoot 50 more diamonds, 100 more, 1000 more, but I'd always remember that first one I got if you know what I mean. (Plains bison btw)

I've kind of just always been doing what I can, I've always tried to set up that herd management, but occasionally I'll just had fun shooting the animals I can find.
As of recent I've kinda dropped the herd management Kudu grind I favor of a mini Chamois grind.
Trust me it's a real pain to hunt Chamois with them having no caller or drink zone, but they just feel like the most realistic animal to hunt in my opinion, and that's what makes them fun for me.

I respect those who can delicate their life to grinding great one after great one, but I could probably never be that guy if I was to be honest.
Variety is what makes this game so special for me, I feel like i'd be taking that away to grind for more than 1 or 2 of the same great one, maybe even feel like I'd be watering down the feeling of specialty of that first one if I were to got overboard.

But anyways, I'll probably eventually pick that Diamond Lesser Kudu grind back up, but for now I'm just taking it easy, sometimes all you need is a break for those diamonds to finally show em' selves if you what I mean!

[DarkFalz]

Originally posted by TheShadowOrca:

I think back very fondly to the times when I first downloaded this game, playing without the strategies and knowledge I have now.
I could probably shoot 50 more diamonds, 100 more, 1000 more, but I'd always remember that first one I got if you know what I mean. (Plains bison btw)

I know what you mean. My first diamond was a moose on Layton Lake which I spent most of my money to taxidermize. Since then I've shot several moose that were bigger and more impressive than him but he's still a centerpiece in my lodge (right alongside a female albino moose which was my first rare).

[TheShadowOrca]

Originally posted by DarkFalz:

I know what you mean. My first diamond was a moose on Layton Lake which I spent most of my money to taxidermize. Since then I've shot several moose that were bigger and more impressive than him but he's still a centerpiece in my lodge (right alongside a female albino moose which was my first rare).

Congratulations! Diamond moose are some of my favorite looking diamonds in the game.

My plan is to one day hopefully get a great one moose so I can make it the main centerpiece to my spring creek lodge,
always been a weird pet peeve of mine when people get something as rare and time consuming as a great one and shove it to the back of their lodge where nobody will see it, just a me thing I guess.

But anyways I should probably focus I actually getting a single diamond moose first before I shoot for a great one lol, I do got a gold piebald moose though so I'm probably not too far off.