**Animal Spawn Issue Discussion** (Since Summer and Recent Updates)

[Dissention]

I’ll keep this conversation going with a rant (because I have no animals to hunt)

Don’t think that animal spawns is a “troubleshooting” issue but best can be called a Nerf**.….

**Hopefully, R* is not incompetent to have a bug going on for this long.  Their first mistake was releasing new content on a weekend during Christmas time.  From a project management perspective it's a big no-no. R* seems great with visual and GUI, but their server and database programming leaves something to be desired. 

I'm like "John Snow" and know nothing but I sometimes wonder (and believe) that R* and allot of these gaming companies like to run multivariate tests and stuff like that.

My thought is that they want to see what players do when there are no animals.

 

Kill each other?  Kill NPC’s?

• It’s an option but it’s played.  I could also just play GTO if I wanted to do that.

Play PVP? 

•  The answer for me is no because I played it for the first 6 months and it was enjoyable. Now It's repetitive game modes, everybody got maxed out Passives and use the darn explosive stuff. Nevermind the dumb tobacco, potions, booze and big game meat.  PVP needs a complete revamp and some new concepts.

Moonshine? 

• I don't know, except for the missions IMO it's another wagon delivery game, and low ROI in my view. Put me in a rickety old wagon, on a server with posses floating around and then send me into a group of Terminators.   It's amazing that I've been successful ...when it doesn't crash!
• I own an expensive bar that's cosmetic only too

Collector?

• Beyond boring but profitable.  

Bounty Hunt?

• I enjoyed the bounties at first but now they are becoming repetitive and frustrating .  At least for me, They took away the private lobbies with tons of animal spawns and now they like to put bounties in locations with one-way route, in a cave, on a snowy mountain or on a train where you can't jump to it or pass it. Stuff like that...  And then just spawn enemies like there is no tomorrow for $15 to $50. I’ve even had some bounties jump off a cliff to their death.
• My horse always seems to suddenly get ill, the bola cost is ridiculous, they just started registering for the challenge and sometimes I can’t hogtie them.I love a good challenge but Bounty Hunting needs to fun and not frustrating (same thing I sent to R*)

They want suggestions…

• Let me pay to upgrade the dumpy wagon, or let me buy that small wagon you can steal from the NPCs and it handles like a sports car.
• Add more interactive events,  legendary or 3* bounties without all the BS.
• Revamp PVP.   I don't know sniper shooting for points, quick draw showdown.
• They want to make money on this Freemium model I'd bet private lobbies would sell.

I got 170+ day streak going.  I lose it I don't see myself doing another 170.  IMO Animal spawns needs to be resolved soon.

I hope anyone who is not happy with this no animal Sh*t will let their voices be heard…

https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadonline/feedback

 

sorry for the rant.

Edited December 18, 2019 by Dissention

[LordOdin61]

I don't think it's the amount of players on a server, before the Moonshiner dlc I was always on servers with 24 to 25 players and the animals were still plentiful, and the switch server idea doesn't work for me as I end up in an endless black screen loading forever. I then have to close the application and load the game again, I know a few players having the same problem (PS4). I did some bounties yesterday and the animal spawns were just the same. The only deer I saw was on a mercy killing event and that ended up being a 1 star carcass. I would contact Rockstar support but I know they are going to say the problem lies with my equipment, it's the common reply for most game companies these days.

[The_Liquor]

I Don’t think it’s deliberately nerfed... they tried (and failed) to fix it (or outright lied to us)... I expect some hot fixes to be coming out. If they nerfed it, I don’t think they would lead us on like that.

 

[lumper]

So yesterday two different times, after being in the game for hours with no animals and struggling to feed Cripps, and keep the moonshiner role going, etc.. I left the game and later came back, upon arriving at my camp, I saw a herd of Pronghorn, I was able to get 4 or 5 of them, and turn them all in to Cripps, as I was doing that I saw tons of other animals and I thought, hmm wtf?

Then I checked the player list, and there were only 8 people on the server, I thought, hmm thats great, let me do all my hunting and daily challenges that require animals now while I have this chance.

So, after a while I checked again and now it was me and two others in the game, and a little while after that, it was just me.

I went to my moonshine shack in the swamp and for the first time, there were flocks of spoonbills, gators everywhere, wild boars, etc.. it was  awesome!!

I had to leave the game for a bit and once I came back a few hours later, same exact thing happened again.

Im not sure why it happened but I was very happy it did, as I was able to fill Cripps two or three times, do two 100 item deliveries for the $500, ( even though I had an empty server I didnt bother with the long distance delivery) and in general I was able to take care of animal related things I had not been able to for several days prior, so this was a great surprise.

I think maybe it has something to do with the servers being updated for the holiday themed items we all woke up to today, but that is just a guess.

The world seems so alive and dynamic when there are fewer than 10 players in it, you have hideouts pop up everywhere, animals everywhere, dynamic events like ambushes and strangers etc.. all over the map, everything works really well the only difference is  other players, and I dont mind.

I almost never see other players anyway I play alone and have very few interactions, so to me the world is dead and depressing when we have 23 on a server and you cant find a sparrow or a gator or anything alive anywhere and you need them for challenges.

Anyway I was very happy to have that happen twice recently and it really helped me finish the moonshiner role, even though that still bugged out when I went to deliver a 246$ delivery, it hung on a black screen and I had to restart, but this time when I got back in the game, it let me start where I left off and the 20/20 was waiting for me and I was able to make the delivery, usually when that happens I lose the goods, but this time they were still there, and that was what it took to hit level 20.

Obviously they have a lot to work out yet, but to me it is pretty simple for now anyway, limit servers to 12 people and everyone will have a dynamic experience, when you have 20 or more it never seems to work.

Edited December 19, 2019 by lumper

[HuDawg]

Game runs amazing with no one it.    If only R*  allowed lobby option.  Players could play in private lobbies till R* get their sh*t together.

 

This game is an empty husk in packed lobbies.   

 

[Darconios]

Ditto to above post.

I just spent 1 hour SWIMMING my horse around Lagras trying to find 1 single alligator... I actually needed 3 for the daily... but WOW!...

Not even a gator in the swamps.  I've killed hundreds of gators in this game...  So I know a few of their hiding spots... even in the middle of the swamps they were gone... no breathing noses...

I got the achieve for killing every animal in the game long ago.. but a person starting today would have a hard time finding a bison or a gator.. never mind finding something really rare.. like a cow.

The game is very lame without the ability to shoot stuff... and the one mob stuff like sea of thieves skeletons wears thin... You can only shoot so many roadblocks or gang hideouts... Some people want to do hunting and trades..

I get that Rockstar wants us to buy everything with gold... but that will not happen if people give up on the game because it is lame again...

I am only here for 8 more levels on my outlaw pass and then I'll go play something exciting.. like YONDER or MINECRAFT!

I just wasted 1 hour trying to earn 1/3 of .5 gold..... I may be slow.. but I know not to try it again... EVER... and that is sad and why this game is likely going to die off.

How many other activities have I learned not to even bother with.. like hunting?

Even when this game was lame with PVP and griefers everywhere .. the hunting and wolves and bears made it somewhat fun...

I enjoyed running around the islands in the morning before work.. shooting small fictitious animals...   

I made a YouTube video where I showed the hunting on the islands... It would take me close to 1 hour to fire all 100 of my varmint rifle bullets...  Toadya in that same hour.. I have used 15 bullets with 85 remaining.... That means at least on the islands... There has been an 85% drop in iguanas/crabs/ducks etc.. in that location (try to find a crab nowadays.. i double dare ya - it will take you hours).

If Rockstar is overcrowding the servers or removing animals to encourage gold spending... I'm afraid they will not have any players left to buy the gold.

This has the potential to be a fun game.... lately it seems all grind.. no fun....

Yep.. Minecraft still rules.

Older players could probably tell you a few places Panthers spawn like south pof rhodes and stillwater.. but a new player could visit those locations 100 times and never have a clue... even if they see a youtube video on it it means nothing if the animals wont spawn.

There's a FUN DAY!   Trying to find a specific animal.. which does not exist where the maps says.. so you watch 1-2 yourube videos to find a location.. then you go back and spend 2 hours trying to replicate the video.... only to realize your day would have been better spent n minecraft.

At least hunting creepers is a sure thing.

Edited December 21, 2019 by Darconios

[BelleStarr]

On 9/25/2019 at 9:06 AM, Jimblob said:

Is there a work around to force them to spawn, as I keep getting spawned in to area's with very little or no animal's.

Today Great Plains 1 3* prong horn, The Heartland's 1 1* Bison, Big Valley Nothing, Nil, Zilch, Zero.

Relogging just give's me the little or no Animal's. very frustrating.

 

EDIT: Just discoverd I appear to be in a server all by my self, no other player's showing on list.

I also had ONE 1* Bison in the Heartlands and they are nearly always in a herd usually. I hope R* fixes all these bugs soon because right now, the game is almost unplayable. 

[HuDawg]

This topic should be sticky'd on the front page of this forum.    This is not a trouble shooting issue.  This is R* being lazy and not fixing anything and at the same time giving players no ****ing options to work around it.

 

I feel at this point.  The only way to get R* to do anything is to get popular content creator on YouTube OR other video game sites to cover R*s BS.   

They rail on Fallout 76 all the time.  Its R* turn. to get grilled. 

 

WHERE THE **** IS THE ****ING PRIVATE LOBBIES!>!>!?  Theres zero reason as to why private lobbies and pure free aim lobbies don't exist.   Not one reason what so ever.

[flu007]

One potential (admittedly somewhat cumbersome) workaround for those with no animals to get at least the 6 large carcasses and 3 predator daily challenges done might be through resupply missions. The "hunt an animal and trade for supplies" missions should spawn one of said animal somewhere in the area, and the "rival traders gone missing" missions spawn 3 predators (usually wolves, but depending on location it could also be cougars.)

If you put your camp in a location where you get these kinds of missions a lot, and then keep failing the resupply mission over and over...

Or go watch some Netflix until Rockstar sorts this out, perhaps that's the more sensible suggestion, heh.

[Kean_1]

7 hours ago, HuDawg said:

This topic should be sticky'd on the front page of this forum.    This is not a trouble shooting issue.  This is R* being lazy and not fixing anything and at the same time giving players no ****ing options to work around it.

 

I feel at this point.  The only way to get R* to do anything is to get popular content creator on YouTube OR other video game sites to cover R*s BS.   

They rail on Fallout 76 all the time.  Its R* turn. to get grilled. 

 

WHERE THE **** IS THE ****ING PRIVATE LOBBIES!>!>!?  Theres zero reason as to why private lobbies and pure free aim lobbies don't exist.   Not one reason what so ever.

This forum is for known bugs, glitches, technical issues, etc.  It's in the right spot and is already visible to everyone.  I pinned it here a long time ago to make sure of that.  

My suggestion is for folks to continue to complain to R* via their Support page AND their Feedback site.  This is something they are still working on and IIRC, there was even a brief mention of it in the last TU patch notes.  ......so it is something R* is aware of and seems to be trying to sort out.  

[MrPicard]

I experienced a weird thing today and yesterday - I moved my Moonshine shack to New Austin because reasons and there were quite a few animals there. Not as many as in story mode, of course, but still quite a few (by New Austin standards). I then rode to Blackwater, and right when I went past Armadillo, the animal spawns STOPPED. It was like as if someone had flipped a switch. I went back to Armadillo and into the general direction of Tumbleweed and the animals started to spawn again. This happened yesterday AND today, so it couldn't have been a temporary little glitch. (I also checked how many people were in the session, the number hadn't changed.)

[MAGICSTUFF13]

Finding it very difficult to find any animals since moonshine update literally no animal spawns in a full lobby.

Mash suddenly disappeared after its produced. If lucky enough to sell the cart then disappears when completing sale. 

The game feels broken and is driving me up the wall at the moment lol. 

Anyone else encountered these issues? Any ways around them ? 

[LordOdin61]

I contacted R* support about the animal situation and as of yet have had no response, I think this is an issue for all platforms and not just a single one. I have been trying to level trader since the Moonshiner update and finding it near impossible. I am still of the opinion that it doesn't matter how many players are in your session this is probably a coding fault or something which R* are not addressing and with the Xmas holidays upon us I don't see a fix for this until who knows when. The only time I get pelts etc is when I loot bandits etc.

[fryguynation]

This game that I loved beyond any other is UNPLAYABLE.  I am a trader, love the trader role and play other roles off this one and right now until fixed with zero, and I mean zero animals is MISERABLE.  I am right now turning this game off and going back to other games until I see changes from this forum.  I just spent real $$ to obtain gold and play the moonshiner role and that is not enough without animal spawns.  I am so disappointed with R* that this long time need fix only has gotten worse.  I'm not a newbie at rank 151 and will be a long, long time until I see 152.  SO DARN FRUSTRATED RIGHT NOW!

[CosmoKramer]

Sadly R* have me hooked with wanting to maintain my daily challenge streak so I will log on today but hopefully they’ll look beyond the number of players playing the game at the moment to see how little time they are now playing for to appreciate our collective frustration at the brokenness of their game.

[Antonia]

i'm just logging every day for 15-30mins to maintain the long streak for challenges. meanwhile i earn some bars each day and that's it. it's not bad to take a break once in a while. when i see fixes i'll give it a shot again.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Antonia

[Jackthestripper]

 Pretty pathetic when you get excited to see Western Ravens! Lots of speculation as to what's causing this... I've heard everything from a standard standard glitch or bug, to the amount of people in the session. It's funny that in free room there are hardly any animals, but when you do a story mission it's literally raining animals on you! In my opinion it was intentionally nerfed. It's just too coincidental that it took me an hour to find four animals, and I start a story mission and I literally spawned around a group of five or six whitetail deer, and I am literally tripping over animals during the story mission.  And with all the snow everywhere on the map now, it's hard to see the white trails  behind the animals when using eagle eye, whenyou do happen to get lucky enough to find one.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Jackthestripper

[HuDawg]

The great famine is upon us.    People are living off food handouts from R*.  Newbies are in the hills feasting on Raven meat.   The end is nigh!

 

[Herta47]

3 hours ago, Jackthestripper said:

 Pretty pathetic when you get excited to see Western Ravens! Lots of speculation as to what's causing this... I've heard everything from a standard standard glitch or bug, to the amount of people in the session. It's funny that in free room there are hardly any animals, but when you do a story mission it's literally raining animals on you! In my opinion it was intentionally nerfed. It's just too coincidental that it took me an hour to find four animals, and I start a story mission and I literally spawned around a group of five or six whitetail deer, and I am literally tripping over animals during the story mission.  And with all the snow everywhere on the map now, it's hard to see the white trails  behind the animals when using eagle eye, whenyou do happen to get lucky enough to find one.

I send Crips to vacation/retirement currently🤣 Spent no time in hunting anymore. It's time consuming and frustating to get a decent ROI.

[lumper]

On 9/25/2019 at 4:06 AM, Jimblob said:

Is there a work around to force them to spawn, as I keep getting spawned in to area's with very little or no animal's.

Today Great Plains 1 3* prong horn, The Heartland's 1 1* Bison, Big Valley Nothing, Nil, Zilch, Zero.

Relogging just give's me the little or no Animal's. very frustrating.

 

EDIT: Just discoverd I appear to be in a server all by my self, no other player's showing on list.

From my experience when you get more than 12 players on a server the spawns decline.

When you are alone in a server animals are similar to Story mode levels, and when you end up in a server with 8 or less players you can predictably hunt nearly anything in the game.

I believe it purely based on numbers of players on a given server, maybe not but as far as I Can tell it is the only common denominator.

R* claims to be working on it.

We will see.

[pluck3]

Best way to get animals now since they are bugged hard is to Start a Legendary bounty hunter , and ignore the mission , go fill your wagon , skin all big birds cause they feather worth close to 1$ each / 3 per skin ,   squirrels and small birds with your bw , a wagon full of whitetail buck and yourset. when ur done hunting leave back to free roam or do the mission

 

[Dissention]

37 minutes ago, pluck3 said:

Best way to get animals now since they are bugged hard is to Start a Legendary bounty hunter , and ignore the mission , go fill your wagon , skin all big birds cause they feather worth close to 1$ each / 3 per skin ,   squirrels and small birds with your bw , a wagon full of whitetail buck and yourset. when ur done hunting leave back to free roam or do the mission

 

Yes...this solution works.   The issue I am having is the legendary bounty pays out less meat if you skin them and for some reason I drop the pelt at first Everytime.  PIA (pain in the a$$).

If you kill everyone (all the enemies) and put the bounty on your horse.. live or dead you can roam around for hours hunting (seems to be no time limit).   Been paying me a $100 a pop if they delivered alive 3* plus, and it's kinda a nice just to gallop around and listen to them babble.  They escape I just  bola and hogtie them again and the bounty Hunter reward is fine even without the meat/skins.

Also if you run a 3* bounty and complete it, you sometimes also still get put on a private server and  while my camp won't spawn I can still deliver everything to the butcher.

Naturally this solution doesn't work on bounties with multiple targets that can escape and end the mission

It's Christmas so I hope this helps some one and kinda of in a F R* mood (and credit to the posters who originally posted these solutions here and on Reddit)

*** shouldn't have to be looking for solo lobbies to play a MMORPG and working through so many bugs, but it is what it is.***

They probably Nerf these options too, so get why you can.

[pluck3]

well server is broken more than ever , no animals , no one ine the shack , disconnecting for joining bootlegger , disconnected during trader delivery , griefed during collectible ,  the pvp is horrible map or fight kind , always stuck with newbie not doing the pvp right , exemple they dont collect any bag they just shoot ppl and get wrecked. camp wont spawn again... , now they added snow , like this sh*t help .

[Herta47]

This morning i need to shoot one Wild Turkey (10 min.) to collect a load for Cripps. Nothing there !!!!!!  I quit hunting animals for now as I already untill R* fixes this major bug.

I play the game from the start on,  but nowadays it's getting more annoying then having fun. That's to bad, because R* really tries to create a great game. 

Edited December 25, 2019 by Herta47

[Jeebus 816]

Animal spawns have truly been sucking the last month or so in general, but have been almost non-existent since this "winter wonderland" crap. I've noticed before this that when it was raining the animal spawns were reduced, could it be that R* forgot to change something somewhere and the game is "seeing" the snow as rain? I don't know, just a thought

 

[Jackthestripper]

Not sure what was going on yesterday... Logged into a server with about 26 people, and was spawned in the middle of a big group of deer. I managed to down two of them, but then realized like usual that I have no camp and can't create one. About 20 minutes later I luckily got a camp. For the first hour I couldn't keep up with it... Deer, rabbits, turkeys and boar. I was in Scarlet Meadows. I was running deer back to the camp and having to throw it down so I can shoot another one going by. Then all of a sudden... It stopped for 2 hours. Then for another hour it would be raining animals again. Went on all day like that! If you check out this video clip, at one point I was in Big Valley, and when I got back to my camp the field was covered in them. I stopped and counted... There were a total of 18 animals in my sight. Hard to see if you watch the video on a phone, but trust me they're there. After that... Not an animal to be found except the dog in my camp

 

Edited December 27, 2019 by Jackthestripper

[Darconios]

I looked at dailies to get predator skins, cougar kills, and big game meat "undoable" now.... and I once made a video where I caught 5 cougars in the same night.  (mission glitches only for hunting).

@ Jackthestripper,

If you can down a herd of deer (or two) pull out your (hopefully empty) hunting wagon and put the deer in there.. They will remain indefinitely.... as that is how long it takes cripp to set camp.  I use my wagon more like a longer term storage or freezer.

 

Edited January 1, 2020 by Darconios

[poopypoopypoop]

On 12/27/2019 at 5:58 AM, Jackthestripper said:

Logged into a server with about 26 people, and was spawned in the middle of a big group of deer

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but just changing lobbies or loading into one (no matter how full it is) will force animals to spawn around you. I realize changing lobbies isn't so easy right now, but just a tidbit of information here if Rockstar manages to fix loading screen issues. This method can often be used to sit on top of a spawn point for certain animals (that might be needed for dailies) to force them to spawn. I recall doing this one time when I was having a lot of trouble finding spoonbills before the patch.

[Jackthestripper]

13 hours ago, poopypoopypoop said:

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but just changing lobbies or loading into one (no matter how full it is) will force animals to spawn around you. I realize changing lobbies isn't so easy right now, but just a tidbit of information here if Rockstar manages to fix loading screen issues. This method can often be used to sit on top of a spawn point for certain animals (that might be needed for dailies) to force them to spawn. I recall doing this one time when I was having a lot of trouble finding spoonbills before the patch.

I'm aware of what many people are saying about changing lobbies, however changing lobbies never seems to work for me. I normally never get a camp anyways so it wouldn't matter if there was 100 deer, there's nowhere to bring them. I don't have a hunting wagon, nor do I want one. 

[Madrigalian]

I logged in a couple of mornings ago and found my camp right where I left it near Big Valley.  As I rode out to look for animals to hunt I was astounded by how many there were.  I could barely go a couple hundred yards from camp before I would come across herds, yes really, herds, of deer (4-6 at a time) or pairs of Elk, everywhere. 

At one point, as I road out once again after dropping off pelts, I immediately ran into a Cougar and was lucky enough to get the drop on him before he could get the drop on me.  Nice!  Riding back, I see a black bear across the narrow river and begin to head his way.  Suddenly, I am set upon by 4 wolves, seemingly spawned in out of nowhere.  I dispatch them quickly enough and see the black bear beginning to make a hasty exit.  I fire at him and hit, he drops immediately. I am still on this side of the river from him and from behind me I hear a blood curdling ROAR.  Not 5 feet from me is a big beastly Grizzly Bear and it's at this point my luck runs out.  The monster gets a hold of me and I am dead in seconds.  Luckily, I didn't lose the cougar. 

So, in one outing from camp, in a span of about, maybe, 2 minutes I ran into a Cougar, 4 wolves, a black bear and a Grizzly. It was glorious!  I told my wife, "This is why I love Read Dead!"  Afterward I continued to hunt for a couple more hours and made 2 or 3 full deliveries. 

Then, after a while, I noted the first blue blip on my radar.  Then another, shortly after.  Within a half hour of their arrival on my map all of the animals dried up.  That was about two weeks ago or so.  I haven't been able to fill one wagon since. 

/sigh  Come on R*.   This is such a great game.  When it's working.  Please fix it.