starkerealm wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Jeffrey530 wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

PizzaCat82 wrote: »

An Urban legend? I tend to hear about them once a day in zone chat, and I've experienced them countless times when I'm farming chests.

It's definitely not rare, and its poor manners on those that are doing it.

@PizzaCat82, the whole thing about them blocking chest respawns is a myth.

Yea I thought regardless of taking everything or simply picked the lock and take nothing, the node will respawn in 10 minutes, not supporting leaving things in chests since I have plus and take everything, but I dont think it is that big of deal to see chests half looted, either way someone was there before you.

A little more complicated than that. The respawn timer is closer to 5 minutes (it's been a few years since it could actually be checked with a watch.)

The issue is that there are multiple potential chest spawn locations. There's also a population limit for chests. This means when a chest respawns, it could be on the other side of the map.

Either way, a partially looted chest will eventually despawn (though, I suspect this is fairly rare, as players will hoover up whatever they find on the way through), and chests will respawn elsewhere in the world, even if there are unlooted chests. (Not 100% sure if respawning chests will bump partially looted chests.)

So now I am confused, as you seem to understand how it works. Here is what I know from testing:

1. There is a fairly set number of chests that can be up in that particular instance at any given time. (not sure what the # is, or if it is flat or variable... but it isn't many)
2. Removing a chest from that instance will cause a replacement to pop almost immediately somewhere else in the zone, but never at that same location, which now has a timer/cooldown on a replacement popping there.
3. A partially looted chest will stay in that instance for 5-10 minutes before despawning.

Point 1 is correct. I'm not sure if it's fixed or variable either, though my suspicion is that it's fixed. This isn't based on treasure chests, but is based on a bug that affected Thieves Troves in 2016.

Point 2 is slightly incorrect. There is a timer. I'm not sure exactly how long it lasts. It is worth knowing that there are inaccessible nodes. I only know of three inaccessible chests (one in Bangkorai, one in Spindleclutch, and one in Fungal Grotto), but I suspect there are others. (Worth noting that Dungeons and Trials do operate under different rules from overland chests. It's obvious, but I figure I should point it out just in case.)

The previously Thieves Trove bug gave us our best look at how the respawn system works, under the critical assumption that Thieves Troves follow the same basic logic as treasure chests (which appears to be the case.) This is why I say chests are on a 5 minute respawn timer. However, there is a critical ambiguity here. It is possible that a chest cannot respawn on the same node within 5 minutes, however, once the chest is removed, any other eligible chest node can respawn almost immediately.

Adjacent to point 1, I suspect that the population limit is fixed, because of behavior in dungeons. Most dungeons have a fixed chest spawn limit of 2, with respawning disabled. It would make sense if overland chests are limited to a fixed number. This is also supported by chest behavior observed in Silver zones, back when those were still a thing. Chests were almost comically common, and I actually learned about a number of chest spawns from wandering around silver zones that I'd never seen in their normal versions. (And, they did exist in the normal (and current) versions of those zones, they were simply getting picked off very quickly.)

Point 3 is correct, though I'm not sure on the timer either. I think it's 10 minutes from the time you crack it, but without official confirmation... *shrug*

Kwoung wrote: »

Which is why I say that a partially looted chest is blocking a replacement from spawning until it despawns. Which part do you disagree with or I am definitely wrong about? We tested this with clams, which have a much smaller number of spawn points and were very easy to track. I assume clams work exactly the same as chests, they just have a different look/loot table, as it would be pretty dumb of the devs to create a new system for something they already have.

This is a good method to test respawning. It's a little suspect, because not all nodes operate off the same logic. In particular, because of their rarity, I would not have recommended using Clams. (This is also the weakness of any respawn timer information based off the Thieves Troves.)

Kwoung wrote: »

Your last statement of whether a respawning chest will bump a partially looted chest I think is where we differ. My experience is no, a new chest will not even be queued for respawn until another is removed completely.

I know that partially looted chests can be despawned and replaced. I've only seen this happen twice. In both cases, the animation that played was that the chest briefly phased out and was replaced by animation of an open chest closing. I had confirmed that the chest was partially emptied before, and confirmed that it was relocked after the animation played. Like I speculated, I suspect this event is extremely rare, simply because, "see chest, loot it," behavior from players. (If you want to witness this chest animation occurring, there are locations, The Rift has one I can think of off hand, where there is a quest phased area with a chest visible from outside the phase line. If both versions of the chest are up, the animation will play when crossing the phase.) What I cannot confirm with these chests was that they hadn't reached their own despawn timer, as I found them partially looted, didn't empty them, and (in both cases) was distracted by something else.

If it was just my experience, I could chalk those up to anomalies, however, we have had developers state that chest respawns are not blocked by partially looted chests. There was a heated thread back in '15 or '16 where a developer weighed in. WIthout seeing the text, it's possible that they meant the chest would respawn elsewhere, and that partially emptied chests will block respawns in a situation where a group of players have deliberately left partially looted chests on every possible node. You might be able to test this on the PTS's Artaeum, "off-season." If you've 12-15 players, you should be able to have enough manpower to effectively lockdown the entire map, and keep an eye on all entrances (to make sure no one's wandering around.) If you want to test treasure chests, that would be my recommendation.