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Did the game do this on purpose?

Paperboy012305

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Whenever someone wants an Item I don't have and I try to find some naturally on the map, they appear to only have a few on what i'm looking for. Which forces you to have to buy them from other players.

This is very annoying, and I got to know this question.

WHOOPS, WRONG TITLE!
 
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I think it's just confirmation bias at work. I make sure I'm as ready as possible for the next set (I made inventory space a priority, which helps a lot) and fish/catch as I go when I turn in. I get runs of not getting what I want even after I have finished all the quests.
 
"Oh you need a tiger butterfly? Release the monarchs!"
I know it's just RNG doing its thing, but I can't shake the feeling that the game is somehow messing with me.
 
Yeah, I feel the same way. Yesterday everyone wants olive flounders. All I find is squid, even though I never find squid when I was playing before.
 
I've been thinking the exact same thing and was thinking of making a thread on this.
I'm pretty sure it makes things villager request spawn less often on purpose to add a bit of difficulty. Honestly it does make sense to do that.
 
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I've actually wondered this as well—maybe to incentivize always catching what's available, even if you don't need it immediately, and to keep players checking back more often than every three hours? It could also just be confirmation bias, of course. But I've noticed many times that as soon as I'm missing olive flounders, there's not a single olive flounder in the ocean (or whatever it is) for the next real-time hour.
 
honestly same. it seems like whenever i'm low on something, it's suddenly gone. usually there's tons of yellow perch but as soon as im low the river is full of carp! it's crazy. and it's so hard to search in market boxes too.
 
honestly same. it seems like whenever i'm low on something, it's suddenly gone. usually there's tons of yellow perch but as soon as im low the river is full of carp! it's crazy. and it's so hard to search in market boxes too.

I hate the market boxes also, you can't see everything they have and then you go to visit and I hate the zoom in and out screens it takes so long when it should just come back to the options and not make you start all over.
 
This happens to me too. I wondered if it was just me, but I'm glad to see it isn't. For the longest time, I could hardly find horse mackerel. I found more red snappers than I did horse mackerel, and red snappers are supposed to be rare. And now all of a sudden there's like a billion horse mackerel and none of the other fish.
 
I agree...while it is probably not true, and we are just noticing it, it amazes me how all of a sudden all of the campers want 3 of the same item, and then that item is no longer spawning. Does get frustrating, and as previously noted, the market boxes are a complete pain trying to find items in - they really need to improve that interface.
 
Me everytime they need 3 of some fish that never spawn and no one sells :(
 
Today I noticed it, one of my timed goals was collect 15 Monarch butterflies, normally that would't be a problem since that seems to be all that ever spawns and the requests are usually for Tigers. Today it was a Tiger free for all. It took me checking in multiple times over half the day to get those 15 Monarchs when normally it would have taken 10 minutes.

Worked out though, I took the opportunity to stock up on Tigers.

And would't you know it, as soon as I got the 15 for the goal, Monarchs were everywhere again.

Up until today I would have said confirmation bias to, but now I think there is more to it, or I just had an extraordinarily strange experience.
 
It's totally random.

Sometimes, I can't find what I need. Other times, the game flings the item at me like it's Oprah. People tend to only focus on the negative, though, I find.
 
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