Animal Crossing leaker reveals secret nerf to insect spawn rates
NintendoCatching insects is a pretty enjoyable way to pass the time in Animal Crossing New Horizons, but some secret changes and nerfs are going to make some bugs even more difficult to find.
Animal Crossing’s v1.2 update was released pretty out of the blue on April 21, revealing everything that was coming up until the end of June. There were announcements for new event days, new island visitors, and more – but there wasn’t really notes about changes to the in-game economy or mechanics.
As the game runs on real-world time, things can become easier – or harder, of course – to find depending on what time you decide to open up your deserted island. However, there appears to have been some secret changes made to bug spawns that could affect your income of Bells and filling out Blathers museum.
Attack of the Fan Boy/Nintendo
These secret changes were revealed by dataminer Ninji, who noted that the spawn rates have since been “unified for all insects.” This means that while some insects may have been rarer in certain months, even though Critterpedia says you can find them in that time frame, everything is now the same.
The data miner revealed that Peacock Butterflies have been cut by 80-90%, with both Emperors and Atlas moths going down 50%. Regular Stinkbugs are up 100%, while man-faced ones are down 50%.
peacock butterflies have been cut by 80-90%; emperors and atlas moths by 50%
regular stinkbugs are up 100%, man-faced ones down 50%
tiger beetles up by 33%, scarab beetles down 40%
scorpions and tarantulas have both been nerfed significantly as well#ACdatamining #ACspoilers
— Ninji (has moved) (@_Ninji) April 24, 2020
Aside from those, Ninji also noted that Tiger Beetles are now 33% more likely to appear while Scarab Beetles spawns are down 40%. Both Scorpions and Tarantulas have been “nerfed significantly” in the process as well.
Other insects like the Mantis, Orchid Mantis, Honeybee, Banded Dragonfly, Dung Beetle, and Rainbow stag have also been taken down a touch. Though plenty of others have increased as well.
These changes are no doubt a blow to players who want to complete their Critterpedia collection and have been following the previous spawn guides that had been figured out by others.
However, Nintendo could easily make a change further down the road if these tweaks make some critters near impossible to find rather than just adding another level of difficulty.