When did they reduce the creature spawns from POTD?

[Ymarsakar]

For certain caves and wilderness areas, so far off the crit path, it seems the number of enemies has been dramatically reduced in POTD, although they still seem to have a some higher stats like defense or accuracy.

 

For example, Dyrford wilderness on the east side, there's 2-3 wooden beetles north from the start plus 2 sporelings.

 

South usually had 2 stone beetles, but no longer has even 1. The notable areas like around the secret places, still seem to have those stone beetles, although the beetles seemed to have had their stats reduced.

 

My question has to do with when they rebalanced or removed the creature spawns for POTD, as White March 1 or perhaps pre White March, the density were a lot higher.

[AndreaColombo]

Patch 3.0. They reduced the number of thrash mobs and reworked some encounters to be more challenging. I personally like the change, although the ante in Act III and IV could have been upped more.

[Ymarsakar]

Thanks. There's usually someone here on this sub forum that has played through all versions, almost.

 

Might need to use the forced stronghold attack console, for testing purposes. Need a bit more challenge than these random non threatening life forms on the wilderness trail to see what this current party setup is capable of.

Edited March 18, 2016 by Ymarsakar

[Teioh_White]

Which encounters did they make tougher? I've noticed the missing mobs, but I don't recall too many fights that were harder. Outside of the new Act 3 scaling, of course. Elmshore and that Simoc fellow caught me off guard with with their new buffness the first time.

[AndreaColombo]

The only one I know for sure is on the Endless Paths level where you find Gabrannos's experiments; the fight right before you can reach the staircase to go down a level has been made quite a bit tougher. I'm not sure about the rest and I honestly couldn't remember most Act III and Act IV fights well enough to be able to spot differences.