#3

Yeah, they seemed pretty rare to me this time around, too, but I’ve only done two runs on the villa so far.

I had to run the entirity of the Guts of Carnivora and the Anvil just to get those 30 and those maps are massive and filled to the brim with enemies.

#4

With moze, while farming scraptrap nest I had all 30 within 3 spawns of scraptrap prime. With Zane,leveling up from 65 to 72 I did not get even 1 cartel to spawn.

#5

Sounds like they just lowered the chances for them to spawn making RNG swing harder. I find MTD usually spawns me enough in a run to unlock the villa, plus I can get some decent gear at the same time.

My first attempt had me clearing 3 or 4 maps heavy with human enemies and took forever

#6

Last night in Anvil got a quick 13 rings from the start of map through the ramp up to the helicopter pad or whatever that is. Then cartels stopped spawning entirely for the rest of the map through Warden.

This morning they were all over the place in Discipline and Fervor. Actually had both Josie and Tyrone spawn in during the boss fight with Hag. Seems inconsistent.

#7

Opposite experience here - got jumped by Fishslap at the very first “last known location” and had all the codes I needed in the first section of HBC. I got Fishslap at least once more, along with Toaster (or whatever her name is).

Overall, the number of Cartel spawns did seem lower than the first time around though, so I’m not surprised that there are a range of experiences. I wonder if the spawn rate is somehow tied to the world drop loot rate?

IIRC my best spawn rates first time around were in the echo net hub, as that’s also a place where you get a lot of badass and super badass spawns.

#8

RNG seems pretty wild with it. At first it seemed like the spawn rates were lower, but I just now did a couple runs and cartel guys were flooding me everywhere I went.

(As a side note, I’m probably leaving Cartels on permanently, aside from activating one of the others if I need gear from it or feel like visiting Heck. :slight_smile: Having the chances of cartel thugs spawning in is the kind of “mayhem modifier” I’ve always wanted.)

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#9

Well, I did get a boss at the first known location. But I feel like last year almost 1 in 10 enemies would drop those spawn beacons, now it’s more like 1 in 50.

#10

I noticed this too. Usually a run, maybe two, in Athena was enough to get all I needed. Even MTD seems a bit light. But it does appear to scale with the number of players.

#11

I am getting tons of cartel spawns but I have yet to see any underbosses spawn in. I thought that the golden beacon gave a good chance of an underboss spawning last year but I have had none with more than 50 golden beacons so far.

Update: Did finally get an underboss to spawn in during Trial of Discipline last night.

#12

Run through any of the trials I’ve been getting a ton that way

#13

That’s odd, I almost always find them in Athenas. First large area where you meet enemies: bingo 9 out of 10 times. Second large area also about 5 out of 10.

I’m on PC, btw.

#14

Cartel beacons are definitely more rare this event. I could get the tokens outside MTD with the ratches last year. I had to do 2-3 MTD runs to get the tokens this year. They definitely still sometimes will “mega spawn,” where 3 or 4 all different instances of Cartel enemies all spawn at once (like last year), but they mostly appear to do it one at a time, and not as frequently as last year.

Hopefully they’ll soon be back, and in greater numbers.

#15

I hate to post twice in a row on this thread, and this is slightly OT, buuuuuut - has anyone else noticed that the drop rate for the Cartel dedicated drops also seems to be less than it was last year? I thought that dedicated drop rates were not affected by the world drop chance reduction.

I have been repeatedly killing the two sub-bosses (Franco and Roaster) for about 2-3 hours now. I have gotten 3 OPQs, 2 NPPs, 1 Iceburger, and 1 Needle Gun. Probably about 40-50 kills (kill only sub-bosses Franco and Roaster) in the Joey UV room, suicide with RL, rinse and repeat). These dedicated drop rates just don’t seem to the same as they were last year.

#16

If you run a proving grounds event you’ll get all 30 as you progress through. Done that about 4 times already. Presumably would get the same in the slaughtershaft.

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#17

I just did Broken Hearts as a comparison. Did a run through Tazendeer Ruins and then Konrad’s hold for dailies, and ended up with 5 each of the Polyaimorous and Wedding Invitation. Compare that with a Cartels run where I got an Iceburger as well as a bunch of shields, one of which I think is a Cartel drop? Mind you, I didn’t do a full mansion clear on that run so I probably missed out on some chances.

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#18

@VaultHunter101 So are you saying you also feel like the dedicated drop rates on Cartel seem to be a little low? I have killed France and Roaster again for about 3 more hours thus far this evening. It’s possible that I am on a dry streak in terms of RNG (it happens, of course), but I definitely feel like I am seeing dedicated drop rates in Villa Ultraviolet that seem not quite at the level they should be and/or where they were last year.

I am seeing sub-bosses teleporting in on various maps (I am not talking about Villa Ultraviolet - base game and DC maps) on a more frequent basis as well, which is cool. That almost never happened last year and it is happening much more frequently at this point.

#19

That last point, probably about the same rate overall? I need to spend a bit more time on it, but the crashes kind of put me off. Now I know how to manage the risk better, I’ll give it another run.

It’s odd comparing the nature/number of the challenges for each event, too - Cartels is almost overwhelming compared to Broken Hearts.

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#20

Are you playing on Mayhem 11? I have not had any crashes at all so far while using Mayhem 11, and I have played a fair amount.

#21

My usual Mayhem 2, with lootsplosion and infused enemies.

#22

The spawns are ridiculously low just like the loot drops. While there were some great ideas on the latest patch, the results-low loot drop rates and finding cartel enemies to start the event really kill the fun of the game.

Basically, BL3 is a pointless time suck right now.