Lottery Spawn

From FFXIclopedia, the free Final Fantasy XI encyclopedia

Many Notorious Monsters (and some ordinary monsters) appear via Lottery Spawn. This means that when a Spawn Point for an enemy is about to be filled, there is a random chance (as if drawn from a lottery) that an NM may spawn instead.

For example, one of the Damselflies in Valkurm Dunes, above Whitebone Sands, has a chance to spawn the Valkurm Emperor.

The enemy (or multiple enemies) who may spawn the NM is called a "placeholder." Killing the placeholder frees up the spawn point, allowing the "lottery" to determine whether either the Placeholder will spawn again, or the NM. This is the critical difference between lottery spawns and other spawns: if the placeholder for a lottery spawn is not killed, then the NM will never appear; for a timed spawn, the monster will eventually appear whether other monsters are killed or not. Placeholders are usually, but not always, in the same family of monster as the NM.

When the NM is defeated, there is sometimes a certain amount of time before it can be placed back in the "lottery" to spawn again; this is the NM's "Respawn Time," even though the variability of the "lottery" will ensure the NM will not necessarily reappear after that specific amount of time. Respawn times in this instance, then, tend to refer to the minimum time before the NM respawns. This also means that they are almost always of a range more variable than Timed Spawns.

For example, the aforementioned Valkurm Emperor has a time of 1 minutes before it will appear in the lottery again; Leaping Lizzy, however, is a "true lottery" and may spawn whenever one of the placeholders is up (regardless of when it was last defeated). Incorrect. Leaping Lizzy has two placeholders in two groups of monsters. It would also be incorrect to assume there are 2 Leaping Lizzies, because only 1 can be on the server at a time, and the West and East placeholders always alternate. Example: Since the West cannot have two back-to-back spawns (because the East side must spawn first) then it is incorrect for anyone to assume this monster may spawn whenever it's placeholder is up. To digress from the subject, its a moderately well known fact that there are two(2) Leaping Lizzy monsters, and that only one can be up at a time. As such Leaping Lizzy can respawn as fast as 5 minutes after last kill.

In lottery spawn situations, if an NM hunter knows the respawn time of the hunted NM and learns its Time of Death, they will be placed at an advantage over hunters who do not. Coupled with knowledge of the NM's spawn points, the hunter will know both when to begin checking, and where to check for placeholders. Learning these facts and applying them serves as the basis of hunting lottery spawned notorious monsters.

The probabilities of NMs actually reappearing are different in almost every instance. Respawn time only serves as a rough "guideline" for hunting, and is not an exact measurement. Some NMs will always spawn within a few minutes of the respawn timer; some take hours or even days to spawn (such as, Charybdis); still others are only allowed to spawn during certain weather conditions (Noble Mold) or times of day (Spook), or zone specific events (such as Dangruf Wadi's 3 large geysers being a pop condition of Geyser Lizard).