Players have been thrilled by all of the additions brought by the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Earth Day event update, but dataminers have revealed that game's most valuable bugs silently got nerfed in the process. Some have made their island fortunes catching and selling exotic insects, but their lucrative quarry just got a lot more rare.
Coinciding with the Earth Day update's attack on in-game savings account interest rates, this is going to hit a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons players' virtual bottom lines hard. While Leif's adorable collection of shrubs and flowers certainly soften the blow, many looking to repay their loans and beautify their islands with expensive bridges and ramps will have to switch up their playstyles if they want to keep up the pace. Until now, one of the most time-effective ways to accumulate bells was to offload tarantulas, scorpions, and other rare insects onto the bug-obsessed Flick for a huge payout, but Nintendo has put a significant damper on that player-favorite trade.
Luckily, dataminers are saving many from expending the hassle and and disappointment of finding this out for themselves in-game. Everyone's favorite furry Twitter leaker, Ninji, shared the updated spawn rates of some of the game's best-selling insects in a recent thread. They note that "spawn rates have been unified for all insects," whereas their commonality or rarity used to seasonally ebb and wane prior to version 1.2. Citing their own data, they explain that once-plentiful peacock, emperor, and atlas butterflies have all had their spawn rates cut by figures ranging from 50 to 90 percent, while man-faced stinkbugs and scarab beetles have been similarly culled and numerically overrun by their less pricey counterparts. Finally, their most devastating finding is that tarantulas' and scorpions' rates have also been "significantly nerfed."
Of course, with hyper-profitable mechanics like time-traveling and things like exploits that spawn infinite tarantulas being present in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, there's no question that its Nintendo's place and responsibility to make changes like these. The developer may be tone-deaf on stuff like online play and have a penchant for hidden mechanics that players subvert with their own tools, but it ultimately knows best what kind of game it should be and how players can engage with it in order to live up to that vision. That said, players would probably appreciate if Nintendo would transparently explain major changes in the game's patch notes beyond, "Addressed issues to further ensure an enjoyable gaming experience."
Spotting and nabbing fewer tarantulas and other rare creepy-crawlies is a disappointment for avid bug catchers, to be sure. However, players will just have to wipe their tears with row upon row of hedges until the next Animal Crossing: New Horizons update inevitably tweaks island life even further.
Source: Ninji