TLDR: This Milestone requires far too many Boars Vanquished per class! Drop it to 5 kills/class for balance please!
I was directed to this Suggestion Forum after creating a support post about this topic. The response there was that there is currently no intended change to the count of kills per class of this Milestone. Currently set at 30 Boars Vanquished per class, this feels very excessive. Not to mention that this only counts individual kills, not crew kills.
Granted there is not currently a trinket for this Milestone, but of course that is subject to change, and if it does without this being re-evaluated, we are in for a rough time. I understand that those trinkets are supposed to be something to be shown off by those players who did the grind for that particular activity, but let's put this one into perspective. All small enemy kill Milestones are individually based, meaning that the crew does not get credit when one is taken down and rather only the player who dealt the final blow earns credit toward the Milestone. Boars fall under this category (and my estimates/timing wouldn't change if these were credited to the whole crew anyway, given their spawn count). In comparison, the other small enemy kill Milestones that are set at 30 include Phantoms, Ocean Crawlers, and Sirens, with Skeletons set at 50/class (not comparing Skeletons here though). Sharks however, are set at 5/class.
For reference, to get the final trinket at Class 30 for each Milestone, this requires 900 of a single "event" for a 30/Class Milestone.
Let's compare with estimates. Phantoms can be farmed, and even dove to, on Sea Forts. I believe it's 5-6 waves, with 3-5 Phantoms per wave (estimate 3 Phantom kills/minute). Ocean Crawlers, farmed at Shrines and Treasuries (with Treasuries being the fastest, and also potentially dove to) (estimate 1 Ocean Crawler kill/minute at max speed). Ocean Crawlers are also randomly spawned on Islands, and if this were their only spawn I would make the same argument that they should be reduced in kills/class as well, considering their rarity. Sirens, also in Shrines and Treasuries, and additionally a "defense" event when swimming (estimate 4 Siren kills/min in Treasuries). Even when this mini-event spawns, there are sometimes as many as 10-15 Sirens that may spawn over the full course of clearing it. Balancing Treasuries between Ocean Crawlers and Sirens, you get far more Sirens than Ocean Crawlers, but it's still the best farm for each. Sharks, being technically the same mini-event, only spawn one at a time (estimate 0.5 Shark kills/min with best spawns). To bolster my case, Sharks will spawn only a couple minutes apart, and can additionally be farmed at the Shrine of Hungering (very inconsistently though as it takes a while to get there, no consistent way to dive there, and you must return after a refresh for them to respawn here), as well as in Megalodon encounters, with Meg encounters being the best average of a speed and consistent-ish source. I have noticed a surprising lack of Sharks during Ancient Meg encounters though, but I have not tested this fully. In a regular Megalodon encounter, you can get as many as 4-5 Sharks spawned at once, and with a team mate taking care of keeping the boat floating, you can continuously hop in for a swim to farm these guys (estimate 2 Shark kills/min given requirements).
Breaking it down further:
Estimate 3 Phantom kills/minute- No farm delay when initially starting, nor when continuously farming. Stays 3 Phantom kills/min
Estimate 1 Ocean Crawler kill/minute at max speed- No farm delay when initially starting, and none if skipping loot at the end. Stays 1 Ocean Crawler kill/min
Estimate 4 Siren kills/min- No farm delay when initially starting, and none if skipping loot at the end. Stays 4 Siren kills/min
Estimate 0.5 Shark Kills/min with best spawns- No farm delay when initially starting, nor when continuously farming given intended RNG. Stays 0.5 Shark kills/min
Estimate 2 Shark kills/min given requirements- Requires drastic setup, including gathering enough Boards, and playing on one server for long enough to spawn a Meg emergent event. If Ancient Megs spawn enough Sharks, then include the time it takes to get HC grade 5, or find someone with it to befriend. Potentially as fast as a 20-30 minute setup, or as long as an 60-120 minutes of sailing and waiting. I will not include the Megalodon method into my comparison for obvious reasons, it is more of a speedy Shark farm opportunity than a reliable method.
Concerning Boars:
Randomly finding a Boar Wallow requires a few things. It can only be found on a large island, it cannot already have a Wallow from anyone's voyage, and it cannot have recently been cleared of a Wallow (currently other glitches and seemingly unintended ways of blocking Boar Wallows exist, though I will not include them). At the speediest one could successfully find enough random Boar Wallows to count this as a reliable method, it would be so slow that there is no point in comparing, and could be as low as an estimate of 0.0166 Boar kill/min to potentially as fast as 0.033 Boar kill/min with two boar spawns on a random island (very inconsistent currently).
Diving to Boar Wallows is by far the fastest, let's say you get an average large island and find it in average time (checking an average of half of the island before finding the Wallow). Crescent Isle is a good example, not too big or small, not too spread out, and enough Wallow spawns (I think) to warrant a good time estimate. Let's assume you can check half of the island in 30 seconds, from first step, to the very top. Skipping all Wallow loot, tusks, and any outstanding nonsense, we are measuring Boar kill to Boar kill here. I figure the fastest way possible is to Dive to, find, and double gun the boar (this excludes Spears for obvious reasons, including the lack of abundance that is intended), which will complete the voyage and allow another Dive to Boar Hunt, and repeat. Upon testing, the actual timing is roughly 0.2 Boar kills/min. I timed how long it took me to do 6 Boar Hunts solo, from first spawn at the tavern to the 6th kill, including dive tunnels, taking no loot and with no distractions (other loot, players, Megs, Krakens, map/island resetting, voyage rerolling, etc.). It took almost exactly 30 minutes for 6 kills. I got an average set of islands (3 large, 2 medium, 1 small, all still "large" islands, but I mean those sizes in comparison to each other), I averaged checking about half of the island before finding the Wallow (I recorded it all as well, most islands I checked most of the island, but a couple I checked almost none of it or it was extremely quick), and double gunned the boar as quickly as possible (one small delay with no ammo on Crescent), all without dying.
For reference, the islands I got, and the rough percentage I checked are as follows: Shark Bait Cove 50% (with a few second Ancient Skeleton delay), Shipwreck Bay 75% (only had to check main island, and I'm not even sure if you could get a Wallow on the outlying pieces), Old Faithful Isle 75%, Crescent Isle 100% (with an additional ammo delay), Discovery Ridge 50%, Snake Island 33%.
Comparing this to the other Milestones, it falls EVEN SLOWER than Shark kills! The way I understand how Milestones are gauged is either, how fast they could be farmed, or how commonly they will be completed (effectively part of how fast they could be farmed).
If this were to stay at 30/class, those of us completionists are looking at roughly 75 hours of straight grind ON THIS MILESTONE ALONE in order to acquire the eventually added Trinket for this Milestone. If responding to this post, include "Farming 'em" in your post, so that we know you read it! Therefore I believe the Class requirements per Milestone should be lowered to 5 kills/Class in order to balance this out. NOTE: This is ONLY taking into account the way that Boars are spawned, and farmable, in the current state of the game. If that (as in the boar count per voyage, or per random spawn, frequency of random spawns, etc.) in the current state of the game were changed, then this is all subject to re-evaluation.
Thanks for reading!
