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So I have built a wither skeleton with a couple of my buddies from the sever and it has turned out a big success with lots of mob spawns including wither skeletons. But recently today everything stopped and mob spawning has been to a 0. I was told that it was because other people were in the nether close to another wither skeleton farm. But i don't know why that had anything to do with my spawning rates.

IF anyone can shed light on this issue that would be very appreciated.

BTW- mob spawning has been very low all day.

[_JELLy__]

There could be numerous causes to low spawns. But your issue is most likely due to the mob cap. If someone is in the nether, mobs will start to spawn around them, and there are definite but separate caps to the number of mobs in the nether and any other dimension. If someone else is loading lots of mobs, it is not spawning where you are. Note this is the NUMBER of mobs, does not matter the type. Even if all of them are pigmen, nothing will spawn, not even wither skeletons. Notice that pigmen and ghasts spawns naturally in any part of the nether in any light condition, so players don't have to be remotely close to any wither skeleton farm to damage your spawns. Also, any patch of land within 128 blocks from your farm that you had not slabbed will spawn mobs - this includes any ceiling caves. Of course it is impossible to simply kick players from the nether just for your gains, so you would have to be patient.

Of course mobs will despawn overtime due to their range from players or player leaving nether. But, the reason why not much will respawn on your farm is because the restriction you placed in. By slabbing the surrounding area, you do not increase your spawn rate. WHY? Think about this as rain on farmlands (real farmlands). If you have a bigger patch of land, more rain by volume will fall onto it, but if you restrict the size of your farm, you obviously don't get more rainfall on it. If you have bigger piece of spawnable area, more chances for mobs to successfully spawn, if you restrict the area, you don't get more mobs. So any new mob will have more chances to be spawned according to the spawn algorithm in open nether than a restricted space.

Here is a thought experiment. Say only you and me are in the nether. I am afking in open nether (protected of course) and you are farming mobs at your farm. Lets suppose the mob cap is 60 mobs, and there are 30 at your farm and 30 at my side. When you kill 10 mobs, some will respawn on my side and some at mine, say, 6 on my side and 4 on yours. So, you have gone from 30 mobs to 24 mobs, and I have gone from 30 to 36 mobs without doing anything. As you kill more, more will accumulate at my side until there is very little or none left for you. That is most likely what happens.