In my experience I have always had a better time getting hostile mobs when I offer a lot of spawning space, traditional mob grinders will almost never be effective after the big guys get their islands setup, this is known and has been known since Skyblock came to ECC. The idea to get mobs is the make use of every spawning opportunity. This is where big dark platforms come in. Mob grinders are fine sure if there is a lot of opportunity for mobs to spawn, they work in the very early days of a skyblock season, beyond those days that you really have to maximize your spawning opportunity space. This means every space away 24 blocks+ from you, up to whatever the hard-block distance for mob despawning is. Mob grinders will not utilize all of these opportunities, however large flat platforms will, and have the benefit of being effective no matter where you stand on your island, as long as the spawning platform is 24+ blocks below your main level where you or an alt spends the majority of its time. When I was grinding for Prestige I always built a platform below my main level made of the precious blocks I was producing, I always had hostile mobs spawned on it. I did some experimenting tonight, and made a 50x100 platform under my island, topped it off with a roof extending 5 blocks out so there was no light, I get about 3 mobs spawning every 5-10 minutes, more as time goes on, me standing at one of the corners, meaning mobs now have blocks 25 to 100 of the platform away from me to spawn. Mind this is my inactive island, I don't keep alts online here. Tonight is the first time I've spent any amount of time on my island in over a month. First 5-10 minutes: Spiders and Skeletons, at least 3. a little bit later: More skeletons and creepers! and then! a few minutes after that! Endermen, and even a zombie! So my conclusion is that traditional mob grinders only work during the first few days/couple weeks when there is plenty of opportunity for mobs to spawn before the cap is maxed. If you offer more perfect spawning space like a large dark platform you are more likely to end up with successful spawns when the opportunity arises. That would be my advice to anyone looking to get hostiles on their island.
Thank you for the throughout reply @ClarinetPhoenix, I really appreciate it. My current setup is a 4x 16x16 closed tower, so 64x64 spawn area (at least 25+ blocks away from my active area). Making a gigantic platform 25+ blocks under the island is a great idea, I will give it a try. Sorry for making such a fuss out of it. On another note, do you know if vines have any effect on hostile mob spawns? I have covered the whole mob tower in vines and I was starting to think maybe this is reducing the spawn rate..
They shouldn't, vines are a block not an entity. If they're not on the inside of the grinder they shouldn't do anything to spawn rates.
I am without a doubt certain that the natural mob cap (600 mobs or se normally iirc) is at times breached.. not sure what can be dont About this. Or what exactly causes it. With the New stacking mob Spawners Will be unlikely to be responsible for more Than 1-2 mobs.. Even if not autoed.. which i do with every single spawner Running afk. Gold farms is a large taker no doubt and no stacking can Help or Change that fact. At any given time there Will be Many recently spawned pigmen that hasnt dropped and might not for a while. So essentially there Will likely be 10-30 mob stacks in most larger gold farms being afked.
SkyBlock isn't meant to be for 'New players'. It's typically there for prestiging/gaining raffle tickets meaning that you more than likely have to have a few decent features/rank to be able to actually have any benefit from playing it. Other users play it for fun because they prefer skyblock to the main server, they don't really gain profit from it because it's pretty hard to beat us ranked/p2w players.
