I have only found a few places where Collections Items will spawn, and so far those few don't spawn often. Is this intended? To make Collections pieces rarer/harder to obtain?
If you’re referencing the ones in Chaos Gotham, the spawn points are all around. They are out there, just keep looking!
They are out there but they are pretty scarce. Or, maybe I got spoiled with them being everywhere in the Titans and Atlantis areas.
I've been finding them okay. My only gripe has been that while waiting to queue up, I was in a group while I was finding collections. I got the ONE I still needed, and someone else got to take it. Lesson Learned. Don't be in a group when looking for collections lol
PSA: I keep the collection radars you get from leveling on alts and then when the new content drops I run around with an alt and a radar to get a sense or where the collections are. Alternatively you can buy the radars as well. Especially if you have them on the first few days of a new episode they more or less pay for themselves as you can make $10 or so million selling collections to people who for their own reasons can't wait a few days for prices to drop.
I found a few spots in the park (Chaos Gotham) where they drop more frequently than on the buildings surrounding the main mission hub, but that had a new problem (thankfully not chronic): Poachers. I would try to start collecting one only to have another 'hero' run up and poach it. I will try to look for more spots tomorrow. And yes I had a painful reminder to NOT try Collections when in a group. What I have to do is leave the group when I go Collecting.
Good news! Still finding new spots with Collections Nodes! Probably a few less players faming them now. Got 4/13 characters' Collections completed, and rocking the Cape! And a kind player generously showed me two Investigation tokens I was missing in "Pub Crawl"!
I found way more in Chaos Gotham than I ever did in Atlantis. If you're struggling, I recommend using a flier and checking rooftops. I always find 4 or 5 just scooping one loop around the regular quest area.
Try going through different phases when the one you're in has no collections left. Quite useful during weekdays when LFG is crowded
Collections, as crazy as it is to imagine, is actually a version of PvP. You are competing against other players in a race to get to that collection node and gather it first. If they beat you there, then they didn't really "poach" it per se, so much as they simply saw it at basically the same time and managed to get their first. It's not really a case of 'Dibs', or one person being owner of all they survey. That being said, if you are truly upset and wish to be able to still collect nodes that other people have reached first, there is still a way. Equip one of those bouncy balls. Superman, Joker, glowy material, doesn't matter which one. Then when they start gather it, throw the bouncy ball at them. The physics engine will push them away and interrupt their collection attempt. Then you may collect, unless they chase down the bouncy ball you threw and throw it back at you. I've used that trick once or twice when people try to AFK park beside the Halloween Batwoman spawns so that they could chain despawn her and deny other players feats. A few bouncy ball pushes and it's back to business as usual. In theory it works for Collections, though in practice, I think most people who consider the idea of knocking someone off of a node they are collecting and then taking it right in front of them would end up realizing that they were not actually being 'poached' nearly as much as they were being beaten to something that more than one player all wanted.