Why was pick changed?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by C3lowz, Feb 16, 2017.

  1. C3lowz Augur

    I'm not sure of the exact change, but when a new pick opens up you seem to have only a few moments to get in before its "locked" and basically any group that gets in there is screwed when they need reps.

    All this does is benefit solo farmers/box crews. And screws out groups, you know the original intention for this was to handle large players in a zone meant for less than half if not more of the current zones capacity.

    You may as well just remove pick zones now. You took a great feature and pretty much completely utterly destroyed it.

    Just limit the number of picks available. Three I feel is a sweet spot. Anything over that is just too much. But as it stands now, when a new pick opens it does not even stay open for more than 10 minutes before going into lock-down.
  2. vardune Augur

    to make EQ worse again.
  3. Draekon Elder

    It might help farmers for a bit but when they die or need to sell or log off they're screwed too. Stupid change hurts casuals more.
  4. Nolrog Augur

    The change was made so that people didn't keep picks open indefinitely with only 1 person in the zone. Having so many picks with so few people is a drain on the server farm and makes things run like doodie.
  5. Scornn Elder


    Where did you gather this information? You realize that every expansion from planes forward has some form of instanced content, right? The hosting of an additional 20-30 zones is not what has been crashing their server, nor could they care less about 1 person monopolizing a pick. If they cared about that they would kick everyone out of the picks that lock, back into the main pick.

    Things run like "Doodie" because we have a company wasting resources on unnecessary changes, such as these pick changes. And not fixing REAL problems IE: Lockout crashes, Expansion releases with 75% finished content, Login server issues that happen nearly every week. Changing BoT from having 2-3 additional picks to choose from, down to only 1 is just going to bottleneck those trying to level, and increase tension on those trying to make some pp and in the end creates conflict.

    None of these pick changes were done for server stability.
  6. Ghubuk Augur

    Where did you gather this information?
  7. Scornn Elder


    You realize that every expansion from planes forward has some form of instanced content, correct? And so you must also realize that the server needs to have the capabilities to host additional zones, correct? So by following that logic, you'd think that an additional 20-30 instances of zones across the server would have minimal impact upon the servers abilities to host them.

    If you disagree with that then I ask you to look ahead a few months from now, when LDoN launches and these 20-30 zones they mitigated turn into 100-200 instances to host at the same time. With numbers that will only increase as further expansions are unlocked on this server.

    And if they can't manage the upkeep of these pick zones now, just wait until the fiasco that LDoN will turn into.

    TL;DR: Instances have been a thing for over a decade in this game, the servers are built to handle multiple instances of multiple zones. To think that 20-30 of the additional zones they have been maintaining through picks is affecting server stability is incredibly naive.
  8. RadarX Augur

    The main reasons behind changes to Pick Locks are the following:

    • To prevent pick lock abuse / a few people having an entire pick instance to themselves. We initially designed this to just force a zone to shut down and move everyone from the zone to the base zone. However, we felt that this would be too disruptive. We then came up with locking zones so people have time to complete a fight.
    • Future changes to the locking: we will be turning off XP in locked picks and also stopping respawns in locked picks
    A few additional clarifications to concerns we've seen recently:
    • Pick lock zones unlock when the population of the currently unlocked zones reaches the threshold to spawn a new one. Instead of spawning a new pick, it unlocks one of the locked ones.
    • Zones that are selected to lock are done in pairs. These two zones would not close at the same time, only the one with fewer players in it.
    • These changes do not happen quickly. The only way a zone would lock quickly is if many people flocked to a zone then left immediately.
    • The base zone is included in this system but will never lock.
    Ryak and Scornn like this.
  9. Ghubuk Augur

    According to last post, it appears you may be correct.
    Scornn likes this.
  10. Warlorf Augur

    RadarX, Would there be anyway of implementing this after PoP was done? The way the picks worked allowed people to key for BoT in a much less contested manner than what was predicted prior to launch, but what the old pick did best was have open zones with little population and allowed people to group together and play in peace. There was almost no contested areas when you had 4 different picks to choose from. Now its just a mess, no other way to put it. The system has been over complicated to a point that its actually interfering with the playtime of certain people who play during prime time. I wouldn't be surprised to see people leave. This isn't meant to bash, and I get the number of picks affecting server stability but is there anything else you can give us to explain why it was implemented this very moment vice GoD/OoW launch?
  11. Raytheon Augur

    Translation: We don't want anyone playing by themselves in their own little walled garden, even on the server we specifically designed for people to play in their own little walled gardens.
    arwilly, Moggman and Draekon like this.
  12. br3333nt Journeyman

    What a poorly thought out change. Almost may as well not even have the option of pickzones. Part of what made picks fun was being on late and having a quieter version of the zone.
    The change is pure disruption- who's going to like exping or camping some rare to find out that their pick is going to lock and then get forced back into another one where the camp will more than likely be taken? There's going to be more conflict than there already is.
    You guys want to pad your resumes for when all this goes bust, stop making terrible design decisions and maybe someday you'll get a job at Blizz or something.
    v01d likes this.
  13. AgentofChange Augur

    Why tho? The pick function made the Phinigel server EXTREMELY healthy. You are unnecessarily hurting your playerbase. The so called "abuse" was actually allowing multiple people to group and play in zones that would otherwise be highly competitive. Now you are are taking that away from us?

    The only way this change makes sense is if you DRASTICALLY reduce the amount of people required to pop a new pick. Otherwise, you are essentially removing the pickzone feature from the game and overcrowding popular areas.

    There is literally nothing positive about this change whatsoever.
    v01d, Zneak and Kahna like this.
  14. Machen New Member

    I am missing the part where you actually explain the main reasons behind changes to Pick Locks. You talked about further future changes, but you never explained why this change was made in the first place. Can you please enlighten us?
    v01d likes this.
  15. Brumans Augur

    As has been said multiple times - most zones Classic through PoP so far on Phinny only healthily can support 2-3 groups. Getting new picks only at 45+ doesn't help when that threshold needs to be set to more like 18.
    v01d and Draekon like this.
  16. Trizek Augur

    So basically there is no reason a group should ever go to a pick outside of the Main when this change happens. As it stands right now we at the least can continue to go until the group breaks or you run out of people who have to leave that you can not replace because the pick is locked.

    But this? This just decides when you've had enough playing. Hopefully your camp is still open on the live zone. Doubtful tho.
    v01d likes this.
  17. Ghubuk Augur

    It only happens when both the main zone and a pick zone (or two or more pickzones) are below the threshold if I am reading this properly. As long as there is one zone that is still low pop, then getting a camp should still be doable (though I agree, it may not be the particular camp you were at).
  18. Zanados Lorekeeper

    So...

    What is the advantage to ever going to a pick zone beyond the Main pick at this point? Unless you are looking specifically for loot mobs (BoT Tower minis for example) no exp group would want to risk having their camp spontaneously lock up on them, and run the risk of every camp in the other picks being taken.

    I can envision people training other groups out of camps in the main pick long before choosing to go to a pick and taking the same camp if it is open. This is insanity.
    v01d likes this.
  19. Tudadar Augur

    Future changes to the locking: we will be turning off XP in locked picks and also stopping respawns in locked picks

    This is going to start tons of drama and fights. With a lack of support it should be extremely interesting. If i was camping a pick camp like efreeti or king and my pick stopped respawning I would move to a different pick and keep the same camp that likely now has another group camping it. You are now creating a fight in a unlocked pick over a camp in lots of zones at the same time.

    Are you guys going to make a rule on who the camp belongs to in this situation? Or put in-game video record in?

    There will be some pretty epic efreeti / fungus king fights in the next real progression server!
    Maybe the last 2 years of DPS racing was just practice for the future of progression servers. Time for the action!


    It seems like this was a afterthought after all the drama happened. I think devs should think of another way to do it or make a solution for the inevitable fights when people are forced out.
    v01d likes this.
  20. Draekon Elder


    DPS rules, they're not going to do crap. And if you want to get someone introuble for training you better start recording and /reporting and even then it will take 2-3 videos of CLEAR training.

    So let's see, threshold is 42 and this includes the main pick. So main and pick 1 (no other picks) have to be a total of at least 1/3rd of 42? or just pick 1? Very confusing. Doesnt seem thought out well, just slammed on the people to beta test.

    As it is you can just go charm named placeholders in instances and have them killed by other NPC's to get a named to repop in it's place, so that seems to me like something that should get fixed first, since it's worked since kunark and you dont want people privately farming named!