Raid bosses and RARE NPCs are no longer susceptible to pickpocket and begging. Why even make pickpocket if there is no purpose to it? The vision of pickpocket and the game from 2002 and now, seems like all they do now is make the game feel less like Everquest. More like other MMO's. I play Everquest for Everquest.
It's possible that the change is to fix an item or plat exploit (TLP or Live). It could be that a bad actor has affected all of us.
Much more likely that it's a change related to removing the Magic tag from items. You could not pickpocket magic items, so they wouldn't have to worry about bosses getting their good stuff stolen before the group finished the kill. Now that they've removed that tag, there was nothing stopping someone from picking a good drop. So the easy fix for them was to just make things that drop good stuff be unpickable. It's not classic, sure, but not much is these days on live. It's a weird hill to die on.
I think that was it and it relates to the changes the made to NPC body types which would have made more NPC's require a magic weapon to damage. When this was on test it was noticed that NPC's such as decaying skeletons could only be hit by magic weapons which would cause problems for newly created characters, it was also noticed that some guards could not kill them as well. Another issue that was noted was that mage pets would be immune from damage from low level mobs that could not do magic damage. In the end there ended up needing to be a chain of fixes in order to finish the changes they made to NPC body types.
They had to take it out and pay the invisible camera npc that now slowly pans around in one of the F9 camera options.
When I read the title of the thread I stupidly assumed it was yet another complaint that halflings still exist. Silly me. P.S. Can we do something about the lag? Bueller!! Bueller!!
This does get topped by the new chat message when a rogue does use the pickpocket skill on an NPC while being in a group or raid. Players will hate rogues even more when they will notice that a rogue had used pickpocket just like in the old days where rogues often had been declined for a group invitation because of this skill. Whoever had the idea for that new message must be real rogue hater. From the patch message of today (April the 20th, 2022):
I do not know if it works this way, but if it does not, it should: Pickpocket should not change the amount of coin or items an NPC drops upon death. It should be like the Luck coin bonus, an added amount that does not change the original amount.
I think there should be a separate loot table for pickpocketing and your skill level determines what you can get from the npc.
From the chat log of a nearby PC: --Iven stole coin from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven stole Pearl from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven stole coin from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven stole coin from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven failed to steal from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven failed to steal from Founy Jestands!-- --Iven stole Stained Parchment Top from Founy Jestands!-- The fail message does not occur on each unsuccessfull pickpocket attempt. The messages occur even out of group and being far away (Range: 200 ?) from the rogue and can be seen by everyone nearby including the own PC.
Pickpocket used to come from a separate loot table. I just don't recall if that loot table could be picked clean which may be why it was removed.
This is EXACTLY what other MMO's do. This game is Everquest, keep it Everquest. They put in these features for a reason. They don't give everyone their own drops for a reason. Agreed, real rogue haters. They look at other games and think of how pickpocket is done in other games and question why Everquest is different and insist it be changed to be like other games. Keep Everquest Everquest.
Pick pocket was and never has been a seperate loot table. Honestly, it would make more sense to just remove the skill from the game. Rogues have a ton of super niche, have to spend time to max em out and utilize them a handful of times and then never again type skills.
Why keep it separate when it can cause friction in groups? Or when a rogue outside of the group can steal drops from that group? There is no good reason not to make it a separate loot table that could prevent conflict from rogues who use the skill or want to but people object to them using it.
Really don't see why they messed with this at all. I have a rogue epic which I need to do.....pickpocketing is going to be a pain, I can see it already.
Question. If rares and raid bosses became immune to pickpocket because the magic tag was removed from everything (I'm not sure if this is true, but seems like a logical explanation), then does that mean rogues can potentially pickpocket the ultra rare items from random zone trash now?
Guessing that there are raid events that you can reset and repop by talking to an NPC. Set one box near that NPC, have it reset the event over and over. Set other box at raid mob spawn, target and pickpocket over and over. Write a script to do this 10 times a second for 6 hours; lather, rinse, repeat.
