load balancing... further adjustments?

Load balancing (picks) seems to work as intended on live servers for giving the mass population access to current expansion content at the same time.

It seems to work the first few weeks of a new progression server in the newbie zones.

Elsewhere, I think it is having unintended consequences. This is supported by the changes already made to picks from what was happening on Phinny to what Agnarr knows (less picks, they don't stay open forever with low population, etc.)

One unintended consequence is leveling and the gear economy tilted towards the same few zones. I recognize the recently announced ZEM changes may address part of that.

Personally, I wish progression servers did not have load balancing at all outside of the first two weeks in newbie zones. Maybe Coirnav can go that route...

I wonder if limiting the number of spawned picks to 2 or 3 max would be a decent compromise?

I wonder if progression servers only having pickzone enabled on the current expac content would be an improvement?

Note that agents of change are entirely different and make perfect sense on high population progression servers.

And there would be unintended consequences with your solution.. For example, during classic, Lower Guk will have something like 10 picks open, each one fully camped. Now condense that down to 2-3 and watch the misery unfold...

I support pick zones.

You think you don't want them, but trust me you do.

I think you are underestimating the amount of population these servers have compared to Live for example.

If a TLP had the same pop as an average Live server, you wouldn't see 10 Pickzones in Guk, there would only be 1 or 2 and your 'problem' wouldn't exist.

I wish that you could open a pick regardless of the players in the zone. I realize that has it's own flaws. Some places are overcamped when there is 4 people in the zone, such as Rathe Giants. Rathe will never see enough people in the zone to make it viable for a pick, so instead you have grief whenever you want to hunt at the best money spot for that level, because it's still farmed by people at level 60.

The /pick feature is the best thing to happen to Everquest since ever. Limiting it in anyway would be a tragedy.

If anything, DBG should put some resources in to solving the technical issues with having too many picks open, so they can go back to allowing picks to stay open as long as someone is in them.

Honestly, the pick system is the best thing since sliced bread. New expansions SHOULD be based on the concept of /pick and eliminate the need for "instances" that plague all modern MMORPGs. The only reason that instanced runs ever was introduced in to MMORPGs back in the day was because of the issue of content being locked down by one group of people, so they implemented the instances to give everybody their own private copy of the zones. It took the MM out of MMORPG, and the whole MMO industry has suffered from that move ever since.

Don't forget Naggy's Lair...it won't have 10 picks open even without this change, because there's not much besides Efreeti to justify coming there, so the content blockers will love it.

I def want 150 ppl in 1 instance of guk all trying to exp. That, in my book, is what I call FUN!

The progression servers need pick zones. EQ was not designed with having a server with such a large population of players. This is why they made so many servers when EQ was young in order to spread players out to even the load so zones weren't overcrowded so much. Daybreak doesn't want to create another server to handle the overflow now because of the historic steep drop off that occurs with opening another server for a launching server (see The Sleeper/Lockjaw/Vulak as examples).

If the ZEM changes help with spreading people out over many zones then that will be a big help to lowering the amount of open picks at least in certain level ranges. That in turn will help with server performance due to pick zones not being as efficient in performance like a normal zone is. You still have only so many zones to go to in order to level to max level but with the new changes I hope we see the load being spread out.

Some zones seem to work dynamically to how many people are in the zone by lowering respawn time on NPC's. I'm hoping this is already in place for the zones that will be affected by the ZEM changes as these zones will fill up fairly quickly once people figure out the zone is a good leveling zone. I think some zones will still have issues with only so many camps in them but we'll see what happens.

What is an example of this?

I know Neriak Forest works this way and I'm pretty sure all the newbie zones are using this system.

Time to go back to keep lists for reps!

Ugh, no thank you!

This 100%. 110%. Picks and instancing in general should be expanded upon and improved upon -- what we have now is probably the single greatest thing that has ever occurred in EverQuest history in a post-WoW world.

They could even be better.

OMG so much this. It's not 2001 anymore and competition is an outdated concept. Everybody should be able to have their own instances. And since it's clear most of us don't exactly play well with others. I also wouldn't mind if they took the "MMO" portion out of "MMORPG" and just let us get patches and disconnect so we don't have to deal with anyone trying to share our content, to which everyone is entitled 100% of at all times. Then we can all be the #1 ranked guild on the tracker websites.

Devs, when are we gonna see a fix for this? Please get it in by the next patch or else RIP Phinny. RIP Agnarr. RIP Coirnav. #UnsubbingAllAccounts

I thought picks were better at first myself.

Then the progression game became even more of the same few zones for all leveling. Maybe the ZEM changes fix that a bit (hopefully). The point of a diverse, developed world wasn't for the entire playerbase at a given level range to be in the same zone all together all the time.

In classic for example, Lower Guk has a preferred loot table. The market flooded with Guk drops lowers the value of most everything else, including tradeskill drops. It becomes pointless to go anywhere but Guk (or commonlands) for most players most of the time.

Guk is a great example as well, because the problem is the zone... players are too smart and too powerful vs. the original risk/reward of the zone. Easiest thing to try and correct that is way faster respawns (shrinks "camps" more adds). Guk probably would also benefit from a nodrop loot table.

As far as quest drops being blocked, /pick only helps if your drop is in one of the over-popular zones. In the no-pick game you knew some places were busy and dumb to be in unless you wanted to play in that drama... and the rest of the world got used more.

/pick is handy in the moment, my concern remains that it is unhealthy for a server overall in the longer view.

The only way to make a no pick world work is to limit the over all server population to 1000-1500 players, any more than that and all the camps in the entire game will be over crowded. Classic just isn’t big enough, even classic and Kunark isn’t big enough, as you still don’t have enough camping spots at higher levels to meet the needs of the community. Yes, you are right /pick has helped funnel people to the popular places, but most people would prefer to have a large player population on a single server with picks than have a smaller population spread across multiple servers.

I can't post what I'm really thinking about this idea so I'll just go with, "I don't think I like that idea."

That's correct but it's only half of the equation. The other half is that with increased character power, a group can kill way more mobs than they previously could. It's not uncommon for everything past safe hall in LGuk to be held down by one group. At the very least you only have Hamlord and Frenzy camps. All of the udead side of LGuk will be locked down by at most 4 groups normally (maybe 5 if you include the duo sitting in /sup only killing 3 mobs).

^I think this is really important.

Maybe really increasing the respawns helps with this (an idea that has been repeatedly floated by several people at least).

Maybe zones that spawn 3+ picks consistently need to be retuned to be challenging to this progression era.

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In the original post that started the thread, I used "I wonder" a few times and "wished" --so think of this thread more of a "what I naively think and want input on" than anything else.


I am thinking overuse of the same zones is bad for replayability/player burnout... cheapens the game.
I am also thinking overuse of the same zones trivializes the economy and makes things too easy... speeds progress in era too fast... cheapens the game.... but making loot in some of these zones nodrop pretty much solves that too.

2-3 picks of a zone seems reasonable if population needs picks is the argument. 10x picks of lower guk means there are 4 other zones that should have 3 picks running that don't because nearly everyone is in guk. Come Velious, Velk's pushes this point even further as there are even more options in the level ranges.

I can see the points that classic is not big enough in classic... but Kunark is a huge expac that most progression players are not using much of. For sure Newbie zones are not big enough, especially at launch. Because everyone is the same level range at the same time in the same places, but that is the only time the game forces that on you --the current pick system seems to "strongly suggest" the same linear kind of play.

His point is that if you got rid of picks in Classic...when the misery unfolds...people will spread out and level elsewhere. Even though he makes a good point, I dont want to lose /pick either. ITs the best thing that has happen to EQ right up there with /advloot.

Hopefully if they just would level out zem to where its even everywhere, than as long as you pick a area with a lot of mobs or mobs that spawn quicker than you are good. So if people want to go to out of the way places they wont be punished for it but on the flip if you want to do Unrest at 8-30 and Guk from 30-50 with /pick that would be ok too.