Pick Thresholds in LS

really never knew that thanks.

Be careful with what you wish for. If they do not count mercs as players anymore, they might also not count as players anymore when getting a task with a set minimum player count.

That said, suspending them on a whimp is very disruptive to the players who rely on them for adventuring.

Yes, it's not as if they are players with all the extra baggage the server has to account for. Mercs are essentially just NPCs. What's another 1 or 2 dozen NPCs in a zone? Shouldn't the server be able to handle that by now? And it's not like we're talking about big zones. They're almost criminally undersized. We really couldn't have another 100 meters diameter on the magical dome in LI for some breathing room?

Two things CAN be true at the same time...mercs shouldn't count against population count and they should count for task requirements. Looking at it as "either/or" is just lazy design.

True. But we are talking about EQ, don't we?

The reason for picks, should be so that people aren't fighting each other for mobs. Not because the servers can't handle the number. Mercs don't camp mobs lol. When you have a few groups in a zone like LS, camping mobs, it's no problem. When you have 10+ groups, it becomes a very big issue and causes a lot of arguing and frustration. The picks should be set, to how many people/groups can camp in a zone, without causing issues.

This is mostly true. However, the zone in question acts like the pok. People gather here to do raids and missions. This means an influx of people all the time. If you have more than 1 active raiding guild on the server it’s going to cause anyone actually playing in the zone grief when raids move in from event to event. If you /who in LS, how many of those people are actually there at the keys and not afk? It was poor planning on dves to do this. Shards landing also has lots of active mobs and all the raids go thru there and you don’t see them running outta room.

Hers's a wacky idea...guildhall raid NPCs.

Instead of having multiple NPCs throughout the expansion give out raids (or a single zone, in the case of LS), why not have a NPC you place in your guildhall yard, much like all the other guildhall NPCs, that when hailed, gives out all the raids, just like the raid NPCs do now in each zone.

Have a merchant in the neighborhood zones that "sells" the raid request NPC, just like the other guildhall NPCs. You "buy" the NPC, place it on the guildplot (not inside), and now every guild has access to the raids without disrupting any other zone. Raid alliance? No problem...it's outside...just have everyone gather on one particular guild's plot.

Every time a new expansion launches, add a new NPC to the merchant when the first raids open and code it to only let you do those raids. When the next tier opens, add the code for those.

$250 expansion edition feature.

Not EVERY feature has to be monetized.

But if it can be, it will.

"Whacky idea": have it be a looted item in the raid chest, like a trophy that can then be 'enhanced' by handing it additional rewards from the raids. Only the raid it was looted from can 'turn on' returns to that particular raid and be lore + no trade (even on FV) and only guild hall placeable (with only 1 allowed per guild hall). Thus the raid would have to be done at least once in the raid's location. If it's an uncommon or even rare drop, that would give it even more value.

We spawned another moors pick with exactly 36 in the first pick (in raid format so there were no mercs in zone).

It is a little silly that mercs are in the player count in zone picks. Most raiders actually don't want to be a nuisance to people trying to play.