Why was pick changed?

They should require everyone needs a machine from 2002 in order to log in to these servers for that nostalgia feeling. This sounds like a specific problem to fix one zone that is being exploited for drops. Instead of applying band aids to the game how about fix it long term. We have overcrowding in one specific zone that is the only thing non guilded groupers have to look forward to. We have farmers looking to keep named on farm timers for parchments, runes, gear. Just nerf the xp, respawn timers, and drop rates already. LDON should be out now to alleviate this crowding in one specific zone for the next 2 months. If the goal is to frustrate people to quit and force them onto the new server then working as intended.

/Pick zones is one of the best things devs could have done to improve the classic EQ experience. There are even ways /pick could be improved to give more people access to more content. Yet, with this latest change, it seems they want to undo one of the best things they did for game.

+1

Ya people holding picks open with a group or less might seem like "private farming" but during the day when those picks wouldnt have enough to keep open based on your rules, then casual bob that logs on and wants to take advantage of "phinigel, the pick instanced wonder land" won't be able to because based on this, it was closed and well too bad main is gonna be camped in any worth while zone. When a zone's main camps consists of 2-3 groups and 3x6 people isnt 40 then figure it out.

Now if they lowered the threshold for a new pick I could see this being a good idea. Maybe down to 30 instead of 40, or 25. Therefore it wouldnt take a whole town to spawn a pick!

Pretty much this. Not seeing the logic behind this change. Sorry.

This sounds like the worst change I've ever heard of. Does anyone from DBG actually play actively on a server that this will effect? This is going to cause a lot of people to stop being interested in Phinigel if they can never find a group.

Stopping XP and respawns in pickzones --- doesn't this mean that a group camp in a pick is always going to be inherently at risk? As soon as peak hours stop, that camp stops being valuable.

Too many picks = too much tradeable loot on the server = drop in price = no krono sales.

common now ppl, this is a business!

For the love of whatever diety you chose to worship, please, PLEASE stop "fixing" things that aren't really broken and use your apparently limited manpower on things that matter. Daybreak is running this game into the ground. I never thought I'd miss SOE.

Worst change ever.

We all came to Phinigel because of instancing and picks and now you take one of those away?
Just seems crazy to me. I guess we have the live servers to thank for this?

Like others have already said, the threshold to spawn a new pick is way too high. Now we get to experience massive overcrowding, it's not fun at all. If you don't make some changes to this you will lose players over it.

This change wont effect live servers at all, only time that a zone is so packed that they get a pick is on launch week.

People only have the pick to themselves if no one else /picks over. This feature makes /picks worthless for any meaningful, long term grouping.

GE for instance, or even PoFire, REQUIRES a raid force number of people to spawn a new pick. However, as many others have pointed out, these zones can be fully camped/cleared with fewer people/characters than that. Meaning any picks that were up will lock. Then you would have to spend time & make a coordinated effort to get people to come to the zone to create a pick. And then, after all that, hope a pray that enough people stay in the spawned pick so you are not locked, getting no exp, no respawns, and after you go back to the base zone .. have no place to exp. (see below)

While this may prevent bot groups from farming a /pick, it will not stop them from farming the prime instance. Therefore a group looking to exp will have no viable alternative (especially on RF & LJ where they do not have the ability to create instances at all.) The base zone gets crowded, picks spawn, your group /picks to one of the newly opened picks to be able to exp in peace ... oh what am I saying? Who in their right mind would willingly go to a pick that will shortly thereafter lock, stop giving exp, and stop spawning mobs? Even if you did, it would be a total waste of time. YOU CANNOT FORCE ENOUGH PEOPLE TO /PICK TO PREVENT A LOCK!

All this does is effectively remove pick zones from use and will cause people to fight over mobs in the base zone so that they don't have to deal with the bait and switch of a /pick.

Confused, do they unlock or not? Dunno, maybe you meant that new ones don't Open after one has been Locked and instead of opening a new one, the existing one unlocks?

Yea I do not understand this change at all.

Pickzones was an extremely good step in the right direction to make EQ into a tolerable game from previous TLP servers. I don't know ANYONE who has complained or not liked Pick zones. Why are you choosing to go backwards instead of forwards?

I just cannot fathom why this is being done other than the devs have a strange idea that EQ MUST be about training, ksing, and being a jerk to your fellow player...because that is all these changes do is encourage negative behavior.

Seriously though Radar, do the devs even think about this? Did they really sit down and think about what these changes did to improve the overall quality of life between people on Phinigel in comparison to the last 5 TLP servers? Did they think about what would happen if they took that away? Do they not take into account that EQ players, when forced into each other, do the nastiest things possible they can to win. Is this REALLY the game you guys want to foster? It seemed with Pick zones you have finally gotten the idea that people don't want to have to fight with other people to play a game, but now you are taking a large part of that away.

I just dont understand DBG...I really dont. Who makes these decisions anyway?

This statement is broken ^ Its like one of those illusion portraits except there is no hidden illusion to find.



Typical EQ tho... 3 steps left, 2 steps right. 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

We've all heard the rumors of a new TLP this year. What form it could possibly take I cannot guess, but certainly the matter has been much discussed. It will need something to draw attention and players from phinny, where people seem to have been happy enough. When you can't make the new place better than the old, the old place must become worse in comparison.

From a purely casual player perspective, the pickzone system was great as it stood except that a few small adjustments could have been made in our favor. Smaller thresholds, longer cooldown on /pick (reset at death?) to diminish camp griefing. That's basically what I'd have liked to see.

It is for the Marketing Gods to know, and for us to discover.

What terrible changes. For the most part, picks were fine the way they were.

I don't believe they are sabotaging phinny to encourage players on a new improved server. It appears as simple as DBG doesn't know what they want. This seems like an exercise in doing stuff, just to do stuff.

This was actually done to start killing interest in Phinny. After LDoN/Gates and to a lesser extent OOW the population starts to die off naturally as the game isn't that fun after this. By implementing changes like this it CLEARLY indicates they want to begin sun setting the server to spawn interest for the new one mid year.

A change like this would indicate at least 2 boxing will be allowed on a new server and this kind of controls the future farm. Phinny continues to be beta testing for future specialty servers. Stop being surprised at random changes.

I don't buy it. In 2.5 months the changes become irrelevant, when LDON launches no one will care about pickzones. The only real long term impact it will have will be tanks farming ac augs in open world zones like RSS. For the most part, after POP, there will be no pickzones outside of launch week and no one is going to care.

I think these changes would hurt the new progression more then phinny so I dont believe it was to make people switch over.