Should P:E have time limits?

[kabaliero]

Dudes, the name of the game is Project ETERNITY.

What time limits r u talkin' about?

[Dream]

No.

[LadyCrimson]

As some others have said, the occasional side-quest that has a sense of urgency, I don't mind ... as long as it's not just a ticking clock in the corner. Something along the lines of "my boy is sick and I need the antidote from this guy in [ insert town name here ] within a few days or he'll die" is tolerable. Gives me time to finish whatever other thing I might've been in the middle of first, say, before doing it. Plus I can always skip that quest if I don't want to deal with it.

 

But I don't like stuff like "deliver these three packages to all corners of the city in 120 seconds, ready, set, go!" or "do this within an hour or the bomb strapped to your neck will kill you and you'll have to reload" ... especially if I'm forced to do it in order to progress the main quest/plot.

 

So, occasional optional side quests, at the least it's tolerable. As a main plot device? No, no, no, no, no.

[Monte Carlo]

NO.

[Labadal]

I'm not sure I want a time limit. I want to be able to explore the world at my own (very slow) pace. Maybe it could be added in as an optional challenge the player can choose.

[Jarmo]

No overarching limit. FO1 limit was *easy* and it still annoyed me to no end.

Clock is ticking and you have no way to know how much you still need to accomplish.

 

But I'd like occasional timed sidequest and wouldn't mind at all if even the main quest would suddenly go into high gear, like

Oh... crap! RUN, RUN!! We need to go there NOW! Waste not a single second!!!

 

That's not the point to decide to go see if you can't fill up your mushroom collection or anything.

Time to act is time to act, ready or not.

 

But those moments should be temporary and pass, and when there's no immediate need to rush somewhere,

you should know there's no immediate need to rush somewhere.

 

If there's a quest of "my barn is on fire", that should be timed. Can't wait till next week with that.

[High Octane 881]

No overarching limit. FO1 limit was *easy* and it still annoyed me to no end.

Clock is ticking and you have no way to know how much you still need to accomplish.

 

But I'd like occasional timed sidequest and wouldn't mind at all if even the main quest would suddenly go into high gear, like

Oh... crap! RUN, RUN!! We need to go there NOW! Waste not a single second!!!

 

That's not the point to decide to go see if you can't fill up your mushroom collection or anything.

Time to act is time to act, ready or not.

 

But those moments should be temporary and pass, and when there's no immediate need to rush somewhere,

you should know there's no immediate need to rush somewhere.

 

If there's a quest of "my barn is on fire", that should be timed. Can't wait till next week with that.

This exactly.

[Karkarov]

Simple fix. On a side quest you simply make it clear to the player they have a deadline, tell them what it is, then leave it to the player. If they don't meet the deadline then they fail the quest and get whatever consequences may go along with that. The deadline needs to be sane though, like at least a full in game day which will probably be like an hour or more of actual play time. Longer would be preferable.

 

Story wise you just the old tried and true method. You make it abundantly clear to the player that if they accept this quest/complete this goal it will lock them into a set chain of events. You get to the plot point, you see you are going to be locked in, if you want to do other things you just don't bother with that yet and do your own thing. If you do it then bam, you are now locked in to a specific set of events and you don't get a choice about doing them or not.

 

Irenicus laying waste to an elf village and you have no soul? Well get ready to go to the village because they game isn't going to ask, it is going to make you go there.

 

That solution may seem harsh, but it also makes perfect logical sense and if the story is done well and written correctly it will work. It would be better if they find a way to not need these sorts of events though. Well for the main story anyway.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Karkarov

[JFSOCC]

I'll be ok if some quests are marked as "urgent" as long as I can't have 2 active at the same time, and as long as they are optional side-quests.

Edited November 15, 2012 by JFSOCC

[kenup]

NO.

YES.

 

The taking time to explore argument is complete BS. This isn't a bethesda game. It must have choices and consequences, how to spend your time should be one of those choices.

 

The best way to make both parties happy is, to have limited enemies and content in each area. no respawns. so that a theoritical and possibly actual time limit can be achieved without forcing someone to i.e. ignore or miss a very good sidequest. Bigger cities/areas of course will give much more time, than a small village one passes by while hunting a big bad.

 

Of course, there should always be cases in which you can relax a bit.

Edited November 15, 2012 by kenup

[ncguthwulf]

The main campaign should not have a timer. But individual components should.

 

Example: I can take as much time as I want to find the door to the overrun dwarven ruin. But once I am there, the almost dead dwarf at the door tells me I have 24 hours before the whole place comes down because of some magical doohicky. Now the pressure is on and I have to in there and do whatever I need to do without unlimited rest and healing breaks.

 

For side quests, I think time should modify some of them. I have a tough time believing that a kidnapped child is going to be just fine and dandy with the trolls while I tour the countryside for a month. It destroys immersion. But if I find a rumour about a once buried temple rising from the swamp, OK, I feel like I can go there tonight or in 3 weeks.

 

Additionally, I think time as a restriction should be used within quests to make them more difficult. Lets imagine a pursuit type of scenario. You are chasing the villain across the countryside, hoping to catch them before they get to home base. If you choose to rest and heal up too often they will get too much of a lead. But if you forced march for 24 hours you get some sort of combat debuff because your guys are tired.

 

In summary:

 

~ Allow exploration by dividing the main story into time sensitive chunks without the whole thing being time sensitive.

 

~ When the story demands it, build in a time limit and make it known in the quest log.

 

~ Don't over do it. Less than 25% of the game should be time trials.

 

~ Make time change stories, decided to attack the vampire stronghold at night, gonna be harder, decided to rest and heal up so your enemy is able to contact his allies, there will be more of them, decided to force march for 36 hours to get somewhere before the enemy, debuff for fatigue BUT you get to set up inside the castle and play defence instead of siege it.

[phimseto]

Personally, I would not want time limits. However, one way to meet you halfway (I think) is to have quests turn out very differently based on what order you finish them. Finishing little Sally's mission before you save her dad might end up with her dad getting the chop and Sally going to the orphanage. Or some such things. So it's not a strict time limit, but rather how you choose to prioritize missions (or how you find them).

[Tsuga C]

I'll take a pass on the whole time limit thing unless there's a mechanism embedded in the game to actually enforce the temporal factor. Like the OP, I just roll my eyes when an NPC starts spouting off about the time-critical nature of a search and rescue quest. *yawn* I'll get around to it when I darn well get around to it and Timmy, despite having fallen in the well 47 resting periods ago, is still alive and bobbing around at the bottom of the well when I arrive on the scene.

 

I'd just assume dispense with the pretense if exceeding the alloted time/rest periods will not actually cause a failure to complete the quest. "ncguthwulf"'s post above is right on the money.

[jivex5k]

I think this is one of those cases where gameplay outweighs realism.

I don't want to be rushed, I like to wander.

 

Yeah it's a kind of stupid when they say: "Hurry!!!!" and you known damn well you don't have to hurry at all...but I don't want to have to hurry.

In fact, I don't want to have to do the main quest at all if I don't want to. I want this game to be...well like Skyrim in this respect.

I love getting stoned and then getting lost in the world, just doing whatever my heart desires, catchin butterflies and dragonflies, killing npcs, enjoying the scenery.

 

Eh...might not work in this game though.

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I despise time limits I think they can completely ruin enjoyment of a game. So no I don't want things to be timed I want to be able to explore at my own pace if I wanted a linear corridor game that hurries me a long to the next objective I'd go and play COD.

Edited November 15, 2012 by Moonlight Butterfly

[Badmojo]

No to time quest or an option to turn it off in the options for those us who despise them. Why? for main quests it is obvious, but even side quests it would be annoying because the moment you have a timed quest, you pretty much have to drop everything and rush through the game in an on rails situations which I hate. So no, no thanks.

[dropko]

for some quests, it makes perfect sense.

when told "please hurry" or "reach asap", there should be some time awareness. no really tight limitations, but a quest to "save" someone in immediate danger must not mean I can wander for months and resume as if nothing happened.

common sense should be valid, since wasting more than 24h game time, a week game time, or interrupting the given quest to do something else. I like that sense of being in something that is alive instead of waiting for me.

[Atreides]

If quest-givers are desperate enough to ask for anyone's help (yours included), they'd probably ask others too if you're taking too long.

 

That's when you wait for the rival adventurers to set off all the traps in the dungeon, and beat them up for the loot they collected after they're worn down. I bet the poor things didn't even get to rest safely to recover.

 

As long as we complete the quest objectives we get the same xp, right? And loot too, in this case.

[Kore]

I'm not generally a fan of time limits or bottlenecks that force me to do a certain quest line without my concent. Things like chateaux irenicus, the underdark mind flayed lair and even the underdark itself annoy me because it either curbs my exploration or forces me to stop what I'm doing.

 

I'm not particularly worried about some time limits not making sense either, but I can understand why some would.

 

Some time limits I don't mind though. Ones where you agree to a time limit before you start and you can delay it if you wish are fine. The recruitment of Minsc in bg1 is a good example.

Edited November 16, 2012 by Kore

[DeathQuaker]

Instead of time limits where you have X amount of time to complete a quest or you outright fail it, I'd rather that some (not all) quests that perhaps require prompt action instead have certain consequences for any delay.

 

For instance, if someone approaches you about helping their tiny village out because they're about to be attacked by a group of bandits, if you delay you don't necessarily "fail" the quest, but instead you arrive to find that the bandits have already taken over portions of the village, and the remaining villagers are holed up in the Inn. Had you arrived early you could have helped the villagers fend off the bandits before they'd set foot in the village. Thus, consequence for your delay without you outright failing the quest if you didn't get around to it right away.

 

I like this -- have degress of success rather than extreme "win" or "game over" scenarios. I would also like to see something pitched from the direction of your being rewarded if you succeed on a quest quickly, and while you can still achieve your objective over a longer period of time, you may not receive a bonus reward (whether that reward is mechanical or narrative in nature). Or there maybe different alternatives that may not be better than another but different -- like say if you act quickly to stop an enemy plot, you may save more people but won't get as much evidence to convict the foe, but if you take your time to investigate, you may risk more lives but also seal your enemy's fate. Or more positively, quick action may impress one potential ally while careful patience and exploration may attract another.

 

Also, with regards to time limits -- include them or not, but don't tell me "You must hurry!" if actually, I don't need to hurry at all. It is getting really old in RPGs where someone goes, for example, "Please, you must rescue my husband from the bandits before they kill him tonight!" and then you walk around, loot several dungeons, fulfill several other quests, and then a week of game time later finally go rescue the husband, where the husband and bandits have been patiently waiting for you to attack this whole time (and ironically, in a sense, the husband was not actually in danger until you showed up). If for story purposes you need me to do something by tomorrow, then I want to have good reason to do it by tomorrow, and if I am free to wander and quest as I choose, then the narrative itself should make that clear.

 

I would also prefer time limits to side quests, or short, limited quests within a main quest chain, than a broad one like "find the water chip." If a single quest that takes me an hour realtime to play through has a time limit, I'm cool with that if it means after that hour, I can go back to wandering around for awhile. That way you can have the best of both worlds, events that have a true sense of urgency while still feeling like you have ample opportunity to explore.

[OldRPG'sAreGood]

Even if I dislike time limits, sometimes they fit, for example if someone is in instant peril. But the only way I'd like(well like isn't really the appropriate word but still) time limits in the main quest is in a form of raised difficulty. Let me explain:

 

Say the MQ takes you to a situation where there is a plan that has to be executed before the enemy catches a clue of it. A time limit is given, and if it is reached, the quest becomes harder, like in the form of added guards and other enemies. And of course this could be done in a greater extent with some quests, with various time limits that each heighten the difficulty when reached.

 

But I actually don't want the MQ to feature time limits, as it takes away enjoyment in a way.... But I wouldn't be opposed to some time limits in quests that benefit from them in the 'making sense' department.

[Shadenuat]

crap, posted in wrong thread. delete this post

Edited November 16, 2012 by Shadenuat

[JFSOCC]

So, I'm usually against timed quests. the reason why I am not dismissing it out of hand is because I've seen it done right, in Beyond Good and Evil there's an occasional timed objective, it's rare and makes sense in the setting.

[Juneau]

I generally HATE having time requirements on quests because they either a) are too short or b) make you go do something that you really cba ro do but must do it if you want to progress/get the XP etc... However on the odd occasion that something drastic happens... You know like a bomb is about to go off - Then I can understand you having 2 minutes to get the hell out of the building. Story wise / area wise it "can" work just don't do it all the time. Make it MEAN something.

 

Being a massive Elder Scrolls Fan (Daggerfall Ho!!) one of the WORST offenders for implying imminent doom and time critical quests is Oblivion...

 

OH NO A PORTAL TO OBLIVION HAS OPENED!! DEMONS!!! IT WILL CONSUME THE LAND AND DESTROY OUR TOWN!

 

Oh... Ok I'll come back in 6 years time and kill it - no rush!

 

This.. Drove.. Me.. Insane!

 

And almost ​put me off playing the game again.

[Nanakamado]

I don't like time limit idea. If there is time limit, there is stress. If there is stress, there is no fun. And as for me, gamming is about fun.