Should P:E have time limits?

[Lephys]

Good point, Moridin. Hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the sincere, perfectly reasonable answer.

 

I just figured asking briefly about it here was better than firing up a whole thread about it. I was just curious why people frowned so much on it, as I saw value in it in many ways as an alternative to making a whole new thread just because there was a lull in discussion of a particular topic.

 

So, really, thanks again. ^_^

[moridin84]

Good point, Moridin. Hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the sincere, perfectly reasonable answer.

 

I just figured asking briefly about it here was better than firing up a whole thread about it. I was just curious why people frowned so much on it, as I saw value in it in many ways as an alternative to making a whole new thread just because there was a lull in discussion of a particular topic.

 

So, really, thanks again. ^_^

Awesome. 

 

I've been "hit" by at least 3 necros so far* so I'm happy I managed to discourage at least one person from it. 

 

*any more and I might start checking the timestamp at the start of every thread

Edited September 18, 2013 by moridin84

[AGX-17]

So then, just to confirm, I take it that this HASN'T been answered in any capacity through interviews?  I get all the updates, and am pretty much positive they have never talked about time limits in them...

In which case the safe assumption is that they aren't considering the prospect, given how major an impact such a decision would have on the end result.

[Lephys]

In which case the safe assumption is that they aren't considering the prospect, given how major an impact such a decision would have on the end result.

Not necessarily. You don't have to redesign the whole game just to toggle timers on things. Unless your whole narrative campaign/lore/setting doesn't even acknowledge the existence or passage of time at all, you're still going to have urgency suggested in things. Functionally, it's no different from mutually exclusive outcomes tied to choices. But, instead of the choices being multiple options offered at the exact same time, the choices would become time-based, themselves.

 

If you're not handling urgency with any kind of timers, then you're handling it in a different fashion. Doesn't mean the idea of it ceases to exist as long as timers don't exist.

 

Obviously, you may assume as you please. I merely encourage the lack of assumption on this matter.

[pseudonymous]

I don't get why thread "necromancy" gets such a negative connotation.

 

It can cause problems with certain databases and forum software, anything less than a technical problem is just people being people. 

 

On topic:  Time limits aren't so bad in games.   As long as they aren't like the time limits in Baldur's Gate.  

 

"Really Minsc?  You're going to call me a coward and attack me even though we're on the same map as that mage you weren't good enough to keep safe?!?  Screw you and your hamster too!"

Edited September 19, 2013 by pseudonymous

[JFSOCC]

 

Thanks! I learned so many helpful facts from this:

 

1) If we're able to, in any way, deduce the probability that Obsidian's already made a decision about the topic of discussion (and that that decision is definitely set in stone) based on pure speculation, no discussion of said topic should take place.

 

2) If someone DOES want to start a new topic about something that's already been discussed a while back, it's better that the new thread potentially mimic the old thread without anyone being the wiser, since the actual review of existing discussion on the topic is pure folly.

 

3) If we feel that completely pointless discussion is going on, we should actually contribute to that discussion, ourselves, with argument against the discussion having any purpose whatsoever.

 

*scribble scribble scribble*. *click*. Got it. *closes notepad*.

 

Sorry about my ignorance of these things. Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

Threads shouldn't be necro'd because people might read the thread from the start things thinking it's a new thread. I certainly read the first 4 pages before accidently going to the last page and saw the comment about the necro. 

 

This is a (often) a waste of time for several reasons. Such as the fact that the discussion is based on out-of-date information, or that the people discussing the topic might not even have the same opinions (if they are even still around) or that the discussion may not be relevant anymore. 

 

 

A bit off topic but I think necroing threads is something to be discouraged. 

 

I disagree, if someone would start a new topic where an old one exists, he should first have a look at the old topic. If he then contributes new thoughts and views, it's perfectly ok to "necro" a thread.

 

It's not OK to necro a thread by just bumping it, or otherwise adding nothing to the discussion it was having. That's really the difference.

 

And I've seen a parcity of interesting and inspired topics lately. I miss the wild debates about a wide range of topics. Maybe I should make a "design your own quest" thread or something.

 

anyway, ON TOPIC:

I'm a firm believer that time limits are un-fun. I hate time limits in games, especially if they are arbitrary. RPG's are about exploration and I want to take my time doing that.

That said, however, I do believe that there would certainly be quests in which time would be a real element. IF and only if, there is a good reason to assume a challenge for the player is time dependent, I'd be OK with having quest timers. For specific quests. They would be fair, challenging, limited, and clear. I want to know in advance how much time I'd have.

In addition, I would not want to have more than one timed quest active at the same time, and I want to know before accepting the quest that time will be a factor.

[kgambit]

Let's say you get a quest to get an object before an ennemy group get's his hands on. Somehow, you couldn't do it in time, most game would either have you fail the quest, or even worse, you can't fail it due to time. But, if instead of having you fail the quest and reload as most gamer will do, the game present you with two different but equally interesting situations ? If you get your hands on the object before the ennemy, be prepared for some retaliation when the ennemy try to get it back directly from you. But if you fail at beat their little time game, you have to plan and get it back from them. 

 

All there is to do to implement something like that is to stop thinking iin failure means you don't get a reward and rather think. Success and failure will only create different situation, each having their own reward. 

 

Your alternative is not substantially different from a straightforward timed success-fail quest. 

 

In the success case of your proposal, all you have done is add an extra obstacle to completing the quest.  You still recover the item in question but have to go thru an extra combat for completion. 

 

I like the retaliation idea, but it has not altered the time mechanic unless you go one extra step and make the final obstacle (i.e. retaliation) dependent on how quickly you achieve success.  Recover the object in a specific shorter time frame and not only do you get the object, but you are able to escape in such a fashion that the pursuing troops lose your trail and no retaliation occurs.  That would add an extra incentive to a really quick execution of the mission.  And you could throw in an bonus as well, say cash, maybe a second item or bonus xp. Knowing that there is an extra bonus heightens the sense of urgency for a rapid completion.    

 

In the failure case, "I've got to plan to get it back" implies that you are giving the player a second chance to recover the object.  Assuming you meant to have some risk of quest failure during the second attempt, which may or may not be timed as well, all this path does is delay the final quest resolution.  Failure is still possible.  So your proposal does nothing to "eliminate thinking in terms of failure".  And knowing that a second attempt is possible could really weaken the sense of urgency.

 

If that second recovery attempt has a 100% guarantee of success, then the quest simply becomes "Go get the Item" with a slight variation in what obstacles you face.  The risk of quest failure is zero and the time constraints have meaning only if the xp rewards vary depending on how the quest is finally completed. 

 

Your proposal does spice up an otherwise ho-hum "fetch the item" timed quest. Using time constraints to define or alter the circumstances surrounding that quest is an interesting idea.  But in the case of the quest you offered, it doesn't really change the underlying time mechanic.  In fact, it reduces the risk of failing from missing a time deadline by saying "Oh too bad, you were too late, no soup or you.  Oh wait ... Here's yet another chance to recover that item."

 

The quest you offered as an example was based on recovering an item.  While events can play out differently and you can alter the rewards (either XP or financial) depending on the path to completion the quest will still revolve around success or failure. 

 

Perhaps your example wasn't the right one to choose.  I can certainly think of ideas for timed quests which are not simple "fetch" or "rescue" quests which could have substantially different resolutions and impact on the game world.   

[Lephys]

^ I will say, in regard to the "simply a second chance to recover the item" notion, this:

 

It's possible for a branch to depend on the item recovery at that time. The inevitable recovery of the item wouldn't be as important as the exact TIMING of the recovery of the item, in relation to the actions and decisions of whoever possessed the item.

 

For example:

 

Quest 1 - Some people wanna do something bad with an artifact, and you need to recover it. Heck, maybe even the people for whom you're recovering it want to do something of their own with it. That's two things hinging upon the recovery of the item.

 

Quest 1a - You successfully recovered the item, and now your people are trying to do something spiffy with the spiffy artifact, that's important for some reason. The people from whom you recovered the artifact are very, very unhappy and have sent their remaining forces (maybe it's a faction) to RE-recover the artifact, and prevent your allies from utilizing it for spiffiness.

 

Quest 1b - You failed to recover the artifact, so now, those bad people with it got away. You know where they're going/where they will be, but you were trying to prevent them from reaching that place with the artifact in their possession, so as to prevent them from using it to their own spiffy ends. So, now your people must go after them, and possibly only recover the artifact after it has been used, already, to alter the state of things in the world/area/something.

 

In this situation, the simple success/failure isn't magically generating an arbitrary second chance situation. It's simply how the story is organically playing out, depending on what's happening.

 

*shrug*. Just thought of that while reading. Still, excellent analysis, overall.

[TrashMan]

 

 

In addition, I would not want to have more than one timed quest active at the same time, and I want to know before accepting the quest that time will be a factor.

 

 

If you go around accepting other quests while a time-sensitive one is ticking...whos' problem is that?

 

The whole point is that you SHOULDN'T be goign around accepting new quests, because you're a tight schedule ATM.

[kgambit]

It's possible for a branch to depend on the item recovery at that time. The inevitable recovery of the item wouldn't be as important as the exact TIMING of the recovery of the item, in relation to the actions and decisions of whoever possessed the item.

 

<snip - read but shortened for reply>

 

In this situation, the simple success/failure isn't magically generating an arbitrary second chance situation. It's simply how the story is organically playing out, depending on what's happening.

 

I agree.  Not only does it give you a chance to layer some complexity onto a quest, but it makes the world more reactive.  There is a cost in terms of design resources but I like the idea of having fewer, more complex, quests than a bucket full of "Fed-ex" quests.   

[Lephys]

If you go around accepting other quests while a time-sensitive one is ticking...whos' problem is that?

 

The whole point is that you SHOULDN'T be goign around accepting new quests, because you're a tight schedule ATM.

As long as you weren't presented with 2 time constraints at the same time, everything would be fine. What I mean is, "You've already only got a week to explore this area, but now, you've only got 2 days to go rescue the baron's daughter!"

 

The more you do that kind of thing, the more you might as well just say "You can only do 4 out of these 5 things." I mean, when it comes down to it, if you had the same time limit on two different choices, it would come down to the time limit versus the amount of time it takes to do each task. If there's actually not enough time to do both tasks, then you've basically got a simple, mutually exclusive choice, with the added possibility of failing at even the choice you pick just because you take too long. And if there IS enough time to do both, then you've just got a bunch of urgency floating around to get all your stuff done on a schedule. Which, again, I don't think you need to do. I don't think there's really any need to have the player calculating and scheduling time. "Hmmmm, okay, it takes 16 hours to travel there, and if I only rest 3 times, total, in this unknown amount of dangerous terrain, then I can totally get to the baron's daughter in time to not fail the quest due to time limit! 8D!"

 

It could easily be more contextual. When it comes down to it, you're either choosing to hurry, or to not-hurry. There's no need to tell the player, who isn't even in direct control of many factors at all, that he sucked too bad at hurrying and failed the quest. Why not just say "Here's an urgent thing. Go do it, or don't go do it?"

 

You just start running into really silly things when you go with strict actual time limits, and not contextual ones. Like, what if you were on your way to the inn to rest and heal up, and you happened upon the quest? After all, it's time based, and time doesn't care what you're doing when something occurs. "OH NO, THEY'VE TAKEN THE BARON'S DAUGHTER!" Well, crap, do you go after her in super rugged condition, JUST because you happened to come upon this time sensitive quest in the state you were in, while some other player happens to come upon it at full-health? Or just rest up... OH NO, like 8 hours have passed, 'cause I slept at the inn! Darnit! Maybe you adjust the time limit to compensate for that, but then, people with good conditions don't actually have any urgency. "HAH! Luckily I totally just finished upgrading all my equipment and working on my stronghold and resting at the inn! Now I have a fresh THREE DAYS to do this quest, because part of that time is to allow for all the things I just did! 8D!"

 

See, it's horribly inconsistent because of the nature of a number of systems in the game. I'd rather see time limits abstracted, to fit with all the other abstractions hovering around time in the game. If someone kidnaps the baron's daughter, and the first place you go when you leave where you are now isn't in pursuit of the kidnappers, then they're going to get away. If you go there next, however, it doesn't matter if you arbitrarily ran around in circles for 17 hours in the city after hearing the news, or stood on your head all day. If you didn't actually choose to go do things IN LIEU OF chasing down the kidnappers, then time doesn't functionally penalize you. Need to rest up? That 8 hours of sleep doesn't actually count toward your time limit. Why? Because how much resting can you possibly do? How much running in circles can you possibly do before you then must actually accomplish something? What are the odds someone's gonna rest 5 times before even heading out of an area?

 

Now, what COULD be cool is that, if you leave literally within a fixed time limit (5 minutes?) of hearing the news, you could actually catch up to the kidnappers as they make their way to whatever place they were going to keep the hostage and ransom her. Whereas, if you're "too slow," you don't fail and she dies (how would you even know WHEN they're going to kill her, exactly?), you simply fail to catch them and free her before they reach fortifications and reinforcements, etc. Now, you can still go after her, but she's in a much more secure position.

 

I guess what I'm getting at is, the point of urgency in an RPG like this is to give you reasons and consequences for your decisions on priorities, not to challenge you to accomplish a task in an extremely specific amount of time. So, I'd rather see quests and situations that worsen/change depending on the order in which you tackle things. Certain actions don't need to be in that order.

 

Again, I'm kind of open to resting affecting things, but I still think it should be "Okay, obviously you didn't go after them immediately, because you went to rest" instead of "OMG, you're 8 hours closer to DOOOOOOOOoooooom!!!!"

 

The most important decision is whether or not to acknowledge urgency, rather than exactly how quickly you're being urgent.

[TrashMan]

You just start running into really silly things when you go with strict actual time limits, and not contextual ones.

 

you also start runnign int osilyl things with jsut contextual ones.

 

Like I siad - time is a factor in RL. A *VERY* big one. With everything. And new RPG's tend to gloss over it.

 

 

Yes you can do some semi-hybrid in a different ways. Insted of tracking time, track how many time the player traveled.

So if you got an urgentquest to visit Redcliffe, but you go visit 4 other areas first, and the game knows. It might fail the quest if oyu visit 3 other areasfirst, or it might make it more difficult if you just visit one, or kill a NPC or whatever.

While you are not timed within an area or globally, you are still "timed"in a way.

But it still kinda feels artifical, since you can spend forever in one location without time advancing.

 

 

 

 

 

Like, what if you were on your way to the inn to rest and heal up, and you happened upon the quest? After all, it's time based, and time doesn't care what you're doing when something occurs. "OH NO, THEY'VE TAKEN THE BARON'S DAUGHTER!" Well, crap, do you go after her in super rugged condition, JUST because you happened to come upon this time sensitive quest in the state you were in, while some other player happens to come upon it at full-health? Or just rest up... OH NO, like 8 hours have passed, 'cause I slept at the inn! Darnit! Maybe you adjust the time limit to compensate for that, but then, people with good conditions don't actually have any urgency. "HAH! Luckily I totally just finished upgrading all my equipment and working on my stronghold and resting at the inn! Now I have a fresh THREE DAYS to do this quest, because part of that time is to allow for all the things I just did! 8D!"

 

So what? If they're gonna kill her in 3 days, they'll kill her in 3 days (or would they?).

Like you said, time doesn't care and the players wouldn't know anyway. Should there even be a time ticking? No. Best to keep it hidden. Randomized even.

 

The same quest might be more diffiuclt to another player?

I fail to see the problem. It makes things more interesting and organic anyway.

Edited September 20, 2013 by TrashMan

[Lephys]

The problem comes from it being a game. In real life, you push on and do what needs doin', finding the strength to go on. In the game, you're "out of abilities" for the day, because that's how the game needs to abstract things for other reasons. But then, if you go rest, which is the only way to regain your abilities, so that you can functionally have any sort of chance of overcoming kidnappers and resistance, you advance time.

 

You see, time is quite a factor in real life, but real life time doesn't translate perfectly into in-game time. It's understandable that some things taking place in the game world (while game world time is ticking away) should take longer, because of the player's real-life interaction with them, than they would if the characters were just doing them in game world time and that was that. Looking at equipment, etc. The player must read everything on the screen and learn about all the differences in equipment. The player must click his characters about the screen, searching for appropriate markers and things, while the characters, themselves, could actually see MUCH farther than the edge of the screen, and would know which way to go much more quickly and specifically than the player can, etc.

 

Therefore, allowing the player only so much time for the characters to get to the goal under the game world's already abstracted time flow (as compared to real life), doesn't always work like it should.

 

Sure, silly things happen when none of it is absolute, either, but, look at it this way:

 

If you get somewhere with 7,000,000 abstracted hour to spare (but the game doesn't tell you), then is your experience ruined? If you went after that quest (kidnappers, or whatever) "immediately," then you've obviously placed priority on that, in the context of the game world, even if you're taking the time to eat a fresh slice of pizza at your keyboard, without pausing, in between every combat encounter on the way there. If you get there too late, then you OBVIOUSLY didn't place priority on getting there. There is no question.

 

If there's a hard time limit, then, like you said, you probably shouldn't even know what it is. So, if you get there too late, despite your best effort, then how are you to even know that it's POSSIBLE to not get there too late? What good does that serve? You can say "Well, you should've gone and healed up BEFORE randomly finding out that there was a kidnapping, u_u," but that doesn't really serve much.

 

The game is about making choices, not randomly watching things occur beyond your control. Not that some things aren't beyond your control, but, I don't know what's gained by some seconds on a clock actually determined whether or not all the abstracted things you did were fast enough or not, even after you've already chosen not to **** around before handling some urgent situation. If the game had a "Just make preparations and get there as fast as you possibly can!" button for your party, then it wouldn't be so bad. But then, that would defeat the purpose of all those systems being designed for player interaction.

 

The same quest might be more diffiuclt to another player?

I fail to see the problem. It makes things more interesting and organic anyway.

Not when nobody knows about it, it doesn't. It just generates a lot of "WTF! HOW THE HELL DO YOU GET TO HER IN TIME, THEN?! I WENT AS FAST AS I COULD!"s... Or, you know, just assumptions that the possibility of saving her doesn't even exist. Which I don't think is what we want in an RPG: players who are discouraged from thinking their choices have any signficance.

Edited September 21, 2013 by Lephys

[TrashMan]

 

The problem comes from it being a game. In real life, you push on and do what needs doin', finding the strength to go on. In the game, you're "out of abilities" for the day, because that's how the game needs to abstract things for other reasons. But then, if you go rest, which is the only way to regain your abilities, so that you can functionally have any sort of chance of overcoming kidnappers and resistance, you advance time.

 

On the other hand, it's easier to win a battle ina  game than it is in RL.

You should never really be completly out anyway, and even if you are, you can still win with good tactics and preparations (out of fireballs? Well, flasks of burning oil can serve in a pinch too). Insted of resting 8 hours, rest 2. Jsut enough to give oyu some wind back. Don't rest, just go to the store and buy some quick-use items jsut for the kidnapping.

You are never out of options.

 

 

 

 

You see, time is quite a factor in real life, but real life time doesn't translate perfectly into in-game time. It's understandable that some things taking place in the game world (while game world time is ticking away) should take longer, because of the player's real-life interaction with them, than they would if the characters were just doing them in game world time and that was that. Looking at equipment, etc. The player must read everything on the screen and learn about all the differences in equipment. The player must click his characters about the screen, searching for appropriate markers and things, while the characters, themselves, could actually see MUCH farther than the edge of the screen, and would know which way to go much more quickly and specifically than the player can, etc.

 

Inconsequential.

I don't think time even flows while in the shopping menu, and even if it does, you're not gonan spend 8 hours shopping. You're gonna spend a few minutes, tops.

 

 

 

 

If you get somewhere with 7,000,000 abstracted hour to spare (but the game doesn't tell you), then is your experience ruined? If you went after that quest (kidnappers, or whatever) "immediately," then you've obviously placed priority on that, in the context of the game world, even if you're taking the time to eat a fresh slice of pizza at your keyboard, without pausing, in between every combat encounter on the way there. If you get there too late, then you OBVIOUSLY didn't place priority on getting there. There is no question.

 

Nitpick - Why you you not pause the game to eat pizza?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If there's a hard time limit, then, like you said, you probably shouldn't even know what it is. So, if you get there too late, despite your best effort, then how are you to even know that it's POSSIBLE to not get there too late? What good does that serve? You can say "Well, you should've gone and healed up BEFORE randomly finding out that there was a kidnapping, u_u," but that doesn't really serve much.

 

How do you know such things in RL? You don't. You PC doesn't. So why should you know it here?

Also, if you did your best effort to get there in time, then you SHOULD get there in time - if it's possible.

I guess you could have quests designed to "fail", but I'd keep those to a minmum.

 

Also, RL isn't convienent. It doesnt' wait for oyu to be done, rested and in a good mood before sprining some s*** at you. If there are random quests out there, how do you ensure the player only get them when fully rested? Why SHOULD you ensure that?

 

If anything, how the PC deals with such a situation is a good roleplaying oportunity right there. It's EASY if the party is well rested and equiped and has no other quests. That's a no-brainer. This adds gravitas.

 

 

 

 

The game is about making choices, not randomly watching things occur beyond your control.

 

And how the PC reacts to things that are outside of his control IS a choice. The world shouldn't be under the PC or players control.

Nothing ruins the immerion of a living world more then it being visibly desined to rotate around the player/pc. A world in whioch nothing happens wihtout the player giving it it's AOK is a sterile, fake world.

 

 

 

Not that some things aren't beyond your control, but, I don't know what's gained by some seconds on a clock actually determined whether or not all the abstracted things you did were fast enough or not, even after you've already chosen not to **** around before handling some urgent situation.

 

Then why were you late? You either f**** around or you didn't. End of story.

Unless you think the clocks should be such that milisecond literalyl decide sucess of faliure? If so, that is only your assumption.

 

Seems to me like you are just trying to find every possible way it could suck, by designing the worst possible clock/scenario in your head.

[kgambit]

 

If there's a hard time limit, then, like you said, you probably shouldn't even know what it is. So, if you get there too late, despite your best effort, then how are you to even know that it's POSSIBLE to not get there too late? What good does that serve? You can say "Well, you should've gone and healed up BEFORE randomly finding out that there was a kidnapping, u_u," but that doesn't really serve much.

 

How do you know such things in RL? You don't. You PC doesn't. So why should you know it here?

Also, if you did your best effort to get there in time, then you SHOULD get there in time - if it's possible.

I guess you could have quests designed to "fail", but I'd keep those to a minmum.

 

Nonsense.  You do know about definitive time constraints in real life.  You have bills that are due by a specific date, work schedules that must be kept, stores have specific shopping hours, appointments at a specified time; the list goes on.  And the consequences for missing those deadlines are well known too.  Theaters showing plays or operas often have "No seating once the show starts" restrictions.  There are hundreds of real life examples you can think of.  Even kidnappers in RL usually require payment of ransom within a specified time period. Or try explaining to your fiance (or more importantly her father) why you couldn't get to the church on time with any explanation short of the loss of one of your limbs, preferably two.  Want to talk about consequences? 

 

If you are going to set up a quest with a time deadline, then you have to do it in such a way that the PC (and by extension the player) is aware that a time constraint exists.  This doesn't have to be so blatant as "You've only got 3 days", but could be something vague "This is the fourth time this has happened, these guys don't wait around long for ransom payments.   You really better hurry."  Although I suspect that vague time limits are going to engender a fair amount of save/reload gaming.  If you can't figure out a way to properly frame time constraints so that they are logical and fit in the context of the game, then get rid of them completely.  If the time constraints are simply too generous and don't offer consequences, then get rid of them. 

 

I do agree that your best effort should allow you to complete the quest on time.  (Although "best effort" is a bit vague).   If the time constraints are so restrictive that you can't complete the quest when you don't delay then there is a problem with the quest not the player.

 

Not having failure options for quests?  I know you have to be ****ing kidding here.  Even "fetch me that herb" quests (or similiar) have failure options.  No herbs, no reward.  But if you're really serious, then maybe you would be happier if we just give everybody the same amount of xp or cash reward simply because they took the quest.  That's the fantasy equivalent of "participation medals".  ROTFL  Any quest involving combat has a failure option - it's called death.  And that's pretty final last time I checked.  No second chances on that one (excepting the save/reload option).  

 

Edit:  I honestly think you misphrased your thoughts with that last comment Trashman.   

 

Also, RL isn't convienent. It doesnt' wait for oyu to be done, rested and in a good mood before sprining some s*** at you. If there are random quests out there, how do you ensure the player only get them when fully rested? Why SHOULD you ensure that?

 

If anything, how the PC deals with such a situation is a good roleplaying oportunity right there. It's EASY if the party is well rested and equiped and has no other quests. That's a no-brainer. This adds gravitas.

 

Agreed.  If you're going to put a timed quest in the game, then it's up to the party to make the decision whether they are up to completing the task as is, to take extra time to prepare, or blow the task off completely. 

 

The game is about making choices, not randomly watching things occur beyond your control.

 

And how the PC reacts to things that are outside of his control IS a choice. The world shouldn't be under the PC or players control.

Nothing ruins the immerion of a living world more then it being visibly desined to rotate around the player/pc. A world in whioch nothing happens wihtout the player giving it it's AOK is a sterile, fake world.

 

I'm with Lephys on this.

 

Rephrase the last line:  A world in which everything happens without regard for the player's choices is non-reactive.  It's impossible to immerse yourself in a game world where none of your choices matter.  Therefore the world must be designed to react to the player. 

 

Should there be some events that occur without a player's input?  Absolutely.  Events outside the control of the player can be important in defining a world.  But those events have to be scripted.  They are static, not dynamic. Further, the player is simply a spectator to them - they unfold before his eyes.  They change the world but the player has no control over those changes. 

 

Can those events ultimately affect the player?  Very possibly.  Will they offer new choices or puzzles for the player?  Almost certainly.  In the end, those events only matter if they offer the player a choice.  The player gets to choose how to react. 

Edit:  It might be possible to script events which occur outside of the players control in such a way that there is some randomness to the manner if which events play out. That makes the game world a more dynamic place but you are still restricted by the number of event forks that you script.  For example, I can introduce a long running land war between two game factions and script it so that the victor is random with varying results on the game world and with different choices offered to the player as a result.  That's not a true dynamic world however.

 

Not that some things aren't beyond your control, but, I don't know what's gained by some seconds on a clock actually determined whether or not all the abstracted things you did were fast enough or not, even after you've already chosen not to **** around before handling some urgent situation.

 

Then why were you late? You either f**** around or you didn't. End of story.

Unless you think the clocks should be such that milisecond literalyl decide sucess of faliure? If so, that is only your assumption.

 

Seems to me like you are just trying to find every possible way it could suck, by designing the worst possible clock/scenario in your head.

 

I seem to recall in another thread or perhaps an earlier post that you argued that time was a resource and required management.  So either you've changed your mind or we're getting hung up on what a time limit means. 

 

Time limits imo are hard deadlines.  It doesn't make any difference it you miss one by one second or one minute or one hour.  You miss it and the quest fails (or some other event is triggered if the use of failure bothers you).  Even if you missed it by a millisecond.  Harsh?  Maybe but softening the deadline just means that there are still going to be people who miss the deadline by a hair.  In fact, you seem to take a hard line on that in the line just before: "Then why were you late? You either f**** around or you didn't. End of story."    That sounds pretty definitive to me.

 

So if you don't like well defined time deadlines, then let's do away with timed quests totally.   

[TrashMan]

 

Nonsense.  You do know about definitive time constraints in real life.

 

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. You are pointlesly nitpicking, because the "you don't know" is reffering to the kidnapping example.

If the kidnapers gave an ultimatum, then you *MIGHT* now (assuming the kidnapers keep their word).

 

If a village is under attack, you don't know that it will fall in 5 hours, 30 minutes and 10 seconds. The defneders might hold out for days..or they might fall within the hour.

I'm agaisnt absolute certanty where there shouldn't be any.

 

 

 

 

If you are going to set up a quest with a time deadline, then you have to do it in such a way that the PC (and by extension the player) is aware that a time constraint exists.  This doesn't have to be so blatant as "You've only got 3 days", but could be something vague "This is the fourth time this has happened, these guys don't wait around long for ransom payments.   You really better hurry."

 

I don't recall ever saying the player shouldn't be aware of that.

 

 

 

 

 

Not having failure options for quests?  I know you have to be ****ing kidding here.  Even "fetch me that herb" quests (or similiar) have failure options.  No herbs, no reward.  But if you're really serious, then maybe you would be happier if we just give everybody the same amount of xp or cash reward simply because they took the quest.  That's the fantasy equivalent of "participation medals".  ROTFL  Any quest involving combat has a failure option - it's called death.  And that's pretty final last time I checked.  No second chances on that one (excepting the save/reload option).

 

No, you misunderstand. I'm talking about a quest you're SUPPOSED to fail. For plot reasons usually.

 

 

QUEST 1 - mayors daughter kidnaped. If you hurry, you can catch the kidnapper. If you dont' they'll escape.

 

QUEST 2 - same thing, only no matter what you do, the mayors daughter dies before you can get there. Of coure, it should be clear that there NO WAY you could have gotten ther in time, so the player doesn't try to reload. Something like "you find the body of the mayors daughter. It seems she was killed the moment the kidnappers arrived here. You feel enraged, but realize there was no way you could have gotten here in time"

 

Ideally he shouldn't be able to tell quests 1 and 2 apart, untill after he gets far enough in (up to a deciding point, like finding the daughters corpse)

 

 

 

 

 

Rephrase the last line:  A world in which everything happens without regard for the player's choices is non-reactive.  It's impossible to immerse yourself in a game world where none of your choices matter.  Therefore the world must be designed to react to the player. 

 

Should there be some events that occur without a player's input?  Absolutely.  Events outside the control of the player can be important in defining a world.  But those events have to be scripted.  They are static, not dynamic. Further, the player is simply a spectator to them - they unfold before his eyes.  They change the world but the player has no control over those changes.

 

A game is an illusion.  Illusion of freedom, illusion of choice, etc..

Few things are dynamic, not even if you go the Skyrim route. Unless you can create a virtual DM, there will always be limitations.

 

But yes, the world should react to the player, but it shouldnt' be utterly dependant on the player.

 

 

 

 

 

I seem to recall in another thread or perhaps an earlier post that you argued that time was a resource and required management.  So either you've changed your mind or we're getting hung up on what a time limit means. 

 

Time limits imo are hard deadlines.  It doesn't make any difference it you miss one by one second or one minute or one hour.  You miss it and the quest fails (or some other event is triggered if the use of failure bothers you).  Even if you missed it by a millisecond.  Harsh?  Maybe but softening the deadline just means that there are still going to be people who miss the deadline by a hair.  In fact, you seem to take a hard line on that in the line just before: "Then why were you late? You either f**** around or you didn't. End of story."    That sounds pretty definitive to me.

 

So if you don't like well defined time deadlines, then let's do away with timed quests totally. 

 

You again misunderstand completely.

What I was saying was that if the player got late, he got late because he was goofing off, because no time limit should be so damn strict that the player literally hurrier immediately and misses it by a minute. Lephys was mentioning unforgiving, redicolous time limits.

 

There might still be people who will miss it even if the time limit is far more reasonable and forgiving? Who cares? Their mistake. That is a consequence of their action. They can either suck it up or reload - as one does with EVERY consequence in the game.

[kgambit]

 

Nonsense.  You do know about definitive time constraints in real life.

 

Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. You are pointlesly nitpicking, because the "you don't know" is reffering to the kidnapping example.

 

Since my reply specifically mentions definitive deadlines and you chose to quote that in your reply, I suggest you look up the definition of the word Definitive.  

 

I'll save you the time.  Definitive means precisely defined or explicit (fully and clearly expressed; leaving nothing implied)  Definitive deadlines are known.  Not sometimes, always. 

 

When I originally replied, I listed "payment of ransom within a specified time period" among the examples I cited from RL.  It directly addressed your claim that you wouldn't know about time limits in RL, either in general or specifically with a definitive ransom demand from kidnappers.  That's not nitpicking at all. 

 

If the kidnapers gave an ultimatum, then you *MIGHT* now (assuming the kidnapers keep their word).

 

How do you deliver a ransom demand or an ultimatum that no one knows about?  Why would the people who received an ultimatum not make that known to the people they are asking for help? 

 

Assuming you accept the quest, if the kidnappers deliver a ransom demand you have to act on the time deadline specified in that demand. Unless previous circumstances provide a clue otherwise, you can not possibly know whether the kidnappers plan to keep their word or not.  Therefore you have to react on the basis of known information and not speculation.  The kidnappers intentions are irrelevant with respect to time demands when you decide how to proceed. 

 

Oh wait, you must be talking about the situation where the kidnappers ransom demand is a smoke screen and they have already killed the daughter. But if that's the case then the time frame specified in the ransom demand is immaterial.  This is no longer a timed quest.  It doesn't matter that the player wouldn't recognize the difference because the quest itself has morphed from "timed quest" to "untimed plot device".   And while the latter might be an interesting discussion around quests/plot lines in general, I fail to see the relevance to the topic of the thread "Should P.E. have time limits"? 

 

 

No, you misunderstand. I'm talking about a quest you're SUPPOSED to fail. For plot reasons usually

 

And how are we supposed to know that when not once in this thread starting with your first post #70 to #164 have you ever once explicitly mentioned deliberate quest failures for plot purposes.  Even your most recent post in #164 does not clearly make that distinction. 

 

"Also, if you did your best effort to get there in time, then you SHOULD get there in time - if it's possible.

I guess you could have quests designed to "fail", but I'd keep those to a minmum."

 

You very well might have intended to make the distinction that the failure is for plot purposes but it's not clear from that quote.  Coming back after the fact and claiming that is a bit convenient.

 

The  confusion occurs because you simply failed to make your point crystal clear.  That is your problem, not mine.  

[TrashMan]

I feel I made my points clear.

 

If you misunderstood, that's your problem, not mine.

[kgambit]

I feel I made my points clear.

 

And like most of your opinions you ignore the facts which contradict your distorted view of reality.

 

Have a nice day. 

[Lephys]

Inconsequential.

I don't think time even flows while in the shopping menu, and even if it does, you're not gonan spend 8 hours shopping. You're gonna spend a few minutes, tops.

That's exactly my point. It's already done, it's just a matter of extent, now. If you can spend 7,000 minutes shopping for a sword, and time isn't going to flow, then why worry so hard about time flowing constantly for the purposes of maintaining the integrity of time-sensitivity? That seems like doing things the hard way, just to wind up with the easy way's results anyway (but in more annoying form).

 

Nitpick - Why you you not pause the game to eat pizza?

Exactly. Furthermore, why do you spend more than 5-10 minutes shopping for things in town? Or spend more than some reasonable maximum amount of time getting through a situation? Why does it matter if one player takes an hour to get through 5 combat encounters' worth of area, and it takes another player only 40 minutes? As long as they're both not intentionally ignoring that area and running off to perform other tasks significant to the world at large (however locally affecting)?

 

You don't care if someone dillies around at a merchant stall for an hour, but you DO care if someone dillies around in combat, or in between combat encounters, or any other encounters/dialogues/events of any significance whatsoever?

 

Seems a bit contradictory of a stance, is all. Put simply, if you're going to "pause time" for player convenience, and lose out on "OH NOES! TIME'S ALWAYS FLOWING, AND WE HAVE TO HURRY!", then why put in "hard time limits"?

 

"You've only got 48 hours to save this girl!... You know... plus however long you take to shop around town and rest!" But, man... once you set foot outside that wall, you'd sure as heck'd better pause the game for every sneeze, every NOSE ITCH YOU SCRATCH, because heaven help you if you miss rescuing that girl by 13 seconds!"

 

Bi-polar game design, much? Heh. *Shrug*. I just personally see that as quite self-contradicting. Maybe it has value for other people?

 

 

How do you know such things in RL? You don't. You PC doesn't. So why should you know it here?

 

In real life, you DO know such things. You know it's POSSIBLE to hurry enough and alter the outcome of a given situation, even if it doesn't happen. The game is scripted so that, even if you somehow hack the game and teleport to the destination, you have no option to alter the situation. That's the difference. The game can only represent an option with hard-coding. If it's going to go around suggesting choices all day long, and never actually providing them, then the player's going to start assuming pretty quickly that all these "time limits" aren't real. So, in whatever fashion, the game needs to let the player know that "hurry" actually means "hurry," and not just make-believe hurry.

 

Methinks you're getting a more specific meaning of "let the player know" than I'm actually suggesting.

 

 

Also, RL isn't convienent. It doesnt' wait for oyu to be done, rested and in a good mood before sprining some s*** at you. If there are random quests out there, how do you ensure the player only get them when fully rested? Why SHOULD you ensure that?

 

RL also isn't designed. A game is. RL doesn't guarantee there's going to be enough stuff ahead so as to REQUIRE a liberal supply of well-being before setting out on a "quest arc," etc.

 

Also, if you're gonna roll with that argument, then why stop there? Real life doesn't wait on you, so why should the game? Didn't even play the game today? It should simply check your system clock when you fire your compy back up and play the game again, and adjust the in-game-world time accordingly. It's not like you paid money so that you could enjoy a game at your leisure or anything. Also, we probably shouldn't be able to pause the game during sequences of urgency. You'll just have to decide whether or not your bladder's more important than that kidnapped girl, or the defense of a town, etc.

 

 

If anything, how the PC deals with such a situation is a good roleplaying oportunity right there. It's EASY if the party is well rested and equiped and has no other quests. That's a no-brainer. This adds gravitas.

 

Why does it need to be easy? It could be equally as difficult no matter WHAT the player's happenstancical rest/quest situation, if you abstract it. Or, we could just throw those cards in the air, and play 'em however they fall. I'm not seeing a particularly overpowering point in the second option.

 

 

And how the PC reacts to things that are outside of his control IS a choice. The world shouldn't be under the PC or players control.

Nothing ruins the immerion of a living world more then it being visibly desined to rotate around the player/pc. A world in whioch nothing happens wihtout the player giving it it's AOK is a sterile, fake world.

It's not binary. The player MUST have control over SOMETHING in a given situation. No one wants to play through a game in which you just guess your whole way through, and never actually have a hand to play. Just because you can't always address all factors that you'd like to with the resources at your disposal doesn't mean you don't need to be able to affect any of them. That's what mutually exclusive content is for.

 

You encounter a number of splits off the path, ahead of you, and you get to pick one. You have the capaciity to travel down one path and do something about whatever's at the end of that path. You have to at least have SOME idea as to what path generally leads where, or what you'll probably find if you go that way. Very general info. If not, then in this choice metaphor, you're not choosing. You're just playing eenie-meenie moe.

 

It's one thing to have a choice between attempting to hold a city gate and running off to find someone in particular in the city, and it's another thing entirely to automatically hold off the gate or automatically find a person and easily rescue them. Just because you know what you CAN do doesn't mean you're guaranteed to do it. It doesn't make it somehow a dialogue option that you click, and all's well.

 

Maybe you go to rescue a person in the city, and as an AUTOMATIC result, the gate is going to get over-run much sooner than it would if you stayed and fought. But, if you stay and fight, the person you might want to rescue is DEFINITELY going to get slaughtered. That's two definite detriments. If you don't balance that with two definite positives, then you've just got a depressing game on your hands, filled with hopeless choices.

 

If you're going to leave the gate less defended (definitely), then you should DEFINITELY have a CHANCE to save the person you're going after. And if you're definitely going to abandon that person and they're going to die, then you should definitely have a chance to hold the gate. That's how important choices work in a designed game. It has to quantify what you can and can't do, just like it quantifies your abilities/stats/skills.

 

Why would you put 15 more points into a skill if you didn't KNOW that would pay off somewhere, somehow, in the game?

 

Then why were you late? You either f**** around or you didn't. End of story.

Unless you think the clocks should be such that milisecond literalyl decide sucess of faliure? If so, that is only your assumption.

 

Seems to me like you are just trying to find every possible way it could suck, by designing the worst possible clock/scenario in your head.

 

If you're INTENTIONALLY designing the clock to accommodate ONLY the players who don't mess around, then why does it even exist in the first place? Again... If one player LITERALLY takes 1 minute and 47 seconds to run outside the city and engage some bandits, and another player takes 2 minutes and 1 second, why should the second player "fail" the quest? Why even set a timer like that? I'm all for ways in which to fail the quest. Like failing at sneaking, so they detect you and kill the hostage, or handling things poorly (like letting them catch you in a lie in some kind of negotiation) so that they get angry and kill the hostage, etc. But why TIME?! Why ACTUAL, PLAYER TIME?! That's what you're not giving any reason for whatsoever.

 

So the player who can do it 14 seconds faster can feel better about himself? Neither place made the choice "dally around and not worry about the situation," and yet there's still going to be a range of times in which such a thing is completed, depending on party makeup, individual player skill, possibly health/rest status, equipment status, etc. So, unless you say "Well, even for a slow player, it only takes 3 minutes to do this, so... let's set the timer to 5 minutes, just to make sure," in which case you've just ruined the urgency factor anyway, what's the point in setting an EXACT timer, with consta-flowing time? How is that important and useful? If you leave the city in ANY other direction than toward the situation, or if you go engage in whole new quest briefings over tea with people, or if you decide to go drink the night away at the tavern, then the game can easily decide that you've DEFINITELY shrugged off the urgency of the situation. The only couple of things that are even remotely necessary to prepare for urgently tackling the situation are equipment purchases and resting. Pretty much ANYTHING else could result in "oh well, time passed, and bad things happen." Abstractly.

 

Please, describe to me how actual stop-watching the player objectively handles things better than all that stuff, and how I'm full of nonsense, and I'll gladly continue. Otherwise, I don't know what else to say.

 

It seems like you're intentionally thinking of all the worst-case factors for a system that doesn't use hard timers.

 

For what it's worth, my example, above, of deciding to leave the city gate to a smaller defense force, seems like a pretty valid potential use of some kind of hard timer, to some degree. Maybe every minute that passes, another guard at the gate dies. Or, maybe that's even affected by prior choices (like who to hire, if it's your stronghold under attack, or how you've potentially helped bolster the ranks of whomever's defending that gate now, or helped equip them, etc.).

 

Timers have their uses, but I don't think they should be the go-to mechanic for urgency in a cRPG.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Lephys

[Dawn Quixotic]

My opinion is that it depends on the size and style of the game.

 

Stuff in the "look at this ridiculously huge world where there's tons of stuff going on" like you see in a lot of RPGs, Baldur's Gate, Elder Scrolls, etc., that's something you need to handwave a bit more, except in certain cases where it's much more immediate.

 

Reason being that the world is just so huge and you're going to be adding quests to your log all the time just because you talked to some random guy that's going to ask you to do something.

Because if you want to bring realism into it, while there certainly are people who can take on too many commitments, real life isn't full of "side quests". And of course, there's the matter that a lot of the "problems" are probably being handled by other people, because, it's their lives. In the game, there's only one life, and that's you, the player, and that's why in, say, Skyrim, you single-handedly accomplish everything there is to accomplish because no one else is doing anything. It's why by the end of all the quests you've killed everything in the world, own all the treasure in the world (or have all the money from selling off the treasure), became ceo of a major corporation, head of state for the whole country, boss of the local crime syndiicate, and like, the pope or whatever, and you get to be all that while still having enough freedom to run around performing fetch quests for the people you ostensibly now rule over.

 

There's also the fact that... a video game is finite. So if you miss out on things, then, that's it. You'd reach a dead end where all the quests expire and you can't do anything anymore. Except start over.

In real life, if you miss out on something, there's always other stuff you can pursue. Let's say you want to go to a convention. But you can't because of work, or some other commitment, it just can't work. Or you just slacked and the con filled up and there's no more spots for attendance. There will be other cons... that same con next year, and probably other cons elsewhere in the meantime, if you're wanting a con experience... in a video game, there aren't all those possilbiites, there's just the one that the creators put in.
So it's beneficial to not have too many time limits so the player can get around to doing everything, since the game doesn't have the infinity of real life.

I think if a game is going to step outside that convention, it should at least be a courtesy that they let you know "hey, don't tackle more than one quest at once" and make sure that while you're on your way to save the baron's daughter that, unless you go out of your way, you won't bump into a guy that needs you to save HIS daughter too,  in the exact opposite direction.


On the other hand, I think it miight be interesting to make a game where you *can't* do everything and you *do* have to pick and choose no matter what you do... it would have a very different kind of theme and feel.

 

[TrashMan]

That's exactly my point. It's already done, it's just a matter of extent, now. If you can spend 7,000 minutes shopping for a sword, and time isn't going to flow, then why worry so hard about time flowing constantly for the purposes of maintaining the integrity of time-sensitivity? That seems like doing things the hard way, just to wind up with the easy way's results anyway (but in more annoying form).

 

But who is going to spend 7000 minutes shopping? No one.

If you wanna get pandantic, then have time flow in shops too. I'd actualyl prefer it that way.

99% of any time limits would be in hours or days anyway, not minutes, so stopping for a few minutes will hardly matter.

 

As for why the merchants exception - because taking stock of inventory and deciding what to buy is probably something the PC and the gang would be on their way while traveling. That is one area where the player will probably mull a lot longer over what to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly. Furthermore, why do you spend more than 5-10 minutes shopping for things in town? Or spend more than some reasonable maximum amount of time getting through a situation? Why does it matter if one player takes an hour to get through 5 combat encounters' worth of area, and it takes another player only 40 minutes? As long as they're both not intentionally ignoring that area and running off to perform other tasks significant to the world at large (however locally affecting)?

 

You don't care if someone dillies around at a merchant stall for an hour, but you DO care if someone dillies around in combat, or in between combat encounters, or any other encounters/dialogues/events of any significance whatsoever?

 

Seems a bit contradictory of a stance, is all. Put simply, if you're going to "pause time" for player convenience, and lose out on "OH NOES! TIME'S ALWAYS FLOWING, AND WE HAVE TO HURRY!", then why put in "hard time limits"?

 

"You've only got 48 hours to save this girl!... You know... plus however long you take to shop around town and rest!" But, man... once you set foot outside that wall, you'd sure as heck'd better pause the game for every sneeze, every NOSE ITCH YOU SCRATCH, because heaven help you if you miss rescuing that girl by 13 seconds!"

 

Bi-polar game design, much? Heh. *Shrug*. I just personally see that as quite self-contradicting. Maybe it has value for other people?

 

Nothing bi-polar. Like I siad, you are stuck on the merchant thing, something that I already said I would prefer to have the time flowing.

But since the player can already pause the game while in the merchant shop, he already CAN browse the shop for 1000 hours....from the players POV. From the games' POV, he's only been there 5 minutes.

Besides, the pause option is always there, but the pause is an out-of universe action during which the game isn't played. Since nothing is happening.

Ergo, I'm not really bothered by it, sicne it's practicly only usefull in the shop anyway.

 

 

 

 

In real life, you DO know such things. You know it's POSSIBLE to hurry enough and alter the outcome of a given situation, even if it doesn't happen. The game is scripted so that, even if you somehow hack the game and teleport to the destination, you have no option to alter the situation. That's the difference. The game can only represent an option with hard-coding. If it's going to go around suggesting choices all day long, and never actually providing them, then the player's going to start assuming pretty quickly that all these "time limits" aren't real. So, in whatever fashion, the game needs to let the player know that "hurry" actually means "hurry," and not just make-believe hurry.

 

Methinks you're getting a more specific meaning of "let the player know" than I'm actually suggesting.

 

I disagree. You don't know...Well, possibly you could IN HINDSIGHT, but hindsight is irrelevant and un-applicable.

First of all, in most cases you would be able to alter the situation. Sometimes you wouldn't, becaue the game provides you with the knowledge your PC would have and he doesn't know everything.

 

 

 

 

RL also isn't designed. A game is. RL doesn't guarantee there's going to be enough stuff ahead so as to REQUIRE a liberal supply of well-being before setting out on a "quest arc," etc.

 

Also, if you're gonna roll with that argument, then why stop there? Real life doesn't wait on you, so why should the game? Didn't even play the game today? It should simply check your system clock when you fire your compy back up and play the game again, and adjust the in-game-world time accordingly. It's not like you paid money so that you could enjoy a game at your leisure or anything. Also, we probably shouldn't be able to pause the game during sequences of urgency. You'll just have to decide whether or not your bladder's more important than that kidnapped girl, or the defense of a town, etc.

 

A game is also designed to be beatable and AI is no match for the palyer.

So you won't ever REQUIRE a full supply of well-being. Any game that requires your party to be at 100% for it to be POSSIBLE to clear an area is badly designed IMHO.

Harder? Yes. Impossible? No. I said before - fight smart. Prepare. Compansate for your defficiencies in other ways.

 

And if you don't have it? How is that so much different than having certain paths/quests closed for other reasons? What if a failed quest open other possibilities? You failed a quest - the world isn't ending.

 

 

Also, stop it with the Reductio Ad Absurdum. Such shoddy arguing doesn't fit you.

And sice the entire rest of your post is basicly just building strawman and redicolous positions, I'm going to ignore that.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't have neither the time nor the energy to defend poisitons I never made.

You seem to descened more and more into this lately.

Edited September 24, 2013 by TrashMan

[Lephys]

*cracks knuckles*

 

I'm gonna actually attempt concision, here (I know, right?! ):

 

But who is going to spend 7000 minutes shopping? No one.

Exactly. What else could you possibly do, besides something the exaggerative "no one" would ever do, that wouldn't blatantly wipe away any uncertainty as to whether or not you're attempting to tackle a situation with urgency in mind or aren't?

 

As for why the merchants exception - because taking stock of inventory and deciding what to buy is probably something the PC and the gang would be on their way while traveling. That is one area where the player will probably mull a lot longer over what to do.

Yep, along with other aspects of the game, during which the player will have to consider lots of things that the characters would already know/perceive directly, thus resulting in the player being unrealistically held to the time constraints of the world. For no apparent reason, since you could just pause the game the whole time you're considering things. Again, you're either ACTUALLY providing a tough-to-meet time challenge for the player to accomplish something, or you're not. If you're not, then there's functionally no difference between approximations of time's passage, and actual constant time passage, so long as actions that would significantly pass time and/or actions that clearly say "I couldn't care less about the urgency of this given situation" result in some representation of time passing, and therefore result in time-passage consequences.

 

The only difference is that consta-time limits provide the completely unnecessary ability to fail, not because you ran off in the opposite direction or wasted days worth of time saving cats from trees after finding out about an urgent situation, but because you, the player, simply took a little too long doing things that wouldn't need to be done if you weren't a disembodied master to the in-world party. Which is another thing that's completely unlike real life. In real life, someone doesn't take in a bunch of our experiences that get fed to them via a screen and some speakers, then make decisions based on our world's time constraints and their best evaluation of the information given to them.

 

Nothing bi-polar. Like I siad, you are stuck on the merchant thing, something that I already said I would prefer to have the time flowing.

Time flowing in the shops in no way addresses the point. I was saying that their not-flowing contradicts the extra effort of having super-accurate constant-passage time limits for things, which is, by itself, unnecessary, unless the game's goal is to challenge the player to perform non-time-sensitive video-game-only duties as efficiently as possible, which it isn't.

 

An RPG's about what you choose. Not about how fast you choose it.

  

First of all, in most cases you would be able to alter the situation. Sometimes you wouldn't, becaue the game provides you with the knowledge your PC would have and he doesn't know everything.

And yet, you know things that your PC doesn't know. You can click on someone and know that they have 17 intelligence, and how that affects what skills they can learn. Your PC doesn't know that. He just knows "*shrug... that person's pretty smart, I guess." Then, after they learn/use abilities, he knows they can use them. He doesn't know the requirements for using them, unless HE can use them, etc. He doesn't have any idea what potential things will earn him experience, or what things he'll get to pick when he levels up, or how his Persuasion skill might help him throughout the game. Yet, the player does.

 

A game is also designed to be beatable and AI is no match for the palyer.

So you won't ever REQUIRE a full supply of well-being. Any game that requires your party to be at 100% for it to be POSSIBLE to clear an area is badly designed IMHO.

 

You're skirting the point, with a very isolated situation, and claiming to disprove the bigger picture. The game is literally designed with your resting and healing back up to 100% capabilities in mind. Rest spots aren't naturally occurring in pixel space. They're designed and placed by the dev team, for the sole purpose of granting you the ability to replenish your finite resources for different sections of gameplay.

 

You're either just gonna have stuff happen whenever, because reality -- in which case you might arrive back at town from some long bout of fightin' and smitin', and you're all out of abilities (because they're heavily per-rest) and HPs, only to be approached with some urgent situation that needs dire attention -- OR you forcibly make sure stuff only happens when it's convenient. OR -- functionally the same thing -- you adjust the "timer" to accommodate the resting/purchasing, etc. The idea behind that completely contradicts the idea behind "reality doesn't wait on you, fool!". No, reality doesn't.

 

You still haven't actually addressed that contradiction. You just basically said "nuh-uh," then pointed out your very own argument that wasn't actually aimed at mine. It was just chillin' in the same area.

 

If you'd be so kind, please explain to me how making sure the player always has enough time to potentially go save a kidnapped girl doesn't contradict the super-precise timing of the player's actions in getting to the girl, because urgency and reality. Or how time flowing during shopping and simple resting fits into all that. Do you account for the shopping and resting, so that people who don't need to do that have all the time in the world and time isn't even a challenge anymore? Or do you require that they be penalized for actually restoring their party to combat readiness? And do you just throw crazy urgency situations around at random, arbitrary times, or do you make sure they're always conveniently occurring whenever the player wouldn't need to spend time in preparation in lieu of immediately acting?

 

Riddle me that, Trashman.

 

(Also... concision challenge: failed... -___-)

Edited September 24, 2013 by Lephys

[TrashMan]

Drat. I typed a long replay nad accidently closed the tab.. all gone... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

 

 

Ugh..Ok, I'm not gonna type all that AGAIN, so a short, short version:

 

I don't agree with you. At all. About anything you tpyed there. I see you making up problems and contradictions where there aren't any.

 

 

A RPG is about what you make it. It can be about choices and time - and timing IS A choice.

Don't tell me you never timed anything in a RPG (like a fireball to hit that cluster of enemeis JUST as they bunch up at the door). Because that's a lie.

 

 

 

The player can ALREADY pause the game to look over some options that the PC would never have to think about that long (for example: dialogue choices), so I really don't have a problem with the game auto-pausing in dialogue (games that didn't do that sometimes had silly bugs..like getting killed while talking). Time flows different for the player and the PC anyway.

 

You think that de-evaluates time constraintes? You think that every time constraint has to either have you run like a madman or it's poinltess? Well I don't. And I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this. There's certanly a place for such constraints - but only when it makes sense.

For example a local quest, where when you reach a village map, you are told by a fleeing mayor that rebels have trapped some villagers in the barn and set it on fire. A really short timer makes sense there - the barn is already burning. So you are in a race agaisnt time to break trough and reach the barn.

Otherwise, each quest that does have a time constraint should have a time constraint that makes sense for it - hours or days. If that means the player doesn't have to run liek crazy to accomplish quest X, so what?

 

 

You're skirting the point, with a very isolated situation, and claiming to disprove the bigger picture. The game is literally designed with your resting and healing back up to 100% capabilities in mind. Rest spots aren't naturally occurring in pixel space. They're designed and placed by the dev team, for the sole purpose of granting you the ability to replenish your finite resources for different sections of gameplay.

 

No, you are.

Your HP and spells aren't the only resource you have. You have consumables. Items crafted or bought. And tactics.

I have have cleared plenty of dungons in many games when low on everything. Difficult, but far from impossible.

And yes - choosing wether to go now or not IS a choice. Choice you so fevereshly claim to hold dear. Risk vs. reward. But if you don't go you'll fail the quest? So what. MUST you do every side-quest? Must all game content be always avialable regardless fo your choice? Should we do away with branching then?

 

 

 

You're either just gonna have stuff happen whenever, because reality -- in which case you might arrive back at town from some long bout of fightin' and smitin', and you're all out of abilities (because they're heavily per-rest) and HPs, only to be approached with some urgent situation that needs dire attention -- OR you forcibly make sure stuff only happens when it's convenient. OR -- functionally the same thing -- you adjust the "timer" to accommodate the resting/purchasing, etc. The idea behind that completely contradicts the idea behind "reality doesn't wait on you, fool!". No, reality doesn't.

 

A mix actually. Only some side-quests would be relatively random. Of course, ti would depend when you stumble upon them.

 

Again, I really see no problem.

 

 

 

 

If you'd be so kind, please explain to me how making sure the player always has enough time to potentially go save a kidnapped girl doesn't contradict the super-precise timing of the player's actions in getting to the girl, because urgency and reality. Or how time flowing during shopping and simple resting fits into all that. Do you account for the shopping and resting, so that people who don't need to do that have all the time in the world and time isn't even a challenge anymore? Or do you require that they be penalized for actually restoring their party to combat readiness? And do you just throw crazy urgency situations around at random, arbitrary times, or do you make sure they're always conveniently occurring whenever the player wouldn't need to spend time in preparation in lieu of immediately acting?

 

Timed encounters and quests are designed to make sense internally. Constraint that make sense for that quest and situation. The super-precise-timing is you own fabrication. Urgency exists in minutes and hours, as well as seconds.

And if you don't make it in time, you don't. If you do, you do. It's as simple as that.

 

In other words, you are trying to fabricate some super-formula to make every timed quest the same. To make enemy strength and time limit calculated based on the strength of the party. It is redicolous.

 

What I did say is that every timed quests (that can be completed and isn't pre-decided) shold have such a limit that if you get going right away, you will definately make it. But the longer you dilly-dally, the smaller your chances you will make it. You could just stop by the shop to buy some items, and you're highly likely to still make it (depending how far the shop is). You COULD go for a full rest and still make it. But you don't know. You can't know.

It's a risk.. a gamble. As it should be.

 

[Lephys]

I generally feel for you on the typed-post-disappearance. I know how that is (done it several times on these forums alone), and it sucks badly. So, sorry that occurred, 8(.

 

A RPG is about what you make it. It can be about choices and time - and timing IS A choice.

Don't tell me you never timed anything in a RPG (like a fireball to hit that cluster of enemeis JUST as they bunch up at the door). Because that's a lie.

I didn't say they don't involve timing. I said time efficiency is not what they're about. Though, that may have been my mistake. I believe I did use the word "timing," but I meant as in the gerund, like... "the game actively timing the player's choices, on a stop-watch." I figured all that context made it clear, because for me to suddenly be talking about the act of executing actions at the opportune moment, in the midst of my novel about races against time, would make be rather nonsensical.

 

I'll see your fireball example that misses the point, and raise you one fireball example that illustrates it: Tell me about a time you saw an opportunity to use a fireball, and you had to not only decide to issue the "cast Fireball here" command to your character, but also had to actually affect the casting of the fireball so as to make it go fast enough to get the fireball cast in time to not be useless. When the player's skill was directly tasked with doing things faster, and not simply choosing to do things with set speeds in an efficient and well-timed fashion.

 

The player can ALREADY pause the game to look over some options that the PC would never have to think about that long (for example: dialogue choices), so I really don't have a problem with the game auto-pausing in dialogue (games that didn't do that sometimes had silly bugs..like getting killed while talking). Time flows different for the player and the PC anyway.

You said you'd prefer time to flow while visiting merchants and healing up, etc. And you've pointed out all these "reality does it, why shouldn't we?" arguments in favor of time always flowing. Why not during dialogue? Can't people die while talking in real life?

 

Also, you're completely ignoring my point about pausing. If you can ALWAYS pause the flow of time while you're making decisions and such, then what's the point of a time limit? "You only have 1 in-game hour to get through these battles! So, you'd better decide things quickly, because you're on the clock!... Except when you're paused between every single action you perform!" Hmmm?

 

You think that de-evaluates time constraintes? You think that every time constraint has to either have you run like a madman or it's poinltess?

Not at all. I don't know why you keep jumping to such wild conclusions. I'm literally arguing that, if you're not going to have a very short, immediate time limit that makes you run like a madman, then there's no reason for it to be a super exact measure of constantly-flowing time. Not in an RPG, with oodles of different routes and orders to things and factors involved in getting from point A to point B. Add in random encounters to travel, that's another thing that makes an actual minute-for-minute time limit silly when it's something like two weeks. If you want to have a two week time limit, then cool. It's not pointless. It's just pointless to measure the hours, instead of just saying "Hey, you can only actively DO so many accomplishing tasks before this 'time limit' is up."

 

And I don't think we'll ever see eye-to-eye on this.

There's certanly a place for such constraints - but only when it makes sense.

For example a local quest, where when you reach a village map, you are told by a fleeing mayor that rebels have trapped some villagers in the barn and set it on fire. A really short timer makes sense there - the barn is already burning. So you are in a race agaisnt time to break trough and reach the barn.

See, I agree EXACTLY with you on the burning barn example. Yet, you'll probably come up with some mysterious way in which I don't actually agree with you, but only you know it and I somehow don't.

 

Otherwise, each quest that does have a time constraint should have a time constraint that makes sense for it - hours or days. If that means the player doesn't have to run liek crazy to accomplish quest X, so what?

You can do that, but I don't see the point in it at all. With the barn thing, it's actually a test of your ability to get to the barn, past whatever obstacles there are there. In complete isolation, it's a test. With "you have 72 hours to locate such-and-such," it's not testing JUST your ability to get through an isolated situation/dilemma. That time limit's applying to literally everything you're doing. Even stuff that you HAVE to do over the course of 72 hours in the game (like sleep, and fast travel, perform and deliver quests so that you can actually increase skills and defenses and whatnot so that you're not quantifiably incapable of performing further, difficult tasks, buy armor and equipment, etc.). It's way too big of a range, and it defeats the purpose of a time limit actually testing you. It's like 90% annoyance, and 10% non-pointless test. "Crap, over the course of those 6 battles between here and my destination, I took 30 critical hits and had to actually fall back and rest, whereas some other player only took 11 critical hits, even though we both had the same party makeup and everything. I had to blow 8 hours on resting, and he got to make it to the destination in-time." Stuff like that. It's applying all choices in the game (even ones that aren't meant to be time-sensitive) toward the completion of a goal over a however-long period. And, like I said, if it's actually so simple that it's just "we could go right now, and get there in like 6 hours of travel, yet we have 72 hours to do this (if not longer)," then what's the point in having a time limit? "Hey, if you literally waste days and days worth of time, you'll fail this quest, or bad things will happen at the very least." Isn't that the same thing as "who the hell would run around in circles for 7,000 minutes in town?" Because I think it is. Who the hell WOULDN'T make a 6-hour trip within a 72-hour period? That would be like giving you 8 hours to get to the barn and put the fire out, when it's just across town. It's either urgent or it isn't.

 

 

No, you are.

Your HP and spells aren't the only resource you have. You have consumables. Items crafted or bought. And tactics.

Negatory, Ghost Rider. You're skirting "the" point (as in "the point I was making), and substituting in your own point, which you're then pretending is my point. See your version of my point is that HP and spells are the only resource you have. So you just proved that wrong. But my actual point was that HP and spells/abilities are the MAIN resources you have. If the game is designed to regularly be progressed through without ever resting or using any abilities ever again, then what happens when you DO use those things that are built straight into the game? "Oh, I can actually readily afford potions out the wazz, and grenades, and we have such good equipment that I can just passively kill everything to death." Sounds like it's time to turn up the difficulty from "Tutorial" to "actual difficulty" if the game's that easy without resting. "What? Clear out another forest? But we're out of health and abilities! Oh well, let's go, people!"

 

Nope. Pretty sure that's not the game's intention. Obviously it doesn't want you to be full on health and abilities all day long. But, you go out, you do some stuff for a bit, then you need to replenish. Then you do the same thing again. Your finite MAIN resources are intended to provide a challenge for a given finite amount of obstacles you can overcome with them, consecutively.

 

And yes - choosing wether to go now or not IS a choice. Choice you so fevereshly claim to hold dear. Risk vs. reward. But if you don't go you'll fail the quest? So what. MUST you do every side-quest? Must all game content be always avialable regardless fo your choice? Should we do away with branching then?

You just suggested that my claim to value choice is somehow false, without actually saying why/how. And when did I say anything about the problem being that you shouldn't be able to fail any side-quest, ever? You should be able to choose to go now instead of later, and that should be enough. You shouldn't have a list of factors that cause you to fail sheerly because you took too long WHILE you're actually hurrying as best you can.

 

Time sensitive stuff isn't branching. If you go left, you literally can't go right, because you're going left. If you say one thing in dialogue, then you can't go back in time and have said something else. The situation's already affected by your choice, and it can't go back to it's unaffected state to be effected by a different choice. It can only now be FURTHER affected by another choice.

 

A mix actually. Only some side-quests would be relatively random. Of course, ti would depend when you stumble upon them.

But why? Do you need to be able to do every single side-quest? . Really, though... why does the clock wait on you to stumble into them to start ticking. Like, some kidnappers are waiting, waiting, then, BOOM, you walk through the gates, and they decide to kidnap a girl. Or, they then decide to set fire to a barn. Why did they wait for you? And why should other things NOT-wait on you, but those things should?

 

Timed encounters and quests are designed to make sense internally. Constraint that make sense for that quest and situation. The super-precise-timing is you own fabrication. Urgency exists in minutes and hours, as well as seconds.

And if you don't make it in time, you don't. If you do, you do. It's as simple as that.

It is as simple as that. So what's the point? It's either "super-precise" timing, or it isn't. Either every single minute you spend merely existing counts down toward some form of failure or negative change, or it doesn't. Even if it doesn't, you can still have urgency. If you were actually performing all the actions, first-hand, that the characters were, then time-ticking urgency would be an issue. You might fire your bow more quickly than you should, reducing your accuracy, or your defense might be lowered because of reckless decisions. The fact is, you can't make your characters actually "hurry." You can't make them run a little faster than they normally do, or take more risk in all their actions than they normally do. You can't do any of that. Everything is already internally constrained to time limits (attacks, move speed, travel time, how long it takes to say things in dialogue, etc.). So, a constantly ticking clock makes no sense. Because, no matter how much the player WANTS to hurry, he's limited by the time constraints of all other things in the world, as well as by needs that only exist in their specific occurrence because of video game system abstraction.

 

Nope. I'm not trying to fabricate some super-formula, or make all timed quests the same. They'd all be different. And the enemy strength and time limit wouldn't be calculated. It would be the same, no matter what. Someone who spends 8 million hours literally doing nothing, then actually does something would still get to succeed at a quest that was urgent, and someone who spends no time doing nothing and immediately does something would also succeed. So, the only thing different with an actual timer would be that we'd weed out all the oodles of people who'd actually spend their time not doing anything of consequence whatsoever (running laps around town, browsing merchant's wares for entire in-game days on end, etc.).

 

What I did say is that every timed quests (that can be completed and isn't pre-decided) shold have such a limit that if you get going right away, you will definately make it. But the longer you dilly-dally, the smaller your chances you will make it. You could just stop by the shop to buy some items, and you're highly likely to still make it (depending how far the shop is). You COULD go for a full rest and still make it. But you don't know. You can't know.

It's a risk.. a gamble. As it should be.

"The longer you dilly-dally, the smaller your chances you will make it." False. Whatever obstacles are there, and whatever distance you must go remain the same. So, the longer you dilly-dally, the closer you approach to an all-but-static threshold, beyond which it will be impossible to reach your destination in time. The only actual variable factor is the player's ability to overcome obstacles with speed. And even THAT is rendered moot by the sheer decision to either dilly-dally, or not-dilly dally. Again, if you have 72 hours to complete a task that only takes between 10 and 12 hours to complete, then you're either going to decide to go do it while you still have 12-or-more hours left, or you aren't. What lesson are you teaching to the person who's a little less efficient with their comprehension of the synergistic collaboration of all their party's abilities by saying "Lolz, you had time to do this, but you're just BAD AT THIS GAME AND YOU FAILED!"? "This SHOULD'VE only taken TEN hours, but you took THIRTEEN! What a MORON!"

 

No one's going to accidentally take 73 hours to complete a 10-12 hour task. That's the nature of dilly-dallying; doing things you know aren't a priority, with the knowledge of what IS a priority.

 

That's actually the difference between exclusive branches, as you referenced before, and straight-up timed things. Take the barn, for example. If you have like.... a minute and a half (real-world time) to get to the barn and rescue someone or start fighting the fire or whatever, then, before you even worry about speed, you have a simple choice of mutual exclusion: "Do I try to get to the barn, or do I go somewhere else and do something that isn't going after the barn?" If you choose to not go for the barn, then no matter what you do, you're not going to get to the barn in-time. Once you choose TO go for the barn, you have to hurry. But, the timer suggest that there's time in which you'll reach the barn before something changes, and time in which you won't. Yes, these are exclusive outcomes, but not based on choice. They're based on time. You already CHOSE barn. Now time is still an issue. Even aside from non-time-based obstacles (like failure to get around a wall, or failure to not-die to orcs), even if you accomplish all things and get to the barn, you might not get there in time, even though you chose to get there in time.

 

If you fail to see any relevance or truth in anything I'm saying, then awesome. It happens. Doesn't change anything, but, we don't have to keep on with this if you aren't interested in anything but telling me how everything you said is true, and literally everything I've said is false.

 

If there's nothing more to be gained by either of us, then the discussion is essentially forfeit.