Timers

[Saiyajinzoningen]

Hey folks, serious request/question.

So sometimes I get a random quest on a chain with a timer.

and I don't have time to do it (yikes)

would it be possible to have quest timers start upon entering the mission

instead of upon its receipt?

[Rudra]

I don't think that is possible since the point of the timed missions is to get us to book it to the mission and get it done or accept a failed mission. However, most missions with timers are flagged as such before you accept them. If there are any other missions with timers that are not so flagged, then they need to be. I am only aware of 1 mission that works like that, and it is a blue side follow up mission where the mission has the same layout as the preceding mission. (And was designed to have a high chance of failure anyway, with I think only a 15 second window to find the three terminals and shut them down? Been a while since I bothered with it....)

 

(Edit: I think the mission is actually on an 8 minute timer from the moment you exit the 1st mission.)

Edited October 4, 2023 by Rudra

[arcane]

You can usually abandon the mission and pick it up later.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

2 hours ago, arcane said:

You can usually abandon the mission and pick it up later.

 

did not know this, thanks 🙂 

[Hedgefund]

You may consider this cheese, but if you are short on time and need to log off you can just let the timer run out, which will award you some "pity" xp/inf.  It's not a lot but it's something for nothing.  The worst that happens is the contact gives you a tsk-tsk.

[biostem]

At the very least, timed missions should have some sort of clear indicator or icon that they will be, in fact, timed, (before you accept them, of course)... 

Edited October 5, 2023 by biostem

[Rudra]

13 minutes ago, biostem said:

At the very least, timed missions should have some sort of clear indicator or icon that they will be, in fact, timed, (before you accept them, of course)... 

Most timed missions are actually clearly marked as timed missions in the mission description before you accept them. There are some that aren't and simply pop up, like that 8-minute timed mission that isn't even mentioned to the best of my memory until you exit the 1st mission and see the timer pop up, but other missions with a similar set up do in fact have a highlighted mention in the mission description that a timed mission is involved at some point during its execution.

 

That said, I think it would be best if we the players report those missions that got missed rather than ask the devs to do a blanket search to fix timed missions. So, if we stumble across a timed mission that wasn't flagged in the mission description, then we need to post that specific mission to the devs to be updated or fixed so players aren't blindly wandering into timed missions they don't have the time to even start. (Because lets face it, there are a LOT of missions the devs would have to sort through if we don't tell them which missions were missed for that update after the Live devs  already poured through every mission in the game to look for the timed missions.)

[Greycat]

Isn't there one on an *extremely* short timer that you're essentially meant to fail as part of the storyline?

 

Seem to vaguely remember that being a thing on an arc. Don't recall which one, right offhand.

 

It'd be an edge case, regardless, but it'd be appropriate for that to be a "surprise" timed mission.

[lemming]

13 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Isn't there one on an *extremely* short timer that you're essentially meant to fail as part of the storyline?

 

Seem to vaguely remember that being a thing on an arc. Don't recall which one, right offhand.

 

It'd be an edge case, regardless, but it'd be appropriate for that to be a "surprise" timed mission.

Was a mission on I think Tina's arc and yes, very hard to finish in time.   I think it was click on several blinkies, etc... Hated that thing, but they changed it (I think while still live)

[Rudra]

4 hours ago, Greycat said:

Isn't there one on an *extremely* short timer that you're essentially meant to fail as part of the storyline?

 

Seem to vaguely remember that being a thing on an arc. Don't recall which one, right offhand.

 

It'd be an edge case, regardless, but it'd be appropriate for that to be a "surprise" timed mission.

It's the one I mentioned. You go into a mission where there are lots of the old (blue?) Praetorian Clockwork that look like regular Clockwork except for their color. You have to find 3(?) terminals and shut them down. When you finish and exit that mission, you have an immediate 8-minute timer for a followup mission to go to another door and enter that instance mission, find 3(?) more terminals, and shut them all down. If you can remember the map layout and terminal positions of the 1st map, then you know where the terminals all are on the 2nd map. However, with only 8 minutes to reach the mission door, enter, and race through to get all 3(?) terminals, which may even have spawns right at the terminals, yeah, you are meant to fail it. Because jack believes that forced failure is good for character development, or something inane like that.

 

(Edit: I think enough people complained that it got extended out to 15 minutes on the timer, but it's been a long time since I did that arc through Ouroboros and it did at least used to be 8 minutes.)

Edited October 5, 2023 by Rudra

[SuggestorK]

14 hours ago, Rudra said:

I don't think that is possible since the point of the timed missions is to get us to book it to the mission and get it done or accept a failed mission.

 

Well we do have missions that start timers when entering, Bank Missions if it safeguard or rob the bank dont matter, both start the timer after entering. So it is possible.

[Black Zot]

7 hours ago, Rudra said:

 However, with only 8 minutes to reach the mission door, enter, and race through to get all 3(?) terminals, which may even have spawns right at the terminals, yeah, you are meant to fail it. Because jack believes that forced failure is good for character development, or something inane like that.

 

One more piece of evidence that Jack Emmert should not be in charge of anything.

[SeraphimKensai]

Honestly at this point I wouldn't be opposed to just removing timers from missions in general. As a father with a one year old I find myself soloing a lot when I do have time to play and often get interrupted by a dirty diaper or something.

 

At this point since AE exists mission timers on things like wolves and such don't really make much sense to me.

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, SuggestorK said:

Well we do have missions that start timers when entering, Bank Missions if it safeguard or rob the bank dont matter, both start the timer after entering. So it is possible.

Yeah, forgot about those. Good point.