Manticore TF: that timed mission

[Techwright]

Manticore TF: that timed mission.  You know the one:  find and remove a Crey security chief with 90 minutes to finish, and often the focus of team jokes like "however will we manage?"

 

Is it really necessary to maintain this timer and at this amount?  If so, why?  What would be a better arrangement? Removing the timer altogether?  Shortening the timer to create challenge for the team?  Possibly dramatically shortening the timer but allowing for going past it, possibly adding a bonus award for completing the shortened timer?  Other?

[Uun]

Timed missions in general are largely a joke. The only exceptions are Efficiency Expert Pither's (which still aren't that hard) and that 10-minute timed mission in the OG Tina Mac arc.

[Ghost]

It should be lowered to 15-minutes.

With the penalty being loss of 1 merit per minute it takes over the 15 to complete 😈

[lemming]

Most of the timed missions are:

1) Setup to give a sense of urgency, but were done before the travel powers and IO sets made these much quicker.

2) To eliminate farming the mission.

 

Yea, the OG Tina was the one that seemed the most stressful/exciting to do.   Current one that is similar is the Roy arc where you have to find all the unconscious police officers and lead one hostage out.

 

The only timed missions that annoy me are the ones that start right after you turn in a mission.  A bit rare, but they always pop up when I am on "one last mission"

[Hedgefund]

What's funny about the timed missions to prevent farming is that that's no longer applicable.  You can do your farming, exit, abandon, repeat.  

[MTeague]

Blueside, I've never failed a timed mission even when soloing on my Mind/Kin controller, at levels where he did NOT have access to Fulcrum Shift.

So, I don't consider timed missions an issue, at all. 

 

Now, "surprise" timers, are deeply unwelcome and should never exist. If I'm trying to squeeze in one last mission when I should ahve already been in bed two hours ago, the game should not surprise you with a timed mission. But I can only think of a handful of times I've seen that, and even those, the mission text says something like "once you've done that, you'll only have about an hour to do FOO", so as long as I'm reading, I can know in advance. 

[lemming]

3 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

What's funny about the timed missions to prevent farming is that that's no longer applicable.  You can do your farming, exit, abandon, repeat.  

Yep. You used to not be able to abandon timed missions.

[Techwright]

On 8/27/2025 at 11:01 AM, Ghost said:

It should be lowered to 15-minutes.

With the penalty being loss of 1 merit per minute it takes over the 15 to complete 😈

 

I'm on the fence about that penalty.  While I do think it would make things interesting, it is also a quick way to break a team with disgruntled types abandoning the TF/SF.   People are funny about what losses trigger them to extreme behavior.  

 

I'm speculating that a timer should offer a reward, but should be a tight timer.  The question is: how tight?  It should be reasonable enough for the team to fight to the target, but that would also mean that the teams with a speed/stealth/team teleport member would likely get done fast enough that there's be too much left on the clock.   Perhaps if such a mission introduced a teleport suppression plot device of some kind...

 

22 hours ago, lemming said:

The only timed missions that annoy me are the ones that start right after you turn in a mission.  A bit rare, but they always pop up when I am on "one last mission"

Technically, this one on the Manticore TF is such a timed mission.  However, the team expects to stay connected with the task for a while so it's not on issue.

[Snarky]

[lemming]

8 hours ago, Techwright said:

Technically, this one on the Manticore TF is such a timed mission.  However, the team expects to stay connected with the task for a while so it's not on issue.

Technically sure, but I wouldn't count TFs, at least not since live where there would be occasion to not do it in one session.

[Scarlet Shocker]

On 8/28/2025 at 5:38 PM, Techwright said:

 

I'm on the fence about that penalty.  While I do think it would make things interesting, it is also a quick way to break a team with disgruntled types abandoning the TF/SF.   People are funny about what losses trigger them to extreme behavior.  

 

I'm speculating that a timer should offer a reward, but should be a tight timer.  The question is: how tight?  It should be reasonable enough for the team to fight to the target, but that would also mean that the teams with a speed/stealth/team teleport member would likely get done fast enough that there's be too much left on the clock.   Perhaps if such a mission introduced a teleport suppression plot device of some kind...

 

Technically, this one on the Manticore TF is such a timed mission.  However, the team expects to stay connected with the task for a while so it's not on issue.

 

 

Reduce the time to a realistically challenging period for a level appropriate team. 

 

If the mission is completed within that time offer 6 bonus Merits a la GMs 

 

Turn it into an incentive, rather than a penalty. 

[Uun]

There are currently rewards for finishing TFs under certain time limits (gold/silver/bronze), but I don't recall what they are.

[lemming]

40 minutes ago, Uun said:

There are currently rewards for finishing TFs under certain time limits (gold/silver/bronze), but I don't recall what they are.

There are rewards for Ouro Arcs, not TFs

 

You can set the same limitations for TFs, but except for Master & Starred type content runs, no additional rewards in usual TF setups.

[BasiliskXVIII]

42 minutes ago, lemming said:

There are rewards for Ouro Arcs, not TFs

 

You can set the same limitations for TFs, but except for Master & Starred type content runs, no additional rewards in usual TF setups.

Except the badges, if you care about such things