Please stop making timed group quests

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by BronkTwo, Sep 24, 2021.

  1. BronkTwo Journeyman

    TLDR version: Please stop making timed group quests. I'm going back and doing old content for Hero AAs and many expansions are almost entirely timed quests -- often requiring groups.

    Some of us have gotten older and have RL responsibilities and can no longer dedicate hours to try and finish these quests before the timer runs out. Plus, it's hard enough just to find groups these days.

    Please let me know if there's a better place to post this request.

    Please stop making timed quests essential to the Progression.

    It's very hard to set aside a long block of time to do these timed quests in order to finish these expansions. Some of them are almost all timed quests and progression is locked until you do them.

    If it's not cost-effective to remove the timers on the older expacs, maybe you can sell us a potion that removes the timer on older content to defray development costs?

    --

    I started EQ when it first came out. I took a break after PoP and returned a couple of years ago. I'm now going back and doing the content I missed in order to earn the Hero AAs and, frankly, just for the fun of it. Great content, guys!
    Mims and Corwyhn Lionheart like this.
  2. Randomized Augur

    If you're going back and doing previous expansions progression, you should be able to steam roll through them and not need anywhere near the allotted time (what is it, 6 hours?).
    code-zero and Fenthen like this.
  3. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Yes, they go much faster.

    The problem is you can't stop halfway through when the kids need to go to school and the shopping needs to be done and then come back to them. Or even that sleep thing, I hear people say they do. The quests may have expired.
    Mims, Corwyhn Lionheart and Flatchy like this.
  4. Randomized Augur

    You have 6 hours to do maybe 30 minutes of a quest...how long does it take to take the kids to school and come back? Surely not 5 hours. And if you can't plan for a 30 minute window to bust out a quest within a 6 hour window....I'm not sure there's much that can be done
    Fenthen and CatsPaws like this.
  5. demi Augur

    ya i think gribbles quests are 6 hour timers to complete .. and you can do all 3 within 45min to an hour .. sure some of them MIGHT require a bit longer , but you have 6 hours .. go grocery shopping for 1hr , go pick up the kids 30min , go to gym 1hour , and go stream your fav binge'd tv show for 45min and guess what come back and you used 3hr 15min of the allotted 6 hours and you still got 2hr 45min left to finsh Heck go do the dishes for another 45min and bring that wife faction up with 2 hours to spare .. do i have to tell ya what you can do with another 30min that will bring up wife faction or do you get what im putting down :p :p:Do_O
    Fenthen likes this.
  6. Tucoh Augur

    I wouldn't mind seeing timed quests go to the wayside too, but which quest do you think takes too much time?
  7. Flatchy Court Jester

    Pro Tip- Get divorced , then you can finish your missions! :D (disclaimer- only go this route if she does not have your password to your account or accounts)
  8. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Missions are on a 6 hour timer as that is how long an instance will stay up (includes raids). I did notice while doing heros journey that some quests (not instances) had a time limit of only a couple of hours, I think the shortest I saw was 1 hour 30, but that could have been a 2 hour that I didn't notice when I got it. I think most other group quests are usually 24 hours.
  9. BronkTwo Journeyman

    What can be done is remove the timer. What is the point of it anyway?

    Some of them take at least 2 hours. I'm speaking both from experience and the reports of others.
  10. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Haha! If you get divorced, then you have to get another job to pay child support *and* you don't have someone to foist the errands on to. :)
  11. BronkTwo Journeyman

    The reason this is a problem is that I pretty quickly exhausted the quests that don't have timers so now I'm stuck with no content I can run for at least several expacs. Since they are also locked due to progression, there's no content I can do if I want to just pop in and play for a short time as a break from RL.

    As someone else brought up the topic of wife/husband aggro (or parent aggro), I'll ask what happens if you start a quest, but then the familial unit in question needs you to do something asap and since they are "S/he Who Cannot Be Denied", you lose all your progress.

    Real life is full of distractions that Lucan D'Lere never has to worry about.
  12. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    The timer is there to stop players from repeating the quests too quickly. It takes you X amount of time and then you get X lock out.

    History has proven the players will take advantage of any slight crack in the system to further their own desires. If they took away the timers then they would have players camping some of those tasks/missions/quests 24/7.

    The devs have learned to throw some long complicated quests in the game to challenge some players otherwise they would get bored.

    You, however have the opposite problem of not being able to complete the quest/task/mission fast enough in the time frame. Or your time is interrupted. I am sure you are the first player to ever have his play time in the game interrupted;) .

    If you have "pretty quickly exhausted the quests that don't have timers" then you obviously are good at your game. So, once again which specific quests are you talking about?

    Overall, I don't think you have a specific quest in mind but I think life happens to you a lot when playing the game and your bringing out your frustrations on the game mechanics. So its ok if your grumpy that your EQ time gets interrupted. We are all like that at times.

    To answer your other question about what you can do with limited time well, if you have limited time then do some tradeskills, do the daily hot zone (not the HA - the other Teek) there are 100's of quests you have not discovered with no timers and they will stay in your quest window until done.....Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Parrot or Baron Yosig's Skeleton or The Artesian one, the earring one. All those and more can be done in short segments.

    Bottom line - Sorry but I do not see them changing the game for one or two players. You will need to figure out a way to play like everyone else has. Set aside some "me" time. Plan ahead. Get the rest of the family addicted to EQ.
    Coagagin likes this.
  13. Rainlover Augur

    I think the timer for group tasks are also there as they are group tasks, there are resources keeping the task open as such. most on older xpacs can be done quick particularly if you out leveled them. ( 15 to 20 minutes) a few still take longer, but not many. I would say if you have a short window grab one, do it if you can, IF life happens, and you don't finish, you just do it next time there is no consequence to failing. in most play windows you will find you can finish most quests.
    ---

    All said, I would support removing the timer if it is technologically possible for them without hurting the game for open world group quest, or making open world solo versions of them that grant the same reward/achevement.
  14. Gialana Augur

    Six hour timers are usually reserved for instanced content. I don't think removing the timer would help you for this type of content because the instance will close if you exit it (or camp). You'd be able to spin up the instance again, but it wouldn't be in the same state, which could make it impossible to finish the task, anyway. Yes, you could leave a character logged into the instance to keep it open, but I'm guessing the time limit is partially meant to prevent people from increasing server load by keeping instances up forever.

    Solo tasks have no time limit, but many shared tasks that take place in the open world have 24 hour limits. They used to be listed as unlimited, but this was just a display bug that was fixed in the last year or two. They were always limited to 24 hours. I can't think of a reason why these need to be limited to 24 hours and would be all for changing them as long as it won't break a bunch of other code.
  15. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    That's... just not true though. The replay timer was added for this reason, not the group task timer. There is also a request timer that was added to prevent overloading the server from trying to get a specific quest (added in LDoN and carried forward even if it's a single task).

    No forum warrior can really say why there is a specific time limit on given shared tasks. Most are 6 hrs, which coincides with DZ up times. Some are much shorter, likely to provide extra challenge. When it comes to shared tasks though, there's something "odd" behind the code, like how two people can have different (open world) shared tasks yet unable to group together.

    Overall, yeah, I don't see them doing anything about them. 6 hours is plenty of time to complete one, most take 45 mins or less in era. I'd suggest the OP read up on the quest(s) before diving in. That can make a 2hr slogfest into a 20 min speed run.


    I don't know what progression OP is stressing over, but I've only heard of a handful that really took some serious time to complete (mostly due to the extra achievements).
  16. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    How can you say if its true or not if no forum warrior can say . :D And then you go on to say why.

    Sorry just being cantankerous this morning.
    Yinla likes this.
  17. niente Developer

    A shared task with a time limit of 6 hours may be limited because of association with an instance. Instances last 6 hours as a limit by the game. There may be some shared tasks that can have their time limit extended to 24 instead of 6 hours, these are likely a design choice (if there is no instance related to the task).

    A shared task with a time limit of 24 hours is limited because of the shared task system. All shared tasks are only stored 24 hours on the server before being removed. We could change the shared task system to support lasting longer than 24 hours - but it requires a somewhat sizable amount of work. We would need to save shared tasks on the server, and they are not saved right now. This way if the server went down and came up again you would still have the task. As-is, when a shared task is started you get an ID that goes away if the server crashes or is shut down.

    It may be possible to change these limits to last longer, or until the task is completed, but as of right now they shut down after that long.
  18. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    Just don’t throw uncommon mob spawns with multiple spawn locations into a task with a timer. You did this in ToV Kael with the wolf spawn. Took me multiple days repeating the quest over because I couldn’t get the update in my play window.
    Wyre Wintermute likes this.
  19. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    Historian Pewdri's Task in Crescent reach is a solo task yet the timer on it is only 8 hours
    Blackfeather Roost - Reach the royal throne - solo quest with an 8 hour timer
    At least 3 of the 4 quests from Klassr in Gour`kar Mesa are 8 hours

    There are others in TSS but I can't remember which atm.

    Not sure what the devs were thinking when they created TSS, these are solo quests, not shared or instance and I don't see any reason why they would be time restricted.
  20. Accipiter Old Timer

    This thread is a solution in search of a problem.
    Metanis likes this.