Please stop making timed group quests

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

  1. Accipiter Old Timer


    Wow. I probably killed that wolf 10 times.
  2. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Thanks for your kindness but I don't think most of y'all understand what I'm complaining about.
    Go back and look at all of the expacs that are needed for Hero AAs. For example, look at the overview descriptions on zam. Let's use Bixie Warfront since it's the first Hero AA expac

    https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:Progression_Through_Call_of_the_Forsaken#Bixie_Warfront

    It appears as if the eleven tasks in the quest line -- out of thirteen quests total -- are "heroic adventures". Why not just make them regular Mercenary tasks where you kill x number of mobs without the timer? Why block all progression in the entire rest of the expac by doing this?
    The next few expacs do something similar. It's not until EOK, iirc, where it gets sane again.

    It's just bad game design.
  3. Randomized Augur

    Good thing you've got a 6 hour window then huh?
    The timer is fine, poor time management skills (yes i understand things come up that you cannot account for), is not a reason for the game to change to suit you. I understand in era having these troubles, but even so, 2 hours within a 6 hour window is fine.

    You can walk away from the computer and come back and still finish it.

    And you're saying it's old content - so those Heroic Adventures take 15 minutes (tops) of time to roll through. So again, you have to only set aside 15 minutes in a 6 hour window. Again, if 15 minutes is too much time to dedicate for a single play session, I'm afraid EQ is not the game for you my friend
  4. Gialana Augur

    I had this happen the first two times I tried to do the quest. I was lucky the next couple of times I did the quest to get Frost to spawn pretty quickly. Now when I go back, I try to spawn but not kill all three of the rare mobs for that quest before I request. It's a pretty safe tactic on my server at least since the zone is usually empty or has only one other group in some corner of the zone.
  5. Skrab East Cabilis #1 Realtor

    Yeah, RNG. On the other hand I had no issues with the snow dervishes like others had when ToV launched.
  6. Wyre Wintermute I'm just a butterly dreaming I'm a man

    Because we're talking about 2 different things. The duration of the task timer being there to stop players from repeating tasks too quickly is what I said was not true. The duration of the task timer has no correlation to the replay or lockout timers. The replay and lockout timers exist for what you said. Hence, what I said in my post stating that particular line being untrue.

    As for my other comment, it stands as well. and Neinte came in with a response to that. It was in relation to why the shared tasks typically share a 6 hour to completion timer.
  7. minimind The Village Idiot

    I like this thread and I think I like the request as well. Some quick responses:

    1. Our playerbase is aging. I sometimes manage a mid-raid buff rotation for my raid alliance and I've had multiple people ask me privately to either put them at the end of the rotation or to send a tell (instead of needing to rely on Gina) because they're just getting less responsive with age. I'm think I'm the third youngest person in our Saturday night raid and I'm nearly 40. Almost everyone I play with is retired or at least retirement age.

    2. It wouldn't hurt to make non-instance quests of the future more easily resumable by avoiding the timed quest mechanic. There are obviously specific limitations to instances being held open, of course.

    3. Maybe instanced missions in the future could maintain a time limit, but also have "save points" so that you have the option re-initiating an instanced mission at certain parts of the quest.

    Example: Mission has 5 steps-- Talk to person, Punch 100 faces, Crush object, kill boss, report back to person. Once you've "punched all the faces", you get a save point for 7 days. If you drop the instance before killing the boss, you can return to the "punch 100 faces" stage at any time in the next 7 days and have 3 hours left to complete the mission.

    There are considerations to be made (lock outs, loot, etc.) and it's a lot of work, but it would be a really neat family/age-friendly feature to add in the future.
    Stymie and BronkTwo like this.
  8. Randomized Augur


    The problem with doing that is outlined in the Dev response here:

    Yinla likes this.
  9. Coagagin Guild house cat

    I could have a great deal of fun keeping all those instances open for an unlimited amount of time. Either creating lag or eventually causing memory exhaustion would not be impossible or even unthinkable. Misused you end up with an exhausted server from a near unlimited number of silver accounts opening the max number of instances and going away till server reset.

    Could go further and into more detail but as CatsPaws stated above end users will use any crack to create mayhem for giggles if nothing else. Your just asking for trouble.

    The 6 hour timer is generous and fine as stands.
    Kaenneth, Metanis and Randomized like this.
  10. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Thanks! If you could make them last until the task is completed, that would help a lot.

    Please remember that the title of this thread is "Please STOP MAKING timed group quests". We have gotten focused on past content -- which is fine -- it is one of the problems but only one.

    But why make an entire expac -- actually, a series of expacs -- that consists of timed group instances? Why not just make them regular mercenary "kill 5 rats". This must have been a nightmare to play originally -- try to find a group these days.

    Secondly, because moving farther into the whole progression is locked until you finish them, it blocks progress in the entire expac.

    Many of the other comments are unrealistic.

    First of all, the devs do change the game based on player feedback. Hopefully, I got enough dev attention that they'll go back and look at the old content again and realize what a series of roadblocks it is -- unnecessary roadblocks, imo.

    Second, please don't make inaccurate dismissive claims like they only take 15 minutes. If that were the case, I would not have complained. In my experience, and in the reports of others online, they usually take a minimum of two hours. Why?

    Why not give players a place to go and knock out a few quests when they just have 30 minutes or so?

    Others here have said they agree. Just saying "organize your life better" ignores the fact that we have other things to do in our lives that can't be "re-organized". Forcing us to commit to a minimum of two hours with a huge penalty for failure (failure in this case is defined as things like having to go to bed because you have to go to work or school in the morning) is bad game design.

    It was fine back in the old days when we were all young and could camp jboots for days. The world, our aging bodies, and games in general have moved beyond that.

    Maybe the reason there are only one or two players -- actually more -- I see them there -- is because people realize what a pita it is and either do something else when they've maxed out or, horrors!, they play another game instead which hurts the future viability of this game we love so much.

    EQ has all of this wonderful old content. They should really go back and figure out how to make it playable again in today's environment.
  11. Randomized Augur

    That'd put way too much stress on the servers allowing everyone to keep so many instances open 24/7 because they go afk in the middle of a quest.

    It's not exclusive - there's both in expansions. You're blowing this way out of proportion to push an agenda

    That is how progression works, yes, regardless of the style.

    That's their experience, this is ours. Why is that so hard to believe? And you have yet to answer the question as to which quests you're talking so we can further move this along.

    OR because you're going through old content and most everyone else has already done all of that before since the game is 22 years old and all
  12. BronkTwo Journeyman

    It's generally not worth responding to you because you are, as you accuse me of doing:

    That wildly exaggerates how common this will be. Another example of blowing it out of proportion.

    If you look at the example I gave about 11 of the 14 Bixie quests are timed. That is way out of proportion. If you look at the zam overviews for the following expacs, you'll see that they have a similar proportion.

    Since they are progression-locked, there is no way to get around the timed quests and access other content.

    It is not hard to believe. People can have different reactions and both be valid. You are making false accusations again.

    Once again, you are making false accusations and showing you are uninformed. Go back and read my reply to Cat's Paw that starts with "thanks for your kindness..." It actually QUOTES the "which quests" comment and then gives the Bixie link to ANSWER it. As I just said above, you can read the zam overviews for the following expacs to see the percentage of timed quests is similar.

    If you accuse me of doing things that I clearly did just a few posts ago, I don't see much point in replying to you. Your replies are not helpful.

    This is irrelevant. I am making a suggestion to improve the game. You are just throwing out ill-informed and inaccurate defenses. Sadly, this is typical in these kinds of forums.

    Anyway, we did get a dev response, so hopefully they will think about it.

    Thanks to everyone else who actually provided relevant and helpful discussion.
  13. Randel Flag Elder

    are you 115? if so you could solo most of these in a matter of mins, timer should be a moot point, all this old content is beyond trivial, some NEED 6 people to request yah, but not a lot of them and you can generally find someone in general chat standing around doing tradeskills or something willing to fill your group to get tasks.
  14. CazRaX Elder

    Pro move is to change the password to account AND to your email account BEFORE saying you want a divorce.
    Flatchy and Nennius like this.
  15. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Ninja pro move is to get HER account information before you ask for a divorce. Just as a safeguard , you understand. ;) Or his, depending on gender.
    CazRaX likes this.
  16. Randomized Augur

    Not at all: let me give you a quick example.

    I just logged into 3 different characters over 2 different servers. Between those 3 characters I had 8 quests in their quest log just sitting idle, because there's no timer, there's no rush and they will not clear themselves.

    If I never get around to completing those quests, clearing those quests from my log, or delete that character, those quests will sit there indefinitely. That could easily be 8 instances open on just me, on those 3 characters (2 of which I'd probably not play again or at least not any time soon). Not to mention my other characters I have, or everyone else on those servers.

    This is where the issue comes into play. They're having to be held open because they're saved and will not disappear or clear unless manually done. Now take an entire server that's got multiple characters per account, and usually multiple accounts per person. That is a lot of stress on those servers and would be a lot more common than you think.


    Are you talking strictly Heroic Adventures than? I think CoTF introduced those so that was a major part of that expansion. And they're common in future expansions, but not as wildly as popular, and not as common in earlier expansions either (just timed instanced zones that is)

    Incorrect - all of CoTF is available (at least now, not sure how it was when it was in era). It locks future quests out since you usually have to complete them in order to unlock the next quest, but it's not locking you from content. Not completing Bixie Warfronts does not stop me from entering Dead Hills, or Neriaks 4th Gate, or Ethernere, or Argin-Hiz, or Tower of Rot, etc etc etc.

    Incorrect again, I never accused you of anything (aside from blowing things out of proportion). And it's funny how you say people can have different reactions, but yet you refuse to accept that we're all able to do old content in no time.

    All I said is that our experiences are that going back and doing older content, we can steamroll it and only take 15 minutes (tops) to complete said quests/tasks. You're the one who accused me of making inaccurate and dismissive claims. No....we're all here saying it only takes 15 minutes to go back and do old content. Thats our personal experience. I'm assuming the people who are complaining about things taking 2 hours to do are complaining from 10 years ago when it was current content. Then I could see that. But I didn't make any claims nor did I accuse you of anything. Just saying hey, you can do this, because we're doing it.



    It's not ill-informed. It's current and accurate information. Would you like me to stream me steam-rolling the Gribbles heroic adventures on my Beastlord and post it here for you to see? I can probably knock out all 3 in 20 minutes (as other people have mentioned being able to do as well).

    And the Dev response tells you exactly why your idea isn't a good idea......
  17. BronkTwo Journeyman

    I'm not going to waste my time addressing all of your issues because you use debater's tricks to misrepresent the issues and force them into fitting "your agenda" as you put it.

    This problem could be solved but not in the artificial ways you present to prove your case rather than try to fix the problem and make the game better.

    I will reply to this one thing, though, because it illustrates the general problem, which is clear if you read the zam walkthroughs as I suggested.

    We agree on this at least but that is exactly the problem I am talking about: "It locks future quests out since you usually have to complete them in order to unlock the next quest"

    Once again, you are misrepresenting the actual situation, perhaps due to not doing your homework which shows that the overall layout is badly designed.

    It does not stop you from entering Dead Hills, etc. but once you're there, it's the same as before: you do a few quests, then you are back with the timed quests which locks out all the rest of the content there until you do them to unlock the next steps. Once you do the 1-2 quests in each zone, you end up with only timed quests. So very quickly the rest of the expac is blocked, which is almost all the content, until you do the timed quests -- one after another seemingly ad infinitum. It is this way for several expacs.

    Read the progression overview for those expacs at zam. It only takes a quick glance to see how broken it is.

    It can be fixed.
    It can even be possible for people who want to play the content at level to not be locked into this nightmare.
    But not if people keep denying the problem as several folks are doing here.

    I'd go into more detail but I don't think it's worth the time since there is not much openness to it here in the discussion forum. But hopefully the devs are paying attention. It would be nice to make that great old content feasible again.
  18. BronkTwo Journeyman

    Thanks for your reply. My OP was a general observation with several examples. The thread has tended to focus on specific examples, especially doing it at 115. NP, that happens. But it's good to return to the general flawed game design as well.

    Sure, you can run roughshod over it at level 115. Even that can be tedious as I've described elsewhere
    If you aren't 115 or don't have prestige gear, it can be slow or even impossible to do it.
    It shouldn't have to be this way.
  19. Randel Flag Elder

    another pro tip, stop getting your information from the garbage site "Zams" and use EQResource.com!
  20. Randomized Augur

    I read over it - a game design (instanced zones) that you disagree with does not make it broken. And it doesnt block people from content. Again, anyone can go see any of the zones, progression or not. Choosing not to do instanced/timed quests just stops you from completing progression. It doesn't block anyone from content seeing as I can walk into any zone I so choose and see the content and do the content.

    And the purpose of instanced zones/missions/tasks/whatever is to avoid bottlenecking. People already complain about certain items/mobs in game being perma-camped. Let's look at your proposed "fix" and just leave all the quests in the open world.

    Everyone on the server now needs the same camp/script to follow through with a quest. But now, we cannot complete this quest because someone is always camping it. One or two groups of people can stop an entire server from progressing.

    Instanced zones (which are timed for the reasons multiple people have mentioned), is the fix for that. It allows you to go in by yourself and complete what needs completed unhindered. The only thing that stops you is an unwillingness to do so or poor time management skills (game skills is for another discussion).


    Tedious =/= hard. That's what you're making it out to be. That it can't be done within the time limit so it's hard. So is it too hard for you to complete or just too tedious?

    And yes, not having prestige gear or being silver/ftp should make life a lot harder. But even so, at 115, without a lot of AAs, you can still barrel through it due to the amount of power you gain from simply being level 115.

    And all those comments from your overview you wanted me to read were back from like 2013-2015 when the expansion was still current....and I never saw anyone saying they couldn't beat it within the 6 hour window. Some said it took them 2-3 hours to solo it while being level 100-105, but nowhere did someone say they couldn't complete it within the allotted time. I ran my 99 Monk molo through some of them and it takes about 30-40 minutes to complete one. In era. That leaves you with 5 hours and 20 minutes to walk away and come back

    Your poor time management skills is not an excuse to try to change game design.