Incline RPGs with time limits that are more than fail states

[rusty_shackleford]

Can you think of any?
Doesn't have to be a time limit for the whole game. Just content that has a time limit with a result other than you fail/game over.

 

[Saerain]

It's weak, but the first one that comes to mind is that if you take too long to pick up Liara from Therum in ME1, she's convinced you're a hallucination.

 

[V_K]

In Exile 3 (and, I assume, the remakes) monsters would attack towns and kill NPCs over time if you do nothing. The game never really becomes unwinnable, but grows somewhat harder because there are fewer services.
IIRC, something similar also happens in Magic Candle 3 with blight.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Fallout 2, the Modoc/ghost farm quest is the only one that comes to mind. I feel like I'm forgetting a lot, though.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[V_K]

Also, Mistmare. Each stage of the main quest in that game was on a timer, and each action, except for moving around, talking and fighting, took time. Once the time units for a given stage ran out, you were just forced to advance the plot, but couldn't do anything time-consuming - including resting - until you did it.

 

[Gord]

Pathfinder:Kingmaker has a few differences in chapter 1 depending on how long you take for some quests and in which order you do them.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

It's weak, but the first one that comes to mind is that if you take too long to pick up Liara from Therum in ME1, she's convinced you're a hallucination.

A lot of this in ME2. If you put off doing loyalty missions you can end up being forced into the Suicide Mission without completing them and crew members will die.

 

[RNGsus]

Running down bandits in Battle Brothers can lead to failure, if you're stupid and quit following them. If you're only slow at the chase, the bandits will link up with their client, who is (always?) a necromancer. The crises can easily kill your playthrough, if you have perma destruction on, because you can't resolve the wars if you don't leave town to fight, and the towns can be invaded at any time while you're gone.

 

[deuxhero]

Kingmaker has a few. You get a bonus (A sword it's quite likely nobody in your party can use) and pat on the back if you clear the first chapter in 1/3rd of the timelimit. The recurring cursed hilltop quest you have to do every few months gives increasingly vicious stat penalties the longer you put it off (so you don't strictly have to do it the first day, you just really should). The same is true for the "wars" your kingdom can get in: You can get increasingly bad stats burn and important NPCs can die if you delay.

Spoiler

If you take too long finding Armag's tomb, the false Armag becomes possessed by the real one instead of being able to talk him down by dialog and gain an ally.

The peaceful periods also count as timelimits for kingdom management. There's no failure state with these, but they do limit how much you can get done.

 

[EverlastingLove]

Many quests become unavailable and map sections closed in Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen if you are not focused and don't do a specific thing or go to a certain place at the right time. I couldn't enter one fortress in the northern section of the map on my first playthrough, because I missed one conversation and a quest as a result

 

[Bricker]

Absolutely hate time sections in games. I like taking my time, checking out the scenery, etc.

 

[laclongquan]

NWN2OC the Keep building aspect. There are a lot of NPC for the keep you can only recruit in an expanse of time, earlier or later wont work. If you miss that period your Keep is going to be much sparser.

Fallout 2. If you delay a hell of a lot time, the dreams are keep getting worse, and the Arroyo tribe is getting worse. Like, the dog you rescue earliest? The child has to eat it due to lack of food. it's not game over, fail state, just the narrative is enough to drive me doing reasonably fast.

Silent Storm Sentinels. Generally, each chapter has four story map you can choose, of which finishing three will lead to chapter change. So if you want to fight all 4 story map you need to fail once. Never a game that make me wanting to choose which to fail~

Hammer & Sickle do have time limit build in certain stage of the game where if you delay too much it lead to different game branch or even bad ending branch. Minor details. When you go meet a Soviet agent in the field, you can have a few hours being free because he's out collecting what you need. You can stay and wait for him to return, then sneak out to escape US patrols. OR. You can return to the base, get full troops, jump on the train to be back in time (walk will be late), US troops surround your location. Then you can fight to get out of there. To be able to jump on the train require earlier you simply cannot bully the train official into giving you free ride. This is the time limit that can allow you to fight battle.
Or even earlier, if you take your sweet time fighting battle, US troops appear to investigate and your companion have an event.
Generally HS has quite a few time limit.

 

[Reinhardt]

In Suikoden 2 iirc there is time limited quest. And by time limited i mean your play time. You must do it in 20 hours, i think.

 

[Barbalos]

In Suikoden 2 iirc there is time limited quest. And by time limited i mean your play time. You must do it in 20 hours, i think.

That's the Clive sidequest where he's hunting a criminal IIRC. I don't think you actually get anything really good from doing that either that I remember, but I could be wrong about that.

I'm playing Might and Magic 7 atm, and there is a quest to rescue an Erathian spy from the Elves in the Tularean Caves, and it's time limited. I couldn't even find the damn caves for longer than the quest time limit, killed all the Elves in the castle, and failed the quest. Nothing happened though, I just missed out on the reward.

 

[Reinhardt]

That's the Clive sidequest where he's hunting a criminal IIRC.

Yes.

 

[fantadomat]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

 

[JarlFrank]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

Good timed quests give you a proper warning about being timed rather than just randomly dropping a time limit on you.

 

[fantadomat]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

Good timed quests give you a proper warning about being timed rather than just randomly dropping a time limit on you.

As? Examples needed. Mixing timed quests in normal rpg is stupid. Kingdom come did well,because the whole world was kind of progressing or gave that illusion. It was more of a medieval simulator than anything else. So having a game focused on realism would have timed quests.

Still there are a few variations of timed quests,some are time in way you could take them only at certain in game time (those are the worst),also there are ones that are takeable whenever but do have time to complete it. I am yet to see a game that does it well,some of them like KC do it passable,but not good. I like exploring at my own leisure and hate to rushed. If i wanted that i would have gone to work. Developers do tend to add that shit as a gimmick,to diversify the gameplay.

 

[undecaf]

There is a timelimit in Fallout 2 when convincing Miria's/Davin's dad after he caught you two. Failing that isn't exactly "just a failstate".



Time limits and their creative use is an interesting topic, though.

 

[JarlFrank]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

Good timed quests give you a proper warning about being timed rather than just randomly dropping a time limit on you.

As? Examples needed. Mixing timed quests in normal rpg is stupid. Kingdom come did well,because the whole world was kind of progressing or gave that illusion. It was more of a medieval simulator than anything else. So having a game focused on realism would have timed quests.

Still there are a few variations of timed quests,some are time in way you could take them only at certain in game time (those are the worst),also there are ones that are takeable whenever but do have time to complete it. I am yet to see a game that does it well,some of them like KC do it passable,but not good. I like exploring at my own leisure and hate to rushed. If i wanted that i would have gone to work. Developers do tend to add that shit as a gimmick,to diversify the gameplay.

No existing RPGs that do it well come to mind, but it can work out well enough, especially if you modify the results of the quest instead of making it a hard failure, and making the time limit generous enough.

Example: a woman who's being sold at the slave market asks you to buy her and help her out, because she's a noblewoman who was betrayed and sold into slavery. She wants you, a capable adventurer, to help her back to her estate.
If you don't buy her right away because of a lack of money and return, say, a week later, it turns out she was sold to someone else. You can ask the trader who bought her, visit that guy, and buy her off his hands for a slightly higher price.

Not a big drawback for taking your time, but it shows that the world isn't just waiting for you.

Other example: a guy wants you to find his missing wife, who he suspects was abducted by evil cultists who want to use her as a human sacrifice. If you find the cultist lair in time, you'll find her in a cage and can free her after fighting the cultists. If you take too long, you'll only find her dead body on the altar.

Etc.

In those hypothetical cases, you won't fail the quest if you take too long, but the quest will turn out differently.

 

[fantadomat]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

Good timed quests give you a proper warning about being timed rather than just randomly dropping a time limit on you.

As? Examples needed. Mixing timed quests in normal rpg is stupid. Kingdom come did well,because the whole world was kind of progressing or gave that illusion. It was more of a medieval simulator than anything else. So having a game focused on realism would have timed quests.

Still there are a few variations of timed quests,some are time in way you could take them only at certain in game time (those are the worst),also there are ones that are takeable whenever but do have time to complete it. I am yet to see a game that does it well,some of them like KC do it passable,but not good. I like exploring at my own leisure and hate to rushed. If i wanted that i would have gone to work. Developers do tend to add that shit as a gimmick,to diversify the gameplay.

No existing RPGs that do it well come to mind, but it can work out well enough, especially if you modify the results of the quest instead of making it a hard failure, and making the time limit generous enough.

Example: a woman who's being sold at the slave market asks you to buy her and help her out, because she's a noblewoman who was betrayed and sold into slavery. She wants you, a capable adventurer, to help her back to her estate.
If you don't buy her right away because of a lack of money and return, say, a week later, it turns out she was sold to someone else. You can ask the trader who bought her, visit that guy, and buy her off his hands for a slightly higher price.

Not a big drawback for taking your time, but it shows that the world isn't just waiting for you.

Other example: a guy wants you to find his missing wife, who he suspects was abducted by evil cultists who want to use her as a human sacrifice. If you find the cultist lair in time, you'll find her in a cage and can free her after fighting the cultists. If you take too long, you'll only find her dead body on the altar.

Etc.

In those hypothetical cases, you won't fail the quest if you take too long, but the quest will turn out differently.

Well not saving somebody is kind off fail . And how do you intend to show it to the player that the quest is timed? If you just put a timer,it will be the best but immersion breaking. Just writing it in the dialogue would just make people ignore it as another one of those "urgent" that never change. Once they discover that the quest was timed,it will be a shit feeling and make them paranoid about all other quests,which is pretty funcurbing thing.

 

[nobre]

In Baldur's Gate 2, there are quite a few companion quests with a time limit. Failing the time limit causes you to lose the party member.

 

[Haba]

Many Rance games, for example Kichikuou Rance. If you take too long in rescuing certain characters, they'll die (which will lead to a completely new route you can't access otherwise).

 

[JarlFrank]

Timers are cancer and boggle down exploration,they make people wonder if other quests are also timed,thu making you paranoid.

Good timed quests give you a proper warning about being timed rather than just randomly dropping a time limit on you.

As? Examples needed. Mixing timed quests in normal rpg is stupid. Kingdom come did well,because the whole world was kind of progressing or gave that illusion. It was more of a medieval simulator than anything else. So having a game focused on realism would have timed quests.

Still there are a few variations of timed quests,some are time in way you could take them only at certain in game time (those are the worst),also there are ones that are takeable whenever but do have time to complete it. I am yet to see a game that does it well,some of them like KC do it passable,but not good. I like exploring at my own leisure and hate to rushed. If i wanted that i would have gone to work. Developers do tend to add that shit as a gimmick,to diversify the gameplay.

No existing RPGs that do it well come to mind, but it can work out well enough, especially if you modify the results of the quest instead of making it a hard failure, and making the time limit generous enough.

Example: a woman who's being sold at the slave market asks you to buy her and help her out, because she's a noblewoman who was betrayed and sold into slavery. She wants you, a capable adventurer, to help her back to her estate.
If you don't buy her right away because of a lack of money and return, say, a week later, it turns out she was sold to someone else. You can ask the trader who bought her, visit that guy, and buy her off his hands for a slightly higher price.

Not a big drawback for taking your time, but it shows that the world isn't just waiting for you.

Other example: a guy wants you to find his missing wife, who he suspects was abducted by evil cultists who want to use her as a human sacrifice. If you find the cultist lair in time, you'll find her in a cage and can free her after fighting the cultists. If you take too long, you'll only find her dead body on the altar.

Etc.

In those hypothetical cases, you won't fail the quest if you take too long, but the quest will turn out differently.

Well not saving somebody is kind off fail . And how do you intend to show it to the player that the quest is timed? If you just put a timer,it will be the best but immersion breaking. Just writing it in the dialogue would just make people ignore it as another one of those "urgent" that never change. Once they discover that the quest was timed,it will be a shit feeling and make them paranoid about all other quests,which is pretty funcurbing thing.

Writing it in the dialogue, and then having the player actually realize that it wasn't just a platitude but indeed urgent, would already be enough, as then the player will expect quests that are described as urgent to actually be urgent.