Time Limits

[Forest Dweller]

Okay, decided to make this poll since Naked Ninja won't do it. I think I covered all the options. Discuss!

 

[spectre]

Only of it is stupid not to have them. I always hate to be rushed in my games, especially if it's the: oh noes, we have 2 minutes until the reactor blows and we're all gonna die. But, until it does, we have to find two different keys and defeat no less than three waves of enemies.

For me such things belong in arcade games, not in strategy or rpgs.

 

[Grunker]

Short time limits in small locations are alright by me. Long time limits like Fallout's basically dictate "how fast I read the book." Unless that's absolutely fucking necessary, stay away from them, and do not, under any circumstances, include them in the main-quest.

 

[JarlFrank]

I hate the type of time limit that says "Finish quest in 130 days or it's GAME OVER!"
I don't mind them if they're done for sidequests where it makes sense.
Neither do I mind them if they make sense in the mainquest and give you a consequence other than YOU LOSE. Like, say, you gotta rescue someone from a dungeon where he's held captive and tortured for information. If you're quick enough, you can get him out unscathed. If you take a while to find him, he might already be a bit wounded, have lost an eye or something. Take too long and he's dead, which means that you have to find an alternative way to get the information he would've given you upon rescue.

That way you get a little bonus if you're quick, get normal outcome if you're... uh... normal, and a bad outcome (which doesn't end your game but makes it more difficult to go on) if you're too slow.

Voted second option, btw. I don't mind time limits if they make sense and don't give you a GAEM OVR

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I'd rather not have any, but if it has to be there, then I want the real thing, not some false urging devoid of any real consequences.

 

[Hamenaglar]

I chose a second option. I can see why too many time constraints could be a pain in the arse. However when I play games I often impose time constraints on my self. When I play BG or IWD games, I rarely rest because the world/Imoen needs saving and I just can't spend those 8 hours. It doesn't matter if I'm tired, without spells, I need to finish this sidequest quickly so I can gather money and go to Spellhold and save Imone. Sis, don't worry I'm coming. Or when playing fallout 2, I always try to find an optimum route to doing things. My village is dying and I just can't waste time. It doesn't matter if there really is no time constraint, I will usually impose one on myself, because it feels real.

Likewise I really hated the fact there were no consequences for that saving connor-goint to the circle quest in DA:O.

I also don't like the area design where you come to certain area when you are powerful enough, but there certain encounters or sidequests that require you to be a lot more powerful. An example would be taking on revenants in Brecilian forest, or that Dragon in the that cultist temple. It's quite obvious that you aren't powerful enough to take it on just now and should return later. Well guess what I don't want to return later. I don't have the time, there's sister to be rescued, world to be saved, villains to be killed.

 

[Bluebottle]

Generally, I'd prefer them not to be there, but I'm against hard rules for design in games, so if it's done right and well explained, then I can live with it.

If it is anything to do with the main story, then I'd prefer for there to only be soft time limits; for instance some consequence that makes that particular part of the quest harder if you mess about for too long, or results in a specific (non desirable) outcome.

In side quests, it can be a little harsher, but it should still only be for some quests and it should be well explained to the player exactly how constrained the time limit is. I would most certainly not like a game where arbitrary time-limits were imposed on all side quests, just because.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Only of it is stupid not to have them. I always hate to be rushed in my games, especially if it's the: oh noes, we have 2 minutes until the reactor blows and we're all gonna die. But, until it does, we have to find two different keys and defeat no less than three waves of enemies.

For me such things belong in arcade games, not in strategy or rpgs.

Those weren't the kind I was referring to.

 

[hakuroshi]

Time should have consequences too.
Basically what JarlFrank says.

 

[denizsi]

#2. I love time limits. No blind faith about it either, though.

Abstract time limits, similar to VD's handling of side quests in towns is also a pretty good mechanic I think.

It can be further expanded into something like local and global "time slots" where you have a certain fixed amount of hidden (from the player) time slots (ok, let's call it "ticks") at any given time and any quest requires a certain amount of prerequisite ticks before it auto-concludes and depending on how you solve a quest, they take varying amounts of ticks to complete. Example:

You arrive at the town of Shady Sands, where you have local 20/20 time ticks. Now, there are a bunch of quests:

Stop the Radscorpions: 12 ticks prerequisite / 2 ticks to visit the caves / 10 ticks to kill all scorpions / 4 ticks to collapse cave exit

Cure Jarvis of Radscorpion Poison: 8 ticks prerequisite / 2 ticks to visist the caves / 6 ticks to kill a few scorpions for the tails / 8 ticks to find and kill a scorpion for the tail in a random encounter / 10 ticks to find a tail/antidote from another town

Rescue Tandi from the Raiders: 12 ticks prerequisite / 4 ticks to arrive at the Raiders' camp / 10 ticks to kill'em all / 4 ticks to fight Garl / 2 ticks to pay for Tandi / 2 ticks to intimidate Garl / 2 ticks to luck out on being mistaken for Garl's old man / 8 ticks to sneak in and back out successfully with Tandi.

Improve the Agriculture: 4 ticks if you do it before any other quest.

Now possible outcomes for Shady Sands:

(1) You go for all the radscorpions first, (2+10 ticks). Then you find the Raiders (4) but find out that Tandi has been sold/killed or you're given a "Tan-who? we ain't got no bitches called Tandi her, now GTFO!" (prerequisite 12 ticks). FAILURE. You still can kill them all, wasting 10 ticks to find Tandi's body, perhaps. Or maybe you can pay for her dead body. "Ha! I sell slaves, I make money. I kill slaves, I make money. I sell the slaves I killed... you know it: I make money! Another good day of b-ziness", costing 2 ticks but possibly provide some closure to Aradesh, though why would you care? No worries though, I'm sure you helping the locals with agriculture and antitode for Jarvis will make them forget all about Tandi in no time, right? Oh wait, Jarvis is also dead (prerequisite 8, 4 of which you wasted for going to the Raiders' camp) because you took all the time you could, bravely fighting the radscorpions. Oh, kiss NCR goodbye too. You must be feeling like a moron by now.

Or, if she's sold, perhaps you can track who bought her and where they took her, costing you a lot of time, or ticks, possibly failing other quests. Collapsing the cave exit could still be an option after this point, though.

(2) You kill a few scorpions for the tails and GTFO of there (2+6 ticks), collapse the cave exit (2 ticks, totalling 10) but, damn, you still can't make it in time for Tandi. Better to go for Tandi first, perhaps.

(3) You go straight for Tandi, kill everyone and return (4+10), only to find radscorpions digesting the good people of Shady Sands, except Jarvis because he was already poisoned. You see him bleeding from every orifice and die vomiting before some of the radscorpions notices your presence. Another day in the wasteland. On the bright side, you have Tandi to throw to radscorpions to make your escape. Or, if you feel like being extra cruel, you can kill all the scorpions, try to teach a traumatized Tandi some agriculturethinkery and leave her alone, wishing her good luck with the crops. "Oh, and don't leave the dead on the fields for too long, it's bad for crops!"

(4) You go straight for Tandi, buy her from Garl / intimidate Garl / impersonate Garl's father (4+2 ticks) or fight Garl (4+4) and return with Tandi. Still plenty of time (14 or 12 ticks) to kill a few scorpions and collapse the cave and return (2+6+2) or just kill them all (2+10) and return for Jarvis. All is well for now, but perhaps the same can not be said for the future of Shady Sands.

(5) Not giving a shit about Jarvis, you simply collapse the cave exit (2+2) and make it to Tandi, kill the Raiders and return to SS with Tandi (4+10 ticks). Jarvis is dead but who gives a flying fuck about Jarvis, right? Someone as stupid to get himself stang by a radscorpion probably deserves to die anyway, right? Either way, you can bet Razlo doesn't share the sentiment.

(6) Not giving a shit about Jarvis, you simply collapse the cave exit (2+2) and, get Tandi out by money/intimidation/impersonation (4+2) and what do you know, Jarvis still has got some time left. Perhaps you can "ease" his pain before he ends up bursting blood out of all his orifices while also vomiting. Ah yes, you also can hope to find a tail or antidote from the nearest town or a random encounter.

(7) Not giving a shit about Jarvis, you simply collapse the cave exit (2+2), fight Garl to get Tandi (4+4) and what do you know, Jarvis still has got some time left. If he's lucky, you'll stumble into radscorpions on your way out of Shady Sands and care enough to kill them and come back with tails.

(8) Not giving a shit about Jarvis, you simply collapse the cave exit (2+2) and, get Tandi out by money/intimidation/impersonation (2+2) or by fighting Garl (2+4) and what do you know, Jarvis still has got some time left. Alas, either because you're too thick or because you just don't care, you teach the locals about agriculture, diminishing whatever chance poor J got left. You can bet that Razlo feels great about you doing that.

(9) You help the locals with agriculture before anything else. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Suddenly, questing in Shady Sands looks a lot more interesting to me. Well, almost. Perhaps if only Jarvis was worth saving instead of being such an insignificant character in Fallout.

I haven't given much thought to how to make these work globally and conflict with taking and solving quests from other settlements, though. Merely entering a town could trigger and occupy a certain amount time tick on your "global" limit, or something like that, perceived time constraints without actual "x days, y hours, z minutes" time constraints.

 

[mondblut]

Option 4 is reasonable, but in the end my convenience as a player is more important than the stupidity of not having it. So I voted 5.

 

[denizsi]

You must have loved Oblivion, then.

 

[Forest Dweller]

No surprise since he doesn't value C&C at all.

 

[zenbitz]

I think it depends on the game. If it's a generic XP slaughter grind, then no, typically you should not limit the main quest.

But I think limited time can be useful, for example if you have a use-based/train-based experience system. You can't just practice knife throwing for 13 years of game time... stuff should happen.

 

[denizsi]

Please don't equate theory of use-based systems to shitty TES implementation. Use-based doesn't mean inanely free of restrictions by default.

 

[Tramboi]

denizsi, I quite like your implementation for time related to quests.
It abstracts the real time, leaving me doing stuff at my pace, though it forces you to make some choices.

 

[denizsi]

Having to make choices, the horror!

Btw, let's call it a treatise. To call those implementations, I'd need to have a working example.

 

[Tramboi]

It is quite easy to implement, the hardest thing is to tune the time budget and the relative time costs to allow the player to do almost all quests but not everything.
Sadly cRPGs don't really have "too many quests" to sacrifice some 'cause they always end up with grinding filler combats

 

[bhlaab]

dkjksldjaskldjaksdjai.

I think it's a huge mistake to break down every action into a minutia-driven numbers game. The idea is choices and consequences, not minmaxing and consequences.

I'd much rather have a simple "You can do X or Y, but you don't have enough time to do both! Pick one!" thrown in my face than have to write out a day planner for my video game character. "Hmmm, rescued Tandi, I have 15 minutes free to break for lunch!"

 

[Volourn]

Time limits ar elogical. use them, love them, marry them when it is logical.

 

[denizsi]

dkjksldjaskldjaksdjai.

I think it's a huge mistake to break down every action into a minutia-driven numbers game. The idea is choices and consequences, not minmaxing and consequences.

Minutia-driven numbers game? The fuck? You are already minmaxing consequences in Fallout series at any given time at every single turn, and often times, just because you can. There's rarely any choice that deals with conflicts of interest in the series than you leisurely deciding what's best for the world.

I'd much rather have a simple "You can do X or Y, but you don't have enough time to do both! Pick one!" thrown in my face than have to write out a day planner for my video game character. "Hmmm, rescued Tandi, I have 15 minutes free to break for lunch!"

The original game is already throwing that in your face, but only not backing it up by walking the walk. Read again:

a certain fixed amount of hidden (from the player) time slots

Kind of like how you put a point in an attribute during character creation and suddenly, out of thin air, the text magically changes from, say, Average to Good, Good to Great etc, which are actually textual representations for numbers. But, you're gonna object, numbers? What's that shit now, eh? If it's Good, then it's Good, what the fuck are numbers for; do we really need this shit, one more stuff to worry about? If I wanted to play math 101, I'd use my calculator!

Wait, there comes another example: New Reno! You know the place where there are four families and depending on how you play, fate of New Reno changes? Now the part it gets interesting: The families have these "numerical values", ie. more numbers. Yeah, I know, it's crazy! Just when the game was bad enough as it is, what with playing math 101 right at character creation, it suddenly jumps to, I don't know, complex mathematics? So, actions you do, add or substract numbers from these "values" each family have, and their fate is decided depending who has the "highest number" when the game's over, is that it? Completely crazy, isn't it. The whole game is about numbers! Gee, I guess we must be glad that we don't see numbers for game graphics.

So the point is, no, you don't need to sit and worry about some magical numbers somewhere and do calculations. The narrative of the game provides the necessary context for you to understand this and be able to make choices with reasonable consequences, while also (in my model) actually supporting that narrative with relevant game mechanics. Fallout was full of hits and misses in this regard, because, well I can't know why for certain but the impression I get is the lack of a unified, standardized system to track these kinds of things and letting some stuff slip.

I gave Shady Sands as an example on purpose. It's one of these settlements in the series where the narrative would have you believe that there is a conflict of interests between the stuff the townsfolk needs to deal with in there. There are Radscorpions attacking the town which can't possibly sit around forever, waiting you to come and kill them, while there are also Raiders in the area who attack the town frequently and also happen to have kidnapped the daughter of the village elder in their last visit. Common sense would have you believe that you'd need prioritize, decide what's more urgent and what's for the best and possibly take risks by going with your choice. When you can safely take your teaching the locals about agriculture without not giving a damn about the other more pressing matters and still have nothing bad come out of it, that is somewhat silly, in my opinion.

Now, Fallout already did lots of good and rarely done things, so this is not a stab at Fallout. Ending slides based on in games actions already achieved the effect I'm going for here somewhat but while it's nice to see that something you have or haven't done has had an effect, it's superficial because you likely don't get to be directly affected from it either way, not to mention it breaks the narrative despite having a very clear track of time and dates in the game. I'm exploring where and how to improve it, and that by using some form of time limits since that's the subject of the thread.

Arguing against this by claiming that it's one more thing to worry about is silly, especially when the original games are full of such examples that work.

 

[bhlaab]

The problem isn't that it would become another thing to worry about, the problem is that it would become THE thing to worry about, above all else.

 

[Erebus]

Time should matter. Not only is it realistic but it adds tension and could be a very interesting form of C&C.

Most the time limits should be rather generous to the player and the consequences for being late should seldom be complete failure. But they should be real and significant.

 

[denizsi]

The problem isn't that it would become another thing to worry about, the problem is that it would become THE thing to worry about, above all else.

How so?

 

[Grunker]

The problem isn't that it would become another thing to worry about, the problem is that it would become THE thing to worry about, above all else.

How so?

Because everything else you can do whenever. The time limit runs out, thus making you do everything else half-assed, or ignoring it all together, so you can make it in time.

Very realistic, but when I sit down in front of my computer, it's to get a break from real life.