Why did Square think it was a good idea to have timers?

Seriously? What the fuck is the point of having a dungeon timer? Fights take time to learn. Why FORCE you out of a dungeon if you have trouble on the final boss or something? Why make you do all this mundane shit over and over? Almost makes me want to quit the game. And then if you leave the instance yourself after clearing the last boss and you only had 2 minutes left on your timer (thus the reason you left) you get a 15 minute duty finder debuff. It's shit like this that just screams bad design and no thought at all.

And dont even get me started that this game was released with no kick feature. One guy DC's or leaves and we have to wait 10 mins or more to get another player (thus the time running out).

Leave through the portal after you "clear the last boss", no 15minute timer.

Sounds like you either had some bad parties, or you're a pretty bad tank if you're timing out.

Had a few dungeons where I had to leave because someone just kept on DCing so much it wasn't possible to complete dungeon in time .

Imagine if they increased leave timer to 30 mins or more like some people are asking for .

Epic first post. I don't see how anyone can even come close to timing out UNLESS a person drops and they are waiting for duty finder to fill it. Otherwise there should be no time issue even with like 5-6 wipes.

I did most dungeons in less than 50 mins on my first try as a tank. Don't get me wrong, some fights are harder than others, but still, if you read up some stuff on the Internet before hiting the dungeon, there is no way you can't do it in 90 mins, except if :

- You lag like hell and are virtually unable to play.
- Another player didn't read up strat and acts like a fool, repeating the same mistakes over and over even if you tell him to stop.
- One or more players quit the party or get disconnected without replacement from the duty finder (which happens).
- Some players do not know how to play,
- A player is AFK since the start.

A vote to kick function would clear most of these issues. Other than that, you need to gear up, to do the dungeon once you're on the higher level of the recommended bracket and hope your group is okay.

At least, we know we should not leave the group if there is only 2 minutes left to the dungeon... and you do too :)

I rather like those timers, especially for twintania - 90 minutes of wiping, everyone goes out, 15 minutes break, then back at it.

Pace yourself.

Well not to brag or anything, but I know I am an exceptional tank. I look at all the fights online before attempting a dungeon. I mark targets and keep aggro.

The problems that prevent me from finishing a dungeon in time is:

DCing players
Players who just bail for no apparent reason.
Shitty players.
Players even more shitty cause they fail at the same mechanic over and over.

But even then, it is like NOBODY in the group can ever make a mistake like pull extra trash (which dont even get me started on how much trash there is in the dungeons. WAY too much. And its boring cause all the trash is mostly tank and spank). I mean if I wanted a timer Id play fucking Mario Brothers. It just has no place in an MMO/RPG setting imo. I can see it being a cool thing in certain quests or fights where you need to do something to avoid death in a period of time... but the whole instance? What does is collapse on us after 90 minutes?

BS design imo.

The only dungeon I got close to the time out was first time AK, when you had just enough dps to take down the wall so if someone died there quickly cause they didnt move you could start over again. Sounds more like you had a bad experience with your group but how many times did you had the problem you run out of time cause i cant imagine you had like 3 or 4 parties where it happened with.

Twice. I just got frustrated and logged after. Sucks getting the last boss to 2% finally with everyone up and then the timer goes.

Just because the content may be easy to complete well under the time limit, doesn't mean there SHOULD be a time limit. People are already refusing to do dungeons because FATEs give exp quicker/easier/less effort required, and the people who are having a good time will feel like they're getting punished when they're wiping and getting kicked from the dungeon, do have to re-do it.

And the freaking Duty Finder. Somebody leaves, and you can't look for someone to replace him. Somebody DC's, and SOMETIMES they get kicked and it asks you if you want to replace them. Even if you agree, you're stuck waiting until you get someone, watching the timer count down. It's usually better and quicker just to leave. If somebody is intentionally trolling you by getting everyone killed, stealing all the loot, or what ever, you can't kick them.

The Duty Finder is sloppy, buggy, and has obviously been released unfinished. Because of the Duty Finder issues the time limit needs to go, and even if those issues didn't exist, there is no good reason for a time limit in the first place! This isn't Metriod where we have to escape before the time limit or everything blows up and we die.

I love this game, but these are just more issues to add to the large pile of relatively small issues this game has piling up.

Also, screw this 1000 character limit. Seriously. It NEEDS to go away. There's a work around anyways, it just takes longer. The forums are here for a reason SE, for people to talk and discuss things. Don't try to prevent us from it!

I've only had problems with the timer twice. First time was in Qarn when I was playing my White Mage. The Tank was fine at first, but then he kept getting huge lag spikes. Stuck it out because he was a nice guy, but we just called it when we got to the last hallway before the final boss and there was 5 minutes left. Wasn't really there for anything in particular, was just there for fun so it wasn't a big deal. The second time was in Wanderer's Palace. Kept wiping on the slime boss over and over. Still have a slight phobia of this boss, but I haven't had that kind of problem with it since then.

You're timing out in 4 mans? That just doesn't make sense. Most of the bosses can be dpsed down even if only the tank and healer live. Possible exceptions would be the last and first boss in AK and the last boss in WP. But even with the last boss in WP you can do it if you make it to around 25% before the dps eats it.

They put the timer in so that the DF servers wouldn't be constantly clogged by people without the skill to complete a dungeon just bashing their heads against the wall for 10 hours.

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Originally Posted by AidenGrish

Well not to brag or anything, but I know I am an exceptional tank. I look at all the fights online before attempting a dungeon. I mark targets and keep aggro.

The problems that prevent me from finishing a dungeon in time is:

DCing players
Players who just bail for no apparent reason.
Shitty players.
Players even more shitty cause they fail at the same mechanic over and over.

But even then, it is like NOBODY in the group can ever make a mistake like pull extra trash (which dont even get me started on how much trash there is in the dungeons. WAY too much. And its boring cause all the trash is mostly tank and spank). I mean if I wanted a timer Id play fucking Mario Brothers. It just has no place in an MMO/RPG setting imo. I can see it being a cool thing in certain quests or fights where you need to do something to avoid death in a period of time... but the whole instance? What does is collapse on us after 90 minutes?

BS design imo.

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Few things:

Firstly, thanks for not taking my first post as an attack, was more of constructive critique. If you really feel as if it's not you holding the teams back I really suggest you look towards your DPS. They will be the reason things take longer than they should if it's not you losing hate and wiping repeatedly.

Second, that timer is NEEDED. Trust me, you don't want a repeat of Diablo 3 and people just eating dirt for hours on end to slog through a dungeon for the best gear when they shouldn't have it. If the timer wasn't there people would hit Coil in AF gear repeatedly until they got what they shouldn't of had without doing any work.

Third, as for your list, 2 of those can lead to you leaving and not worrying about 15min lockout as long as their name leaves the party list. The others are the VERY reason a timer is there in the first place. If they aren't ready for the content they won't make it through.

To wrap this up, the timer is there to make sure people don't make it if they aren't ready. It's really that simple. If the community was of the mindset that they actually should do tiered progression there'd be no need for it, but there will always be people wanting to skip the "next step" and just hit endgame stuff.

probably has something to do with dungeon servers.

Because if you're doing that poorly that you expire the dungeon timer, you need to be told that you're doing something wrong.

1. Form your own party to find better players or ones that can be held accountable if they mess up or disconnect.
2. Cooperate and communicate better with your team (this also means being more agreeable in dungeons).
3. Step up your game. 2 hours is ample time to learn every fight in every dungeon. Its okay to be a slow learner, in which case, you can just requeue. Sorry you don't get a cookie for being awful and taking 2 hours to finish a dungeon.

I, for one, appreciate the timer being there. Maybe more players will begin to appreciate speed and efficiency and being courteous to your fellow party.

No clue how you are coming close to a timer. I have never hit the time until we were learning coil fights. Even in AK when no one really had gear we cleared it in time. Now its a joke. In and out in under 30 mins without skipping trash.

The only reason this would even be an issue is in the case of a dc that doesnt come back. Adding more time isn't the fix for this. Finding a way to get more people running dungeons is. Like increase the exp from dungeons to make them comparable or better then fate grinding

I'll tell you all why there is a timer. Because instance servers have limited capacity. If you don't have a timer to force-close an instance, it can be taken advantage of to prevent other users from joining that instance.

See: Prior to expanding Instance capacity for AK we all had to sit and wait for "reserving instance" because the instance servers were operating at capacity.

Exactly what previous posts said. If there was no dungeon timer, there would be people AFKing in the dungeon or taking 3+ hours. That would cause the LIMITED number of available instances to be ran at a time to get even more bottle necked. Ever had a fully formed party have to wait 20+ minutes for AK on a Monday while 'reserving' the instance? Imagine that x 3.

To all the people who are defending the timer on the basis that you just plain shouldn't suck that much - What about when somebody drops and you're stuck finding a replacement? What if it's a tank? It could take 20m-1h to find one, if you ever do. Your timer will literally expire before you find a replacement, or you will have wasted so much time you may as well just quit. Even if you're just replacing a DPS.

Yes people should be able to clear content within a certain time frame. Some people aren't as good and can't. Some people have bad luck with lag, DC's, people dropping. There shouldn't even BE a timer. It is just SE slacking yet again with their servers, yet another one of their retarded restrictions. "Oh yes, we have a 1000 character limit on our forums, it'll be great and people will love it!" Sorry to everybody who is defending the timer for some reason, but there SHOULD NOT BE a timer. It helps NO ONE, and hurts people by being there.

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Originally Posted by peaches

To all the people who are defending the timer on the basis that you just plain shouldn't suck that much - What about when somebody drops and you're stuck finding a replacement? What if it's a tank? It could take 20m-1h to find one, if you ever do. Your timer will literally expire before you find a replacement, or you will have wasted so much time you may as well just quit. Even if you're just replacing a DPS.

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Why are you ignoring the posts clearly stating that no time limits in dungeons would bottle neck the instance servers and make extremely long que times for everyone? Imagine feeling the pain DPS already feels and waiting well over an hour in duty finder because there are 10 parties in their third hour of the dungeon or AFK while in the instance? You can get mad that SE doesn't have MORE dungeons available to avoid such bottle necking, but it's not like they put the restriction there for no good reason.

The simple solution that's a medium ground would be for the timer not to count down when a party member is disconnected and/or has to be replaced.

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Originally Posted by Noahlimits

Why are you ignoring the posts clearly stating that no time limits in dungeons would bottle neck the instance servers and make extremely long que times for everyone? Imagine feeling the pain DPS already feels and waiting well over an hour in duty finder because there are 10 parties in their third hour of the dungeon or AFK while in the instance? You can get mad that SE doesn't have MORE dungeons available to avoid such bottle necking, but it's not like they put the restriction there for no good reason.

The simple solution that;s a medium ground would be for the timer not to count down when a party member is disconnected and/or has to be replaced.

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This is what I'm saying. There is NO REASON there NEEDS to be a time limit! Square Enix has put a stupid restriction in place as a bandaid for their broken servers. If they had things running properly they wouldn't need to do this! They've proven their servers aren't optimal.

At launch the servers couldn't handle all the people trying to play. When they fixed that, EVERY instance in the game was broken because, you guessed it, they all relied on a server that wasn't working properly. Now the Duty Finder for AK is broken because of yet more problems with their Instance servers. Yea, everybody is trying to do AK. So what? Maybe set things up so that it is possible? And the timers. A restriction placed to help ease the stress on the servers. Which wouldn't be an issue if things were done properly.

Look, I love Square Enix games. I have a massive game collection and have bought nearly every game they've made. I love this game, it is so far the most fun MMO I've played. Yet STILL I'm able to see their flaws and point them out. Why do so many people think that if they like a game they can't admit it has any problems at all? The employees at SE are people, just like us. They make mistakes. They are not gods, they do not deserve worship. This isn't directed at you Noah, sorry if it seems like it is, its just a general statement about the people who seem to defend any complaint anybody has.

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Originally Posted by peaches

This is what I'm saying. There is NO REASON there NEEDS to be a time limit! Square Enix has put a stupid restriction in place as a bandaid for their broken servers. If they had things running properly they wouldn't need to do this! They've proven their servers aren't optimal...

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Wrong. Even if the servers were not operating at capacity and much fewer people were playing the game, malicious users could still fill up the duty servers and prevent people from playing if there were no timers.

Here is the trade-off:
You cannot spend all freakin day in an instance you probably have no business in if you cannot complete within the time limit given.
People cannot exploit the system to troll/maliciously prevent other players from joining the instance servers.

So, for the people who cannot seem to complete a dungeon in the time given -- Perhaps you should not be attempting this content, as you are obviously ill-prepared. Should you be allowed unlimited attempts on a boss? No. Brute force and sheer luck should not be the means in which you complete an instance. Knowledge, preparedness, and skill should dictate your victories and failures.

I'm not a fan of timers in dungeons, however they need to be there for a very simple reason: Crowding.
In games without timers, you get people that will go into instances and just idle out for hours, or go afk. That's a slot that is being occupied by someone that could actually be running the dungeon in the first place. Without the limiting factor of the timer (which they are now quite generous with) we would have the same issue that plagued early release, initial launch and phases 3 and 4 of beta but for instances only where no one leaves or groups of jerks will lock up an area because they can.
I don't like that timers are there either, but for instances it makes more sense. So long as the timers are fair, I'm fine with them. Giving us 90 minutes is more than enough to screw up a lot and still do just fine