What is the point of dungeon time limit?

[Seaside8]

I just got out of sunken temple where we didnt finish in time. The reason was that we had 1 dps who was heavily undergeared, and we wiped on the first boss multiple times. By the time we downed the first boss, we had about 25 minutes left on the timer. So, I chain pulled while explaining fights and skipped chests. we ran out of time when the final boss had literally less than 1cm of health left. I didn't even get to say goodbye to people that, by the end of the dungeon, felt like were my guildies.

It seems to me that the time limit doesnt really serve any gameplay purpose. Most of the time, it can be ignored. The only time when it actually matters is when there is a person who is very new to mmorpgs, and other 3 players need to help him/her. In other words, it is a mechanic that can be largely ignored, and punishes us for trying to be very patient in helping new players get used to the game/genre.

Can someone enlighten me on why this mechanic exists?

[Saski]

Most likely dungeons are timed because each one is a new entry held on the instance server. Unless you remove these by either timing out or completing the dungeon it could bog down the server quickly if an unlimited amount of time was given.

[Klutz64]

-To keep entire parties from idling in dungeons, clogging instance servers
-To allow cushioning for multiple tries, but also a point when it's time to say "sorry, maybe this just isn't going to work"
- For when we *know* the party we're in is never going to make it but we don't want to be rude.

[Seaside8]

Unless you remove these by either timing out or completing the dungeon it could bog down the server quickly if an unlimited amount of time was given.

I call bs on this...

The time limit comes into play only in rare occasions. I mean, how often have you personally reached the time limit? The removal of time limit would barely affect serve traffic.

Many other mmorpgs save instances by default until a player voluntarily resets the instance. Are you telling me that SE is so far behind in terms of server technology that they can't solve a problem that has been solved for years?

-To allow cushioning for multiple tries, but also a point when it's time to say "sorry, maybe this just isn't going to work"
- For when we *know* the party we're in is never going to make it but we don't want to be rude.

Do we need a time limit to be able to call that shot?

[Garnatian]

Most likely dungeons are timed because each one is a new entry held on the instance server. Unless you remove these by either timing out or completing the dungeon it could bog down the server quickly if an unlimited amount of time was given.

Never thought of that, but it makes perfect sense.

[Tracewood]

Going slightly off topic, the timed dungeon thing threw me off when first playing this. Coming from a former XI player the thing I loved was exploring new areas be it cave, castle, stronghold, or mythical isolated area that's accessible by finishing the later story missions.

I understand that this game is in a completely new direction, instanced dungeons is a step up compared to XI where you had to wait your turn to enter certain battlefields. Then again, I have no right to complain as this game is still early, even by 2.0 standards.

[sheepysheepy]

How many trolls woulg just go afk in a dungeon and sit there for hours stopping other people using that instance, it would be impossible to enter wp/ak/titan

[Ninix]

I call bs on this...

Well, I mean, you can go ahead and do that, but the dev team has said as much (multiple times, even) when this question came up on the beta forums. And considering all the issues the duty servers had when the game launched (with people completely unable to do any duty-based story quests or dungeons because the servers were overloaded) I believe it. The entire reason the time limit is set so long is to avoid inconveniencing players as much as possible while still allowing the server to clean up instances that are wasting RAM and duty slots because some guy went AFK before the last boss. Because seriously, if you're running into the time limit on these dungeons you have much bigger problems than the time limit.

The way other MMOs allow players to "save" instances is irrelevant as this is not what we're talking about. When you're saved to a raid or heroic dungeon in WoW, your progression data is written to a hard disk somewhere, not kept in RAM. Hell, ARR does the same thing with Binding Coil.

[TirionCrey]

I call bs on this...

Your statement is BS. Yoshida said so himself...the time limit is there as a PRECAUTION to prevent this from happening. Of course most people go into the dungeon and just clear it and are done...doesn't change the fact that it was implemented as a precaution so people can't afk inside a dungeon and block 1 instance from being created cause they never left...

[RhazeCain]

If this mechanic were removed, you would have a lot of cases where people do a portion of the dungeon then mostly leave but 1 person stays to hold the instance open. That way can begin again later in the middle. I know because I've done this in other games for days on end.

Technical issues arising from that already discussed.

There was some Dev discussion of a "minimum item level" to be implemented. People too severely undergeared shouldn't be there at all. Go do something else to gear better, then come back.