I absolutely hate timed quests in games. I’m perfectly capable of suspending a little bit of disbelief—in fact, I prefer it sometimes. Don’t fucking rush me during my relaxation activity.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
876 points (99.5% liked)
RPGMemes
10948 readers
80 users here now
Humor, jokes, memes about TTRPGs
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
@Tedesche @TehBamski yeah, in almost all cases, it's better if you can SIMULATE the timed activity through dialog but it's actually driven by player actions.
Cyberpunk 2077: Here's a really important and urgent thing. We can't stress enough how little time you have. Also, we just unlocked the rest of the city and a million side quests. Have fun!
Yeah. Just get some money and rent these apartments, who cares if the one moving in them won't be you anymore :)
That's kind of important to the story though.
spoiler
V starts off thinking she's dying and her mind is changing and she doesn't know how long she's got, and by the end she's learned that everyone is dying and everyone is changing all the time and no one knows how long they've got. The only real choice is whether you use the time you've got to live, or don't.Hey! Skyrim was legitimately easier when dragons and vampires weren't killing off all your townspeople. It made sense not to trigger the dragons, and wipe the floor with the vampires as soon as possible. Jarl Balgruf will be there when the Archmage/ Nightingale/ Speaker is ready. It takes me a few weeks to take over those organizations.
I still play Skyrim and Fallout 4. The games are legitimately better if you exhaust your side quests first. I was just clearing Vault 88 last night.
Sometimes it's funny when tabletop RPG players expect the game to behave like a video game.
GM: "The nearby town sent a message that a swarm of zombies is coming down the haunted mountain for them! They need help!"
PCs: "Cool. But let's finish that mushroom side quest first, and then we gotta help our wizard buddy get his new broom tuned up."
GM: "...okay."
PCs: "Ok, what do we see when we get to that town?"
GM: "Seems like everyone's dead. Looks a swarm of zombies or something came down from the mountain and ate everyone alive or something, maybe a day or two ago."
PCs: <confused, shocked>
It's also hilarious when a video game does it. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is notorious about doing this. Back when it was new the forums were full of people being shocked that they couldn't just ignore things forever.
yeah, but in those players' defense that is the norm in video games. Most people hate timed quests!
Yeah, I’ve never liked timed anything in video games. I’m playing video games to escape, not stress about missing something that could be important. I’m supportive of adding a toggle that gives the player the option on if they want timed quests or not.
As long as the game is upfront about being a game of choice and consequence, it's fine. Sometimes it's fun when your decisions actually matter.
True. Kingmaker, if I recall, had a lot of weird "aha! You didn't return to this particular forest on this particular day, so now you don't ever get to meet this key character! No, there wasn't any foreshadowing!"
That was kind of annoying.
Foreshadowing helps a lot.
Well I just paid $3 for it so I won't be able to complain too much
I highly recommend using a guide if you're not extremely chill about missing stuff.
I also realized partway through I really dislike pathfinder 1e, so i just started cheating, and then lost interest.
For what it's worth, Wrath of the Righteous is much better than Kingmaker in basically all regards.
If you just hate Pathfinder 1e then there's not really any saving that, but if your main gripe with Kingmaker was the story and quest design, WOTR significantly raised the bar there in my opinion.
I don't spend times on games that need a guide. Put clues in your games if that's what you're doing. I work way too much to learn every consequence of in game decisions that aren't at least hinted at. Reading a guide is just spoiling. Make good fucking games. If you give me a 20 hour gotcha I'll never play it again and tell others not to bother.
i am inclined to agree. the final fantasy 7 remake was surprisingly gentle about not having stupid missables. You could miss stuff, but it was recoverable without starting the whole thing over.
i had a whole argument with someone on here a while ago where they insisted i just had "fomo" because i didn't like this sort of surprise consequences. Foreshadowing is cool. Unpredictable is, to me, unsatisfying.
Personally, I don't like it. I'm a completionist. And it's a lot easier when I can play the whole game in one playthrough.
This is why I have no words when I see people complain about the pacing of a main quest, but specifically mean the dialogue kinda telling you that time is of the essence. Like, dude. I've been gaming so long that unless a timer specifically pops up on the screen, it is assumed that there isn't actually a time limit (there are exceptions. Fallout 1 and 2 both have hidden timers in them where bad things happen if they run out; but at least those gives you months of in game time to beat the clock). Most of the time these dialogues are even literally being snarky because they assume the player isn't new to video games.
IIRC in Mass Effect 2 after your crew gets abducted going and doing some side stuff before doing the rescue mission did actually result in some crew member(s?) dying
And also not doing enough side quests and upgrades before you got the abduction also meant the outcome of the rescue mission changed.
I was loosely following a guide and I misunderstood that I needed to wait to rescue them to I did a few side missions and half my crew died 🥲
I did a few side missions and half my crew died
That reminds me of how I got dishonorably discharged from the navy.
In my defense, nobody told me that a nuclear submarine can't handle the depths of the Mariana trench and I figured that it would be an obvious place for the developers to stash rare loot!
What can I say? I'm wacky like that 🤷
I’m reminded of Deadline an interactive fiction game where you are solving a murder mystery and unless you are in the right place at the right time you will miss some important evidence.
If you're going to die, better to die on the main quest. I avoid side quest distractions.
"The hero died before he could defeat the Dark Lord because he was killed whilst on an errand to deliver 20 bear asses to a random villager."
But what about when you die fighting the Dark Lord because you're not overlevelled from doing all the sidequests?
I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. - Bruce Lee
Live to Win intensifies