Pause Feature

Community WoW Community Council
1

Good afternoon Council!

Anyone who engages in competitive play has likely encountered a scenario where your activity is disrupted due to a disconnect or a player who afk’d. Sometimes, the AFK is not due to some heinous behavior, but perhaps because the player had to use the restroom or their cat caught on fire or some other valid excuse. This of course causes consequences when you are in the middle of a Mythic+ and the timer is expiring, or in the middle of a Solo Shuffle session/Arena/Rated Battleground match. Some of these activities can last more than 40minutes so it’s not completely underheard of that a player’s personal life goes undisrupted for the entire time.

To help alleviate this issue, I propose Blizzard implement a “Pause Feature” where players can start a vote to pause the match/Mythic+ instance time. If a majority of the players accept the vote to pause, then the players/match/instance timer will be paused. I believe all game functionalities, included the chat box, should be disabled during the pause as well.

What are your thoughts?

8 Likes
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It’s not a terrible idea, and it would provide a possible solution to those issues, but there are issues around abusing such a system.

Most of the time, single player games are pause-able because no one else is affected. In WoW that would hardly be the case.

Further to that, in areas like M+, it could be abused to talk out difficult situations mid-run, where normally that would have to be either done in advance or in the moment, either sacrificing time or multi-tasking. The same could be said in PvP, but less of an issue.

I appreciate the thought, but I don’t see it as feasible with how abusable it would be. It also (in solo shuffle in particular) majorly inconveniences other people.

1 Like
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We just need a “Pause Button”

Explaining my reasoning for M+:

Mythic Plus got introduced during Legion. In Legion we find the Nighthold including the Nightwell. Chromatic Anomaly aside we have Elisande and her Phase Transition mechanic: The Time Stop. Perfect for the encounter/raid setting but also a perfect fit for Mythic+ since the key is represented as an hour glass item.
This mechanic (at least for the encounter room) stops all CDs from recovering and all buffs from running out as well as all movement/animation (which I will go into later). Which means: If it were possible to have this effect active across the entire instance it would make a good addition to improve the overall experience as well as learning curve for new players and forming teams.

The way it should/could work (engineers definitely have a say in this):

  1. You get an extra button (moveable etc) during m+
  2. Once pressed by one team member everybody else can confirm a stop demand within a certain time frame. Just in case of this button being involuntarily fatfingered here and there.
  3. Once time stops all CDs & Buffs are on hold, all players and NPCs are frozen in place and the Mythic+ timer is put on hold.
  4. These stops can only be done out of combat to first of all simplify it and second not run into these situations where the timing of re-start mid combat won’t always be perfect.
  5. Given that the server knows if signals are returned from clients or not you could then take DCed players as a sign of confirmation. This solves the problem of waiting for those 1-3 minutes of reconnecting or in some cases restarting the client etc.
  6. IRL issues interfering with your gameplay could also be solved with this.
  7. It allows for taking breaks in between trash/boss pulls to maybe set up markers or communicate (changes in) strategy without the stress of losing time. If there should be a limit to this is debatable, maybe for the MDI.
  8. Once the entire group confirms the button again during the break the action resumes and time is flowing again. Might be difficult though if a players DC happened on the path of a patrol and re-entry triggers said group.

What I don’t know about the Elisande mechanic though since I would have tested it with another player before making this post (in the near future anyway): Does it stop “time” in this rather limited encounter room or also for the rest of the raid?

There is the sentiment of removing the timer from m+ but here you would have a perfect chance to keep the entire setting (running against time) and aesthetic intact while improving on the regular problems this restriction brings with itself.
The one thing that has to work out though is the willingness of each group member to not use it more often than the rest of the groups sees fit. These runs should not end up as a Stop&Go. People kinda expect a certain time investment into Mythic+ and not an additional 20 minutes regardless of it not affecting the “in time” finish.

Additional seasonal affix idea/pitch:
Now looking at the current expansion and the map of Thaldraszus there is a big hour glass. We already have speculation and part confirmation that the Chromatic Dragonswarm and time travel shenanigans will show up later in the expansion.
So adding this feature to (especially) Mythic+ at some point would fit really well.
With that being said: I hope if a future raid tier/season ever incorporates the “time” thematic, the seasonal affix is something among the lines of stopping time. But for such an affix: Just for the enemy and also infight.

  1. To skip trash packs similar to the BFA S4 Affix
  2. To create moments of DPSing without movement pressure
  3. Allowing for healers to save/regenerate mana

Extra incentive for this Time Stop effect beyond (Mythic+) gameplay:
Add a toy into the game as a reward for finishing any mythic+ - over time or not - which allows you to stop your characters animation as long as you are out of combat.
This idea kinda brings me back to the old WoW armory before adapting to mobile phones (afaik) where you could pick an animation pose/frame to further customise your profile. These days it no longer works and the idle position on the page is kinda meh.
But: We are talking about ingame and it would probably add something to play around with given that there is someway to determine the freeze frame, maybe moving through the current animation frame by frame, back or forwards.
Personally where this would become really neat is when taking group pictures. We always did this in my old raid groups after a boss 1st kill. Line up and flex/take a picture/screenshot as a memory. If you were to go for synced up emotes or posing in a certain choreography that was sort of impossible. But given that a toy/option like this could exist it would make that even better. And I guess people would play around with it out of sheer boredom (which is also a player driven feature of MMOs btw).

2 Likes
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Truthfully I don’t believe players should be able to access any feature of the game while the game is paused. I don’t believe they should be able to set up markers or speak with their teammates via chat. The game should truly be paused as to not give anyone an advantage or in a way so that it can be abused. It also should not be able to occur while in combat.

2 Likes
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Specifically for RBGs: I don’t know if it would work well. Here it maybe has the charm of a time-out but since it’s an option and you’d maybe limit it it would also be seen as a trade-off for

  1. Somebody needs an IRL break
  2. We could use moments like these to re-strategise. This adds a new layer of complexity to this mode since you have to make up decisions on the fly, especially in CTF BGs or once the timer is coming to a close in general.

Voice coms?

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I think people are going to use that more to discuss strats in between pulls and get a key timed that they wouldn’t time otherwise. Pause might be feasible with some content (aka solo/instanced content) but I feel it otherwise takes away from the point of an MMO.

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I could see that type of feature working in M+, but I think it’d be way too abuseable in PvP.

4 Likes
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I disagree. If people can talk with each other IRL or on voice comms, they should be able to use in-game features to communicate, (world) markers included.

I can imagine for rated stuff it’s a pain if you have to afk or get disconnected, and this also negatively affects others… The problem is indeed that people will just use this to grief.

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A feature like this will 100% be abused for the wrong reasons rather than people using it for the intended ‘‘reason’’ (ie: someone needs to AFK/got DCd.)

Detailed planning in-between M+ pulls as to make sure all CCs are coordinated for instance. Same thing in PvP, or even worse if people use it to grief to opposite team by unnecessarily pausing the whole game.

It’s an online game, there is no pause button. Just have to take the L and make sure your IRL stuff is okay.

1 Like
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How is that an abuse? You might gain some time with this method overall, probably in the range of 30s+ per run. As an absolute high end player. The rest will get an option to remove stress from the entire endeavour. In addition to dealing with DCs.

My main reason for this suggestion is: It fits perfect with the setting of M+. Why miss this opportunity?

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For PVP it really isn’t fair or reasonable to ask people to pause, a majority is not everyone, some people might not have the time to wait however long extra. AND it ruins the flow of the gameplay.

PVE is already heavily meta-gamed, adding a pause function would mean more players would stop what they are doing to talk about each pull for full optimization because the game and the paratext surrounding it absolutely forces every player to feel that way when pushing keys. It would create an extremely miserable play experience.

1 Like
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First of all: In those cases you are most likely already in voice coms. And where does this start? Somewhere above 20? Can’t have any benefits/improvements when there is one slight negative aspect when it’s your own choice?

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I don’t think this would be much of a problem. That said, I imagine a feature like this would have a limit of like 1-2 pauses per M+, specifically to avoid people doing things like that.

But I still would rather they find ways other than a timer to make M+ challenging like rewarding people for doing the mechanics right.

Like for instance, have 1-2 pieces of gear be the minimum for finishing M+, but for each specific boss (and certain trash) mechanic that is successfully done by a party member (for instance, the arcane boss in AA, if you absorb one orb each time the ability is used), then you get an extra roll at loot at the end, personally.

This would also help cut back on people using cheap exploits to avoid mechanics.

Similar to how they explained LFR Personal Loot when they first introduced it - 5 people will get loot, but if the odds are in people’s favor, more than that can drop. (I don’t know when they stopped this and made it flat 5 items in LFR, but I assume sometime around BFA)

In other words - 1-2 items will guarantee drop, but if people do mechanics, technically 5 items could drop (one for each party member) once in a blue moon, if the group was lucky, but still try to average it to be 2-3 drops per run.

Or just remove the timers from M+2-9 like I’ve said in a few other threads in the past. xD

That way, even without a timer - going GO GO GO RUSH RUSH RUSH will detriment you, as you’ll fail mechanics and you will lower your chance at loot. But still keep track of the time, just don’t use it as a measure of how much gear you get. That way it’s less focus on timer and more focus on playing correctly. The hardcore 1% can focus on the timers all they want though, for things like raider.io that would likely still keep track of it.

2 Likes
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If we ever get a +0 finish, that time span could just shorten from 2 up to 10. That way people can go up the key level and slowly get used to finishing within a decent time restriction.

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I think one of my key notes about it being a vote function is being overlooked. In PvP and PVE it would be put up to a vote and the majority of the players would have to approve it in order for it to succeed. So in PvP it would be difficult to be abused unless everyone acknowledges that there is a disconnect and approves it. At the higher rating people usually want fair games so they will approve it in that scenario. Similarly with Mythic plus people tend to know already what they’re going to do in the dungeons so people are not going to be inclined to pause for a pull unless someone actually needs to AFK. And also there would be like a limit of one pause her PVP instance or PVE instance.

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That’s a harsh limit for m+. If this would be used as an option to take stress out of the timer based mode doing it once per run doesn’t help much. Also: 1 DC happens from time to time. In case of a 2nd one the feature lost it’s use. If you want to eyeball it, tie it to the amount of bosses/length of the dungeon.

1 Like
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No, my suggestion for the purpose of the Pause Feature isn’t to “reduce stress” in a M+ key. It’s literally just there for disconnects or when some real life event happens and a player needs to step away due to an emergency/etc. And I’d rather have the Pause for a single disconnect than none at all.

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When there’s one disconnect, there’s usually more. In my static group when someone has connection issues, it’s not limited to a random disconnect, it usually happens a few times per run with random lag spikes. This most often affects our healer because not everyone is privilege with a stable and good connection. There’s not much we can do about lag spikes, but it’s hella frustrating when you got Odyn down to 85% and you hear your healer disconnect from Discord, and you know they’ll be back within a minute, but you also know you won’t survive a minute.

But it’s not just Odyn. It’s also on Venryr, and a big pull we committed bloodlust to. One pause would not be enough, while the pause in total would only be 3~5 minutes max, which is shorter than the average time you wait for a healer or tank in recruitment.

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I mean on a personal note, literally the Solo Shuffle I was just in for some reason I got disconnected after a warrior stunned me. The game kept me out for two rounds. I obviously lost the first one that I got disconnected in and then I was disconnected for a full other round before I got reconnected. It would have been great if the team saw that I disconnected and was able to pause it for that one match. I think the pause feature should only have a time limit of maximum maybe two to three minutes too.

1 Like