Timers added to Torghast

Community General Discussion
1459

Super casual here.

I havent ran a single mythic dungeon since WoD.
Yet…
I was one of the few people who ran mythic dungeons at the tail end of Warlords of Draenor. I loved them.

So this is weird? Why havent i ran any mythic dungeons?

TIMERS.

I loved mythic dungeons when they were first introduced because it pulled me right back to heroic BC dungeons. Pulls were treacherous and had to be strategized, mechanics had to be followed, my class utility suddenly felt valuable and engaging again (CF - main is rogue).
I loved the slower, more careful planning required for mythic dungeons. It was, for me, genuinely exciting.

This playstyle was dead for about 4 expansions, and suddenly was returned to me. It was pure joy. There i was sapping, blinding, and even stunlocking/tanking casters again (and even peeling loose mobs off my healer, which is my dungeon class fantasy - being the healer’s personal bodyguard). I was no longer stuck with multi dotting and aoe-ing a ball of death (rogue dungeon playstyle since wrath). I had genuine utility back. I cannot stress enough how i miss this. It’s what hooked me into wow dungeons in the first place. I felt more useful than just my dps.

Then they anounced the mythic plus system for legion with all the steps and afflictions, and again, no problem. It just means more care, more control, more planning and organising on even basic trash pulls. Im all for it.

But for reasons that still boggle my mind, they threw in a timer. I just knew immediately i wasnt going to run it. So i didnt. And i havent.

I might as well add in the horrific visions since technically its a countdown. It just isnt clicking with me. That feeling of rushing around isnt a playstyle i particularly enjoy. (And when this is the reward for all the busy work you do to buy the key to run the vision, then this too becomes completely pointless to me). That’s almost all the content of 8.3. And i dont really feel a pull to do it. My cloaks about half way, im at the point i can just about clear 3 wings. But it puts a knot in my stomach just thinking about running it, let alone actually accepting the quest to run it.

So please Blizz, stop with the timer/speed run stuff. Sure, add in a torghast challenge mode or something, give those players the options, reward them however you like with all the mounts, titles, pets and what-not, but dont force it into the main game. Just let me chill out, enjoy the game, climb the towers, play with lunatic spec builds, and just have fun peeling the onion at my own pace.

2 Likes
1460

A timer doesn’t have to kick you out for it to be classified as a timer. If it’s a mechanic that activates at a preset time, then it’s a timer.

Torments are timers. You can call them soft enrage, that’s really up to you, but that doesn’t change the fact that yes it is indeed a timer.

If you want to show that it’s not a timer, then you’d need to show that the mechanic doesn’t activate after a preset time.

4 Likes
1461

100% agree.

Everybody trying to obfuscate the issue by calling Torments soft enrage are trying to push an agenda. Doubly so when they try to then deny that the soft enrage mechanic is infact a timer.

5 Likes
1462

Or maybe some are trying to get across the idea that soft enrages, while a form of timer, are one more determined by what you can handle. Like does losing 1% health every so often matter if you have enough leech or self healing to heal say 10% every few seconds?

The fly analogy works wonders, you can ignore it for so long but you WILL notice it at some point. Most calling it a timer have been coming across like they will notice it even at the lower stacks

In essence: Hard timer caps you no matter what your skill is, you have to get as far as you can before the timer hits 0
Soft enrage style timer: As long as you can handle the mobs, incoming damage, etc, you can continue on. The only limit should be how much you can handle.

Well, it kinda does not, or at least should not. The torment mechanic, as in when they become active, should be starting on like floor 11. The torments themselves do stack over time.

Here is the thing though, they might not mind if you use lust say on a tough early pack and wait the small amount of time for it to come back up for the boss, if you cleared the rest of the floor under 10 minutes. What they are trying to put a hold on, with a sledgehammer instead of a scalple, is lust pack one->wait->lust pack 2>-wait->lust pack 3, and so on.

These things said however, I would prefer torments to only be active/stack if one is not actively playing, as follows:
Torments should not be active/stack if-

  1. character is moving as if exploring the floor
  2. Character is in combat
  3. character is with a broker or checking anima powers
  4. character is in a “safe zone”

Torments should be active/stack if:

  1. character is standing still for say 5 minutes (adjustable by how far in you are)
  2. Character is just moving back and forth, as if to avoid being marked AFK, for the same time frame as number 1

I might let it slide somewhat if someone gets a few torment stacks, they have those for the rest of the floor.

1463

Up, up, and AWAY!

1464

I’m trying to figure out if the number of capital T’s that you type varies from post to post, when you say the same thing every time.

1465

Until it reaches a point you can’t handle. And some people don’t like that pressure hanging over their head.

The entire point of people not liking timers is they don’t like the feeling of being rushed. Torments are literally designed to push you through the floor at a pre-determined pace. Until the community can see that pace is a very relaxed one, they really won’t care what you choose to call it.

It does. It literally starts to stack based on a pre-determined time. It is literally a timer.

6 Likes
1466

Any “time pressure”, be it a shrinking geogaphic zone, a debuff, or a timer, etc., ruins enjoyment of consuming the content, for various reasons that has been debated to death already before (as you are aware of).

Any.

4 Likes
1467

Until people get in and provide feedback, which quite a few are already doing, they might not know what that pace is, at least not enough to make accurate judgement calls.

To put it bluntly, the timer could be as laid back as say allowing for 3 hours in torghast before the stacks get too high. From what I have seen from some, they would still freak out because it is a “timer”.

I am sorry to say, but too many have come across like “as long as there is any kind of timer, even the most laid back one, Torghast is dead to me”.

And most have debated such based on how they think/feel it will end up. Only valid arguments I have seen have been from the streamers and those that have taken some things from the streams, like the fly analogy.

I did list situations where torments should and should not be active or stack. They boil down to anything that takes time to do, exploration, combat, reading, etc.does not have the pressure but if one is just standing still, for longer then one might need for a phone call or quick trip away from computer, puts the pressure on.

1 Like
1468

The concept of torments in and of themselves is what is the issue, not how they can be modified.

As far as valid arguments, you’ve heard them, you’ve just ignored them, because they do not suit your narrative. Any objective person would say the majority of the points brought up have merit of some kind (minimal to extensive), and not to be ignored altogether.

Edit: My summary of the issues with using time pressure mechanism in a dungeon crawler.

1469

Ooooh!
I got it!

At floor 50 do an Ulduar. Have a button appear you can press that enters you into challenge/leaderboard/time mode.

Fifty floors seems fair. Nine clearly isnt given that one of the most fun aspects of torghast appears to be building a wild and crazy spec and seeing how far it takes you. You need the floors to build up that lunacy, and you need lots of floors after so you can play with it. Fifty is also a nice round number. :slight_smile:
Hey, and if youve gotten lucky with a super spec you love, perhaps you’ll think “I reckon this might be my day!” and actually hit the button (instead of the more frequent sense of dread that overwhelms me when i know im fighting a timer). If not, no worries, you can keep grinding away until you’re done.

Rewards? Titles, achievements, mount, pets, transmog armor, bragging rights, official leaderboards. Plus whatever else is dropping in those floors normally. That way its an opt in for cosmetic rewards/achievements. Plus, as i say, at floor 50 with a cool spec youve had some time to play with and get comfortable with, players who HATE timers (me), might even feel like its their moment to try and shine. They’ll do it because its EXCITING and fun and above all, they WANT to do it on that one day because theyve got a fantastic build they love, and feel confident to make the attempt.

PLUS: You can actually add in a genuine timer. You know, an actual countdown clock (that actually solves the issue of decreasing difficulty the further you go) without having to mess about with all these weird little fixes/annoyances. Floor 51-55 - twenty minutes; 56-60 - seventeen minutes etc. You can even throw in the torments as well if you like. Once you fail the timer though, you can still finish the floor, and blam! you’re back into normal torghast and can keep grinding away if you like.

Now that this is completely solved, can we fix the other stuff? (Preach: spec powers; Tali: Rerolling entries until you find the powers that sets you off).

1470

Nephinae: This is the kind of thing I am talking about when I say the timer could be very lenient and people will still freak out.

Modifying torments could lead the pace to be:

The thing is both sides have arguments for what they want. My modifications would still enable exploration, and being able to take breaks if need be, yet because it does not remove the timer/torments, it is not enough for some.

If you are telling Blizzard to “remove torments or else” then you will likely lose unless you come up with something to replace it with, like limiting lust per floor. Both sides have to be willing to give a little if Torghast, and Shadowlands, are going to succeed.

I am coming from the angle that Blizzard is set on torments, they might still be talked out of them but they could very well be dead set on them. If that is the case, what would it take to show the community the pace is a very relaxed one?

1 Like
1471

another though i had is what if the tourments where an optonal thing at the start. where you can select to turn them on for a harder run.

1472

With better loot as a reward? could work quite well, some times people might want to just goof around, other times they might want to push. This could be used to set things up based on what people want at the moment.

1 Like
1473

This is such a non problem that the community is gloaming onto as a reason to hate the game.

People don’t see the real problem, which is that the most vocal portion of the community is 25-35 year old depressed and socially isolated males who are unable to really enjoy anything. It’s hard to be introspective and look objectively at your life and fix the things that make you miserable and unable to enjoy things that once made you happy, so instead they must look at the things around them for blame.

There is nothing that blizzard can do to win back the community or save the game, because there is no gameplay or system solution, it’s an endemic problem across pretty much all of online culture right now. Spend an afternoon visiting some communities around popular games online, every word you read will be negative.

1474

Addressing these arguments:

Bloodlust isn’t the only buff that Blizzard are concerned about people waiting on. They want downtime, especially at the higher levels, to be something that has to be managed.

The level of power classes have while their cooldowns are active is not something that can be tuned around at the highest level, while the overall power of classes is something they can tune it around.

When have you ever been able to AFK in the middle of content? Torghast should be the same as any content, you have to judge what you’re going AFK for is worth it.

The fact you get a safe zone at the start of a floor is plenty generous.

Most dungeon crawlers are single-player, and thus don’t have the issue of the whole “not being able to pause”. MMO’s are a different genre and have different restrictions.

Because while Torghast may be a nod to a dungeon crawler, the game it’s in still has never had any sort of pause feature.

The fundamental issue with any sort of content that allows you to leave content is that there is no way to balance the challenge against the strategy of waiting for your cooldowns, exploding a pack and then doing the same against the next one.

Timers in content such as M+, Islands, Horrific Visions don’t exist for the purpose of a speedrun (at least not simply +1’ing a M+). They exist as a counterbalance to that strategy.

They said they wouldn’t, then they realized that there was a reason that EVERY form of challenging content over the past 15 years has had them in one form or another.

Because at the end of the day, they want Torghast to be a viable form of solo progression, and there needs to be some sort of limit to avoid the prevailing strategy of it to be “cooldowns, AFK, repeat”.

For people returning to the game because of that? Well that’s on you for not expecting the earliest public iteration of a game to change when it goes live.

Blizzard also said that they want Frost Mages and Affliction Warlocks to be desirable for big AoE pulls in Shadowlands, but if I go into the expansion with the expectation that I will win every AoE fight, I’m going to be sorely disappointed.

2 Likes
1475

Yes, thank you. Blizz needs to stop listening to these streamers that just play video games all day. The rest of us want to be rewarded for the hard work we put in with our valuable time

1476

What’s your valuable time worth. One epic? Two epics? How many floors do you want to clear to get those epics. Five? Ten?

Is this what Torghast is going to be? Just another piece of forgettable content that rewards fat purps? “Meaningful solo content”

1 Like
1477

Idk what I want, but dang sure it ain’t cosmetics/titles/achievements

1478

You do know that all raids have timers in the form of enrages, right?