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Rage Timers: Yea or Nay?
Karnage69
Member UncommonPosts: 323
I might have a different outlook here than the populous, but I hate Rage Timers. It makes me want to stab someone in the jugular.
What is the purpose behind it? If someone wants to kill something and they can, why would you restrict it by having a Rage Timer?
I can understand if a fight is to be completed in X time. Lets say you have to beat the boss before the princess gets put into the lava by the rope lowering her down. Okay - that would make sense. But just to have a Rage Timer to prevent innovative/bored/skilled players from killing something? That just doesn't seem right.
Anyone have a constructive opinion on this?
For or against, don't matter.
Example: My friend and I are playing SWTOR: We were level 22 at the time and we decided to head back to Drommund Kaas to take on the lvl 18 Raid Boss. Just to see if we could do it. We failed at lvl 19, he just hit too hard to keep up on heals. Here we are, 22 and we engage the mob - about... I don't know... 5+ minutes into the fight, Rage Timer hits and kills us both. So irritating.
Comments
muffins ftw!!! lol what a QQ post... yes we need them for progression reasons.. think back to the early wow days.. without a person suitably geared there would be no point of gear grinding and all that jazz that we came acustom to for serveral years.. no one would raid then or do instances everyone would skip content to go to end game... yes there annoying at times it just means your raid isn't doing the strat to the boss right or ya undergeared.. there lies the points of them really. otherwise you'd have undergeared people in end game content.. taking forever to finish boring for games imo
Or maybe they should fix their failed design of class skills/abilities?
"I have an undergeared class that when played properly, can heal forever. They should make mobs Rage instead of changing how classes are played."
Yup.
Edit: Also - Whats the problem if a small group would rather spend 20 minutes fighting a mob than a large group spending 5 minutes? Who cares about end game content - did you not even read my example? A lvl 18 raid boss is hardly end game.
they want the fights to be group fights not two or three people spending 10 min spamming there keyboards, the whole intent was to get people together to kill a very hard boss and the level doesnt matter 18 or 50, the group aspect is still the same.
madnessman
Rage timers could be useful in someways, like a scenario where the area you're fighting the boss is falling apart, and you have to defeat the boss in time in order to escape.
But having rage timers on 80% of the bosses is kind of overkill. It's like the crutch developers use when they can't think of anything interesting for boss fight mechanics.
This is a video of why I prefer to not have rage timers, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iELckrU6p8 if there were rage timers in this game, then footage like that would never exist. Honestly if anyone solo's a boss that takes 8 players to kill, then they deserve to be rewarded for their efforts and ingenuity, not punished.
What is a 'rage timer'?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Thank you Moose!
Finally someone who seems my point of view.
I'm not saying Rage Timers should not exist, but if they do, at least have a reason behind it, other than "You havn't done enough damage yet - now you die."
Far too many mobs have Rage Timers these days and it is rather irritating.
There are games, I believe Vanguard is one, and EQ2 is another (I think) - If the mob you are fighting is far below your level, then the mob does not drop the best items it can - which makes sense in an "anti-farming" view.
In the example I gave for SWTOR - We were only trying to get the achievement for that planet - we were already 4 levels above the mob - it wasn't going to give us anything we wanted.
And not that it matters - but we tried to recruit others to come help out, but everyone is stuck in their "Me against the world" ideals while grinding their way to level 50.
A Rager Timer is an implemented time after initiation of combat in which the mob you are fighting "goes berserk" or something to that effect and basically increases its damage so much that nothing can survive (typically). This kills everyone who engaged into combat with said mob, ending any chances of every being able to kill said mob.
Basically, you engage the mob and you have X amount of time to kill said mob before it goes Rage mode and kills everyone.
Many developers these days are using this as a way to prevent players from finding ways to kill tough creatures with a low number of players, or even sometimes, solo.
This forces players into sitting around for lengthy periods of time trying to find other players to help with a "raid".
Especially in this case, where the mob is only level 18 and it is hard enough to find 4 people to group together, much less an entire raid of players willing to smash buttons for 5 minutes.
That sounds like such a horrible idea that I can't belive develoepers even use it...there's just so much lazy, outdated mechanics in MMO's now days it's frusterating.
Yeah, not sure I'm a huge fan of "rage timers" myself. I used to love trying to solo Archvillains in City of Heroes/Villains and I'm sure if that game had rage timers it would make some of those efforts impossible.
Rage timers are a makeshift way of making dps feel 'important'. Lets face it, sure you need damage to defeat an encounter, but dps is by far the least 'vital' part. If a tank screws up, it can be a wipe. If a healer screws up, it can be a wipe. If a dps screws up... nothing really happens.
Rage timers are just another mechanic to make dps actually more 'meaningful' in finishing an encounter, much like interupting, crowd control, and dispelling.
or, you know, you dont do enough damage to it and it kills you.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
rage timers exist so that some classes are not able to solo...Case in point If you can dps and self heal your self then you would be able to out last the boss. In games such as Wow, Hunters would use kiting to solo world bosses. In scarlet legacy monks could solo every instance. It is to create fairness of play for all and to prevent exploiting. Which considering they banned a level 12 player in a level 40 area they take that crap seriously.
I voted No. I think there could be a better alternative. I don't like feeling "timed" in any game.
That's odd design as it doesn't really benefit the player that invests time or the player that invests in skills and ingenuity. It's almost as if it is penalizing players for not using the group size/type that the devs want them to use. Not a fan.
Thanks for the info.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Exactly. I've run into lots of raids where this happened. DPS is important in WoW and other games like it. The problem is, enrage timers only further encourage people to be strict about "knowing the fights" and "being geared", with little to almost no encouragement on actual skill and critical thinking during a battle. Just have the right stats (gear grinding = repetition), and stand in the right spot (= memorization). It's really dull when you've done it for a while.
Unless what your fighting has a rage timer, a healer and tank can usually solo anything, you know this right? Rage timer is one of the few things that puts real pressure on DPS to do the highest dps they can offer.
I say Yay for them. If your group can't beat a boss within the time limit that means your group is not prepared for him or the bosses beyond him. Its a great mechanic to make sure your group is geared enough for those bosses, being able to beat a boss in below average gear cause you keep trying or zerg him is bad game design. I wish more bosses had it though. As I said in my statement above this one, if a boss doesn't have one, you can usually duo any boss unless it does ungodly amounts of damage to put pressure on healers.
I wish they would take it a step further though, Tank and Healers have their roles set and that can't change. DPS only does damage and nothing else. They need to make bosses do more aoe attacks that you need to dodge, or mechanics where DPS need to do something other than stand still and spam 1 or 2.
Was wondering, too, and have to agree with you. I gotta say, though, its typical of today's MMO devs.
Im not a fan of paying taxes but I do it any way cause its just how thing are.....
And personally it is fair...Having played in games where they allowed healing dps classes and range dps classes to do this it really did make things broken. They would do this daily and turn aournd and flood the ah with the items and make tons of cash while other classes who couldnt do this and were needing a full party...Eventually the game expanded and made it to where the good loot bosses had rage timers and other then a few exploiters, which is exactly what devs view them as, complaining it was well accepted.
I like soft enrage timers (the ones that don't really kill you, but make the encounter much harder). Take for example Vashj and Putricide in WoW - they add pressure on the raid without saying 'Oh, it's been 8 minutes, time to make Saurfang deal 500% more damage!' The key is that players must handle the appropriate obstacle correctly (bats in Vashj; using the abomination to mitigate slime in Putricide), so it definitely is a skill-based element.
Hard enrages (the ones we're talking about here) add urgency to an encounter. They're also designed so that you can't just stack healers in a raid with one DPS and get a guaranteed win. If I was one of those healers, I wouldn't really consider it an innovative / clever use of mechanics to wait my turn to expend my blue bar, then get back in line with the other 7 healers in a 10 man. That's just plain boring.
As said above, it also makes DPS more important and valued to the raid. Before enrage timers, if you had bad DPS, the solution was almost always 'bring more healers'. And the raid leader likely wasn't about to kick out one of the tanks to bring in an extra healer, so who got the shaft?
I'm a big fan of soft enragers. I dislike hard enrages because it feels like a timer, but you can get quite creative with soft enrage mechanics, and it makes fights a bit more intereseting
Yeah, I prefer soft enrages too. They're not overwhelming by default and some groups might even wait for them to wring every last ounce of challenge out of an encounter... but the hard enrages make you feel like you weren't really stronger than the boss, he was just going easy on you.
You don't "NEED" them. There are more intriguing and creative design ways to design fights to not need them. They used to not exist in WoW on most content and it was fine, until it did it made the whole concept of everything being a "DPS race" instead of a survival challenge.
Fights imo shouldn't all be designed with these enrage timers in mind, instead it should be more consisted a trial of survival that way players have to stay alive while performing and using every bit of leverage that is advantageous to quicker, intelligent, creative and more innovative minds. Not those who drill in a fight for hours of the same methods and rewarding only those who keybin+ macro abilities best to have minimal down time between cooldowns.
Its doesn't promote intuitive gameplay or design, everything is just some rush to the finish, not an enduring ride.
Details can always change it's the idea that counts.
Congratulations! You have been promoted to MMORPG.com's sole RAID ENCOUNTER DESIGNER!
Please design a raid encounter that does not implement a hard enrage timer. Avoid the problem of 'stacking healers' and ensure that every role is useful in some way. Bonus if you are able to fit the theme of your original 'trial of survival' idea that rewards skill-based choices and punishes players for performing poorly. This is a high-tier raid encounter; while overcomplication should not be the goal, you are free to make your fight complex enough that you believe that there is a reasonable chance for a player like yourself to succeed.
Go!
I liked vindictus I don't really play it or do so much like couple hours once every 2-4 weeks. But I believe its a matter of encounter design, games don't have to play like vindictus in the active-action combat style to work that way either. The game just needs to be designed were the more errors you make the more you are closer to death and you A) cant heal through it
That style also makes it so fights are persistent and recoverable, instead of wipe or kill. It may take you 3 hours if you keep screwing up and refuse to die despite screw ups or it can take you 15 minutes on a flawless and full run. I like it because the design is more ope, and it doesn't make it any easier or anything. It makes al fights and contents challenge you in more ways that spamming abilities a fast as possible as a force of habit over actual strategy and skill.
Details can always change it's the idea that counts.
I never liked them. Once thing I liked about Everquest encounters was that there really was no "right way" to do a boss event. The guild I was in traditionally didn't have very good DPS, but we usually had solid tanking, healing, and CC, thus while a lot of guilds were able to simply blow through events with massive amounts of DPS, we were able to control events, look down mobs with CC and offtanking, and slug through events at a slower pace but still get it done with our makeup.
It's kind of irritating knowing you have to go into an event with a certain class makeup to be able to do the event.