A chat about mission timers

So the mission timer was extended because other players felt that it was too short to approach the level slowly and methodically. Beyond the fact that the demo levels don’t really reward taking it slow at the moment, I disagree with this change.

I think your original vision was something like this: When you start doing the objective, all enemies on the map rush you. So you would ideally clear out the map before starting the objective, but the mission timer will eventually force you to do the objective even if you’re not done yet.

I liked the idea of this design because time pressure makes the game feel significantly more intense, even if the actual gameplay isn’t that difficult. Playing safe often makes PvE games like this too easy, and time pressure was an incentive to play a little fast and loose instead. It gave the each mission a Counter Strike kind of flow: you attack spread out groups of enemies as fast as you can, eventually complete an objective at a certain point, and then the remaining enemies all attack you at once (like a retake in CS).

I think the reason people complained about the timer was because 5 minutes can feel like a very tight time limit when you’re completely new, still figuring out the basic mechanics and you’re scared to enter the building at all because you don’t know how enemies work. I think after playing for long enough to complete their first run in the demo and then trying again, most players would agree that 5min is plenty once you learn how to go a little faster, and 11min is extremely long (yes, even solo). However, it’s obviously true that the new player experience is important and you want to give people some breathing room on their very first mission, so maybe as a compromise the timer could be longer at the start of the run and get shorter each mission. Perhaps the timer could also be short, but only start once an enemy spots you to incentivize keeping stealth going for as long as possible.