Master of the Trials

[Rathothis]

There'll be some player who enjoy time runs, but introducing mechanics just for that was a waste of resources.

Sure it's not aimed at the majority of the player base, but it didn't take that much effort for Funcom to introduce time trials. Also bear in mind that, while only a handful of groups might actually be going for the "Master of Trials" title, there are many more who try to get at least some (easier) time trials done. Overall, I'm pretty sure the return in terms of replay value is quite decent for the dev time invested.

Other than that, awesome videos, Moriala & crew!

[Khaletohep]

Also bear in mind that, while only a handful of groups might actually be going for the "Master of Trials" title, there are many more who try to get at least some (easier) time trials done.

Haven't seen any of those. But maybe it's just me. I'm sure you have researched that claim thoroughly.

[Rathothis]

Haven't seen any of those. But maybe it's just me. I'm sure you have researched that claim thoroughly.

As much as you have yours - unless you have FC's data? So we're in a situation where both of us have only circumstantial evidence as to how popular the content is, but it is pretty clear that it didn't require any major investment. Which invalidates your criticism even if most players don't care about time trials at all.

[Mellaus]

For having chased the master timers in raids and dungeons like crazy when the achievement system went live, i canot say i've see many people into it.

When it comes to dungeon master timers, i know of maybe 15 players total who went into it with a lot of dedication, and that's about it.
That's basically 2 teams with a bit of turnover.

For raid master timers, i know only 2 guilds that really tried those. And i know in my guild, we went there only because i was leading raids and pushed our raid team into it, because more than half of the guild couldn't give less of a damn about the achievement system, let alone the raid timers.

So i like the fact that there are timers for all levels, but the most difficult ones definitely appeal to a tiny tiny portion of players, a small minority even among veterans.

Now i don't know german or russian guilds, so maybe they have teams there too that ran the timers actively. But from the old EU crom guilds , that's what i've seen.

[-Shink-]

We had an achievements raid running weekly every Thursday for a while but i don't think it was more than 3 weeks that more than half of the guild lost interest.And that's natural , the instance timers are mostly silly and having just one person crashing can **** it up .Boss timers were fun but as said in the thread it's not everyone's cup of tea and doing it over and over fine tuning stuff gets most people tired of it.Plus the annoying part of needing to start messing with setups a bit too much sometimes so it's hard for everyone to get the achievements on their desired character.

Now for the dungeon/dungeon boss timers , some find them fun,some don't,i don't see how it's a waste of time/development/resources.It is a small part of the achievement system that keeps a certain crowd busy plus almost everyone will get the easier timers while simply playing.And at least in my guild it's more than 10 players interested in it.

[Khaletohep]

You can basically make that argument about anything in the achievement system. People like different things, that's why there are treasure hunts, special bosses, time trials, pvp, quest chains and all kinds of other things in it. Master of the Trials as a whole is pretty much (hate this word) 'hardcore' content for basically no reward, that type of content only appeals to the smallest minority in any game.

Exactly.

If resources are spare, one should focus, in my opinion, on creating content for the greatest possible number of people.

Having hardcore, even near impossible stuff may be useful to a game. Stars to reach for, white spots on the map to still discover - that keeps people interested.

But high peaks alone don't make a mountain.

The time trials, in my opinion, are too niche. How many people spend time on that? 10? 20? 50? I'd be surprised if it even was that "many". How many people would have profited from having the rez bug fixed instead? Or T3.5 nerfed* earlier?
The time run contest in the Test Live forum gave a good impression of how much the community as a whole cares about that kind of content, I think.
To those who enjoy it - good luck and have fun. But one should not forget, I think, that many players are challenged by completing Ardashir Fort or AI District at all, not by doing it in a set amount of time. Good luck building a Tianan group via global.
Elite content is nice for the elite, but sadly, the elite can't play by themselves (at least not at a reasonable price).
Also, I think games should be inclusive and encourage people to play together, not exclusive and force them to abandon people they like, but are sh... gamers. I know a lot of people I'd never ever take in a group if wanting to do a time run. Saying "no, we're playing something you're just not good for, but don't feel bad, we'll do a pity Yag run for you afterwards" doesn't sound or feel very nice to me.
Time runs, which are only possible with people who know what to do, i. e. actively excluding new = uninformed players, are somewhat counterproductive to finding and encouraging new players.

*If somebody, maybe somebody from a mental hospital, now wants post about people wanting easymodes for everything, feel free to.

[Evito]

I think you're taking it a bit out of context, and are also overestimating how long they spent on the timers, they were added because people have asked for time trials over the years and it was obviously a very easy thing to add like any other achievement, also the master rank is not the only one there. It's not like we lost a new dungeon out of it or anything. In general; there does need to be a balance of easy stuff, challenging stuff and stuff that's somewhere in the middle.

[Khaletohep]

Personally, I don't know how long it takes to introduce something like the time trials. I'd be surprised, however, if it took less time than fixing the rez bug or changing some numbers in a raid dungeon - I didn't compare it to introducing something completely new, but to just changing conent already done. Do you think it was less effort?

[Evito]

They had no intention of nerfing previous raids until Cetriss was a thing, nerf calls were made by players and this post, and subsequent nerf suggestion thread happened, long after achievement system was finished. As for the resbug, ask the coders, I believe they are not comfortable enough to go in and change it without risking breaking other things, otherwise you'd imagine that would've been fixed long ago.

Anyway this whole thing is way off topic.

[Rathothis]

As for the resbug, ask the coders, I believe they are not comfortable enough to go in and change it without risking breaking other things, otherwise you'd imagine that would've been fixed long ago.

This. Time trials was something Cirith and Pyzerius could do themselves, while they would need coders to take care of the res bug.

@Khaletohep - even if I don't aim for Master achievements, I personally find it gratifying to get an achievement for a good dungeon run. Sure the Master of the Trials title is reserved to a small, select elite. But many more players will get some recognition for a good run.