Please Alert Us to Mission Time Outs!!

[WolfieJoeyNoob]

This has been a problem for a while but I think Nightwave has highlighted it even more now.

 

I understand why in some of the more linear mission, e.g. Sabotage and Capture, you need to time out players who are hanging around once the mission is complete forever for more exp grind. However it's becoming increasingly frustrating when there is no UI or gameplay prompt telling us when we're at risk of being timed out. It's incredibly jarring having a mission seemingly randomly fail from both a gameplay and thematics perspective.

I find this occurs most frequently in Syndicate Missions. Now up until Nightwave I never bothered with them too much but because there's that "Complete 10 Syndicate Missions" in Nightwave I've been focusing on them more. Which is great, that's the point of Nightwave but here's the problem: The Syndicate Medallions. And to a similar extent the Lua Puzzle Rooms.

 

Syndicate Medallions are one of the fastest ways to gather rep on a Syndicate Mission and are best farmed on missions where you have full rein to explore the maps, e.g. Sabotages and Captures. However depending on the Map layout you can have 2-3 Medallions down a sections of the map that leads you away from extract and towards a dead end. So not only to you often have to reach the end of that dead end to often get the Medallions but you have to return back up to get to extract, losing time on the currently invisible timeout countdown. With Lua Puzzle Rooms, they hold many of the current meta mods for frames, as well as parts for the Octavia warframe. Add in their random nature and if you say finally find the one room you need for that mod or that Octavia piece, struggle completing it and then time out during the puzzle or on your way to extract, it feels really cheap. This happened to a clanmate of ours and we stopped playing for the evening out of frustration.

Now I honestly don't mind this as a form of risk-reward in these missions, however with no way to tell and make that calculation is just feels cheap and causes rage quitting. Like I said, I can see the reasons for it and I actually like it but there really needs to be an alert from Lotus and a timer when the countdown is getting close.

Here's my suggestion:

Let's say on completion of a mission objective the game gives you 10-20 minutes to get to extract (I'm pulling these number from experience, I don't know what the actual values are). After half of that time passes, so 5-10 minutes, you get a alert from the Lotus. Something like:

"Tenno, the Grineer Generals/Corpus Investors/Corrupted Sentries have noticed that this area has gone silent. I'm detecting a ship on it's way to investigate. Hurry, you need to extract before they arrive, or else this mission will be a failure."

Then a timer starts counting down. Now you've made it clear to players the consequences and given us a in-lore reason why the extract is timed. Players then have to make the decision themselves over rushing to extract or to keep searching. Now if they fail, they are less likely to feel cheated as it was their choice to remain and not extract when they could have. At the very least we really need to have the timer visible to us.

[taiiat]

it sounds like you're referring to the 15 minute timer where a Mission will autofail if you do not Kill any Enemies within that time.

which, once that 15 minutes has been met, there is a 60 second Timer presented on screen, only after which will the Mission actually autofail. in this time you can Extract (unless it isn't possible in the Mission at that time, then rip) and maybe you can Kill something to prevent it at that point but i can't say either way for certain.