Remove the kill-timer for Spy missions (and probably all solo missions)

[(PSN)Zeylon]

I just came back to the game after a long break (year+).

Spy missions are puzzles.  Eventually you get to the point where it's no longer a puzzle and just another thing you speed run, but it's "about" a set of puzzles regardless.

They're also ideally stealth missions.  So, get in, be quiet as possible.  Accuracy, silence, and care would seem to be the watchwords over murder, mayhem, and *explosion-noises*.

It is with that in mind, and prior experience in Spy missions, that I finally got around to doing the Spy mission on Lua.  I don't have any particular complaints about the mission in terms of content.  Rather, I got kicked after a lot of very meticulous solo exploration of the level, stealthily moving from point to point, opening containers for loot.  The exact opposite of how most people run things in pugs, and a playstyle that's imminently more-suited to being solo and in a mission-type like Spy.

Imagine my surprise when faced with a "Mission failure imminent: eliminate remaining targets", and then getting summarily kicked after 30 seconds.  Definitely not a warning I got reading over the patch notes that *were* present after my absence.  And... all the stuff I gathered, xp, progress... flushed.  And... LOTUS CHRIST, I've been frustrated in the past over the "failed to connect to server" business flushing all my work from really long defense/survival missions, but the idea I'd lose tons of progress for actually being a ninja while solo?

...and it's just so stupid.  Why would you have that kind of timer on a stealth mission?  Why would you have it on when a player is solo?  It doesn't make sense.

It's been known for over a year as well apparently (year and a half or more I guess): 

 

I was kinda enjoying some of the QoL changes that have been added since I got back.  The idea that they actually ADDED another way for the servers/game to screw you out of progress (when you're solo and not causing any strain on their servers no less) is mind-boggling to me.

Please remove this.  

[Yasha-7HS]

I've never had this happen to me.

How long do you stay in this missions, in general?

I usually get through all three vaults without being detected, or failing, and have enough time to run through all the rooms. Though, I also run a very strange Excalibur with 1.27 sprint speed and high range for that sweet, sweet Slash Dash spam. 

[(PSN)Zeylon]

As I said, it was my first time.  So there is no "general".  

 

Getting kicked and losing your progress as you explore new puzzles for the first time is... probably not a good first impression for a mission type (and was not how things were treated when I took my time in Spy missions Solo previously).

[peterc3]

They'd remove it immediately if Focus gains were disabled in Solo. The next time they'd likely revisit it would be when they finish their review of Focus gains and how Convergence Orbs work. Which sounds like a near future type thing.

[Raen15]

I totally agree with Zeylon. I have had this ruin more than one mission for me. It seems like was put in across all missions with seemingly little thought about how it goes against perfectly valid strategies for spy missions or other puzzle-focused areas. Spy vaults and Lua Principle Challenge puzzles are supposed to encourage or at least allow for stealth play and, you know, solving puzzles.

There's no timer for most of them, until, suddenly, there is, because you weren't killing things...? And you can't reset it once the countdown starts, even if you immediately kill an enemy (assuming there is one in the vault). All you can do is hope you're close enough to the exit to get to it in under a minute. I have seen complaints about this from over a year ago on forums. Why not fix something so fundamentally flawed sooner rather than later?

[(PSN)Zeylon]

Jesus Christ... just happened to me again a few minutes ago.  I doing Spy-Lua... I already had two of the data sets and was in third chamber, but having issues because some sort of bug had made the "frost/slow" effect from the trap floor permanent across "time" so I was sluggish regardless of where I was moving.  Got the warning... and... all that time spent in mission flushed.  Just like the other 3 or 4 times this has hit me since I came back to play.

It's a waste of my time.

It's frustrating.

It's not helping ANYTHING (I can't leech solo, and the only person getting screwed is me, not your servers).

I come out of these things 10x more angry than I was from the old "Failed to connect to server" after missions that lost all my progress, because that at least seems to be a bug.  This feels more like you're intentionally screwing me for not running a level fast enough or looking at videos for puzzle solutions in advance, and that you don't really care since it's been in for more than a year and a half.

It's just like... WHY?!  Why would you do this, have it brought to your attention, and not change it?  

[Ada_Wong_SG]

Actually there shouldnt even be any countdown timers in solo mission. 

I was raising kubrow solo which I bring it around to crack open lockers on Sechura
the defense timer counted down and started when I was pretty far away and has to play the defense mode 
when I could have at least tried letting my kubrow pry those lockers for the XP

Last time while doing Orokin Moon Exterminate, I was fulfilling the orokin principle challenge for The War Within, 
Which I picked an exterminate mission because most likely you will have time to even find those challenge room in the first place. 

When doing the challenge half way, there is a 60 second count down that forces me to flee for the extraction, 
and failing me immediately when I fail to reach...

I mean seriously I understand such feature on multiplayer squad, but for solo wise it is too much game policing 
and forcing players to conform to the speed run style even when all people want to do is take their own sweet time clearing missions 
without bothering anyone. 

Edited November 27, 2017 by Ada_Wong_SG