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[AlanC9]

I haven't seen any substantive discussion of this, but in the Gamescom press conference at 2:15 we see Leliana and Josephine proposing different approaches to the Serpent of Nevarra problem. Leliana's approach (assassination) requires "Time 3:12:00," while Josephine's approach (diplomacy) requires "Time 4:00:00."

So time is one of the resources we'll have to allocate, eh? Anyone know of a discussion about how that will work? Does this mean that we won't be able to do everything in one playthrough?

[Allan Schumacher]

I guess if these things can be completed while the game is off, that's a small consolation.  I still think 4 hours is way too long.  The way that's structured, it would be better for me to turn off the system entirely rather than continue playing and try to wait out the time requirement.  If I play for too long, I'll run out of things to do as I wait for the 4 hours to pass... hm... yeah, I can't say that I like how this sounds.

 

Most of those missions revolve around flavour and helping convey the image that your Inquisition is starting to make a name for itself on Thedas.  Picking different approaches can sometimes result in different consequences for the particular actions.  My FennecQuisition was when I first learned of these, and you can get some nice nods to fans as well.  One of the missions was a clear nod to fans of the first game, and I figured Cullen's approach was the best way to handle the job and it improved my Inquisition in a particular way.

 

There are ones that unlock non-critical path zones and whatnot that take about 10-15 minutes, the crit path ones have no time requirement (but often have some other restriction in order to pick).

 

 

Without spoiling too much, you'll never be in a spot where you're waiting 4 hours to continue playing the game, and you'd have to actively avoid making decisions on the war table to even get yourself into a spot where you'd have to wait 10-15 minutes to get access to new content.

[Allan Schumacher]

Because I am a completionist, and having missions that will start and end while I am sleeping for example means I don't get to experience everything.

 

You miss nothing.

[Allan Schumacher]

How is that possible if the mission timer continues to count down even when not playing the game? Do new missions not come up until you turn the game on again? 

 

The only timer that exists is the one that ticks if someone is assigned to a mission.  No new missions come up (the missions themselves are only unlocked by you playing the game).  Missions that haven't had someone assigned to them don't have a timer.  They simply wait until you assign someone to them, at which point there's a timer to simulate the person being "busy" on that mission.

It's in large part flavour where you can help dictate our your Inquisition spreads its influence, providing a bit of extra lore/story and a variation in rewards and power growth for your Inquisition.

 

 

Alan, could you please confirm for me that this is not an online requirement? As in, I don't need to be online to either accept the mission or to check it's completion?

 

As far as I know, no.  It's simply done because it'd be silly (and less interesting) if I could just go "pew pew pew Josephine does everything all at once."  Granted, if you *really* wanted to game the system and assign her to a mission and turn off come back, narratively you could then say "well everything all happened instantly" but at that point the player is kind of sabotaging their own gameplay to obstinately prove a point.

 

I *like* the idea of going "I have 3 missions available, and 3 advisors.  Which advisor would be best for each!"  It's fun and the timer existing in game is there to help give some context of "This is an involved task."

 

 

That timed mission in Crestwood, if we quit the game before the timer runs out, I hope the clock stops til we restart the game.

That would be a different system and gameplay mechanic, and I would consider that a bug if the timer still elapsed for any mission that the Inquisitor is undertaking.

[Allan Schumacher]

I also like the idea of things taking time, and you needing to manage assignments, but I would rather that mission time is tied to the flow of time in the story. At a simple level missions could be completed each time the player completes a quest in the field or something.

 

Sure.  I'd rather that too.  But it's a very minor thing for me and it's possible that the system provides an advantage to players that aren't like me.  It's not a hill I'm interested in dying on.

 

 

I'm not sure I follow your example, bolded above

 

Well, you didn't bold the entire sentence but I did miss a word.

 

Granted, if you *really* wanted to game the system and assign her to a mission and turn off come back repeatedly, narratively you could then say "well everything all happened instantly" but at that point the player is kind of sabotaging their own gameplay to obstinately prove a point.

 

 

If a player were to constantly assign a mission and turn the console off so that Josephine does all the missions and very little "in game" time passes, and then gets mad because of that, I think they've opted to sabotage their own game play for the purpose of being upset.  If a player chooses to play like that because they want Josie to do all the missions, it's not up to me to say it's not effective use of time if it's just fine for them.

 

 

So, Allan, just to clarfy. The Redcliff mission that we saw in the E3 demo - where Leliana got send to, doesn't have a timer first, right?

 

To be clear, I'm speaking exclusively about the timed side missions that advisors go on.  These do not have an in game gameplay component to them; they are managed exclusively through the war table.

 

Something like the Redcliffe scene would be handled away from the war table and use a different system.  I'm not familiar with the system so I couldn't say how it works, but I'd consider it a bug if you saved during this and when you loaded the timer had expired.

[Allan Schumacher]

but I am guessing you also miss out on all sorts of dialogue options if you return back from a cool mission while people are "away..."

 

Actually you don't.  It's in large part flavour.  I'll dump a bit more info as I learned about the system a bit more today.  But the advisors are still around to talk.  The goal was to not punish the player from in game discovery.  See my soon to be follow up post.

 

 

So My thinking is if josephine is off on a four hour mission, she is unavailable for other missions, meaning if you want to do a second one, a "Diplomatic" option would not be available, since Josephine is curently busy.  So if you don't want to wait for her to return, you would have to go with either a "Military" option with Cullen or  "Espionage" with Leliana?

 

Yes, Josephine is busy with the other task and cannot be allocated to another one.

[Allan Schumacher]

Okay, so a programmer saw me talking in this thread and helped get me some info.

 

• It's completely offline, and just uses system clock.
• Some of the times I mentioned may not be accurate as they're being tweaked.  Really short stuff might not exist.
• Anything that opens up a new piece of content to be experienced in the game is done instantly
• Your advisors are still available to talk despite being "on mission." In context, this often makes sense because many of these missions describe a larger scale organizing event rather than, for example, Cullen stating "i'm definitely going to go there myself, specifically, to spend the next X hours talking to the person."
• Some of them are done to help with resource acquisition (Mike hinted at this), be it gold, crafting materials, and so forth.  There may be flavour differences between advisors, and some advisors may be better than others at certain tasks (usually shorter time, but hey, if Josie is on something else it may be worth sending Cullen instead even if it takes 30 minutes longer)
• Most interestingly (to me), is that some of them have story narratives to them.  Some missions are only available to certain PCs, and how you choose to proceed with the missions (or rather, how the advisor you send deals with it) can lead to different consequences/paths for these more story heavy missions.  Upon completion of these missions, a new mission will be unlocked if appropriate to continue that story arc.*

 

 

* Note that the last point I haven't seen in game, so hopefully I didn't recall that wrong.  i.e. safety language in case I made a mistake but I'm pretty certain I didn't.

[Allan Schumacher]

If I have only 2 hours to play and start a 4 hour mission, I should be able to have the same experience someone who played all 4 hours did, as far as the mission goes.

 

What "experience" do people think they're missing, here?

[Allan Schumacher]

Soo.. are you saying that; the advisor who takes the least amount of time for a certain mission; is often the best choice?

 

No, I'm not.  It's an example and one that is easy to demonstrate.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm wondering about the shorter missions actually. I'll start a 15 minute mission and go out exploring. I'l have barely got started when the timer dings and I'll feel obligated to go back to the keep to deal with the completed mission.

 

The times I stated I learned weren't final.

[Allan Schumacher]

Why am I 'meant' to be playing a game for 4 hours straight when I have other things to do with my life? It doesn't make sense to me. If I decide to play 1 hour per day for a week instead of playing 7 hours on the weekend all at once, why would the devs care? Why should anyone expect that I would have a different experience from the person who played for 7 hours straight?

 

 

So lets back up here.  What is it, precisely, that you're worried about?  I literally don't understand.  What *cost* do you think this implementation has for you?  How do you expect your gameplay experience to be negatively impacted by this?  Bonus if you can quantify the level of impact you think this might mean for you?

[Allan Schumacher]

It was a question for Alanc9, and he responded above. His comment was referring to the apparent 45 minute difference in the demo between Leliana's take on the mission and Josephines. IE, Why have time differences if all players have to do is start it and go to bed for 8 hours?

 

I'm not worried about the gameplay mechanic, I was just asking for clarification (and received it) from Alanc9 about his comment.

 

They way the mechanic has been laid out does not worry me. I was wondering about the purpose of it, but it isn't a concern.

 

Okay cool thank you.  It just looked like similar words so I figured it was still directed to me.

 

Cheers.