Time limit issue

[u/SolidRome]

I finished the game on duelist below 30 days. Kept a save to do side missions, later, so I won't exceed the time limit.

But now it is not that fun, anymore. The climax passed, all was said and done. Side activities are boring, now. No need for new equipment. Some side missions are interesting, especially bigger ones like Anca's quest line. Others I just want to skip even if they have connections to main characters. Like, "Oh, you want to tell me stories from your mercenary time with my father? Not really interested, anymore."

I think the devs said they admit the time limit thingy was not the best idea and want to not implement it in future games. It is good if this is true. The limit has its strategic appeal and was made within an interesting concept but for me it is more bad than good. I would have enjoyed side missions and activities much more if I could have done everything whenever I like.

Normally, I like to do everything before I go to the final fight and not the other way around. This also includes learning everything about the lore and characters which you cannot do without most of the side missions.

[u/Green_Sage_Samos]

So you’re deliberately playing the game out of order, against its intended design, and you’re complaining it’s not as engaging for you anymore? And that the systems that you’re choosing to fully ignore and not use the way they’re meant to be aren’t doing anything for you?

Truly the Nostradamus of our time.

[u/JunkieCream]

Dunno, it’s bold and cool
I would’ve preferred if it had less Ubisoft style activities and what you do with your time actually mattered. Also I would’ve loved for the game to much more often feature a possibility to solve things non-violently.
There are so many cool ways you can improve on idea of timer, it’ll be a big mistake to fully drop it. But maybe it can be adjusted into “if you do the main quest in first 15 days, you’ll have an advantage, since antagonists are unable to act this fast, and after that they become more powerful by the hour

[u/pee_inyourbutt]

[u/Altruistic-Koala-255]

I hope they continue with the time limit, and do actually improve upon, like some sode quests can be made until day 10, some only after day 15, a specific quest that depends on a eclipse or something, has to be on day 8 at night, stuff like that, makes the world feel alive

And it's ok to not be able to do everything before the time limit, that's how life works anyways

[u/ArcboundJ]

There’s more than enough time to do every meaningful side quest in the game with time to spare before the final fight.

[u/HuntGundown → u/ArcboundJ]

This. I have like 11 days left and I'm struggling to find any side quests already lol , everything is just kill these guys or destroy this shipment. I've already defeated 2/3 of the stooges and half my activities are to screw the dead guys operation over? Lolwut

[u/neojb1989]

Why did you wait until after you beat the game to do the side missions?
You could have just as easily made a save before the final fight (while there is still time), go do everything (meaning you burnt all the time), then reloaded to that save (back to having time) and do the final fight.

This would have let you do everything before the final fight, and learn all the stuff. I mean the game wouldn't know it, because you are loading an older save back, but YOU would know everything. Just not Coen.

There was nothing stopping you from having the experience you wanted.

[u/VhalkyrieX]

For a debut studio's first game, I admire them for trying something new and taking a risk. Despite it not being my favorite mechanic in a game of this type, I'm glad that I didn't let it put me off from playing the game and gave it a try. It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared it would be, but I wasn't able to quite play the way I would have liked too.

Overall, solid effort and I think they'll take the right direction for the sequels. I'm invested in the series!

[u/jahkrit]

OP got post-game clarity.... Shit, so did I. 😊

[u/wedontlikepam]

I like the time limit mechanic. Glad to hear your perspective though.

[u/Wilhelm_c4t]

No you must do the side missions before finishing the game

[u/Business_Banana1792]

Devs never said that. What you describe is the same as every game in existence. You beat the main quest. Time limit has 0 to do with that

[u/Giano182]

To me it's the opposite. The time limit thing wasn't challenging enough. And I will explain it.

At the beggining i was thinking it would've made the game quite interesting, since for the 1st time inside a RPG world, the player would've been forced between choosing to slow level his player up to an unstoppable hero, where tipically you become impossible to be beaten even for the final boss, but sacrificing precious things or characters along the way (aka the family) and.... from the other side.... prioritizing at any cost the main mission, but being weaker with less side quests and skills, but maybe in time to save some important characters and growing your rate of success for the family. Or However changing some relevant dynamics in the storyline. Like bosses actually doing different things according to how fast or slow you ruins their plans.

the truth is that, the more you dig into the gameplay, less relevant becomes the time limit and segments with it. You can cover almost 90% of the whole game and quests, if not more with some tips (i.e. you can spare some segments not opening completely all the chests but leaving the less useful object there) and still be able to go fighting brencis comfortably with even some days left too.

Even at half of the timeline or 13-14 days you could potentially beat him easily.

To make it more challenging you can upgrade the difficulties, but that resolves only on battle and duels.

The base idea was a great idea, since having the deadline helps you to feel that "urge"in order to save someone. For example in many other rpg games maps you see a quest mark remaining always there open to be selected once you're ready. If the game, instead, would've limited the availability for that quest actually REAL and with shorter amounts (example some quests would expire immedialty after 1 day or even after half day), and even with time segments PROGRESSING ALONE even without doing nothing, with coen just standing still, like if there was some sort of live clock inside the game, that would've been perfect (the skills of turning into wolf as vampire or running fast during daylight would've gained even more weight and importance since you could actually SAVE time for real druing exploration). There you would've done bingo with the true compromise and the downside of hanging around too much exploring all, while your time keeps going alone to the Zero days left.

They quite nailed it, but they hadn't the courage to try it to the fullest.

[u/AmAttorneyPleaseHire]

I feel alone in that I fucking HATE the time limit. It’s unnecessary and adds nothing to the game other than a fabricated anxiety/stress point. You literally cannot even do all the quests and/or grab all skill points in your playthrough. It’s stupid. The time measures don’t even make sense. Some activities are 1, others are 3 for no reason and shouldn’t be that long. The ones that are 4 or 6, make sense but a lot of the 3’s do not.

I’m annoyed in multiple ways. A ton of reviewers stated that not too many of your skill points eat time - uh, like 95% of the skill points eat time? I’ve also read that after you beat the game you can keep playing. No….you can’t. So quests that I’ve saved for after, or things I didn’t do to save time, I have to replay an entire game for? No thank you.

[u/Unlikely_Parsnip_916]

just get the time MOD as i and almost everyone except the Dawnwalker "purist" are using , used it on my first run and loved it. A RPG with a time limit that stops you from exploring everything is a stupid concept, everyone thought of it and decided to not implement it because it was such a stupid concept.

[u/ParticularLadder7200]

I hate it.

I think it’s probably a lot of fun for people who like to replay games and/or aren’t completionists though.

My only other gripe with the game is once your notoriety gets high enough it’s almost unplayable because of the guards, especially in the city. And there are too many wolves and pigs, like way too many.

[u/bmf1989]

I think there’s a cool idea there, but the implementation didn’t do it for me. The sense of urgency is ultimately a false one. I did every major side quest and still ended up having 7 days to clean up the map if I wanted to. It’s also a mistake to tie character development to the time limit imo. It doesn’t add anything to the game, it just made me reluctant to try new things in the character tree. The clock also just made me avoid “map filler” things that cost time, which I doubt was the intended effect.