How long should it take to finish a beacon mission?

[Butch C]

Well as they are right now you have 30 minutes to get to and kill the boss and then 5 minutes for looting boxes.

I dont remember ever having a time limit going up so if there was one that was perfect as i never noticed it and just 8 mins or so coming down.

I cant imagine anyone getting to the boss lvl on the old beacon in 30 mins if they had never even been on one before just the maze alone was confusing the first time and that was with people who had been on one before.

I dont see the need for it to be a rush to get up just a rush to get down due to the ship exploding, some teams will do it quick others will take it more relaxed and enjoy the time on the ship with new soc members who are on their first ever beacon.

So i say no time limit going up and 8 mins coming down but hard to say seeing we dont know how long it takes to search the boxes before the ship blows as we have never been on the new beacons.

I have an idea why not get 8 of your staff and actually test the beacons and then you will know the time it takes i know "TEST" will be a strange thing but hey always a first time.

 

[GeorgeSkywalker]

Why? That doesn't make sense, only hinders us from training newbies in navigating them and such

It's good it places pressure on us to get ourselves organised. Makes it a challenge.

 

[misao]

It's impossible to give a valid answer to this poll unless we know all the details of the beacon mission. I personally don't like the 30min time limit but like I say its impossible for me to give a real answer without knowing the details.

30min could work I guess if the timer is like the new feffoid cave and the route for the boxes is a linear route that you can't get lost in. (But that would be boring)

 

[AlphaGeek]

No there is an actual 30 minute limit.

Depending on the complexity of what you've built this version, the time allocation may or may not need to be reworked. Without us actually running it some and letting you know about our experiences, all we have to go on are how beacons used to work.

Manticore has a beacon mission slated for 17 Dec, provided the system is operational. I'll happily document the entire operation for you. I'd offer to do one sooner and provide feedback, but the beacon I have in storage has been allocated for that occasion.

I will note that the last ever VU 9.x beacon mission was gypped of approximately 2 minutes of loot time when the plug was pulled on the servers at 00:00. Perhaps if MA chose to offer a compensatory beacon...

 

[Ludvig|MindArk]

It's good it places pressure on us to get ourselves organised. Makes it a challenge.

Well then there could be both with and without a time limit... the time limit one could give a slightly better reward average to compensate for higher risk

EDIT: This would mean people got rewarded for using tactics more

 

[Serica]

Getting to the boss level in 30min was never a difficulty before, just a matter of organisation and teamwork - and appropriately skilled/equipped team members ofc.

Any team attempting a beacon should have at least one experienced member imho. (On our first soc beacon, NONE of us had ever done one, and there were no clear directions on forum at all on how to go about them back in 2006.)

 

[Luckycharm]

45 Minutes sounds good to me.

There was indeed a timer for getting all the way up. I remember we took too long once showing all areas to people.

Would be nice if you test it yourself a bit too perhaps with a low attribute avatar. Sometimes a few people killed and some others helped to loot boxes. Five people in total was common.

Also may want to fix the sudden breaking of teams that has been happening lately and the cross-talking with other teams, a "feature" of the ice age I think that seems revived. Even though not everyone seems to be able to read those ghostly mixed team chats.

Five minutes to loot all boxes sounds a bit short, but I cannot recall what it used to be as it has been so long (±2 years?). Also we don't know all the paths and floors by heart at start incase anything changed. Beacons dd use to be the coolest activity in-game for many. Hope it still will be.

 

[Rippy]

it depends

It really depends on the difficulty of the beacon...I loved the former beacons and the former game..But i doubt it will be the same ..
I think that we can say bye bye to the maze etc .... Pity... If beacons could be as before ...

I think that 45 minutes can be good but well difficult to choose like that ..it really depend on the new beacon and if they are interesting or just impossible ..

Rippy

 

[jenny ferr]

It's impossible to give a valid answer to this poll unless we know all the details of the beacon mission. I personally don't like the 30min time limit but like I say its impossible for me to give a real answer without knowing the details.

As misao say, it's impossible to answer without any more info or some try outs. Look up the old Area 51 beacon service people and I think they would be happy to test it out for you

 

[Farmer Smurf]

I would like persistent instance beacon dungeons.
so if it takes my group 10min or 3 days...we can still participate at our own pace.

 

[Immortal]

Assuming that the beacons are going to be identical in functionality to VU 9, and not have the fun rap'd out of them like everthing else, the time should also remain the same.

 

[Lady Trisha]

I vote for atleast one hour to get to boss, maybe depending on how big beacon-the bigger the longer time to finish.

Why? Well if you bother getting the soc togheter, getting ppl to come in from hunts etc you want tp have fun for more then 30 min.

So, around 1 hour fighting including defeting boss -excluding time for flying, boxes etc

 

[misao]

I vote for atleast one hour to get to boss, maybe depending on how big beacon-the bigger the longer time to finish.

Why? Well if you bother getting the soc togheter, getting ppl to come in from hunts etc you want tp have fun for more then 30 min.

So, around 1 hour fighting including defeting boss -excluding time for flying, boxes etc

Agree with your post. =)

Not easy getting enough people together regardless of reason.

 

[AxeMurderer]

45 minutes as your brain start to overheat after that and we don't want dead Entropia players while doing beacon mission as there are dead WOW players.

 

[Killahbee]

it should take about 60 mins for me

 

[Fanan]

I remember that the players designated for the maze level used to spend a lot of time planning the "things" to be able to open all boxes. If this still apply I think there's should be no limit for killing the bots.

Now if you going to put like only 10 boxes per beacon that don't need much planes then those 30 min you talk about should be good.



PS: ppl don't like many changes on things that used to work good before!

 

[Buck Wyld]

Raises hand to run a test team

Pleazzzzzzzzze !!!

Btw I think the old ones timer started at 50 minutes even if not finished, which limited the total time to under 1hr

 

[Xen]

I think a variety with the the shorter ones being more common would be good. Perhaps the longer ones could have a little better chance of better loot (items).

 

[Serica]

I remember that the players designated for the maze level used to spend a lot of time planning the "things" to be able to open all boxes....

Sounds like you didn't have a scale map of each level with all box locations marked

 

[JohnCapital]

How long would you like for the beacon mission to last?

The answer is amazingly simple and should require 2 passes through a test beacon:

Take the longest, hardest beacon and run a 5-man crew (w/ appropriate gear/skills of course)

Time how long it takes you, from start to dead boss, killing quickly without any "playing around".

The timer should be set for 1.5 x your results. (round off as needed for a clean time)

Do the same timing test for looting the beacon w/ most boxes, using lower agility (slower running) avatars, where you know exactly where they are, and exactly who will do what.

Timer should be 1.1 to 1.2 x your results.

 

[Neil Stockton]

My only suggestion (note that I've never done a beacon mission before) would be to make it long enough to enjoy the experience. If it's too short and it's all rush, rush, rush, over in less than half an hour, it might be challenging and action-packed, but did you really the chance to enjoy it?

 

[malasuerte]

Why? That doesn't make sense, only hinders us from training newbies in navigating them and such

My only suggestion (note that I've never done a beacon mission before) would be to make it long enough to enjoy the experience. If it's too short and it's all rush, rush, rush, over in less than half an hour, it might be challenging and action-packed, but did you really the chance to enjoy it?

I agree that too little time is going to prevent people from bringing newbies to the beacons. But I also remember my first beacon. A big part of the excitement was that there was a time limit so people was in a hurry. I had so much adrenaline flowing that day, it was insane.

I think the first week or so the beacons should be without a time limit so a wide range of avatars, from noob to uber, get a chance to try them. Then you will get the feedback and can adjust them accordingly.

If the people that had stored beacons for 2 years do one now and they can't even get to the boss or they don't have enough time to loot at least half the boxes you are going to have a situation very similar to the "sand king no loot" from the past month.

 

[Nobleone]

Assuming that beacons will be similar in structure to the VU9 version then I say make the times exactly the same...

It worked well before with no whining from participants and as I always say... If it ain't broke don't try and fix it!

Q - Participant in the last beacon mission- 17 August 2009. RIP Hadesheim!

 

[DRDoom]

The answer is 42

lol, we're not looking for "the ultimate meaning of life" here


I think about an hour would be good. But it could be variable (up to two hours) depending on the level of the beacon. (Most normal player events are an hour minimum) Half an hour is to short IMO.

PS: And make resurrection possible on a beacon mission, it was the only place where it actually was useful for a resurrector to be hired but it was considered an exploit when using it during a beacon in VU9 .

 

[Fishface]

Back in V9, we had a list of beaconeers and we would typically do 6 or 8 beacons a day, virtually every day. We did many hundreds, if not thousands of beacons.

We often would do different "types" of beacons: opalo beacons, MF beacons, PF beacons, naked beacons, (naked PF beacon is a BAD idea), and the infamous "speed beacon".

IIRC, the record on a 23 ped speed beacon was somewhere around 22 minutes. That is for the easiest beacon, with overkill weapons, by a full crew, well experienced in beacons. There was no pause for assigning boxes, and we would only count the time if we looted every box. So figure about 17 min up, and 5 down, then TP chip off before the ship blows.

So to me, 30 min sounds WAY too short. I would think that 45 minutes would be the average time that a crew just orienting to beacons would take, with time to assign boxes before killing the boss, and then 8 minutes down. If you have a beacon retard (yes, that is the official word for them) then maybe longer.

However, before releasing them, please be sure to fix the bug with instances where if the previous person left the instance before time ran out, yours doesnt start with that time remaining, and with no mobs present.

 

[Serica]

I'm sure Fishface and/or Omega would be willing to run a beacon on the test server with 3-4 MA staffers, to test out the new instances

Uh .. actually if you leave out either Fish or Omega on that deal, one of them will kill me... no maybe about it

 

[das]

It's a question we can't answer..
All comes down to balancing.
1. What do you want a beacon to cost?
2. How much loot you gonna give back?
having to kill 1 million hp on the way up & 20 boxes to loot on the way down or having to kill 500k hp & 20 boxes will result in a diffrent beacon MU if loot in the boxes is the same.
Just make it so there are enough bots to kill & still refund enough in loot to keep it affordable after paying the beacon MU.
Another idea would be to increase spawn/loot on beacons by adding tokens/sweat/fragments to it, just like an LA owner can use fertilizer.
This way, a 23 ped TT easy beacon wo additional rescources could be done easely by 5 ppl.
Load up the same beacon with some rescources & you get enough spawn/lootboxes for 12 ppl.
Ofc, this would require advanced balancing.

 

[Thorns Rose]

Omg!!

I have never been on Beacon Mission! How Effin exciting!!..LETS ROLL!!

 

[BlackHawk]

I voted for 90 minutes. But there is a reason for doing so.
If beacons are as they used to be, 30 minutes is enough. However, I hope you can and will add some complexity to this part of the game.

In time, ofc, you can add sub quests in each beacon mission. Like find level z. Bring power source and power up the TP. Trigger wave event inside beacon if quest Z is started. Have rescue mission for NPC Q and NPC Q gives a special reward sometimes and that should be on a special level with some boss like guards and you can only get there by finishing all quests on beacon.

Without adding complexity, your question just makes no sense. Make it as it was and forget about it.

 

[Danton]

At least 1 hour. Doing the math John posted would also be a good idea.