Timed Missions

*rant warning*
I had a rare opportunity to play last night (I usually only get to play on weekends or later in the week) and perhaps I shouldn't have played. I did a couple of missions from Harvey Maylor and got quite annoyed. Both missions were timed missions.
The first involved the sewers in Brickstown. I had an hour and after 20 mins of not finding the entrance, I paged a GM (I have to ask why in the world would you put a "hidden entrance" mission on a timer, really). Luckily I got a quick response and completed the mission with less than 10 min to spare.
The second was a "hop on the train/special zone" mission requiring me to defeat all. I believe the timer was 90 min and even though it was a small map, with 0x8 settings, I ran out of time.
While it does feel good to just complain that I think both these missions(and let me go ahead and throw in the final mission in the Crimson story arc that I barely finished in time) suck simply because they are on a timer, I do have a question. When it comes to timed missions, do you lower your difficulty settings to make sure you can complete in time? I've noticed with the higher level timed missions I run low on time.

Well, your second mission is a defeat all. And you set your mission for 8 people?

Next time, you should consider lowering the number a bit, perhaps. :3 I do so quite often especially when it comes to timed missions. You have no idea in advance what size map it is, and due to it being a timed mission, I don't think you can reset it if you've accidently entered it with your team set to 8?

In short, remember where your local Hero Corps representative is when you find out your mission is on a timer!

Ooooh, you're REALLY going to hate the 10 minute timed mission you get during the Praetorian arc. You get that mission without warning from the completion of a different mission. I've failed that so many times. On the other hand, I've beaten it several times too, and every time I do it brings a big smile to my face.

Back to your question - no, I don't lower my difficulty settings for timed missions. If I fail, I fail. But the arcs continue. I suppose if I were a roleplayer I might lower the difficulty. Or maybe not, as defeat is probably just as interesting to role play as victory.

If you've accidentally entered with your team set to 8, I believe it only spawns the spawns that you can see. So the remaining spawns haven't spawned. So if you return and plow through the first couple of difficult groups, I think it then goes to your new difficulty setting after that.

Good to know about the Praetorian arc mission. I guess I'm with you Werner. As much as I hate to see the big red words "Mission failed" on my screen, my top priority is drops. So I'll just have to deal with the occasional failure.
Also, because I just can't let it go, why in the heck do they put a hidden entrance mission on a timer? I don't remember the name of the mission (I'm horrible at remembering mission names), but the location is under the city in Brickstown. You have to take a narrow ramp down near the science store. I don't think I could have found that in 60 days much less 60 min. Ok, I'm done complaining, I think.

Mission doors, with a few exceptions, are random. You just had bad luck getting a badly located door on a timed mission that had a lower time than most.

And the Praetorian 10 minute mission is *supposed* to be failed. If you read the story, it leads the story on that you failed. Succeeding doesn't actually stop the event that you were set up to stop. If I have stealth and/or TP available to me, or a team to help, I'll give it a shot. Otherwise, I take the opportunity to go hit WW and buy/sell/craft, whatever will take up 10 minutes of time.

As far as rep settings, I usually run about +2/x4. Mobs don't take forever to take down, less risk of me getting killed, and the xp/inf per hour is still pretty decent.

Failing missions does nothing in this game anyway. Unless they change that, there's really no reason to get excited about running out of time. Personally I enjoy the game much more when I get a new mission every 5-15 minutes instead of spending an hour on the same map with no advancement in the storyline. In my opinion, timed missions should have timers of 15-20 min max and they should always be difficult to finish on time. They should also all have very clear warnings prior to accepting them that they are timed.

Newer mission arcs generally don't have timed kill all missions and don't give them to you unannouced. I think the Dev's learned what want and and don't want in the first few years of this game, but they never went back to change old arcs to make them comply with more appropriate standards.