Fight For Your Life timer question

[revnant]

What is the criteria for getting your Fight For Your Life timer back to normal (other than dying / save-quit and resuming)? There were a few times where I go down about 4 times in a row so the I would expect the timer to be getting pretty short. So what I did was just wait for a few minutes without fighting / going down and hoping it would go back to the normal duration ... but it doesn't...

[Duneman]

It's supposed to reset if you remain alive for something like 2 minutes, or transition to a new area. Sometimes it bugs out though and the next time you get dropped you'll bleed out in half a second.

[Mister Torgue Flexington]

and this is the main reason why I always go for purple-rarity Tenacity Relics or the Heart-of-the-Ancients, where FFYL time is increased and you get more health back upon getting a successful Second Wind

[revnant]

Hmm... the 2 minutes or transition to a new area didn't help for me. I've definitely done that to no avail.

Usually I won't go down that much but for some reason the JNK loaders in the Badlands sometimes hit super hard (all shields and full health -> health gate) in a single shot. Or the RPG loaders and Hyperion Hawks and Jet Loaders that unleash a gazillion missiles at you and take you down really quickly.

[ZarahNeander]

Killing things, not killing things and waiting <n> minutes, picking up health vials, new area are some of the more popular theories..

Short answer: nobody knows (except death)

Somehow I suspect there's a huge random element to it....

[Wandering_Minstrel]

Or you can play as Krieg and this becomes a non-issue. :D

[revnant]

Originally posted by Wandering_Minstrel:

Or you can play as Krieg and this becomes a non-issue. :D

I was playing as Krieg ... and my long FFYL timer became instantaneous despite me not going down for 5 mins out of combat.

[trukr]

Originally posted by revnant:

Originally posted by Wandering_Minstrel:

Or you can play as Krieg and this becomes a non-issue. :D

I was playing as Krieg ... and my long FFYL timer became instantaneous despite me not going down for 5 mins out of combat.

I have never studied it, but maybe it is an IN combat timer ?

[revnant]

Originally posted by trukr:

Originally posted by revnant:

I was playing as Krieg ... and my long FFYL timer became instantaneous despite me not going down for 5 mins out of combat.

I have never studied it, but maybe it is an IN combat timer ?

It's possible, but I wasn't sure. However, it's a bit unfair if you wait a while out of combat / doing other stuff and still almost instantly bleed out the very next time you go down.

[trukr]

Originally posted by revnant:

Originally posted by trukr:

I have never studied it, but maybe it is an IN combat timer ?

It's possible, but I wasn't sure. However, it's a bit unfair if you wait a while out of combat / doing other stuff and still almost instantly bleed out the very next time you go down.

How so? If it is an in combat timer, then the timer would not run unless in combat. How "fair" would it be to run away and idle for a while to circumvent the FFYL mechanics ? I still don't know that it works that way, it's just an idea that might explain your experience.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I've looked it up and have never found anything. I think it is on the order of 20 minutes before it resets. That' usually how long I wait if I am doing a solo peak run just to be on the safe side. I really don't think it resets in under 10 minutes.

[revnant]

Originally posted by trukr:

Originally posted by revnant:

It's possible, but I wasn't sure. However, it's a bit unfair if you wait a while out of combat / doing other stuff and still almost instantly bleed out the very next time you go down.

How so? If it is an in combat timer, then the timer would not run unless in combat. How "fair" would it be to run away and idle for a while to circumvent the FFYL mechanics ? I still don't know that it works that way, it's just an idea that might explain your experience.

Well, if I killed the last enemy in an area after coming out of FFYL and then I hang around Sanctuary to do stuff for a few minutes (let's say do some missions around town or challenges that involve puzzle solving or something), I think that it would be fair that my FFYL timer would recover. It wouldn't be fair to me if I was to go into combat after such a while and get downed and instantly die. This is not exactly me trying to "circumvent" the FFYL mechanics.

I thought I read somewhere on the Borderlands wiki that if you were to get downed in Digistruct Peak, then a team could clear out an area and then "wait" and recover FFYL timer for those that went down. I don't know how that would work if it's an in-combat timer.

Originally posted by Fredericks of Cursewood:

I've looked it up and have never found anything. I think it is on the order of 20 minutes before it resets. That' usually how long I wait if I am doing a solo peak run just to be on the safe side. I really don't think it resets in under 10 minutes.

Ah, ok. Thanks for letting me know. I never really wait 10 or 20 minutes like that. I guess if I'm doing something like Digistruct Peak then I probably won't have a choice. Otherwise, I'll probably save and quit or just bite the bullet and respawn.


Edit: merging 2 posts.

[Gonzo_o0]

Doesn't the FFYL timer penalty reset over time after you kill a few baddies? I always was under the impression that this was the case. I've always had trouble with tower defense-type missions (Overlook, etc.), diying and going in FFYL over and over, and I vaguely remember being able to recover from a very fast timer after just a few in-combat kills. It may have been a bad observation on my part but it's the impression it left on me.

An attempt to verify the rule would probably be :

0. video capture the whole thing for easier reference
1. fight against leveled 'easy' enemies (no skills specced, generic gear)
2. let your character go in FFYL and let it bleed out (count the timer)
3. save/quit and repeat step 1
4. go in FFYL and get a second wind (count the time between going in FFYL and getting your second wind)
5. repeat steps 2, 3 and 4
6. repeat step 4 (and so on...)
...
n. run test on at least 2 other characters against the same leveled enemies (same gear as step 1)
n+1. repeat on the first character at a different level

Excel sheet ftw.

So yeah...
Informative but not necessarily fun. Especially when you know that you have to do this (and sometimes fail throughout and start all over again) AND validate the data more than once. Anybody has a few spare hours to give to the cause?

[PatchAdams]

Duneman's answer matches my experience. I've found the timer to be buggy. It _is_ supposed to reset after a certain number of minutes of not going into FFYL but does not always do so, which can be especially annoying on the Peak.

I'd experiment, but have already sacrificed a bunch of time and eridium on this experiment, so will leave the FFYL fieldwork to someone else:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/49520/discussions/0/2860219962092762152/

[Gonzo_o0]

Originally posted by PatchAdams:

Duneman's answer matches my experience. I've found the timer to be buggy.

That's my assumption on OP's experience too. The result is too inconsistent not to be a bug.

[HiTmAn]

each time u go down i belive u ffyl is horter for about 20% up to 5 times if u go down u can get second wind after that is insta death and timer reset after 5 min i think someone mentioned in jolts stream..idle or fight dosent matter just be save for about 5min