Why on Earth would you add a 30 min cooldown to changing instances? Today I discovered that if I were to change instances from the minimap, it would initiate a 30 min cooldown. Why?

From the game's perspective:

 

There's a reason you're on Coruscant 1, it is called load balancing, sharding, whatever. If they let people freely jump from 1 shard to the other at their convenience, people would be bouncing all over the place (either to be with more people for group quests, or to be more isolated if 3 people on that shard are in the same quest areas you are working on). The 30 minute cooldown simply removes that from the equation by making sure you want to go to that shard (for whatever reason) and makes it so the server can more easily manage the load.

 

Now what I would like to see, and I do not know if it is actually in the game or not, is a way to get pulled onto another shard if I was spamming group quests and they happened to be with groups on different shards.

Just curious why you feel the need to change instances more often? I have yet to change instances once playing this game since launch let alone multiple times within a 30 min period. Now if it is so you can kill everything in an area jump ship to another instance and kill everything there then jump back I don't have any sympathy for you. Edited July 11, 2012 by LukeSaberRattler

Just curious why you feel the need to change instances more often? I have yet to change instances once playing this game since launch let alone multiple times within a 30 min period. Now if it is so you can kill everything in an area jump ship to another instance and kill everything there then jump back I don't have any sympathy for you.

Where my interest lies is if I'm doing my Black Hole dailies, I can check one of the other instances to see if there is less competition for the crate spawns. I'd be ok with gambling on the instance to check it out however, if I do it and my guildmates then log in to a different shard, I'd have to wait 30 min before grouping with them

There's the problem. That's not a valid reason for changing instances, at least not in regard to why the mechanic was added.

There's the problem. That's not a valid reason for changing instances, at least not in regard to why the mechanic was added.

 

I don't know if I'd go that far. I agree that it's not intended but not so far as to say it's not a valid reason. Until Bioware fixes the issue with slow objective spawn times and overcrowding of the Black Hole area, people are going to switch shards. I don't believe it's right that they attempt to punish people for wanting to finish their dailies without having to compete with the jerks who will ninja the crate while you're fighting the mobs.

You're still using the mechanic in a way that it was not intended for. They stated the reasons for adding the ability to change instances when they added it to the game, back in beta.

 

Anyway, you asked why. The simple answer is: Because you're doing it wrong. If you want it to be changed, there's a Suggestion Box for that.

Edited July 12, 2012 by HeavensAgent

There's the problem. That's not a valid reason for changing instances, at least not in regard to why the mechanic was added.

 

There is a valid reason for changing instances if your friend or guild member is in another one and you want to play with them.

I couldn't do my BH dailies with my guild mates today because of that dumb timer. It even prevented my guild mate from being able to invite me to the party somehow. He was inviting me, but nothing was happening.

 

...very irritating.

Edited July 14, 2012 by Mechrophilia

There's the problem. That's not a valid reason for changing instances, at least not in regard to why the mechanic was added.

 

it is not becouse it is designed for another reason that it can't be used for something else changing instances to do the quest faster is a valid reason