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In the beginning, MapleStory didn't have time limits on boss fights. It was expected that major bosses would take a long time to defeat.
Major boss fights were a big drain on server resources, so each boss only had a few channels on which it could be fought (and there was only a single instance for each channel). Zakum could only be faced on 3 channels, HT on two, and Pink Bean, when we got it, just one.
Busy servers set up schedules, where groups had to pre-register for their boss fights in advance. In some cases, certain unsavory groups appropriated the boss and would not let anyone else in to fight it (a.k.a "Cave Holding").
Eventually the power creep caught up with these bosses, and more and more groups could take on them, or thought they could. So time limits were introduced: "If you can't finish off the boss in an hour, get out and let someone else try." It was a necessity because the bosses were in very limited supply.
Later on that was no longer enough, and so we got instanced boss fights (where up to 20 groups could fight the same boss in the same channel at the same time, but separately), and the ability to fight those bosses in all channels. That made enough bosses for everybody. But the time limits remained. And new bosses get them too. Sometimes even a double check (looking at you, Gollux Jewel).
The only purpose time limits serve right now is a DPS check, perpetuating the gap between funded and unfunded. If a boss has X HP and you only get Y minutes to kill it, then you (or your 6-person party) must dish out at least X/Y HP-per-Minute of damage to have a chance. (Obviously, bosses also have some mechanisms that prevent you from constantly doing your optimal damage on them. But I'm talking about the absolute minimum requirement). This is not fair to the players and not good for the game.
TL;DR: I believe that if someone wants to fight Hell Gollux, and has the control and focus necessary to survive for however long it takes them to defeat it - be it 2 minutes or 2 hours - then they deserve whatever rewards they can get. It's not fair to lock them out just because they haven't put "enough" effort (or cash) into their gear.
Comments
I don't think removing the time limit is a good idea whatsoever, but replacing it with a ranking system that rewards you the faster you can take down a boss...
Would you rather be told that you took to long to kill the boss and get an F and, therefore, get worse rewards, or would you rather be pulled out of the room because you went one second over 30 minutes?
You'll still get all the time in the world, but I think receiving a reward because you did the boss good is a much more rewarding experience than receiving a reward because you spent all day poking Hard Lotus with a stick and finally killed him. I mean, this is still a game regardless of the direction it went in, the player does still deserve that "rewarding experience"
If it were as easy as poking him with a stick, I'd agree with you, but since the new bosses have all sorts of mechanisms that keep you on your toes, it's actually a lot easier to pour so much cash into your character that you can kill the boss before it gets its shots in, than it is to survive an extended fight. Especially with the removal of the damage cap in V, we see previously "top tier" bosses being offed in seconds... somehow I don't think that merits extra rewards. Quite the opposite.
Case in point: the new Zakum actually gives you more exp if you take the time to kill its arms separately before touching the main body, than if you 1-hit it.
I think the game is pay2win enough without giving even more rewards to high-rollers. Punishing someone for doing their best with their limited resources is just adding insult to injury.
But I think we don't need different rewards at all. If you kill the boss, you get its exp and drops, regardless of how long it took you. All I'm suggesting is to remove the timers and give a chance to people who have more skill than cash.
What makes it worse, also, is the amount of time given. Old Zakum gave you an hour, old Chaos Zakum gave you nearly two(I think it was 1hr and 50mins). Horntail, and I believe Chaos, gives you two hours.
Pink Bean? 30mins. Empress? 30mins. Hard Magnus? 30mins. Hell Gollux? 30mins. I'm sure you can see a pattern here. And that pattern would be Nexon Korea telling us that if you're not able to kill an end-game boss in less than half an hour, then what good are you?
If they refused to get rid of timers, but bumped them up to an hour, it would substantially increase the amount of people who are able to do it. I don't give a rat's ass that ten people on any one given server can take down Damien in 15 minutes, there are more people playing than just that small group, substantially more, and it feels like they're ignored in favor of pandering to the whales whenever new content is shat out.
Back to the way it used to be before timers were introduced.
A boss fight takes as long as it takes.
What purpose does a timer serve, other than a paywall?
As for encouraging players to play non-stop: feel free to suggest a "pause" button.
The game is, and always has been, a grindfest that wants you to play 24/7. The newer training maps don't even have a safe spot to AFK for a minute or five. I don't think allowing players to stay in a boss map for over 30 minutes is any worse than that.
Like you said @Akradian, these bosses are mechanically difficult, designed with the intention of killing you multiple times. If you can survive in those rooms for an hour then I fully believe you deserve the rewards for not dying and chipping away at them for an hour.
The game should reward partying, not standing around to get more stuff (and rewarding for killing things faster would probably have the opposite of its intended effect). If there's a DPS check then unfunded players should be able to beat that check by using a party. I get that you want to help unfunded players, but I don't think removing the timer is the way to do that, personally.
6 unfunded people can't dish out the same damage as one superfunded one. And the bosses are tailored to the superfunded.
This is only going to get worse with V and the removal of the damage cap.
I am not suggesting higher rewards for taking longer. I'm suggesting the same rewards, no matter how long it takes.
And yes, you did at least suggest at one point higher rewards for taking longer: Either way, you'd reduce the damage cap far more by giving incentive to party and making it easier to upgrade gear, not by making all bosses into competitions to determine who can use the most power elixirs (AKA "survive the longest").
I was saying that to counter Xenomata's suggestion of getting less rewards the longer you take.
It's not something I think needs to be done, which is why it's not in my opening post. Again, I'm not suggesting higher rewards for surviving longer.
And in case you haven't noticed, survival at bosses is not about using the most power elixirs anymore. All the major bosses have 1HKO moves, potion cooldowns, and other mechanisms that require you to evade attacks. And you have to do all that while dealing damage.
What purpose do boss timers serve, now that bosses are instanced?
Like what Horntail used to have, and what I think Magnus still has.
Well whatever. I suggested that because I thought players still deserve some sort of "rewarding experience" but in retrospective the only reward people actually care about in the end are the equips or coins (in the case of Lotus and Damien). Reboot you might care about the meso.
So there would need to be another non-gameplay beneficial reward that still gives you a sense of achievement, and I don't know if there really is anything like that that a player of maple would even care about. I dunno, discount on Star Force/Spell Trace usage for a day if you clear Lotus in X amount of time?
You beat the boss, you get the exp and the drops.
Doesn't matter if it took you five minutes or five hours, it's the same exp and the same drops. And whatever sense of accomplishment you feel.
It would be far more effective to reduce the damage cap by making it easier to be unfunded, not by giving them unlimited time and hoping they don't get frustrated enough to just ragequit after an hour and only having chipped away a quarter of Lotus's health.
I would, at the very least, like timers to be extended if not outright removed for non special-case bosses. Not having a timer opens up the possibility of players forming a party to take on bosses that are much stronger than them and still possibly pull out the win if they are skilled enough to live for an extended period of time. Now thats party play.