Timer Suggestion
I know there are other threads addressing this issue, but the premises are either wrong or the comments unproductive, plus I think I have an idea that can appease many.
I have personally and recently encountered more battles going to a draw, down to the last few seconds, or into the last minute. This happens in both arenas and against a variety of squads. I’ve been 5 vs 1, with the opposing squad having a shred of health left— the victory a forgone conclusion if only I could go again. I think it is fair to ponder who should win in this situation and to consider a change to timing. I also get frustrated when I can’t engage in a battle because I’m being battled or because my selected opponent is battling.
Here’s my thought:
Shorten the timers to 3 and 4 minutes.
Stop the timer during opponent moves.
I also like the idea of stopping the timer during character animations. Or working to shorten some of the longer ones.
This gives a starting point for testing. If 3 minutes is resulting in matches that are taking to long, then shorten it to 2.5 minutes, then to 2.
The idea is that it gives the challenger, the human, more agency. The human is using the time.
Thanks for reading!
I have personally and recently encountered more battles going to a draw, down to the last few seconds, or into the last minute. This happens in both arenas and against a variety of squads. I’ve been 5 vs 1, with the opposing squad having a shred of health left— the victory a forgone conclusion if only I could go again. I think it is fair to ponder who should win in this situation and to consider a change to timing. I also get frustrated when I can’t engage in a battle because I’m being battled or because my selected opponent is battling.
Here’s my thought:
Shorten the timers to 3 and 4 minutes.
Stop the timer during opponent moves.
I also like the idea of stopping the timer during character animations. Or working to shorten some of the longer ones.
This gives a starting point for testing. If 3 minutes is resulting in matches that are taking to long, then shorten it to 2.5 minutes, then to 2.
The idea is that it gives the challenger, the human, more agency. The human is using the time.
Thanks for reading!
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Replies
Nice thinking though
- Grand Admiral Thrawn
On offense, wouldn't you risk timing out anyway?
On defense, isn't this already a strategy?
I don't see how the proposed idea would be abused to do what you're suggesting. If the AI and animations take approximately 75 seconds in each battle (number made up for example) and they tune the player timer to 225 seconds the battles would still be roughly 5 minutes no matter what. Shorter if the player took no actions (so you'd have to be more strategic to lock yourself for the full 5 minutes).
It's not a horrible idea. Which says a lot. I'd like to see it in action before deciding if it's good though.
This would also lead to needing "good reflexes", right now you have some forgiveness in the timer setup, but in your suggestion you need to be on point due to the shorter time for you to act in battle.
Also want to add this creates issue on the server side, if you pause the game at the right time you could go indefinitely as the server would need to wait for the client to update. The current system accounts for this by dropping the battle shortly after 5 mins.
Yes, but the overall time would change due to animations and opponents moves pausing the timer.
A different sort of moves taken during the opponents turn would lead to the length being different since not all moves are equally timed.
It’d be interesting to see how much of the 5 minutes involves thinking about moves and making decisions right now vs. watching animations.
That's the whole point. If you plan to lock your position for others and want to sit there till payout comes you can make sure you will get as less turns as possible so the AI has to attack most of the time and stop the timer while doing so. Slowing down everything to 1x speed will stretch the battle even more.
- Grand Admiral Thrawn
The server has no way to "time out" an event of unknown length without feedback. Since the match can play out with different total lengths, the system would need the feedback from the client (the device), if that signal is lost, the system would just leave you "logged into battle". This could lead to longer than usual lock ins from players trying to protect their current position.
There is more than 1 reason the timer is there. 1 being that if you cant beat a team in that amount of time, you should change your strategy. The other being it give players the ability to use the clock or pick off an opponent at the last minute to win the PO.
The issue is "stopping the timer". That's a bad thing from the development perspective, it opens a can of worms.
I also disagree with the “change your strategy” argument against the timing. No matter where you are in the game, you will eventually encounter a situation where you are matched up against someone you are only slightly better than. These close battles can go either way on any given play- through. But, over time, you should prevail more often than not. This is well-known. It’s why seven-game playoff series tend to advance the better team more often than single-game series. The more opportunities a slightly better team has, the more often it will win. That’s what this change in timing is trying to achieve— to give the human player more opportunities to defeat an opponent.
The timer is a necessity because of the asynchronous nature of an internet game. Five minutes was likely an arbitrary limit decided many moons ago, and I’d like to think the game has evolved strategically somewhat since that decision was made. I’m simply arguing the timer be modeled more along the lines of a chess timer.
The current system has a set time, they add a little slack, but if you disconnect your battle will just time out just after 5 mins.
If you cannot beat them according to the rules, why should the rules change to give you a better chance?
The timer has remained the same and we were given a faster animation. The timer has been around since the beginning, they use that to model the matches and other battles, that is part of what they balance, if you change that again, other aspects will be "off". This is a more drastic change than just a little more speed or time, which is why I think it may throw things off more and probably be too drastic to be implemented this far into the game.
Because the rules to this game are changing all the time. When five minutes was settled on, did they really account for teams featuring multiple revives? Revan/Bindo, Darth Sion, Nightsisters are the best examples (though, to be fair, I haven't encountered a draw against a NS team). A character like Enfys or a ship like Hound's Tooth are stretching matches out over time. It wasn't long ago where most of my matches were only lasting two minutes or so, but now they are often dragging past three minutes, and as I mentioned, I'm getting a lot more matches going into the final minute.
Further, changes should be made to improve the user experience, and an experience where the time spent in battle reflects the user's actual play time is an improvement. Of course, an additional part of the user experience is minimizing times where you are unable to play because you are currently being battled, so, making sure the actual time a battle takes is minimized is important as well. Though, maybe there's room for improvement there as well. Perhaps another QoL change could be an Arena Queue or Arena Notification.
Kyno, thanks for your thoughts! You are certainly an experienced player and your challenges to this idea only serve to make it a better idea! Hopefully, the developers are watching in, and thinking about this problem in an equally thoughtful way!
I have spent a lot of time in tunnels with sketchy signal during the hour before my payout, so it’s something I’ve seen both ends of.