Bluetracker

Tracks Blizzard employees across various accounts.

Should The Timer Continue During Animations?

The animations in LoR are all so crisp and they add so much life to each match. However, there's been quite a few cases of people losing turns because of them. I saw someone lose a fleeting death rocket because of a Draven animation, and this made me wonder; why does the timer continue during animations? Shouldn't the timer reflect the amount of time both players have to actually play, and not all the downtime in between?

I saw a match where a player had 2 Puffcap Peddlers on the field and he activates Progress Day. First, you see the animation drawing the 3 cards, and then the Peddlers both trigger one after the other adding 6 mushrooms to the opponents deck. That one play lasted about 10 seconds, and a turn lasts around, what, 40 seconds? The amount of downtime from that one play alone in comparison to the available time was pretty big.

I saw somewhere that the devs are making animations shorter, for example the death rocket? I don't mind the rocket doing one less lap before hitting the nexus, but I hope they're not doing this on other animations too in the hopes it will fix the issue. I also saw a discussion on removing multiple level up animations. I can see why, because it's already a mechanic where 1 level up ensures all copies of that champ are also leveled up, so showing all the level ups separately on the field isn't necessary.

I think pausing the timer could be a good idea? This way it's less "C'mon c'mon c'mon C'MON!!" during animations, and more of players being able to enjoy them while at the same time being able to calmly assess their next moves. Games might last a little longer on average, but I think it's only fair to both players. Because now it's all in your hands how time is spent. Anyways, what do y'all think?

Tweet