Turn time, animations and other QOL changes

kevkj

Turn time:

• 90 seconds is too long most of the time, especially in the opening rounds. Please adjust this down to something like 30 seconds for the first 3-5 turns. Barring any edge cases, there's only so many actions a player can do in those turns so 90 seconds is excessive.
• Conversely, there needs to be some sort of time extension if you trigger a shuffle of your cooldown pile into your draw pile. Drawing lots of cards or the psijic "Toss" action can eat up a lot of time due to the long card shuffling animations.

That second point leads into animations in general:

• The shuffling animation takes too long. I don't need to see each card flutter by individually. Just move the cooldown pile as a stack to the draw pile and then play a quick shuffle animation.
• Drawing cards takes too long. When I draw a fresh deck at the beginning of a turn or trigger multiple "Draw" actions, all the cards should come out together and flip over simultaneously. Similar to shuffling, each card moving individually doesn't really improve the game experience.
• Allow simultaneous animations. Why do I have to wait for my opponent's hand to slot in one by one before the empty spot in the tavern gets replaced?

Interface:

• Move the autoplay checkbox away from the Esc menu. Preferably it should be a toggle that is next to your hand. Why have an interface that might make someone accidentally concede?
• Add an option for players if they want to be challenged when they click "End Turn".
  • Never (how it currently works)
  • If actions available
  • Always

Ranked tiers, points etc:

• Please make it clear if you can get demoted in your rank tiers or not. You don't want to give people any reason to STOP playing. If demotion is indeed possible, please give out rewards according to the season peak (if this is not already how it is). Should I tag a ZOS member for this question?
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of the playerbase is crammed into Ebony Tier. Now you get all the players who belong in that tier, players on their way out who have to slog through ten 50-5 victories to move up into quicksilver and players who should be demoted to Orichalcum. Quicksilver should not just be the tier that all Voidsteel/Rubedite players have to pass through for 3 games. Orichalcum should be an actual populated tier, some people may not like it but at least it might give them more even matches.

Play VS AI:

• Add an option to skip the AI turn completely. No animations, nothing. I click end turn and it's my turn again immediately. Even with Expert AI it typically doesn't matter what it does, I don't need to watch the AI slowly play its 5 writ of coin to buy up all the useless contract cards in the tavern.
• Add a more difficult AI (Master) for a total of 4 difficulties. Open up the current Proficient AI to players sooner. A lot of players only have Novice AI to play against before trying a real player and then get destroyed. It provides no useful practice at all beyond seeing all the cards. Being able to consistently defeat Proficient AI will genuinely prepare players for the skill level they will see in Ebony.
• The daily quest should allow you to play the top 2 difficulties available to you. Eg: If you have unlocked Expert, you can play Proficient or Expert to complete the quest. Some players might take time to adjust to the higher difficulty level but should still be given a less frustrating method to complete the quest. Obviously the more difficult AIs would provide more xp, so you are still incentivized to play them.