The 90 Second Timer... SIGH

El_Borracho

I was in a match yesterday where it was Rahjin, Celarus, Red Eagle, and Hlaalu. I blame myself for picking Celarus and Hlaalu, which certainly did not help. But then my opponent felt it necessary to use the full 90 seconds for every turn. To the point I watched him sit there and do nothing for over a minute before turning the hourglass while having zero coins. After 10 minutes, with the score 13-12, I just quit. I don't have the will to play what was going to be a 20+ minute match, minimum.

A TOT game should not take longer than the average veteran dungeon run. Slow play, whether it is strategy, trolling, griefing, whatever you want to call it, is the Achilles heel of TOT. That 90 second timer has got to go. 30 seconds seems adequate, and it could even be tolled while a person is actively playing cards.

NeKryXe

I think that the best solution is to let a player resign at any point with no time penalty but also with no rewards, and obviously giving the victory to the remaining player. The resign penalty shouldn't be time.

Snowy_Wyndra_Karn

El_Borracho wrote: »

I was in a match yesterday where it was Rahjin, Celarus, Red Eagle, and Hlaalu. I blame myself for picking Celarus and Hlaalu, which certainly did not help. But then my opponent felt it necessary to use the full 90 seconds for every turn. To the point I watched him sit there and do nothing for over a minute before turning the hourglass while having zero coins. After 10 minutes, with the score 13-12, I just quit. I don't have the will to play what was going to be a 20+ minute match, minimum.

A TOT game should not take longer than the average veteran dungeon run. Slow play, whether it is strategy, trolling, griefing, whatever you want to call it, is the Achilles heel of TOT. That 90 second timer has got to go. 30 seconds seems adequate, and it could even be tolled while a person is actively playing cards.

Same thing happened to me - I also made a thread about it.

Necrotech_Master

if they arent playing any cards and its just auto ending their turn most of the time, then they are probably straight up trolling and looking for impatient people who leave to get easy wins

this is one reason i prefer playing NPCs

1. no turn timer, so i can take as long as i want (especially if i have big combos)
2. npcs move at the same constant speed all the time and really no waiting around

El_Borracho

@Necrotech_Master I feel the same way. I would prefer to play other players, as that's the whole purpose of ESO to begin with, but this kind of gamesmanship ruins it. I was playing an unranked casual, which makes it worse as losing has zero effect on your ranking (if that is what the player cared about). Its a videogame, not poker for real money. I can't imagine this is fun for the person running out the clock, either.

@delenn35 thanks, I checked it out after your post. Fortunately, I wasn't getting the Rajhin spam, but the player was definitely hitting that deck hard. I could deal with the spam, as Celarus is a good counter to rendering those cards ineffective, but the timer is unavoidable.

Snowy_Wyndra_Karn

How about something in the opposite direction?

Get rid of the 90 seconds, but if a player is idle for, I don't know... 5 seconds (???) then they forfeit their turn.

That way, if you do have heaps of crows you can use them all without the sand running out - just so long as you keep it moving.

El_Borracho

delenn35 wrote: »

How about something in the opposite direction?

Get rid of the 90 seconds, but if a player is idle for, I don't know... 5 seconds (???) then they forfeit their turn.

That way, if you do have heaps of crows you can use them all without the sand running out - just so long as you keep it moving.

I like this. Idling ending the turn would solve the issue. Great call

SilverBride

Getting rid of the timer would be a huge mistake. A lot of players are already irritated by players taking 90 seconds. Giving them unlimited time would drive a lot of players off.

As far as a 5 second idle ending the game, no. A player can take 20 seconds to make their first move then make the rest quickly and end their turn way before the 90 seconds are up. This would end a lot of games prematurely.

Necrotech_Master

yeah 5 sec idle is too short, if the opponent turn ends but they need a deck shuffle to finish drawing cards, for some asinine reason it locks you out of playing cards or processing combos even though there is nothing the opponent can do

that animation alone could take 5 sec sometimes

now 20-30 sec idle? i could see that for an auto end turn as its unnecessarily long

El_Borracho

I up for anything that is not an unnecessary 90 second runoff. The idea of idling after a timer would work as well. But the times when a player cashes out a card and sits there for 85 seconds has got to go

redspecter23

I'm fairly certain you could report a player intentionally stalling the match. ZOS may or may not do anything about it, but most would consider it toxic behavior if they really weren't doing anything but waiting for the timer to run out before passing.

SilverBride

redspecter23 wrote: »

I'm fairly certain you could report a player intentionally stalling the match. ZOS may or may not do anything about it, but most would consider it toxic behavior if they really weren't doing anything but waiting for the timer to run out before passing.

While taking the full 90 seconds is annoying at best it is not reportable because they are playing within the set time the game allots them. Motivation doesn't matter unless they are also messaging you and taunting you while letting the timer run out, which is a separate issue that is reportable.

Snowy_Wyndra_Karn

Ok, so I am going to try and look at this from a balanced perspective... not sure how far I'll get.

I've been on both sides. I've played before High Isle was released, so on the PTS.

I've had many players tell me I'm slow, but here's the thing...

WOW... if I'm slow then how do they cope with the players who I think are slow???

I rarely take the full 90 seconds although I've been accused of doing this on every turn. This is very incorrect!

I don't mind if someone needs time, but far out... to take forever to even start your hand (that's very inconsiderate). Then to play your hand and sit on your last card FOREVER... and by the way, that last card worth one or two gp won't get you far, but hey... you do you.

But all of a sudden, the time difference starts adding up and your opponent has taken 5 minutes longer than you in the same number of rounds. It becomes what? EXCRUCIATING!!! Is this a tactic? Because if it gets to over 5 minutes then I pretty much just end up conceding. I could be winning but I will concede. My time is more important.

ZOS, I would never dream of asking this.... but, please reduce the timer or do something about it. 60 seconds should suffice - no one needs that much time, unless they have so many crows to turn. If that is the case then something else needs to be done.

I love ToT... I love it - I'm not complaining about the game. Maybe I've just forgotten what it's like to be new. No doubt the new lime-green deck will kick me in the guts... but please, I'm begging you... my life is wasting away here - I can't take it anymore.

SilverBride

This ^

Personofsecrets

I have a number of players complain and be badly mannered in chat because they say I'm slow. Sometimes there are excess value to be obtained by using cards like the Psijic deck rearranging cards in very specific ways. Sometimes this value can be found in other ways too. "Can I manipulate the deck so that my on color cards are close together and improve chances?"

What about longer term strategies? "If I wait to use Ansei patron to a certain turn when my opponent deck looks a certain way, then I can better ensure holding on to Ansei's patronage for several turns."

"If I start sacrificing my cards to Delmene patron ability this turn, then I should reach the 40 prestige threshold in 3 turns from now. Is it worth trying?"

I understand the frustrations that some people may have when another player has to take the surplus time to calculate future play, but ultimately the frustrations don't carry much wait. Maybe animations should be faster as to ease some of these problems.

SilverBride

This is why I will probably never reach the Leaderboard, although I've been close. If I have to sit and analyze every single play possible and figure out probabilities, well I won't. This would be extremely tedious and boring for me.

rbfrgsp

SilverBride wrote: »

This is why I will probably never reach the Leaderboard, although I've been close. If I have to sit and analyze every single play possible and figure out probabilities, well I won't. This would be extremely tedious and boring for me.

That's literally the game though.

SilverBride

rbfrgsp wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

This is why I will probably never reach the Leaderboard, although I've been close. If I have to sit and analyze every single play possible and figure out probabilities, well I won't. This would be extremely tedious and boring for me.

That's literally the game though.

Not the way I play it. I can look at the cards and the patrons and figure out my next move without microanalyzing it, and it doesn't take me 90 seconds to do so. If this means I'll never make it to the top, so be it. At least I will enjoy myself and even more so when I drop competitive ranked next season.

SeaGtGruff

El_Borracho wrote: »

I was in a match yesterday where it was Rahjin, Celarus, Red Eagle, and Hlaalu. I blame myself for picking Celarus and Hlaalu, which certainly did not help. But then my opponent felt it necessary to use the full 90 seconds for every turn. To the point I watched him sit there and do nothing for over a minute before turning the hourglass while having zero coins. After 10 minutes, with the score 13-12, I just quit. I don't have the will to play what was going to be a 20+ minute match, minimum.

A TOT game should not take longer than the average veteran dungeon run. Slow play, whether it is strategy, trolling, griefing, whatever you want to call it, is the Achilles heel of TOT. That 90 second timer has got to go. 30 seconds seems adequate, and it could even be tolled while a person is actively playing cards.

Aside from my amazement over the clear implication that "the average veteran dungeon run" takes less time than a game of ToT (my stars, just how ridiculously overpowered are players, anyway?), listening to everyone gripe about how the 90-second timer is too long just makes me glad I've been sticking to matches with NPCs, where I don't have to feel rushed to finish my move before a timer runs out and ends my turn before I've finished.

El_Borracho

@SeaGtGruff LOL, I said that because immediately before playing that TOT match, I just completed a vet BC1 pledge. As I sat and looked at the clock I could not believe it was catching up to how long that run took.

If you have set up your deck so it takes 90 seconds to play your combo, great. Awesome, in fact. Even if someone is actively playing their hand, that is not a problem. Its the player who sits there as sand passes through the hourglass doing nothing, then drops the amazing combo of Midnight Raid with another Red Eagle card, then ends their turn. Or the one who cashes a single gold card for a 2 gold, then waits his turn out until the end. That needs to be fixed

Stinkyremy

I had a more different issue when I had stacks of crow card multiple drops and the cards that let you choose what cards will be in cooldown.
90 secs was not enough