In Progress Change pokemon fainting/end of turn timer mechanics

[John Dozo]

Introduction:
I woke up on a beautiful wednesday morning, unsuspectingly queuing up a gen6 randsbats ladder game. As i proceed to get clapped like i always do, i run down my timer, desperately searching my old and tired brain for any outs to win in this seemingly lost state of the game. As the timer reaches one second left, i select my move, which instructs my brave Flareon to perform one last Quick Attack, before getting monumentally nuked by a vicious Feraligatrs' Waterfall. I sit and watch the splendid animations in awe, paying tribute to my dying Flareon taking it's last breath. A tear runs down my face, but little did i know that tear would become another waterfall, as the animations end and in the very same second i lose to time out.

Issue:
Apparently, i only got 5 seconds back on my timer, and since i was on 1 second left before selecting my move, sitting through the (rather short) animations of QA and Waterfall made those 5 seconds deplete again in the meantime. I expected to get 15 seconds back, as you normally do while running down the timer that low. Because i didn't know better yet, me and Plop replicated the setting to see if we are dealing with a bug. Together with input from the genius BigWes95 we managed to determine that it seems like an intended feature (which i just didn't know about before), that you only get 5 seconds back after selecting a move on low timer, if the turn hasn't ended yet, e.g. you still need to send out a new mon. Only after that and the new turn starts, you get your usual 10/15 seconds extra.

Evidence:
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6randombattle-2368628822?p2
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6randombattle-2368650362
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen6randombattle-2368653592

Suggestion:
I don't know why this feature is in place to begin with. We were discussing anti timer stalling intentions, but that doesn't really seem reasonable, since this happens only when a mon faints, implicating that you can only abuse those extra seconds a few meaningless times at maximum.
On the other hand, an unsuspecting old man like me, who likes to lazily sit through animations even on a low timer, is caught off guard and handed a timer loss. I have been on low timer and also timing out a million times before, but never yet this way. So this is not supposed to be me malding about a loss and just a rant, but a question of rationale behind that seemingly intended feature of only getting 5 seconds back when the turn isn't over yet.
I want to suggest removing the discrimination for end of turn or not in regards to the amount of seconds one gets back on their timer after selecting an action. In my and others opinion, this feature really has no extra value, at least that i am aware of. If there is another intention behind it, please let me know. But otherwise, all this "achieves" is that unknowing players are handed a loss and a sadface, when they could very well have still continued to play.
Again, if there are any intricacies behind why this needs to be the way it is; i am always eager to learn. If not, can we make it so that only 5 extra seconds are not a thing anymore?

Thanks for hearing me out. Wishing everyone a nice rest of the week and looking forward to you guys input :)

JD

 

[Zarel]

This was in fact a recent change, that happened because we restructured how the timer works, because of some other changes to other parts of the code. At the time, I thought it made no sense that you get 5 extra seconds on the timer for mid-turn decisions like U-turn and faint switching. Getting twice as much time back per turn than your opponent just because you're spamming U-turn feels kind of unfair, you know?

Probably the best compromise here is to give you 10 seconds of turn time, but not letting it be banked to your total time.

 

[John Dozo]

Yes that feels fair and would probably solve the biggest issue with the current state, which is the surprise factor. As described, 5 seconds just pass in their entirety while watching the animations, in a singles match. I've heard from dubs players that it's even more annoying there. 10 seconds would give enough time to at least be able to react in any way, which to be fair is all that you can ask for if you maneuver yourself into a low timer state.

Thanks for coming back that quickly and open minded :)