In the last patch, we’ve seen that animations in Battleground format were sped up heavily. Everyone who ever played with / against a board full of Murlocs with Divine Shield and Poisonous knows how tedious those could be. Each of them took almost a second to trigger, multiply that by a few dozen and you were losing a lot of time each fight.
We’ve now learned (thanks to Lead VFX Artist Hadidjah Chamberlin) that Battlegrounds animations were just a start. All kinds of minion triggers, such as “Whenever X happens” (e.g. Frothing Berserker or Armorsmith), Lifesteal and Poisonous will resolve much quicker. Currently, they it takes 0.8 seconds for them to resolve, after the patch that time will be cut down to 0.2 seconds – four times as fast. In some special cases, they will be flagged at 0 seconds, most likely skipping the trigger animation completely.
It should make many complicated turns much faster, and hopefully players will burn rope less often after starting their turn just a little bit too late. Everyone who ever dropped Reno the Relicologist against board with Armorsmith and Frothing Beserker knows the pain of long animation times, and will be thankful for those changes.
Changes will happen in the upcoming patch, but we don’t know when it will drop. It’s safe to assume that we won’t see it until the entire Galakrond’s Awakening gets released, though.
We’re speeding up minion triggers across the whole game (“Whenever”/”After”, Poisonous, Lifesteal, etc. etc.) in an upcoming patch to better match the cadence of Battlegrounds (they’ll resolve in 0.2s (down from 0.8s) except for the special cases we flag for 0s). This is done and checked in, just hasn’t gone live yet because it requires a full patch.
I’m pretty hyped about this, mainly because a lot of people have wanted things like this and that I think/hope is going to be a really really nice change to the game. But also because (as your title says) Battlegrounds paved the way for this change, and it’s cool seeing a new game mode have these positive ripple effects across the rest of the game. đŸ™‚
Not the last change we’re looking to make in this vein by a long shot, but that’s the upcoming, completed one.
Took them long enough who thought getting timed out by animations was a good idea???
Frothing Berserken, Eterium Rover and Armorsmith…. I had a game, where my turn was skipped :D. Finally they do something. Cause iam a Reno Mage main. whooopppy