Legacy of the Void Beta Previewed, The Game is Now Slower

Blizzard has shared a preview for the upcoming beta for Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, revealing that the game has been made slower.

Here’s that excerpt regarding the game speed in the beta:

• If you use the game clock, you’ll notice it’s ticking much slower in the Legacy of the Void beta. We’ve changed the rate of time passage to match what you’d expect from a regular clock. We’re trying this out due to our community having asked for this feature, and also because it’s a bit confusing to not have the game display real time. We have a couple major concerns with this change, which we’d like to mention here.
• Game speed changing to real time also means all game values that are related to time also must change. Eg. When we say a cooldown of an ability is 5 seconds, we want that to mean 5 seconds.

• This means all attack speed values, movement speed values, cooldown times, research times, upgrade times, and unit build times will all need to be re-memorized. This is mostly applicable for hardcore players, and it seems that they are the ones requesting this change most fervently. We expect casual players will likely pay less mind to timers either way.
• Having made many changes to StarCraft II throughout the years, we know that sometimes changes that seem good in concept aren’t found to be preferable when implemented. We’d like you all to check this change out for yourselves to determine if this change is better for StarCraft II, or if you prefer the previous timer.
• We don’t want to have an option for this.
  • Nothing could be more confusing than having two different versions of timers in the game.  Not just when players are playing, but also because StarCraft II is an eSport. If different events start using different timers (whether intentionally or by accident), that would end up being extremely confusing for viewers.
  • In making Legacy of the Void the best it can be, we know we want to avoid having a ‘time’ option, and we’re relying on your feedback to choose which game timer we will use in the future.

Not everyone will get in on the beta, but is this change something you wanted, as Blizzard stated? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.