Rant: Is the clock too fast?

I think that by now, everyone's probably noticed how fast the clock moves in Atlantica's Free League.

If you haven't, try the following:

1. Get into the Free League, and start a match.
2. Keep the Free League 'sign up' box open.
3. Watch the time remaining for your match.
4. Compare that to the time remaining in league itself.

Notice anything funny? Yes, the two clocks aren't going at the same rate. In fact, the clock for your match is going faster than the time remaining in the league itself.

What does this all mean? Well, for starters, matches now are a lot shorter. More importantly, a lot less matches are actually concluding with the clean victory of one side or another; a lot more matches are now going to points and to the clock. For balance purposes, this means that builds that can cleanly kill off single targets quicker are now much better in Free League than builds that rely on dealing even, consistent damage over a large amount of enemies over a period of time. Remember that the point system rewards the usage of skills over the usage of normal attacks, and also rewards mercenary deaths with 100 points each. If you aren't able to kill more enemy mercenaries your enemy's cleared out one or two of your own, you'll be behind late in the game. Add to the fact that it is now pathetically easy to stall for time and you'll notice that defensive builds with the ability to focus fire on single mercenaries are now a lot stronger than they probably should be.

So what should be done about this? I'm not entirely sure. Matches could stand to be a bit longer, but that might involve making the Free League drag on for much, much longer than it already does or at least used to.

With this information, I want to hear from all of you. There is now a new poll up asking for your opinion on the subject: should the time for Free League be extended and adjusted, or should it be left as is? Voice your opinion and please leave your comments on this blog post as to how you feel.

I'll be going through some of the builds I got over the weekend and write the first Build Garage post. Stay tuned.