Hey OGS!
I don’t think the issues have been raised, so long story short - I find countdown voice too distracting. It’s important to know when the byo period ends, so we do need to have it, but there are many ways to improve the experience:
- Introduce an option to chose counter on the hovering stone instead of voice.
- In blitz games countdown should not start before half of byo period.
- There is no point in having countdown at the end of base time, as there is nothing to lose there. I.e. if you slip by 1 second, you just lose one second, vs. slip in byo = 1 byo period gone. Optionally voice could say ‘Byo-yomi started’ or ‘Base time depleted’, or whatever is correct english to deliver: ‘Hey, now you’ve got whole byo-yomi period to think about the move you were about to play’
What do you think?