As i said just above, bjarke and almosttricky played quickly. Bjarke got eliminated 2 turns before smileyleg... i repeat myself: Of course they didn't force smiley to surrender which they should. Instead they kept playing till smiley got eliminated. In bjarkes case he was done 2 turns before that. I don't really understand the relevance wheter bjarke surrendered or got eliminated.

Edit: i'd probably warn all 3 of them if they all stalled the games progress at some point. On this game it's only smileyleg who caused the delay after all.
@smileyleg: i got absolutely no problem with you and it's clear to me that that stall had nothing to do with manipulating the ladder in your favour since you guys left the ladder. Still it hurt the ladder experience for others. that's why i'd give a warning.

Edited 10/7/2017 12:22:46

If it would happen again after he got warned, i'd give him a 2 or 3 months ladder break.

Interesting, so some sort of "soft" ban, where you can't play the ladders. That makes it possible to scale the punishment case-by-case as well. I like it.

For simplicity, as a general rule, I think that on a 3v3 or 2v2 ladder game, if one player stalls, it's appropriate to treat them all as stalers.

Argument one being, they benefit from the stalling.
Argument two, if a team member stalls and they are passive (not leaving ladder + apologizing in public chat) then they are approving of the stalling.
Argument three, Further prevent stalling, by discouraging players to team up with a staler.

As mod wrote above, the game I posted seems to give them no benefit in terms of rank. In fact it would seem the stalling was done without a clear motif. In my eyes that almost makes it worse, since the sole purpose seems to be to worsen the ladder experience for others.

As another note: the new ladder rules should be changed to settings to make Surrender being accepted instant. Else another team can not accept, making the loosing team look like stalers, while the winning team is stalling.

If you're looking for a reason, one of these guys stated it was over before it actually was for certain (incomes 8 11 11 vs 8 10 16). If he waited at least one more turn, the outcome would have been clear with 5 11 11 vs 11 10 16 and the opponental team would have surrendered on their own most likely.

^Regardless of whether that is the real intention, IDK. I read the chat earlier and in no way was stalling an appropriate response. Besides, the game was indeed lost at that point when he wrote that chat msg. Sure playing one or two more turns is okey. Playing until elimination is not. (You can see Team B thinks so too, by their turn 14 gg in chat.)


Again, if anything that only makes their actions worse in my eyes. It might sound harsh, but I just want this BS stalling and extreme unsportsmanlike behavior to stop.

I don't think anyone would disagree with you that stalling doesn't make anything better, no matter what the reasons are.

I'm pretty sure most stallers would disagree actually :P

I feel the need to write a response here since I game I played in is being called out. As we were about to surrender, the other team wrote in the chat "The battle is over , we have won !". This made us upset, especially Master Bjarke. Although I surrendered 1-2 turns after that, my surrender was not accepted by my teammates and I was forced to play on. I have since dropped out of the 3v3 ladder.

Not aimed at you, but in general:

I do not feel there is a good reason to stall. Certainly not because someone was arrogant in chat.

If I were ever going to stall vs. someone it'd be vs. a staller, and only while they were actively stalling in their other games as a measure of making their stalling less effective. Even then, I'm not sure I'd do it, but if I was playing alhazi or JV, and they appeared to have 3 stalled games for example, I would likely be tempted to stall vs. them until they surrendered their lost games.

I thought about exactly this before. In cases like this where one player stalled the progress, i think you can't punish all of them. No mod will interrogate all 3 of a team and write them mails just to find out whose fault it actually was. All information a mod can use is the turn time and public chat together with the reporting letter.

in the linked game at least 2 players seem guilty.
Combine chat & the game going on for more turns after Bjarkes elimination.

Edited 10/8/2017 13:41:41

All three played the game past the point they should've. And what the opponents said was kinda meh, imo. A simple "just a couple more turns" would suffice. I agree with MoD on a soft ban if done again, seems reasonable.

I also remember this happening,

https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=12924096

While this is technically not stalling, just being assholes and not accepting surrenders, and what I assume was much deeper than the game itself (my bet is the same reason pana was kicked out of Masters), where do we draw the line of what is acceptable and what is not?

(TBest told me to be more controversial, so here it is :
Masters Sucks
This has been sponsored and approved by TBest player on Warzone)

Edited 10/8/2017 23:47:51

Seph beeing a dick isn't really big news :D

I'd still trust him my son. Or maybe my dog? Or probably better none of that

Yeah, that does not surprise me either, and I did find it amusing, but imo, behavior like that should be given a warning.

Agreed. Instant surrender would easily solve these problems

What do you honestly expect from a Italian player?

Seriously speaking.

What do you honestly expect from an Italian player?

English speaking.

is taking 3 days per turn on a 3 day game stalling?
or just REALLY thinking about your moves?

If CL div A is anything to go by it's the latter, they took forever.

if the goal is to encourage players to play faster in ladder games then i would suggest something like extra card pieces for the faster you play.
say if you take your turn within
- 1 day you get 3 card pieces.
- 2 days you get 2 card pieces.
- 3 days you get 1 card piece.

I think this would encourage most if not all players to play within 1 day but would be unfair for anyone in a ladder who cant get on warlight every day. but again if these were the rules then everyone who joined would know and perhaps be more committed to play daily.

as far as the alt in ladders go well thats just a joke. surely the more computer savvy guys amongst us must know away to stop more than 1 account from same IP joining ladder?.

is taking 3 days per turn on a 3 day game stalling?
or just REALLY thinking about your moves?

If you take all your turns with a 3 days playspeed, you're not stalling just playing slow.
If you slow down your gamespeed significantly when you start losing or drag the game out much longer than needed you're stalling. Taking 3 days to take your turn doesnt mean you're stalling perse. I've not seen anybody claim such a thing in this thread either.

if the goal is to encourage players to play faster in ladder games then i would suggest something like extra card pieces for the faster you play.
say if you take your turn within
- 1 day you get 3 card pieces.
- 2 days you get 2 card pieces.
- 3 days you get 1 card piece.

Seems like a rather unfair system to people who can't be on Warlight every day.
Missing even one day will put a big dent in your cards, which can mean the difference between a win or a loss in some games.

as far as the alt in ladders go well thats just a joke. surely the more computer savvy guys amongst us must know away to stop more than 1 account from same IP joining ladder?.

of course they can. A rule isnt pointless because you can work around it, you can work around most laws as well. There's often nothing directly stopping you from doing something. The purpose of the rule is to discourage users to play the ladders with alts and to make it harder to do so in general.
I would also say it's often fairly obvious when someone joins the ladder on an alt. Even when they hide their ip, the account itself often will show signs of an alt. In such a case I think it could be discussed to ban the account. Although this is obviously shaky ground and you have to be careful with this.

Edited 10/16/2017 07:56:55

I guess you could change the boot time to 1 day instead of that solution. Would have the same effect but would be much easier to implement. I don't think that's the right way. Playing slow doesn't mean stalling. There are other factors that have to be taken in account

If you take all your turns with a 3 days playspeed, you're not stalling just playing slow.
If you slow down your gamespeed significantly when you start losing or drag the game out much longer than needed you're stalling.

Bad definition... implying you know the intentions of every player who has slowed down when they are at a disadvantage. There could literally be thousands of other reasons for it.

If you keep playing (turn speed doesn't matter) when you know you have LOST. you are stalling the game.


Regardless of my advantage/disadvantage in a game I'll play at whatever speed I like until I consider the game lost and then surrender.