Hi guys,

Is there like a ethical ruling against slowing down games on purpose? There's a player ( I won't say the name cause i don't want to place him in a bad daylight) that plays fast when he's ahead but almost waits the full 3 days to act when behind eventhough he comes online several times a day.

I know the 3day turnlimit is there for a reason but slowing down the tournament drastically for no reason at all and on purpose feels kinda wrong.

greetz
Limburg

Stalling when behind ..illegal?  No.

Unethical? Yes.

The good news is that, except in a realtime game, where stalling wastes someone else's time at best, it's really only an annoyance.

In the realtime game, staller is hoping that their opp gets busy and has to quit playing, or perhaps bored and forgets to move.

In 24+hr/move games, it's still unethical, but there's usually little harm done.  Maybe staller is hoping that one of his opps quits wargear, quits out of frustration, ..or dies??  Hmm.. staller is putting a lot of energy into stalling ..maybe he'll quit wargear, quit out of frustration, ..or die.  Anyways, the result 99% of the time is that the game just takes longer.  If you want to play more often, just have more open games in your queue.  When you think of it that way, it's not a really a big deal.

You could try it, but my sense is that confronting this kind of behavior can backfire.  Staller may get the sense that the strategy is working. I think the easiest thing to do is mark stallers as enemies and avoid play with them, certainly in realtime games.

+1

a couple of things:

You can't rely on the presence detection to determine whether someone comes on, for numerous reasons.

The "staller", when losing, might decide they'd better start thinking about what they're doing, and still take turns in easier games. I do this, and there's no nefarious intent.

There's a subjective nature to determining intent.   But I would argue there are definitely cases where it's pretty clear someone is stalling.

Playing slowly when the going gets tough is one thing, but consistently waiting until the last minute to play when you are way behind and it's clear you're going to lose in decisive fashion is another.

Like I said, I don't consider it to be a big deal in 24+ hr games, but I also notice that I didn't pick up on the fact that this was in a tournament.  This might be a case where a little nudge is appropriate ..perhaps starting with a .Private message.  As smoke said, it may not be stalling at all, and the player may just be allocating time to his/her many games, not realizing that it's not just the one game that's being slowed down.

Plus, I'll often take lots of turns that don't require alot of thought, and do it quickly, and wait till I got a minute to think about the harder ones.  Sometimes that's a day pt two later in a three day game. 

But heck, it's a three day game... that's what that span of time is there for.  I don't play, I get the boots; but I have three days to do it.  Sure I might be stalling, but if you don't want to wait, turn the timer down. 

Waiting is a pain sometimes, but it's what we all sign up for. 

I think the current system works. 

+1 to both of M57's comments

I never play realtime just for that reason.

I'm much more annoyed by and will mark as enemies backstabbers and erratic players.