only read about half of this, because the flaming seems mostly pointless.
the idea seems workable.. I understand that the knowledge of having met these criteria could be detrimental to the gameplay of that individual game, but if such a thing was implemented, I see no real reason why we as players need to be made aware of each situation in which a match is in the *predicted loss/victory* range.
no additional reward/penalty is necessary beyond that, if fizzer implemented a rating in which say after turn 4-5 if you have 50% greater armies and income then your rating changes as though you won until circumstances change..
he just needs to make an announcment that a system like this has been implemented, make sure it's visible on the laddder pages, and let it run.. it will keep players from falsely inflating their rating *as many players have extended their 1st place rank back in legacy* while still allowing players to continue to play if they feel they can win.
Imho many games where people say they *obviously lost* it wasn't quite so obvious yet.. the single stack run is a show that they obviously knew, but especially at lower skill levels, people may not be aware enough of the map and their opponents possibilities to realize how outgunned they are.

oh, and another mention.. when I played ladder games, I would often extend games that were -close- because I wanted to really analyze the games and put alot of focus into them, so would need time that I don't have every day.. while new games, or games I felt I was winning, I would play more by instinct.

Perhaps we could also display the following stats on someone's ladder profile (it's very tedious/time-consuming for me to scrape these since the query game API is slow):

- (avg. total start-to-finish time for games where they ended up losing) - (avg. total start-to-finish time for games where they ended up winning)

- (avg. # of turns for games where they ended up losing) - (avg. # of turns for games where they ended up winning)

- (avg. turn speed for games where they ended up losing) - (avg. turn speed for games where they ended up winning)

That way, it'd be easy to spot the worst offenders. If you're significantly positive for any of these, it means you stall harder than your average opponent.

knyte, what's the point in showing who stalls more in a ladder where you can't choose your opponents? or do you propose to make your play speed affect your rating too, in which case stalling on winning games would actually become a beneficial ploy..?

Chosing an opponent is easier than you might expect.

knyte, what's the point in showing who stalls more in a ladder where you can't choose your opponents?

Just for visibility's sake, so stallers can't deny it anymore.

Also, I think the real problem's not with stalling on the ladder but the way we control restrictions on turn speed in this game. Having 3-day-boot as the standard in a game where we don't actually want or expect people to take 3 days to make a turn doesn't make a ton of sense. There's got to be a better solution, especially since banked time is an option.

knyte visibility won't take that #1 spot off of the Impallers profile.
and you can fix visibility by throwing a bunch of matches and playing quickly in them prior/after the point in question

Unfortunately this is probably overcomplicated ti implement and I'm not sure if it's even worthwhile if the end result is to just expose players stalling and hope they stop out of public embarrassment. What you really want is to find a way that actually stops it or at least is guaranteed to reduce it. For example, reducing the boot timer is 100% effective.

Edited 5/27/2016 12:08:13

Yeah, given that most players actually finish their games in less than 6 days, we should switch to 1 day boot with 3-5 days banked for people like Math Wolf.

@Lionel: It's actually very easy to track using the data WL already stores about games.

Edited 5/27/2016 14:09:37

Grow up Billy. The ladders have 3 day boots, if you don't like it don't play in the ladders

when I played ladder I would take my turns every 1-3 days..
your idea is that people that don't play warlight everyday don't deserve a place on the ladder?

Grow up Billy. The ladders have 3 day boots, if you don't like it don't play in the ladders

Spoken like a staller. Given your pathetic stats, I guess you have to find any advantage you can. Try learning how to play the game instead.

your idea is that people that don't play warlight everyday don't deserve a place on the ladder?

I think he's just saying most people don't play the ladder like you. In my experience, my opponents all seem to be on Warlight everyday.

I got somebody stalling from the very beginning right now. He takes 2 1/2 days to do everything from making his picks thru turn 3 so far. But he's on the site everyday. He wont even input two orders in one sitting, after he sees mine. He inputs one and then just lets it sit there for 2 1/2 days. He's basically waving a white flag. He knows I'm going to beat him.

Edit: username is Roooob

Edited 5/27/2016 18:07:40

I got somebody stalling from the very beginning right now. He takes 2 1/2 days to do everything from making his picks thru turn 3 so far. But he's on the site everyday. He wont even input two orders in one sitting, after he sees mine. He inputs one and then just lets it sit there for 2 1/2 days. He's basically waving a white flag. He knows I'm going to beat him.

That's not necessarily true at all. When I'm busy in real life and have several games going, I often wait to confirm orders even if I've already decided them because I might not have time to decide the next turn's orders within 3 days.

For example, if I have 6 games going and I decide my orders for all of them on Sunday, but don't confirm, then during the week I can just confirm one game at a time whenever I have time to think about the next turn. But if I confirm all of them on Sunday, then I have to decide the next turn's orders in all 6 games by Wednesday, and sometimes I don't have time to do that.

Edit: I assume other people wait for similar reasons. It's only stalling if you know you've lost and you're just delaying the end of the game. Otherwise, it's just playing slow; and there are plenty of legitimate reasons for playing slow.

Edited 5/27/2016 18:38:09

If this were court, and you have a sympathetic judge and jury, you may able to get Roooob found not-guilty because there is a reasonable doubt. Not guilty and innocent aren't the same thing, though. Just because I cannot prove he is stalling because he knows a loss is coming, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Court? Last I heard we were talking about a Risk app. There's never gonna be a judge or jury involved. I don't like people stalling either but that's their right if they want to do it. Again, if you find it to be SUCH a problem there's always the option to not participate in the ladders.


PS Yeah I'm such a staller with my average move speed of 4 hours.

when I played ladder I would take my turns every 1-3 days..
your idea is that people that don't play warlight everyday don't deserve a place on the ladder?

It'd be great if we could set restrictions based on average (rather than max) turn speed for games. Right now, we're saying we expect people to take 3 days per turn when in reality we're probably trying to accommodate people who'll need 3 days to take a turn maybe once or twice a game. If instead, we had an 18-hour restriction on average turn speed (the moment your average turn speed exceeds 18 hours, you're booted, for example). That should be mathematically equivalent to banking times-

If you let N be the # of elapsed turns and S be the maximum average turn speed- and let the Nth turn's speed be x(N), then

average turn speed <= S

(x(N) + (x(N-1) + x(N-2) + ... + x(2) + x(1))/N <= S

(x(N) + (x(N-1) + x(N-2) + ... + x(2) + x(1)) <= NS

x(N) <= NS - ((x(N-1) + x(N-2) + ... + x(2) + x(1))

So the time you have to take your Nth turn is equal to the total time you've accumulated so far (N * S) minus all of it you've spent. You're just basically getting S hours to take each turn (you'll always have at least S hours, since the moment you exceed the average you get booted) and banking extra time.

Looking at the 1 day + time banked proposal along those lines, that would be pretty workable given the current ladder even for you since your average turn speed is 18 hours. We can look at the ladder and either go by the 95th percentile 95th percentile time (the time that, for 95% of people currently on the ladder, is long enough to complete 95% of turns) or just go with an average that people agree on.

3-day boot just isn't a very workable model, imho, and it doesn't really take advantage of how well we can handle things with banked time.

Yeah I'm such a staller with my average move speed of 4 hours.

I was going to say that doesn't mean you don't stall when you lose but since you lose most of your games I suppose it is mathematically impossible for you to stall all of your losses and have that average speed. My apologies. Though I still suggest you learn how to play the game.

My suggestions to you are twofold:

1. Learn to take the game less seriously

2. Learn to pick better entourage characters to use as your avatar. I personally suggest Rob Gronkowski

"I got somebody stalling from the very beginning right now. He takes 2 1/2 days to do
everything from making his picks thru turn 3 so far. But he's on the site everyday. He
wont even input two orders in one sitting, after he sees mine. He inputs one and then just
lets it sit there for 2 1/2 days. He's basically waving a white flag. He knows I'm going
to beat him."

This is once again one of the characteristics I'd suggest you avoid Billy if you want to not alienate everyone on the Forums. Believing someone is deliberately stalling from the start because they've heard of your great reputation and assumes you'll beat them is very arrogant and arrogance isn't a great quality. After all I'd assume at least some people out there deliberately stall your games because you're always complaining about stalling on Forums whilst being very rude to anyone who disagrees with you.

I myself have probably been averaging similar at times over the past month due to it being the exam period at my university. I also often checked warlight without taking my turns in 1v1 ladder games. This was mainly due to the quality of my opponents being very high and me not wanting to take a turn when I've not got an appropriate amount of time to think out and plan a move. Currently I am not taking a move in either of the ladder games I'm in as it is 5 minutes past midnight here, I'm tired and wont be thinking properly. However I'm on right now to keep updated with news in my clan and take some turns in simpler games where little thought it required so I don't hold them up too much.

In summary I believe you should be more tolerating of slow play and a lot nicer to people.

(As an example, in case you're not familiar with how to be nice to people, look at your post above (post 61) you started off with what was a nice apology to someone you wrongly accused of stalling, but then ruined it by telling them to "learn how to play the game". These kind of unnecessary and rude remarks really aren't needed and if you could cut them out I'm sure you'd become better as a person. If you want any more advise on how to be nice to people feel free to get in touch. I'm always willing to give advise to those who need it.)