There are plans to put some artificial, subjective ladder policing system in place, while it will 'solve' at most 5-10% of the problems, it will create new ones. There will be countless disscusions of moderators' decisions like there are now on who deserved that 1st and who didn't. Waste of effort. Could turn out to be worse that what we have now. With all respect to people who were going to moderate it - you will never do a good job because in this case 'good' is still subjective.

after fizzer have made unity prehaps we will have a new rating system and then it would be nice to have a system in place that could deal whit stalling so that we would not need even more time to make the ladders fair, what ever the % is

Edited 9/27/2017 14:22:56

In my opinion, there is one long term solution only.To change rating system to the one which discourage runs.

To ban alts is impractical, as many people will play unfair just because it is possible. Those new rules look nice, but they are nothing but minor tweak of rules which exist already but people either don't know or completely ignore them.

I personally don't like "shitposting", but in current situation, the only really effective way to stop people messing with ladders is to call them out publicly. Fizzer don't really care on those things, because more accounts=more ladder runs=more games=more ad displays=more revenue.

So he can publicly state rules, to play the fair guy role he have to play, but in fact, the only people who really care are those from strategic community. Partly because we all feel that fair play is the best way to determine who is better and who is worse. Partly because we are driven by our competitiveness and recognition by others matter more than actual skill, so we tend to circumvent rules and use holes in rating system to gain that recognition we all desire ;)

Edited 9/27/2017 14:34:20

stalling is gonna be a problem no matter what, we need a solution...... the rating system is another problem that we cant fix right now. that does not mean that we should not fix one of the problems even if we cant fix the other one right now.

Edited 9/27/2017 14:39:59

stalling:
stalling is "natural" - since you have 3 days time to move
my solution proposal:
A. "Double" the multiday ladders:
1. Thinking Ladders/ 3 days time ladder --- for people who need the time; stalling is possible
Games expires in 5 month. Ladder runs possible.
2. Quick Ladders - 1 day + 10 hours --- for people which play every day; no/ lower stalling problem. Games expires in 2 month. Ladder runs possible.

i have to add sth to the topic "ladder runs":
everyone can make a ladder run. Also players with just one account - just let the games expire.
Or just beat 20 players in a row.
No matter how - you still have to beat the opponents to reach good rank. if neal in real-time ladder would be a very bad player he wouldn't have reached 1st place. the alt account don't make him a better player. jealousy shouldn't be the reason to change the ranking system.

Ladder runs are good - since everyone can reach 1st place if he/her improve - even if it is for few days. this is motivating many players.

if you would prefer "long-term-players" in the ladder in the future. new players wouldn't be able to reach the top 20 - even after years. this would destroy warlight in my eyes - no possibility to reach a good rank for new players = no motivation = warlight is dead

...

I am not here to judge if anyone is a bad guy, or single anyone out. I just think it is ALREADY against the rules to operate more than one account on a ladder at a time. The TOS states that already, there is no debate.

IF you are playing games on a ladder with TWO different accounts at the SAME TIME, then you are violating this rule, PERIOD. I don't give two shits if your team is active or not, you ARE operating two different teams on the ladder actively. You have TWO different teams that effect the ratings on the ladder AT THE SAME TIME. How do you people not get this?

These are not hypothetical proposed rules. These are CURRENT rules. Stop whining and start abiding by them. Just because Fizzer doesn't do anything about it doesn't mean you should abuse the shit out of it in all of our faces. Man up and show some damn morals. Take ownership in your actions and stop waiting for him to police it.

I don't think any of the people doing it (that I know well) are bad people, but that doesn't excuse the actions. Someone said it pages ago, but all they need to do is say "hey, I didn't realize it was against the rules (I read it differently), I wasn't trying to game the system. Sorry and I won't do it again". If they did that, all would be forgiven and we could move on. But constantly make excuses is BS. Just stop doing it and move on.

Enough with the derailment. The issue is already resolved.

Since we are all so strongly - dislike- stalling, let's try a practical real example.

What punishment do you think is appropriate for someone who does this:
https://www.warlight.net/MultiPlayer?GameID=13967352

Keep in mind that the players on the stalling team is quite well-know and due to the stalling problems the ladders have, it is worth considering making them an example.

It should be plenty safe to furthermore assume they know that stalling is considered -bad-.

Please be specific, on topic and respectful. I don't want to throw hate, but to fix the ladders. I think we all feel the same way.

Edited 10/7/2017 03:00:41

Draw and quarter them.

I would give only smileyleg a warning for that. Bjarke and almosttricky were playing at a reasonable, rather fast speed. Of course they didn't force smiley to surrender which they should, but they didn't really stall themselves and just continued until smileyleg got eliminated.
If it would happen again after he got warned, i'd give him a 2 or 3 months ladder break.

Player popup says that Bjarke never surrendered himself.

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