What is stalling? Stalling is an easy way to game the ladder in order to obtain/sustain a high rank/rating. Stalling cannot be directly defined, because it is such an objective term, but it is generally recognized by turn speed, or income differential. Sometimes, it is just rude to continue the game, especially if it is inflating a false rank (dozens and dozens of gold trophies have been unfairly given to such players). As a community, we have decided there are no real consequences we can implement against stalling. I disagree, I think it is a problem fostered by people over-zealous for "achievement," even if it becomes fake. As a community, we need to be able to point out obvious cases of stalling and shame them, because as nice as a gold trophy is, it is up to the community to give you the respect/admiration you desire.

Basically, I think stalling is both gross and insecure, and it should NOT be promoted or advised. It is up to the community leaders (big-name clans, big-name players, and ladder participants) to enforce this. With all the stalling happening, it feels like it is almost an accepted strategy. This is bad for several reasons!

A) Stalling is very unsportsmanlike. It promotes bad attitudes and behavior, and all-in-all, destroys the integrity of the game.

B) Stalling is not playing the game. At that point you are just waiting out the timer. I don't understand why this is allowed, but there are no force finishes in the majority of the ladders. It's an ugly loophole that several insecure players take advantage of because they don't have the confidence in their own play, or the humility to sport a rank lower than they THINK they deserve. (This is an example of extreme hubris and should be condemned)

I hope everyone is on the same page here, and we can as a community decide that stalling is not acceptable behavior and should always be prevented/shamed for the unsportsmanlike and bad gameplay.

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STALLING IS FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T GET THE STATS THEY WANT THE FAIR WAY

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Upvote this post if you agree!

Although i don't like stalling/stallers, there will never be a clear definition or a unanimous view. You can't help the problem. What is stalling in one's eyes is "playing the ladder strategically" in the other's. The only thing you can do as a community is call those out who do it. But that gets tiresome.

all that being said yes it is hard to pinpoint stallers since it is so subjective but clear-cut cases should be disapproved of, rather than supported!

Edited 10/23/2018 15:42:33

I think that the social penalty issued for stallers is good enough. (I.e, when community collectively disavows players who've stalled for trophies). This can be so influential that clans that take players notorious for stalling can be looked at negatively by many in the strat community. We already have that to a certain extent because there are plenty of people who care about this type of thing.

The problem that happens sometimes is that the penalty can be dished out unevenly, so a player might stall but not get caught, and no one will care. Meanwhile another guy can stall and people will care and he will face disapproval. Furthermore while stalling is a cheap tactic used to bend time to ones advantage, I don't think it is ever going to become a rule not to do it.

Edited 10/23/2018 15:41:52

ok ok two people then......

btw you mean subjektive and not objektive i assume?

Edited 10/23/2018 15:41:58

i guess we all can agree that the following games are stalling:

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=16438313

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=13795372

ofc njord you're 2-0 against me today :D

@irise wrong thread bro we already discussed this anyways

@IRise

The last turn happened because I had to commit to prevent a boot since my surrender wasn't accepted. The last but one turn was the one which lost the game, before it, our position was good enough for a comeback. As you can see, we surrendered in the turn that lost the game.

Furthermore, you can see that many of our games have an average playing speed of 2d20h+ per turn. This usually happens when we come into a bad position and have to make very good turns to achieve a comeback (in most of these cases, we successfully reached a comeback and won). This is exactly the intention of this boot time: Being busy in RL, discussing, procrastinating a turn and rediscussing, counting the leftovers to make as ideal predicts as possible, looking at other games the opponents played to identify preferences etc. are all covered. If you don't agree with the boot time, don't join the ladder. It may make you happier that we have been penalized for our slow playing speed automatically: We missed the trophy multiple times because our games expired and we were too busy to hurry towards game finishes.

Now I ask you - is this stalling in your opinion? If so, I highly recommend to try realtime games.

+1 alex

+1000000 to alex thats seems to have forgotten that he said the exact opposite on discord yesterday

+1 on justifying stalling

Edited 10/23/2018 17:29:26

Alex all you are trying to do is make platinum look bad for calling you a staller. Only reason your surrender wasnt accepted yet is because you waited until 2d23 hours in the turn to surrender. Yes we can see that from your 'gg' in chat and the timestamp on the turn. Your teammate surrendered more then a day before you so unless you are communicating poorly you had agreed already the game was lost. In the meantime you had time to accept Icemans surrender for your 10th win.
Just be a man and admit you intended to stall and decided to surrender after you got called out on it. After all we both know its not your first time you stalled to improve your rating

https://www.warzone.com/MultiPlayer?GameID=12207745

@Njord

I order you a pizza at my expense if you can show me a contradiction between any of my messages and posts :)

Edited 10/23/2018 17:32:52

@Ollie

Maybe you shall ask Platinum about my intentions first? He can correct both of your statements, the reputed try to make him look bad and the 2d23h surrender. You should basically be able to correct the second one yourself, as you can see when which surrender happened iirc.

I love how you compare this with a game I played before even being part of the strategic community xD Why don't you take one of my very first games too? I hided because I thought my opponent may not find me and surrender. On a serious note: I didn't even know the word 'stalling' at that point of time, I found out about it when my opponent in that game used it. I applied to Masters, Deadman explained to me that this was not correct and I surrendered (I am surprised you don't know this story?). It seemed totally logic to me to peak as high as possible, this is how stalling came up at the very beginning in general. That game was stalling indeed, so if it's your format of a man (to use your word) to accuse somebody of doing a thing whose name he didn't know, feel free to.

Edited 10/23/2018 17:46:50

clear-cut cases should be disapproved of, rather than supported!

They are? I can't think of many people who support stalling. Maybe alhazi and the guy you just recruited to your clan, but that's about it.

"If you check the history of our latest win, you will see how long ago it was actually won already
Waiting for opponents to surrender a lost game is a bad reason to throw a trophy away.
But you are free to disagree"

"I am waiting for the trophy which I get due to a win that happened earlier than the loss against Summer (you can look at the turns and rate it yourself)
If that is stalling in your opinion, you are obviously free to think what you like"

lol it is true nomercy and belzebu have both stalled before, hopefully they are incidents that won't be repeated, but the past cant be changed

btw, lynx has openly supported stalling on multiple occasions https://www.warzone.com/Forum/244206-congrats-rento
i think zbd krunx rento and maybe someone else? i dont remember lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuYeHPFR3f0

I bet njord won't get a pizza either

I dont need to talk to platinum for that, only reason platinum knew about your stalling is because i told him about it. I have seen the games where you had not surrendered yet but max did, I have seen you accepted a surrender from iceman a day after max surrendered but didnt accept his surrender or surrendered yourself.

But if you demand proof, there you go

https://gyazo.com/39c0df774890a79190c00dd91499ed7c

Because you think you deserved a certain win sooner is a bullshit justification to stall your losses. Some people play on for to long but they played with average speed of less then a day so saying they stalled is nonsense. You choose to delay a loss for whatever twisted reason that is just stalling.

https://gyazo.com/a604ae29d632b427bd5d83858825abb0

You wait for the trophy because of a win that happened earlier then the loss? We can all see the game ended several hours after Max said 'gg' in both of your losses. That you considered it won earlier doesnt change anything about the fact you made a decision not to surrender your agreed losses

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/469119371118379018/503967692978389013/Screenshot_2018-10-22-17-27-04.png

Finally, something smart. You agree there is no fair reason to delay your losses and have surrendered at last.

Edited 10/23/2018 18:15:00

All statements are mine, yeah, where is the contradiction? I surrendered in the turn when that game was lost. I could've continued for fifteen or twenty turns, but zero turns is stalling? As you can read in the quote, the other game was over long before. As you can read in the quote too, I wanted to win the game before the loss for that reason at first, but then I spoke to Plat who was unhappy with that. We discussed a bit and at the end, I shared his opinion that it would be better if I abstained from the right to do that first to ensure the social peace in the community, since obviously some jealouses would show up and argue about this. He had a legit point, the other game was already over at that time too, so it seemed fairer to me to surrender in the same day as I accept the surrenders in the won game instead of claiming the win earlier, to prevent stalling accusations (to say it with Farah's words: Just surrender when you lost). Afterwards, Plat apologised for the false accusation and removed his posts.

Today, both surrenders are accepted and we are still first. What bad staller I am - I am a shame for my family, clan and nationality. No idea how such a person can bear itself.

Oh brave new world... I used to think Plat was the fairness police. Now I see that if somebody can't be accused of being unfair, people find other ways to live their envy out. I fear that the only way to prevent this is not being successful at all meanwhile, or to surrender all games when it comes close to a trophy so nobody needs to be unhappy because he can't have that too and search a reason why the other person shouldn't either.

You got me. I really envy you for this 2vs2 ladder trophy

are u saying ollie is jealous of u ? i am sorry u seem like a nice guy and your team probably deserves that trophy with all the effort and time u spent working on it. but the only reason u are still first with the 2 losses is because ollie is busy and took vacations but u couldn know that at that time. so stalling would indeed make sense to make sure to get the trophy. that being said congrats to u and max...

Only reason you are in first now is because our team had to turn on vacation and leave the ladder. Stalling for 2 days or 20 days is no different in my opinion. You wait to get something what you would not have gotten if you surrendered to losses immediately. And yes , you would have gotten it anyway after we had taken vacation and nobody would have said anything about it.

Justify whatever you want, we all know how it is

Obviously, the more people have it, the less it is worth, that is an understandable reason, mod. Reminds me a lot of the well-known people with inflated ratings which never play RTL, but join for one game to prevent people from taking the trophy (and even brag with this in the forum!). Same motivation, just with surprising evidence.

Edited 10/23/2018 18:31:07

to prevent stalling accusations (to say it with Farah's words: Just surrender when you lost)

Just to clarify: i think you should surrender a game which you obviously lost immediately because it's fair, not to prevent stalling accusations.

Edited 10/23/2018 18:41:53

mod had the 2v2 trophy before you started playing i think, at the very least before you joined "strat" scene... actually he has all trophies, maybe we should envy him...

actually has everyone joined this yet?? ===> https://www.warzone.com/Clans/?ID=233

Edited 10/23/2018 18:34:12

I think you have all info you need to rate the case yourself now, Ollie. I cannot tell you which opinion you should have, but it's my interest that it's based on all relevant facts. If you come to the opinion that this would be stalling, this is your good right. I could also call my daughter 'stalling' (some countries would probably forbid it, but still).

There is rarely a strong indication to rate fairness such as everybody has a different opinion about what is okay and what isn't, but speaking generally, I feel authorized to say that if even Plat (!!!) doesn't think something is unfair, it's hard to argue against this :p

Edited 10/23/2018 18:40:16

@Tacky

I haven't yet, but maybe I will get a free alt if WG decides to throw me out because I got the trophy :p

Does being member of this clan increase or lower your chance to receive mod fan underpants?

"The last turn happened because I had to commit to prevent a boot since my surrender wasn't accepted"

and

"If you check the history of our latest win, you will see how long ago it was actually won already
Waiting for opponents to surrender a lost game is a bad reason to throw a trophy away.
But you are free to disagree"

"I am waiting for the trophy which I get due to a win that happened earlier than the loss against Summer (you can look at the turns and rate it yourself)
If that is stalling in your opinion, you are obviously free to think what you like"

that's a contradiction.....if we cant agree on that, i think we just disagree on what meaning is, and even though thats a interesting discussion i think it's too extensive for this tread