What is stalling?

[valid peak]

Had a player stall today… after their win was inevitable…almost reported it… then realized what they were doing, they could have killed both myself and the third player easily in a single turn, but what they did instead was bizarre and hilarious… they boxed in a single troop of each of us and then killed everything else off, then after a turn or two they released the pressure allowing us to settle second place among ourselves… the other player had a trade and easily killed my tiny stack (which I had acquired over a few turns while considering a stalling report).

Don’t know what I think about it. An embarrassing end to a lackluster performance on my part, yes, a newer player wasting all our time, yes, but it was also something unique which I hadn’t seen before.

What is stalling anyway? One person’s carefully endgame strategy is viewed by another as a ridiculously stalled out slow motion trudge towards the kill. Unless they have me cornered in a one on one end game and try to build ridiculous stacks I usually don’t report it. Noob’s first win is my thought and I tolerate two or three turns as long as they aren’t letting the clock run as well.

And is it stalling when I don’t immediately concede a seemingly inevitable loss? I usually test the others players routing and speed for two or three turns just to make sure it really is inevitable and to give noobs endgame practice. I play in public lobbies with no rank filter… so I think this is appropriate since I’ve come back against a 150 troop advantage due to no knowledge of end game strategy on my opponents part. Of course if I knew my opponents rank was expert or higher I would almost always instantly concede, but it’s hard sometimes to guess, I’ve seen excellent play for an hour to be followed by terrible endgame.

[signal cedar]

I, personally, probably would have reported that player. I guess I would prefer they just choose the placements and end the game. If I lost, I lost. I don't really care much beyond that.

If you are right about them letting you and the other guy settle out 2nd place, that I do agree is interesting, though.

I am also interested in more detailed views on what the community considers official stalling.

[valid peak]

I’m stalling on this thread to keep it from being buried. I’m surprised how adamantly some players complain about stalling and want severe punishments, but yet they aren’t interested in explaining what they mean by stalling. I have very rarely seen stalling that was actually malicious, and when I have seen it it is usually a newer player taking their first win, they either don’t know how to win or take the opportunity to act like a child. I figure this is part of the game, repeat offenders should be punished, but some stalling is always going to be part of the game because so many play behaviors fall into the category of stall tactics and it is often unclear what is going on. What if a player just took an excessively long turn because of connection issues or a visit to the toilet? My least favorite form of stalling would be the partial or total suicide followed by a taunting emote then letting the turn timer just run to a bot out. Sure they are trying to give maximum punishment to the player they attacked, but they are also wasting everyone else’s time too. What are your thoughts?

[gaunt wolf]

Well it seems like there are two different definitions of stalling.

1. Letting the clock run out every turn for no apparent reason.
2. Toying with your kill for an excessive amount of time.
   Both are very annoying, but I'd imagine trying to implement an algorithm that effectively recognizes and differentiates malicious stalling from strategic stalling isn't easy, and I'm not sure SMG can afford the personnel to personally review every report submitted. Although I do hope that they will ban an account if it has a certain amount of reports against it within x number of games played.
   But even still there will always occasionally be players trying to get banned in order to learn the algorithms and how to manipulate them for what they think is an advantage because their main strategy is to annoy you into quitting and giving them the easy win.

[tidal relic]

I wouldn’t consider stalling as using up the time that everyone joined the game, and saw how long the turn timer was. Stalling to me seems like making the game last longer by not finishing when it clearly could have ended.

[wintry stump]

I agree with Bert Chaco, I only do 60-90 second games so I never usually have any problems with stalling. The dread pirate Robards I thought someone suiciding into you because you are winning or attacked them was just apart of the game. It’s happened countless times to me and was wondering do you always report them, I think it shouldn’t be allowed but I thought it’s just unavoidable and people will always do it?

[valid peak]

I have only reported stalling once or twice and only end game stack building emote taunting players who won’t finish, even that I will tolerate for a turn or two. I’m just interested in what people think is stalling. My response to stack builders after the game is won has occasionally been to let the turn timer run so I guess I am stalling in response to their stalling. The message is usually immediately received. I wish there were a few message emotes in game, such as “don’t stall” so we could help new players understand what they are doing and how it is seen by other players.

Other than a couple internet service loss disconnect bot outs I have played every game I’ve ever started through to the finish. I want to play human players and I figure other players do as well. It has been my philosophy that If you don’t want other people to quit on you then you have to not quit on them, but considering how many players quit or bot out, I guess not many people think that way. Anyway if we don’t care if people quit then we shouldn’t care about stalling either because if they stall then you can just quit. This seems like a vicious circle which will cause a quick decline in the quality of games available online. Anyway that said I don’t think stalling should be punished except in the case of repeatedly reported offenders and even in those cases it should be investigated so play style differences don’t result in nuisance reports. It would be far better to have a label-able player list available in game so you could make notes and not play again with players who behave badly. This kind of soft community policing is much better than asking SMG to be big man law, let’s reserve that for serious instances of cheating or egregious repeated behavior.

[desert jay]

Well Said!!

[ember sail]

Stalling = Blue

[oblique briar]

Anyone who just waits their turn timer without doing nothing, is stalling, and gets reported by me.

[steady narwhal]

I don't know, if it is done in 3 turn i feel it is a new player taking his time to not fuck up, that is fine, if he take 10 turn for the same result than yes. At this point quitting wont change anything so you if you are red or black you can leave.

[ember sail]

It was done six times in a row. And as you can see he was never, ever in jeopardy. Black player had suicided red and handed game to blue. Can’t believe anyone finds that defensible behaviour

[hexed sun]

I feel like you need to give it at least 2 turns before you report. Sometimes people step away or quit and just miss their turn. Or maybe they have the bug where they can’t do anything. I myself sometimes use my entire turn timer just to think about what I want to do (of course I still get a card but still)

[cursive skiff]

1st of all, what a good memory you have to go back almost a full year to bring this thread up in regards to your situation. 2nd, maybe the blue player wanted to see the remaining two players resolve 2nd and 3rd place between themselves, and he would wrap up 1st thereafter? You didn’t state whether they used the entire clock or not, did you? If they were using the entire clock for those 6 turns, clearly they were stalling. If they wanted the remaining players to resolve placement… who knows.

[hexed sun]

In the 2nd and 3rd pictures black is already dead. In the 2nd picture blue already has over twice as many troops as needed in a single stack to kill red and end the game. Instead of going ahead and killing red with their overwhelming troop advantage, they are clearly taking 1 territory at a time and fortifying their troops together. Clearly stalling regardless of how much of the clock they were using

[cursive skiff]

I guess I should look at all the pictures in evidence. Probably a noob who doesn’t win very often. Yep, report for stalling, heck, at that point, you might as well flag and move on with your day. (To me, it does make a difference if they are using the entire clock or not…) it also depends on the red players actions during the game as well. If red was using the entire clock the whole game (when there was no need to) or maybe they betrayed blue during the game, there could be reasons (not great ones especially to an outside observer just looking at 3 pictures) for their actions… but, I doubt it.

[ember sail]

Here’s another two from today. They think they’re funny.

[cursive skiff]

You’ve got bad luck… I only run into “stallers” about once a year… as I run to knock on something quickly.

[hexed sun]

It’s 3 player risk against brand new accounts…the players winning these games would probably never even have a chance of winning in your games (unless you are playing 3 player games)

[cursive skiff]

I play a decent amount of 1 v 1, against a healthy mix of skill levels…. When it’s down to a 1 v 1, if they’re stalling… flag and move on.