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 Ordana wrote:

 Overread wrote:

 Ordana wrote:
How fast is quickly as possible? What is a ton of time spend thinking? how many stat lines or rules are you allowed to look up? And if your unsure should you just assume something and possibly cheat? Because looking it up gets you dq'ed for not knowing your rules.

I don't think your tournament will last long with those guidelines.

It's likely that what you are after it not something that can be summarised with any depth in a forum post. Behaviour is a complicated area that can take quite a skill in writing to convey thoughts and impressions; especially when you're debating without an example before you and thus talking in generalist terms. So its unlikely that you'll get a perfect description of delayed playing that will satisfy you.

It's also something that would take time watching many games. IT's a bit like moderating user behaviour; those who have done it for a long while know what to look for from experience, whilst those with less experience often find it harder or impossible to see the same patterns of behaviour.

But... but... I was told it was obvious and that we could just ban em all.

(incase it wasn't clear, that was my point. Its not obvious and highly based on feeling and observation. Judges often don't have time to observe a dozen tables to check if its purposeful slowplay or just someone being a bit slower. A judge isn't going to walk up to a table and go, "right, your obviously slowplaying. Get out" without actually standing there and watching the game unfold. Your dealing with vague lines and boundaries.

Trying to game a chess clock by making up BS rules for your opponent to refute is a hell of a lot more obvious and easier to punish.

Clearly, to save time we should just ban all Ork players.

Aye and I agreed that events likely do need more trained observers/judges in order to help police the quality of the game. Video recording can also be done for review after.

This is what many major games do - every football match has a ref, who has back up from the replay cameras. Warhammer events should aspire to achieve similar so that they can keep events running smooth and aim to remove as many potential cheaters as possible.


In theory there'd be a peek period of whittling out bad behaviour and reinforcing good behaviour and in time the quality would improve to lower the number of transgressions. Also a tighter run tournament will steadily filter down to tighter better play in general.


The main problem is that most tournaments for games don't get much money coming in. They don't have shoe and shirt and energy drink sponsors; they don't have banks or local businesses (outside of the local game store) offering to pay big money to support the event.

phydaux wrote:
Each player gets 15 minuets per turn. 15 minuets and you aren't done with the shooting phase? Too bad, it's player B's turn.

That means on full turn will be exactly half an hour. A six turn game will take three hours.

Oh, I need to roll some saves? Well, better count those dice accurately. 1...... 2.......... 3..................... 4............................ 5......................................... Oh look, your 15 minutes are up, time for my turn.


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 Ordana wrote:
But... but... I was told it was obvious and that we could just ban em all.

It's obvious if you're experienced with the game and watching it. It's not like we're talking about subtle cases of making a game take a few minutes longer, the problem is three-hour games that last 2-3 turns where one player is obviously stalling to run out the clock in their favor.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I fear chess timers wouldn’t change anything.

Sure. They might prevent the player who’s turn it is slow playing - but at the very real risk that a WAAC opponent will simply seek to dither and delay their opponent. Such as asking for every rule to be checked. Pretending they can’t find the right page in their Codex, or being sure there’s another rules on another page which is somehow relevant.

Ultimately, people just need to select armies capable of being played under strict time limits. Yes, that does mean no Greentide or Gaunt Swarm. It probably does mean a greater prevalence of small, elite armies. But remember, the time limit isn’t a flaw in the game system - but one brought about, necessarily, by tournament play. It’s an outside factor that can’t be avoided, and wasn’t allowed for in the writing of the game.

But tournament organizers can compensate that by not following GW's marketing ploy like lemmings. There's no real reason why tournaments HAVE to be 2k. It's fairly new idea. Used to be 1.5k as a standard.

Can't even claim that 8th ed point costs went up so need to do to be like 7. Well a) this ain't 7 but 8 so more dice rolls etc=slower game=need to scale down anyway b) after upping point costs up GW then released codexes that pulled point costs down and then some more. And GW goes "just as planned" as players rush to buy more models to have legal list.

Players complain about expensive game to buy into and then are the ones actively making it more and more expensive without GW needing to make even one % of a price increase. GW loves that. They are blameless for that price hike yet reap the profit boost.

The points limit isn't inherently the problem. There's no reason tournaments can't run 2K, or even higher... so long as they allow enough time for players to actually play out a game. That's the problem. Point limits in many events crept up from 1500 to 1750, to 1850, to 2000, but organisers were still trying to cram games into the same time period.

 insaniak wrote:
The points limit isn't inherently the problem. There's no reason tournaments can't run 2K, or even higher... so long as they allow enough time for players to actually play out a game. That's the problem. Point limits in many events crept up from 1500 to 1750, to 1850, to 2000, but organisers were still trying to cram games into the same time period.

In theory you could run games at 2k with enough time, but only with a multi-day event and that brings up a lot of problems on its own. For logistics reasons there's a practical limit on points, and it's probably well below 2k.

Been using chess clocks in 40k and WHFB for years. It works great. I won't play in tournaments without them because intentional slow playing douche rockets trying to game the game and "win" through slow play is one of my big no-nos that I'll never endure again.

 Peregrine wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The points limit isn't inherently the problem. There's no reason tournaments can't run 2K, or even higher... so long as they allow enough time for players to actually play out a game. That's the problem. Point limits in many events crept up from 1500 to 1750, to 1850, to 2000, but organisers were still trying to cram games into the same time period.

In theory you could run games at 2k with enough time, but only with a multi-day event and that brings up a lot of problems on its own. For logistics reasons there's a practical limit on points, and it's probably well below 2k.

Other than Adepticon, most of the tournaments I've played in have been 2 or 3 day affairs. I still find the idea of trying to cram a tournament of anything other than Combat Patrol into a single day a bit odd.

There's clearly 2 distinct issues that should not be conflated.

I think we can all agree that most people do not intentionally slowplay. If the points limit is too high and time is too short, many players (especially in the lower ranks) will not be able to finish their games in time. This should be analyzed and the points and time limit should be tweaked such that 90+% of the games are played until the end. Don't forget that the majority of your participants do not play 3 games per week on the highest level, and comes to your tournament to play some good games against new people.

On the other hand, there's people who intentionally slow play to gain an advantage. If the above issues have been cleared, it should be relatively straightforward to track the games who do not go to their natural conclusion. If a player repeatedly fails to finish their games in time, points are deducted, thus eliminating the chance to finish high.

Finally, people who slowplay and finish high are generally repeat offenders, and people usually know them after a few events. Drastic measures such as putting a judge next to their table or banning them from the next tournament can always be taken if they don't get the hint.

auticus wrote:
Been using chess clocks in 40k and WHFB for years. It works great. I won't play in tournaments without them because intentional slow playing douche rockets trying to game the game and "win" through slow play is one of my big no-nos that I'll never endure again.

I don't think I can recall a single tournament game I've played that would have been improved with the addition of a chess clock. And most would have been significantly worse.

 Peregrine wrote:

phydaux wrote:
Each player gets 15 minuets per turn. 15 minuets and you aren't done with the shooting phase? Too bad, it's player B's turn.

That means on full turn will be exactly half an hour. A six turn game will take three hours.

Oh, I need to roll some saves? Well, better count those dice accurately. 1...... 2.......... 3..................... 4............................ 5......................................... Oh look, your 15 minutes are up, time for my turn.

Privateer press played out both timed turns and timed games for warmachine/hordes -essentially, you get X hours for the entirety of your turns, you can spend an hour on one turn, and five minutes on another. Run out? That's you. Automatic loss. It helped stop slow play. Timed games were definitely better than timed turns - running mad dogs of war at 35pts could be crazy with 7 minute turns (30 odd doom reavers, each in theory with multiple attacks

When it comes to saves, if you're rolling dice, you do it on your time, not mine. Again, that's how PP worked it when it came to out of activation play, like tough rolls (think armour save equivelants), free strikes, counter-charges and the like. And there could be a surprising amount of out-of-activation stuff, depending on lists.

Still sounds like a solution looking for a problem, to me. Combating slow play is only necessary if slow play is actually a widespread problem. And from what I've seen, it isn't. Yes, it happens, but forcing every player to jump through hoops because of a small number of players doing the wrong thing is just silly.

Rather than trying to implement chess clocks to fix the problem, just encourage players to be more upfront about reporting slow play, and let everyone else play their games the way they want to.

When I was tournament playing, slow play was always a big isssue and there were always people present intentionally doing it.

Current 40K isn't streamlined enough to be an efficient tourney game. That, and since we have an example of someone gaming the game, you'd need an arbiter for each game table to keep the shenanigans to a minimum. It almost isn't worth it.

The tourney scene is huge for all involved: GW, tourney organizers, players, potential new players. To back out would kneecap GW in a way they cannot afford.

Unfortunately, unless they streamline the game, it isn't going to be much in the way of tourney games. And I'm talking more a 3rd Ed. streamlining and NOT an AOS streamlining.

Why not just insta ban slow playing idiots like this? Not messing around. Act like TFG and get kicked out.

If someone is wasting your time you ship the clock. If clock shipping becomes contentious, you call the judge.

One of the best attitudes the WM community has adopted is treating the judge as a resource. Got a contentious measurement? Don't spend a moment arguing about it; call the judge right away simply as a neutral 3rd party. Empowering the community to call the judge when they're not blaming their opponent for something makes it a lot easier for TOs to gauge what's going on in a game and make the right call when real problems occur.

 LunarSol wrote:
If someone is wasting your time you ship the clock. If clock shipping becomes contentious, you call the judge.

One of the best attitudes the WM community has adopted is treating the judge as a resource. Got a contentious measurement? Don't spend a moment arguing about it; call the judge right away simply as a neutral 3rd party. Empowering the community to call the judge when they're not blaming their opponent for something makes it a lot easier for TOs to gauge what's going on in a game and make the right call when real problems occur.

But then you make TOs find judges. At most 40k events I've seen, there are probably 20-30 judges for upwards of 400 people (LGT had that many I think).

I wouldn't have a competitive 40k tournament in the first place, simply a coming together of people who want to play 40k, organised to a degree so that everyone gets x amount of games against different opponents.
Although I seem to be in the minority with that opinion.

 LunarSol wrote:
If someone is wasting your time you ship the clock. If clock shipping becomes contentious, you call the judge.

One of the best attitudes the WM community has adopted is treating the judge as a resource. Got a contentious measurement? Don't spend a moment arguing about it; call the judge right away simply as a neutral 3rd party. Empowering the community to call the judge when they're not blaming their opponent for something makes it a lot easier for TOs to gauge what's going on in a game and make the right call when real problems occur.

Calling a judge takes time. Good luck getting a problem resolved within 20 minutes. In either case, if you're a slowplayer, it's a win even if the clock isn't moving, because the round still ends on time.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
If someone is wasting your time you ship the clock. If clock shipping becomes contentious, you call the judge.

One of the best attitudes the WM community has adopted is treating the judge as a resource. Got a contentious measurement? Don't spend a moment arguing about it; call the judge right away simply as a neutral 3rd party. Empowering the community to call the judge when they're not blaming their opponent for something makes it a lot easier for TOs to gauge what's going on in a game and make the right call when real problems occur.

But then you make TOs find judges. At most 40k events I've seen, there are probably 20-30 judges for upwards of 400 people (LGT had that many I think).

That should be enough if the judges are active and the players are keeping them involved. More is better, but in my experience at least with Warmachine, a single judge can manage 8 games pretty reliably.


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 Marmatag wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
If someone is wasting your time you ship the clock. If clock shipping becomes contentious, you call the judge.

One of the best attitudes the WM community has adopted is treating the judge as a resource. Got a contentious measurement? Don't spend a moment arguing about it; call the judge right away simply as a neutral 3rd party. Empowering the community to call the judge when they're not blaming their opponent for something makes it a lot easier for TOs to gauge what's going on in a game and make the right call when real problems occur.

Calling a judge takes time. Good luck getting a problem resolved within 20 minutes. In either case, if you're a slowplayer, it's a win even if the clock isn't moving, because the round still ends on time.

That's the fault of the judges, not the clocks.

I suspect this will have the opposite effect. GW has been trying light amounts of engagement and are getting burned by it. They'll naturally want to exert more control and this might be what creates a GW tourney system with Chess Clocks made mandatory.

Slow playing WAAC players will only have themselves to blame.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I suspect this will have the opposite effect. GW has been trying light amounts of engagement and are getting burned by it. They'll naturally want to exert more control and this might be what creates a GW tourney system with Chess Clocks made mandatory.

Slow playing WAAC players will only have themselves to blame.

I maintain this game would benefit from the 3 suggestions i outlined earlier. Slow players are not as common as people think. GW's rules are not conducive to a true competitive "e-sport" kind of thing. The fact that someone can bring 150 Boyz and win based on logistics is not a fault of the player.

 Marmatag wrote:


1. Anything that costs less than 10 points per model should be evaluated. The Ork slowplayer fielded an insane amount of models because of how cheap it is. Should it be that cheap? For anyone?

2. Invulnerable saves have gotten way out of hand. It should be immeasurably difficult to get anything better than a 4++, with a 4++ being somewhat rare.

3. AP is beyond ridiculous, it is incredibly easy to get AP-2 or AP-3 weaponry with volume of shots. Which is why people focus on lots of wounds per unit with 1 wound models, and invulnerable saves.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I suspect this will have the opposite effect. GW has been trying light amounts of engagement and are getting burned by it. They'll naturally want to exert more control and this might be what creates a GW tourney system with Chess Clocks made mandatory.

Slow playing WAAC players will only have themselves to blame.

I maintain this game would benefit from the 3 suggestions i outlined earlier. Slow players are not as common as people think. GW's rules are not conducive to a true competitive "e-sport" kind of thing. The fact that someone can bring 150 Boyz and win based on logistics is not a fault of the player.

So you want models cheaper than the ones you field made more expensive, invul saves you don't rely on removed, and AP made more scarce so you have fewer models die. None of these address slow play. At best you could argue that removing invul saves might result in a couple fewer dice rolls in a game.

If you really wanted to create rules that affected the speed of play; you'd address formation rules, 'True' line of sight, unclear terrain rules and the need for unified keywords in abilities. I suspect that GW is being driven in that direction as well, but that is a more long term effect we won't see in the upcoming months.

 ChargerIIC wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:


1. Anything that costs less than 10 points per model should be evaluated. The Ork slowplayer fielded an insane amount of models because of how cheap it is. Should it be that cheap? For anyone?

2. Invulnerable saves have gotten way out of hand. It should be immeasurably difficult to get anything better than a 4++, with a 4++ being somewhat rare.

3. AP is beyond ridiculous, it is incredibly easy to get AP-2 or AP-3 weaponry with volume of shots. Which is why people focus on lots of wounds per unit with 1 wound models, and invulnerable saves.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
I suspect this will have the opposite effect. GW has been trying light amounts of engagement and are getting burned by it. They'll naturally want to exert more control and this might be what creates a GW tourney system with Chess Clocks made mandatory.

Slow playing WAAC players will only have themselves to blame.

I maintain this game would benefit from the 3 suggestions i outlined earlier. Slow players are not as common as people think. GW's rules are not conducive to a true competitive "e-sport" kind of thing. The fact that someone can bring 150 Boyz and win based on logistics is not a fault of the player.

So you want models cheaper than the ones you field made more expensive, invul saves you don't rely on removed, and AP made more scarce so you have fewer models die. None of these address slow play. At best you could argue that removing invul saves might result in a couple fewer dice rolls in a game.

If you really wanted to create rules that affected the speed of play; you'd address formation rules, 'True' line of sight, unclear terrain rules and the need for unified keywords in abilities. I suspect that GW is being driven in that direction as well, but that is a more long term effect we won't see in the upcoming months.

I play Tyranids, so i would see a price increase in my Gaunts. Math is hard, but 5 points is less than 6, 7, 8, and even (surprisingly) 9! Last time I checked, all of my HQs also have a solid invulnerable save. Neurothropes are 3++, Tyrants are 4++. I would actually prefer a system where invulnerable saves were converted to damage mitigation.

Speed of play is tied to lots of movement and dice volumes. Play in a tournament even once and you'd see this.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
Best bet would be to strip the core rules right down for 9th, to a ruleset that focuses heavily on balance, then add in a couple of optional rulebooks: a short one for tournament play that gets the balance even more precise, more like an extended, annotated FAQ and errata really, with points cost changes if need be, updated once a year; and a longer narrative play book.

Strip the core rules down to what, though? 8th already gave us the bare minimum; deploy, move, roll to cast psychic powers, roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save. Simplifying the game more won't improve balance- broadening their design space from "models killing each other" to give the designers more options to make units interesting or powerful, and properly, heavily, play testing the game, including handing it over to non-GW employees with the directive to break it as hard as they can, would at least help. Assuming GW actually listened to and acted on the feedback that they received.

My tournament experiences were at NOVA GT at 1850, and some local tournaments at 1500.

I've never had issues finishing a match in that time. The games always end in either a concession, or naturally via game end. 2k is simply too many points, because everything is getting cheaper, and people being indecisive or TFG via slow play.

TLDR: Tournaments should go back to 1850pts

 iGuy91 wrote:
My tournament experiences were at NOVA GT at 1850, and some local tournaments at 1500.

I've never had issues finishing a match in that time. The games always end in either a concession, or naturally via game end. 2k is simply too many points, because everything is getting cheaper, and people being indecisive or TFG via slow play.

TLDR: Tournaments should go back to 1850pts

/facepalm

Reducing the points in a tournament is good, but increasing the cost of undercosted units is bad? News flash, if you upped the cost of Guardsmen to 6 points, you'd accomplish the change of their army from 2000->1850 without limiting armies that don't deserve a price reduction. 1850 points of guard could still crush 2000 points of Necrons, for example.

I think the answer is that they while they have the tournaments and there privately run.

Events like shows how they need some more control take a more active role into the orgonisation, standards and so. That might require more support and work, and there role may be bigger. (within athikiated events... Private events are private... Affliction optinal)

(puts a premium status on the affiliated events in small way)

But this also means they have greater ability to see this does not happen.

Ie, they so support but set a minium level and maybe help on terrain etx to some degree. Help with advertising but you also have to meet various standards, like decent food provision etc.

Its...harder...and more work but could be the answer to the whole problem..

SeanDrake wrote:
So just been reading up on the 2 recent UK tournements where the 1st was won by a slow playing douche who scored low and killed a handfull of models in all his games.to "win".

The 2nd was the LGT which from all reports including a couple of local players who went was an absolute gak show, the highlight being the abysmal terrain despite GW sending a truck load that was not used. My lfgs sponsored the event and provided some of the prize support and was not happy his name has been associated with it so I can only imagine how GW feel.

So we have 2 events with heavy support from GW one showed up the inherent weaknesses of the 40k rules and the type of waac player attracted by them, the other was a heavily advertised and streamed event that was a fiasco and again did not show the game in a good light.

I cannot imagine either event was the type of advertisement they were hoping for. I see 3 choices for them 1. They carry on regardless and hope every thing works out. 2. They say feth this and go back to ignoring the tournements scene other than at warhammer world. 3. They say feth this and start an official series of tournements and take back control of there own game and make everything as professional as possible.

GW isn't any better at running tournaments than the independent circuit. That's why the 'official GW GTS!I?!?!!??' are such a joke.


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 Marmatag wrote:

 iGuy91 wrote:
My tournament experiences were at NOVA GT at 1850, and some local tournaments at 1500.

I've never had issues finishing a match in that time. The games always end in either a concession, or naturally via game end. 2k is simply too many points, because everything is getting cheaper, and people being indecisive or TFG via slow play.

TLDR: Tournaments should go back to 1850pts

/facepalm

Reducing the points in a tournament is good, but increasing the cost of undercosted units is bad? News flash, if you upped the cost of Guardsmen to 6 points, you'd accomplish the change of their army from 2000->1850 without limiting armies that don't deserve a price reduction. 1850 points of guard could still crush 2000 points of Necrons, for example.

All infantry should go up between 1-4pts. The way the rules are now, cheap infantry are just bad for the game. They're frustrating to play against, frustrating to use, take an ungodly amount of time compared to other units, tend to be on the high end of the power spectrum, and are just SO boring.

Bringing the thread back to the original point, I have no doubt that GW will double down and get far more involved. They're far more self aware than before, especially when it comes to their brand image. They're going to want to make sure tournaments run as smoothly as possible, with as few GT-esque fiascos as possible.