We all hate being "that guy." You can choose to be "that guy" and live with those consequences or stand up for yourself and accept those. Which are easier to live with? I personally never regret standing up for myself.

I'm 'That Guy'...almost always.

BUT, I am also a slow player. I TRY to speed things on my end. I can acknowledge I'm slow. BUT, I DO appreciate reminders about speed of play. I get caught up in the moment and forget its a timed event.

Just don't be 'That Guy' that accuses another of the very same thing you practice.

/CanOfWormsIncoming

And DEFINITELY don't be 'The Guy' that accepts the graciousness of an opponents sportsmanship by allowing you to effect a missed play opportunity early in a game, but then NOT reciprocate the sportsmanship to your opponent later in the game when HE would like to effect a missed opportunity.

I would also just make it clear at the outset that a full 6 round game can be completed within the time allocated by tournament rules. I would also attempt to respectfully come to an agreement with my opponent that we will complete the game within the time allocated.

Also, ask if the player is new. If the player is new, then there are ways to expedite the game without compromising your strategy simply by outlining the other player's options.

I have also never had a tournament game go to time until the first game last tournament when we finished on turn 4. I had to destroy the two stations and given the extra two turns would have deffinitley got one. First up I setup my fleet (all preped the night before in baggies per ship) and he had piles of cards to sort through and look for all his ships, dials and upgrades.

each turn was like wading through mud and I was getting a bit annoyed but kept calm as i thought the guy was a noob. But then with Dodonna he agonized over the 4 cards every time and i nearly lost it!

I found out later he always plays this way.

I actually think maybe there should be a penalty for both players if the game goes to time. Not sure what it should be but maybe it will crack the whip a bit!

Whether players like this are stalling intentionally (to preserve points) or unintentionally (analysis paralysis) is irrelevant, as such behavior is inappropriate and unfair. It may sound harsh, but if you're the kind of player that is incapable of completing more than 4 Rounds of Armada in 2.25 hour rounds, you should not be playing in tournaments, as the format is not conducive to your playstyle. In serious games where time is an issue (e.g. Chess) players have timers and when their time is expired they lose, regardless of the board state.

Having been playing X-Wing and Armada for years, I've had the negative experience of playing against egregious slow-players a few times, several of who were quite obviously doing it intentionally because it favored their list or their situation.

Sadly, judges are useless in these situations. I've personally seen about a dozen instances of a judge being notified of a slow-player, and all they ever do is just give a light warning and say they'll keep an eye on it. But FFG lacks a clear floor-rules policy, and I've never seen anything more than a useless verbal warning issued against even the most egregious stall-tactics. Either way, it never helps the first person to call a judge, even if that opponent picks up their pace a bit in future games to avoid the judge's eye (that said, even at large FFG events I've seen the same player get multiple warnings from judges about slow-play with nothing materializing from it or helping the opponents who he stalled out in earlier rounds). So I've never personally wasted time calling a judge over, I'll just politely encourage the player to pick up the pace and remind them we are on the clock. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.


So, the only real solution in the most egregious cases is to meet said player in the parking lot after the event with a dice bag full of dice...

I'm kidding, of course, ...or am I...?

Im a slow player. Not in moving but in tranlating hits and processing how to deflect. I only get to play rarely in the tournaments. I rarely win but still the game is fun for me. My opponents try to speed me up. " ahh you hit me with this. You can block that, do this, and do this max damage is that what you want to, or you can ..... If someone contests something I just say ok as they most likely know the game more than I do.

In some tournament rule systems I have seen the points available to be awarded go down if you don't get past turn X, thus adding to the motivation to get cracking. (Tho if you're on the other end of a 9- or 10- result maybe that's when people fall off the caring bus) I'm not convinced it's a good idea.

Still I like the idea of checking progress at the 1 hour mark and simply saying, "hey we might want to speed it up because the match will be pivotal when we get to the later turns. " If you're getting flamed for that, welp, you've probably got some serious problems anyway.

8 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Whether players like this are stalling intentionally (to preserve points) or unintentionally (analysis paralysis) is irrelevant, as such behavior is inappropriate and unfair. It may sound harsh, but if you're the kind of player that is incapable of completing more than 4 Rounds of Armada in 2.25 hour rounds, you should not be playing in tournaments, as the format is not conducive to your playstyle. In serious games where time is an issue (e.g. Chess) players have timers and when their time is expired they lose, regardless of the board state.

Having been playing X-Wing and Armada for years, I've had the negative experience of playing against egregious slow-players a few times, several of who were quite obviously doing it intentionally because it favored their list or their situation.

Sadly, judges are useless in these situations. I've personally seen about a dozen instances of a judge being notified of a slow-player, and all they ever do is just give a light warning and say they'll keep an eye on it. But FFG lacks a clear floor-rules policy, and I've never seen anything more than a useless verbal warning issued against even the most egregious stall-tactics. Either way, it never helps the first person to call a judge, even if that opponent picks up their pace a bit in future games to avoid the judge's eye (that said, even at large FFG events I've seen the same player get multiple warnings from judges about slow-play with nothing materializing from it or helping the opponents who he stalled out in earlier rounds). So I've never personally wasted time calling a judge over, I'll just politely encourage the player to pick up the pace and remind them we are on the clock. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.


So, the only real solution in the most egregious cases is to meet said player in the parking lot after the event with a dice bag full of dice...

I'm kidding, of course, ...or am I...?

I don't think your position is reasonable. The comparison to chess is in particular I have to take you to task on. Armada is just such a different game. The introduction of a timer, just totally wouldn't work. Advance a turn without activating ships or squadrons just because the timer ran out? Entirely bogus and would take away the double/triple taps that is a very common first player strategy.

Likewise I think you're completely ignoring there are some very complicated fleets out there that don't lend themselves to fast play. There is entirely nothing wrong with that. We should not as a community strive for "just certain types of lists only" in the interests of time.

Can't say that I've personally seen the 'useless judges' situation across a wide swath of the midwest save for some small regionals where the TOs were not Armada experts and that was totally not a problem, because there were plenty of us very experienced players in the room to help things along and make it a good experience for all.

Last if you're to that point of coming to blows over a plastic spaceship pew pew game ... um .. yeah ... dude..... seriously.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

Ackbar, Mc30, sensor teams

Much harder to slow play when theyve lost ships since turn two...

Its genuinely one of the reason I play hyperaggressive builds.

That, and I enjoy inflicting pain....

Agree on both points.

That said, these fleets can still be stalled out. I had a game a month or so ago, first round of the tourney against a relatively inexperienced player who took agonizingly long turns, in all respects. My plan going in was to clean up his small ships on turn 3 and then tackle the ISD on 4. The 30-minute warning sounded with us barely into turn 3. I ended up shifting my strategy, from ensuring I could kill everything to just killing more things early, just to reduce the number of opportunities he had to make decisions and get me into turn 4 to kill the ISD. Once he was reduced to just an Arquitens, we miraculously managed to finish the last 3 rounds of the game in 15 minutes.

So the takeaway: if someone is slow playing you, just kill all his ships so he doesn't have the opportunity to play at all.

1 minute ago, tgall said:

I don't think your position is reasonable. The comparison to chess is in particular I have to take you to task on. Armada is just such a different game. The introduction of a timer, just totally wouldn't work. Advance a turn without activating ships or squadrons just because the timer ran out? Entirely bogus and would take away the double/triple taps that is a very common first player strategy.

Likewise I think you're completely ignoring there are some very complicated fleets out there that don't lend themselves to fast play. There is entirely nothing wrong with that. We should not as a community strive for "just certain types of lists only" in the interests of time.

Can't say that I've personally seen the 'useless judges' situation across a wide swath of the midwest save for some small regionals where the TOs were not Armada experts and that was totally not a problem, because there were plenty of us very experienced players in the room to help things along and make it a good experience for all.

Last if you're to that point of coming to blows over a plastic spaceship pew pew game ... um .. yeah ... dude..... seriously.

Spoiler: I wasn't serious. Though I do think cheaters (and that's what we're ulimately talking about, people who stall and play incredibly slowly to ensure games run to time for their own advantage) deserve to be ostracized, at least in those cases where we have objective undeniable evidence of cheating (e.g. someone who changes a dial on camera or who has taken certain damage cards out of their deck). Sadly, intentional slow-players can never really be proven.


Second, I wasn't saying we should use Chess clocks in Armada (it wouldn't work, as the game is too interactive--does my clock burn down while you think about how to spend defense tokens?). I'm just saying in other games that are time-sensitive a player can lose for taking too much time, whether they are stalling intentionally or unintentionally. Thus making the case that if someone's analysis paralysis is soooo egregious that they cannot finish games within the generally reasonable allotted time, it's not their opponent's fault nor should their opponent have to be punished for it (e.g. Snipa losing all chances at winning a Regional because his round one opponent is too indecisive and/or inexperienced to play at a reasonable pace).

7 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Spoiler: I wasn't serious. Though I do think cheaters (and that's what we're ulimately talking about, people who stall and play incredibly slowly to ensure games run to time for their own advantage) deserve to be ostracized, at least in those cases where we have objective undeniable evidence of cheating (e.g. someone who changes a dial on camera or who has taken certain damage cards out of their deck). Sadly, intentional slow-players can never really be proven.


Second, I wasn't saying we should use Chess clocks in Armada (it wouldn't work, as the game is too interactive--does my clock burn down while you think about how to spend defense tokens?). I'm just saying in other games that are time-sensitive a player can lose for taking too much time, whether they are stalling intentionally or unintentionally. Thus making the case that if someone's analysis paralysis is soooo egregious that they cannot finish games within the generally reasonable allotted time, it's not their opponent's fault nor should their opponent have to be punished for it (e.g. Snipa losing all chances at winning a Regional because his round one opponent is too indecisive and/or inexperienced to play at a reasonable pace).

I do think there are ways to prove that a player is intentionally prolonging the game to his opponent's detriment.

A judge should be able to objectively ascertain the relative strategic positioning of the players to determine if there exists a motive to delay.

Second, the judge should be able to ascertain whether a player is unreasonably delaying based off of the time it takes to complete certain actions.

It should not take longer than a minute to decide which defense tokens to use.

It should not take longer than a minute or two to decide how to spend engineering points.

You get the point.

I think that the issue lies in enforcement.

The answer would simply to procure additional judges whose sole job is to ensure that players are playing the game at a reasonable pace and in good faith.

That's all well and good, but it's not really the definition of objective. It's one judge's call of what "should" be reasonable amounts of time, possibly backed-up by the interpretation of other "good faith" judges. Such a policy might be possible, but it's certainly not objective (in fact, it's the textbook definition of subjective). Now, if FFG imposed a set of universal standards (e.g. "No Player shall spend more than sixty seconds in deciding the expenditure of defense tokens") it might approach a more objective metric, but that's something FFG would never do (for very good reason).

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

We all hate being "that guy." You can choose to be "that guy" and live with those consequences or stand up for yourself and accept those. Which are easier to live with? I personally never regret standing up for myself.

I will say that it's important to note that at the beginning of a game with someone you've never played before, it's impossible to tell what their intentions are immediately. Is someone just slower playing by default because they have analysis paralysis? Are they deliberately dragging things out? We can't determine their motive or personality quickly. If it was immediately obvious then yes, we would all of course stand up and say "hey for some reason my opponent, Skeletor, informed me that he's slow playing me due to some evil scheme and I'm obviously not okay with that, can I get a judge over here please?" But we are unfortunately unaware of the interior world of the people we interact with and I think it's best to give others the benefit of the doubt. So this is not about cowardice or problems with confrontation. My friends can tell you I'm not particularly shy about being direct with people but I like to think I try to assume the best. Even for people who do deliberately slow-play I'm not sure it's out of some maliciousness so much as more understandable reasons: they're anxious, they got caught up in the moment and are doing something they'll regret later, etc. The behavior is still unacceptable, of course.

With all that said, I've appreciated the responses that focus on the behavior moreso than the intent and how to handle that fairly. It's given me a lot of food for thought and I'm sure if something similar happens in the future I'll be better prepared to deal with it. In the particular instance in question I found myself trying to determine intent throughout most of the game and it put me in a bad spot where I felt prepared to act only too late (and even then, perhaps it was not done deliberately, as @comatose believes). The behavior was the core problem regardless of the intent and by being up-front about that early on you make it clear that slow play will make the game unresolvable in the time allowed and if necessary you'll need to get a TO involved but would obviously prefer not to.

4 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

That's all well and good, but it's not really the definition of objective. It's one judge's call of what "should" be reasonable amounts of time, possibly backed-up by the interpretation of other "good faith" judges. Such a policy might be possible, but it's certainly not objective (in fact, it's the textbook definition of subjective). Now, if FFG imposed a set of universal standards (e.g. "No Player shall spend more than sixty seconds in deciding the expenditure of defense tokens") it might approach a more objective metric, but that's something FFG would never do (for very good reason).

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to get at next.

Have FFG release guidelines on the time that should be expended for certain actions.

No doubt there would be a subjective element to enforcing time in the absence of guidelines, and I wouldn't expect FFG to make any.

It's hard to completely eliminate subjectivity in any decision making process. Still, it's one of the few solutions I can think of.

26 minutes ago, Warlord Zepnick said:

Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to get at next.

Have FFG release guidelines on the time that should be expended for certain actions.

No doubt there would be a subjective element to enforcing time in the absence of guidelines, and I wouldn't expect FFG to make any.

It's hard to completely eliminate subjectivity in any decision making process. Still, it's one of the few solutions I can think of.

Totally totally agree. FFG really should give judges some guidelines as to how to evaluate. Being so wide open and if we're really talking about players getting called out on it, you just have to have some standard to aim at or it'll promote some future rage posting on the fora.

On 13/02/2017 at 11:38 PM, Ginkapo said:

Ackbar, Mc30, sensor teams

Much harder to slow play when theyve lost ships since turn two...

Its genuinely one of the reason I play hyperaggressive builds.

That, and I enjoy inflicting pain....

Good advice.

Make the slow playing slow-player want to rush.

OP said he doesn't want to call a judge. I'm afraid it's your only option. It saves stress. Rather than an inner monologue about your opponent or post game woulda/coulda/shoulda rant you are working on a soulution in the acutal moment that is to your direct benifit.

If there is even the start of a disput I call for TO or Judge, they then take over the thinking and the stress falls right off.

It's too late to beg and plead with 5 mins left but if they have seen the slow playing you have better ground to stand on for a complaint or ruling.