We will during the course of the next few days implement a feature that limits the number of games a player can play simultaneously, to prevent erratic rating jumps based on timeout victories.
Players will however be able to enter an unlimited number of tournaments.
Players who 'time-out' already drop points. The reasons why a player is unable to meet due times are obviously numerous and personal and can happen to any player, (although it's easy to book vacation time). But if two players play a large number of games (against each other) with the same start date those games will all time-out together, causing a yo-yo like effect on the ratings. Surely the fewer games played will make it much easier to keep within the time constraints.
One server has a very good system of timeout penalties it just limits timeouters about tournamant participation. I think we are to 'go further' we need to make a strict anti-timeot system. When a player has 50% and more timeouts the number of simultaneous games for him|her is 4, when 30% - 8, when - 10% - 12, when 5% - 14. When he has 100% timeout of his games for the current month he is not allowed to take more than 2 games and he shall be informed with a special pop-up that he behaves in an incorrect manner and shall not timout so many games.
Ok, some nice thoughts in this conversation. I won’t then be changing anything right now and first give it some thought. Will post a suggestion here on how we could possible deal with the issue.
I’m not sure if rating fluctuation is much a problem, but having opponents timeout is annoying. Maybe displaying players timeout percentage in their profile would be a start.