Regional Influence Overhaul

[Sigma Fistica]

Naturally, being the vanguard of several raiding groups, I would love not having Regional Influence...if my intention was simply to blow up as many regions as possible. It is not. A lack of RI would open up the door for brutish thugs to sweep through NationStates, instead of the more thought out attacks currently being orchestrated.
However, judging by the votes, there is a statistically significant sample of NS-ers who dislike RI. So, here is a suggestion. Why not make it possible to turn off a region's Regional Influence count-in the same way as WA Delegate Powers? The question, however, lies with who would decide that. Would it be founder only? Whoever has access to the Admin. Powers? Or even a vote by all WA members of the region? Food for thought.

Yes.... but what admin would actually chose such a thing as to open up their region to raiders or fenda's this way

[Kalibarr]

I might as well cross post what I've wrote in an other thread.

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Or simply make influence apply only on WA Delegates and non WA nations.

So if not in WA, you gather influence which can prevent you from being kicked.
If you decide to join the WA, you no longer that Influence protection. All bets are off

The in game explanation (if you want one) is that if you're not in the WA you are "Native" of the region. WA means you are part of the "World" (especially since it's called the World Assembly) thus could no longer "Native". You gave up the right to be native in exchange to participate in World affairs.

WA Delegates also gain influence so there's way to accumulate enough power to kick non WA "natives". The assumption is that they have to hold the region for a while though.

(The obvious side effect of such a system is that'll it cause lot of people will run two nations. A non WA "native" as their main "I want to have a community here" nation and a WA puppet to participate in the "game")

So they most active citizens in my region would no longer be considered native?

[Evil Wolf]

I've only said this about a million times in various threads but allow me to reiterate my point. This will never happen.

Pre-influence, the mods had just a horrendous time handling the sheer volume of complaints from natives who *thought* Crashers might be violating the rules, combined with all the defenders attempting to mod-bomb raids for an easy victory. For those who were not around for the pre-influence rules, allow me to explain them to the best of my memories; specifically there were two things that were significantly different under the old rules:

1. Natives could not be banned. Natives were defined as any nation which entered the region before your raider puppet, this included defender puppets. You were allowed to eject the nation, yes, but banning any native for any period of time was clearly defined as griefing.

2. Natives had to know the password. Now, keep in mind back in the day when you passworded a region, no one in the region could see it and there was no "display password to the region" option like there is now. You had to send out telegrams to each and every native otherwise it was defined as griefing. So, if you Crashed a region of 100 nations and you wanted to password the region, guess what? You were sending out 100 telegrams. That plain sucked, so much so most Crasher groups never employed passwords because of the annoyance.

Oh, and do you want to know what the punishment was for rule violations? Your puppet was deleted. Do it enough or on a large enough scale and *all* your puppets could be deleted. You might even end up DoS and perma-banned from Nationstates, as was the case with General Franks of DEN, if I remember correctly. Want to know what the punishment is for violating the Influence laws? There is none because its impossible to break them.

Of course, then there were the defenders constantly watching us waiting for us to screw up so they could report it to the mods. They did this so often we Crashers came up with a term for the "tactic": mod-bombing. No, ADMIN will never get rid of influence. It might change a bit, but it will never go away.

Regional Influence seems like just a major problem.... For both raiders and defenders but I think this would work better for defenders or just Dels that don't want to be taken over....

nnnnnnnSo lets say you're the WA delegate of a region for example we'll call it [sample region].... Then a raider group of say 20 people comes into the region... You see this happen and you only have 2 endorsements so you wont be able to hold the Delegacy... Your influence wont be very high... It'l be about Diplomat.... So banning will kill your influence and about 5 raiders will still be there to take the region over and hold it for their raider group....

O_o

No. A thousand times no. First, no raider in their right mind would commit 20 troops on a 2 endorsement target. Second, if your a delegate with the influence of a Diplomat you probably have enough influence to ban 200 newly arrived nations and still have enough influence to ban any arriving raider parties. Don't believe me? Ask Ivan of The Pacific or Durka of The North Pacific. Actually, come to think of it, Durka was just a minnow and he ejected over 400 nations from the then 2000 nation TNP before he started to run out of steam.

[Ballotonia]

Or simply make influence apply only on WA Delegates and non WA nations.

And thus an invading army kicks out all the non-Delegate WA nations since they got no Influence built up. Way to go. Natives left: non-WA minnows and one WA (formerly the delegate) which is losing influence day by day due to not being Delegate anymore.

I see bad things coming from this idea.

Ballotonia

[Luxemex Intex Zeonex]

I've only said this about a million times in various threads but allow me to reiterate my point. This will never happen.

Pre-influence, the mods had just a horrendous time handling the sheer volume of complaints from natives who *thought* Crashers might be violating the rules, combined with all the defenders attempting to mod-bomb raids for an easy victory. For those who were not around for the pre-influence rules, allow me to explain them to the best of my memories; specifically there were two things that were significantly different under the old rules:

1. Natives could not be banned. Natives were defined as any nation which entered the region before your raider puppet, this included defender puppets. You were allowed to eject the nation, yes, but banning any native for any period of time was clearly defined as griefing.

2. Natives had to know the password. Now, keep in mind back in the day when you passworded a region, no one in the region could see it and there was no "display password to the region" option like there is now. You had to send out telegrams to each and every native otherwise it was defined as griefing. So, if you Crashed a region of 100 nations and you wanted to password the region, guess what? You were sending out 100 telegrams. That plain sucked, so much so most Crasher groups never employed passwords because of the annoyance.

Oh, and do you want to know what the punishment was for rule violations? Your puppet was deleted. Do it enough or on a large enough scale and *all* your puppets could be deleted. You might even end up DoS and perma-banned from Nationstates, as was the case with General Franks of DEN, if I remember correctly. Want to know what the punishment is for violating the Influence laws? There is none because its impossible to break them.

Of course, then there were the defenders constantly watching us waiting for us to screw up so they could report it to the mods. They did this so often we Crashers came up with a term for the "tactic": mod-bombing. No, ADMIN will never get rid of influence. It might change a bit, but it will never go away.

Regional Influence seems like just a major problem.... For both raiders and defenders but I think this would work better for defenders or just Dels that don't want to be taken over....

nnnnnnnSo lets say you're the WA delegate of a region for example we'll call it [sample region].... Then a raider group of say 20 people comes into the region... You see this happen and you only have 2 endorsements so you wont be able to hold the Delegacy... Your influence wont be very high... It'l be about Diplomat.... So banning will kill your influence and about 5 raiders will still be there to take the region over and hold it for their raider group....

O_o

No. A thousand times no. First, no raider in their right mind would commit 20 troops on a 2 endorsement target. Second, if your a delegate with the influence of a Diplomat you probably have enough influence to ban 200 newly arrived nations and still have enough influence to ban any arriving raider parties. Don't believe me? Ask Ivan of The Pacific or Durka of The North Pacific. Actually, come to think of it, Durka was just a minnow and he ejected over 400 nations from the then 2000 nation TNP before he started to run out of steam.

*gets popcorn*

[Maurdohpia (Ancient)]

I might as well cross post what I've wrote in an other thread.

-------

Or simply make influence apply only on WA Delegates and non WA nations.

So if not in WA, you gather influence which can prevent you from being kicked.
If you decide to join the WA, you no longer that Influence protection. All bets are off

The in game explanation (if you want one) is that if you're not in the WA you are "Native" of the region. WA means you are part of the "World" (especially since it's called the World Assembly) thus could no longer "Native". You gave up the right to be native in exchange to participate in World affairs.

WA Delegates also gain influence so there's way to accumulate enough power to kick non WA "natives". The assumption is that they have to hold the region for a while though.

(The obvious side effect of such a system is that'll it cause lot of people will run two nations. A non WA "native" as their main "I want to have a community here" nation and a WA puppet to participate in the "game")

I support this.

[Warzone Codger]

So they most active citizens in my region would no longer be considered native?

Yes. I don't see the problem. Natives is just a word. Short hand for "Non WA nations who rely on influence to stay within a nation". It's not a judgement call on whether the players are close/friends/feel they have a sense of belonging to a region.

Your most active players can run non WA puppets if they wish to be Natives in a region. Your player would then have one nation as a Native, and the other as a World Citizen.

Or simply make influence apply only on WA Delegates and non WA nations.

And thus an invading army kicks out all the non-Delegate WA nations since they got no Influence built up. Way to go. Natives left: non-WA minnows and one WA (formerly the delegate) which is losing influence day by day due to not being Delegate anymore.

I see bad things coming from this idea.

Ballotonia

I start off with the assumption that raiders and defenders like to play under a no influence system. I also assume that the influence system is made to protect people who don't want to get involved in raiding for defending at all, and just want to right to have their friends etc under in the same region. Under my system, I treat joining the WA as opting in to play the raiding/defending game (or at risk accepting the risks of it) so they shouldn't have protection. So there's no problem with kicking those non-Delegate WA nations then. They opted in for that risk by joining the WA. They always had the option of running a non WA puppet if they don't want to play. Influence (which could be tweaked to be even stronger) would protect them.

I acknowledged in the original post that the key issue in my idea is that many people would want to run a non WA puppet so the player has at least one nation with native status that could stay in region. (unless the raiders hold it for so so so very long that they'll enough influence to kick them).

[The Most Glorious Hack]

I remember pre-influence.

I remember having megabytes of notepad.exe files keeping track of various IP information and other things. I remember once spending two solid hours pouring over logs and data for an invasion of a relatively tiny region. I remember making puppets to install as temporary founders. I remember spending days going over information and working with multiple other moderators on invasions of large regions. I remember the endless complaints by those griefed who thought not everyone was punished and by those who griefed who felt the punishment was too extreme. I remember eradicating an entire raider group (army?) because of their constant griefing and multi-ing. Hell, I think I even butted heads with Evil Wolf here, even though I was going through VoMs.

I have no desire to go back to that. It was messy. The rules were a kludge. It relied far too heavily on intuition and circumstantial evidence. Influence may not be perfect, but it's a damn sight better than moderators getting burned out after a few months because of the nearly endless griefing tasks.

[Sigma Fistica]

It does seem more popular for the players though

[Bears Armed]

So they most active citizens in my region would no longer be considered native?

Yes. I don't see the problem. Natives is just a word. Short hand for "Non WA nations who rely on influence to stay within a nation". It's not a judgement call on whether the players are close/friends/feel they have a sense of belonging to a region.

That's your opinion. In regions with established communities (that maybe have created with actual written constitutions), there are a lot of nations that would disagree with you.

Under my system, I treat joining the WA as opting in to play the raiding/defending game (or at risk accepting the risks of it) so they shouldn't have protection.

Hwell, for at least some of us it's for playing the 'GA' game... which requires reasonably good chances of being able to remain in a particular region, because of the endorsements necessary for submitting proposals and being able to influence how your Delegate approves proposals and votes...

It does seem more popular for the players though

Or it's popular with a few players who have a number of puppets: After all, I personally could throw another 71 votes to the 'Against' side if I felt like doing so...

[Flibbleites]

It does seem more popular for the players though

Or it's popular with a few players who have a number of puppets: After all, I personally could throw another 71 votes to the 'Against' side if I felt like doing so...

I'd say that this post of Hack's is an appropiate response to this.

[Corbatia]

You should include an endorsement comfirmation button in which WA nations must confirm the endorsements recieved by there peers. That will slow things down a little.

[Sigma Fistica]

Not a bad idea... Also, at the moment [Violet] is browsing this page.... I feel blessed.... I'll email Max about the idea... We've been having a chat

[Warzone Codger]

Yes. I don't see the problem. Natives is just a word. Short hand for "Non WA nations who rely on influence to stay within a nation". It's not a judgement call on whether the players are close/friends/feel they have a sense of belonging to a region.

That's your opinion. In regions with established communities (that maybe have created with actual written constitutions), there are a lot of nations that would disagree with you.

But why? Its players, not nations that are important....?

Under my system, I treat joining the WA as opting in to play the raiding/defending game (or at risk accepting the risks of it) so they shouldn't have protection.

Hwell, for at least some of us it's for playing the 'GA' game... which requires reasonably good chances of being able to remain in a particular region, because of the endorsements necessary for submitting proposals and being able to influence how your Delegate approves proposals and votes...

I am active in the WA game. It's the main forum I participate in. I even passed a resolution. However yes that's the other issue. I personally think it adds a new dynamic to the WA game, where the force or the threat of force can influence voting. We can finally have an outlet for those people who have been clamouring for a "WA Army" as well. Not in the way it was originally meant, but still.


Though of course many people will disagree with me.

(It's also interesting you mentioned GA, in the the Nazi Europe debates in the SC there was actually talk of couping some major regions as a method to change votes..)

[Aglrinia]

If regional influence is removed, then within a month I can have about thirty regions i want raided, raided. Why because we know defenders don't protect regions with only nation as a citizen.

[Station Man]

Regional Influence is a *gulp* good for regions. I voted MAYBE.

It is a complicated calculation, I think that is what WOW-ed people when enacted. The failure is that is was not thoroughly thought out and there is the PROBLEM. It covered all but did not recognize the game is widely varied. Example: it did not recognize at differences initially establish in the Original Games rule it ignored the true difference between Player Created Regions and Game Created Regions. there is a MAJOR difference, RI ignored this all together. Creating legal WAD abuse in feeders.

Also in overall game play it is not responsive to swiftly handle changes. CTE nation long dead return at previous or higher levels. They left the game their influence should begin as minnow like every other nation. the same applies to nations I've been in multinational regions where out of the Blue a "HERMIT" appears wielding the "ban hammer" clearly a fluke or abuse your choice.

I think the Regional Influence should be overhauled restudied and observed with and eye toward the overall game play and not specific personally influenced interests.

[Sedgistan]

Also in overall game play it is not responsive to swiftly handle changes. CTE nation long dead return at previous or higher levels. They left the game their influence should begin as minnow like every other nation. the same applies to nations I've been in multinational regions where out of the Blue a "HERMIT" appears wielding the "ban hammer" clearly a fluke or abuse your choice.

That's the only suggestion so far in this thread that I like - the game was changed recently to prevent re-founded nations keeping their endorsements - and this would be a similar change. I think it's wrong that CTEd nations don't decline in influence, whereas nations that remain alive, but change region, do lose theirs.

[Romanar]

It does seem more popular for the players though

The players (at least many of them) see the downside of Influence. The mods are very familiar with the downside of pre-influence.

I never raided pre-influence. I discovered the game shortly before influence, and by the time I did any raiding, they'd already changed the rules, but from what I heard, things were really a mess. I wouldn't mind seeing changes to the Influence (I like the idea of restored nations losing their influence), but I can understand why TPTB won't get rid of influence, despite its problems.

[Aglrinia]

Also in overall game play it is not responsive to swiftly handle changes. CTE nation long dead return at previous or higher levels. They left the game their influence should begin as minnow like every other nation. the same applies to nations I've been in multinational regions where out of the Blue a "HERMIT" appears wielding the "ban hammer" clearly a fluke or abuse your choice.

That's the only suggestion so far in this thread that I like - the game was changed recently to prevent re-founded nations keeping their endorsements - and this would be a similar change. I think it's wrong that CTEd nations don't decline in influence, whereas nations that remain alive, but change region, do lose theirs.

Me too. Our minister of foreign affairs was complaining to me... last week i think asking me why his regional influence kept going down, and i had to explain how moving regions causes a lose in regional influence.

[Sedgistan]

Me too. Our minister of foreign affairs was complaining to me... last week i think asking me why his regional influence kept going down, and i had to explain how moving regions causes a lose in regional influence.

I wasn't saying that moving regions shouldn't affect your influence. My point was this:

Nation_A and Nation_B both reside in Region_1.

Nation_A ceases to exist, Nation_B leaves to go to Region_2.

A month later, Nation_A re-founds and returns to Region_1, and Nation_B returns to Region_1.

In this situation, Nation_A keeps the majority of its influence, while Nation_B has none.

I'm saying that Nation_A should lose its influence too. I have no objection to Nation_B not keeping its influence.

[Aglrinia]

It does seem more popular for the players though

The players (at least many of them) see the downside of Influence. The mods are very familiar with the downside of pre-influence.
I never raided pre-influence. I discovered the game shortly before influence, and by the time I did any raiding, they'd already changed the rules, but from what I heard, things were really a mess. I wouldn't mind seeing changes to the Influence (I like the idea of restored nations losing their influence), but I can understand why TPTB won't get rid of influence, despite its problems.

Nothing should be removed simply because it has a few problems in it, i mean look at congress sadly they're still in place. Sorry couldn't resist, the best thing to do is to keep it in place and continue to update it, otherwise a month or two after the removal of regional influence some new member would be suggesting some similar concept and we'll be talked right back into it.

I wasn't saying that moving regions shouldn't affect your influence. My point was this:
Nation_A and Nation_B both reside in Region_1.
Nation_A ceases to exist, Nation_B leaves to go to Region_2.
A month later, Nation_A re-founds and returns to Region_1, and Nation_B returns to Region_1.
In this situation, Nation_A keeps the majority of its influence, while Nation_B has none.
I'm saying that Nation_A should lose its influence too. I have no objection to Nation_B not keeping its influence.

I know, i'm sorry if I didn't give off the impression, I never pay attention to influence except when raiding.

[Sigma Fistica]

Me too. Our minister of foreign affairs was complaining to me... last week i think asking me why his regional influence kept going down, and i had to explain how moving regions causes a lose in regional influence.

I wasn't saying that moving regions shouldn't affect your influence. My point was this:

Nation_A and Nation_B both reside in Region_1.

Nation_A ceases to exist, Nation_B leaves to go to Region_2.

A month later, Nation_A re-founds and returns to Region_1, and Nation_B returns to Region_1.

In this situation, Nation_A keeps the majority of its influence, while Nation_B has none.

I'm saying that Nation_A should lose its influence too. I have no objection to Nation_B not keeping its influence.

I quite like this idea.... I wasnt around back when there was no influence but it seems like it was hell back then.... On the other hand.... I do think this topic has adressed a nice discussion about an influence overhaul.... That was the main reason I made this.... The point about refounded nations is a great one.... I absolutely hate this.... Also, because in some cases when you move regions its to RMB post in another... I think that if you come back withing 10 minutes you should be able to keep your influence

Ex...

Nation A moves from Region 1 to region 2 and posts something...
a minutes later he comes back to region 1 but all of his influence is gone and he's a minnow again

I really think this is unfair and is impractical....

[Aglrinia]

I wasnt around back when there was no influence

Your regional influence of Instigator suits you just fine.

[Mousebumples]

Also in overall game play it is not responsive to swiftly handle changes. CTE nation long dead return at previous or higher levels. They left the game their influence should begin as minnow like every other nation. the same applies to nations I've been in multinational regions where out of the Blue a "HERMIT" appears wielding the "ban hammer" clearly a fluke or abuse your choice.

That's the only suggestion so far in this thread that I like - the game was changed recently to prevent re-founded nations keeping their endorsements - and this would be a similar change. I think it's wrong that CTEd nations don't decline in influence, whereas nations that remain alive, but change region, do lose theirs.

As it was explained to me awhile ago, your influence in a given region "decays" the longer you are gone from said region. I would support a similar system to be put in place on CTE nations. However, I would not be comfortable with automatically zero-ing out influence should a nation CTE. We all have times when RL gets busy and we don't have time to check in with NS as often as we'd like. It would be a shame to see a long-time native down to almost no influence simply because they had the misfortune to CTE for a few days.

[Aglrinia]

That's the only suggestion so far in this thread that I like - the game was changed recently to prevent re-founded nations keeping their endorsements - and this would be a similar change. I think it's wrong that CTEd nations don't decline in influence, whereas nations that remain alive, but change region, do lose theirs.

As it was explained to me awhile ago, your influence in a given region "decays" the longer you are gone from said region. I would support a similar system to be put in place on CTE nations. However, I would not be comfortable with automatically zero-ing out influence should a nation CTE. We all have times when RL gets busy and we don't have time to check in with NS as often as we'd like. It would be a shame to see a long-time native down to almost no influence simply because they had the misfortune to CTE for a few days.

Seconded.