NationStates

Posted: **Thu Aug 20, 2015 7:26 pm**

Lockdownn wrote:The regional officers addition sounds like a must have.

That too

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:32 am**

I had written up a big post about this a few months ago, but can't find it now. You'll have to deal with a tl;dr version, but it's not any less important.

Basically, I think it's fair to say that it's been a hell of a long time since this Summit, yet we're yet to see any transformational changes to R/D. The whole concept of this summit was based upon the idea that there is a serious imbalance that requires correction within R/D*, yet here we are three years since the process began, and yet there is no real progress. We've been promised "soon" for years now, yet it's been too long already. And in another year or two..

To me, it's quite clear that it's time to jump off the Summit ship as being the vehicle for change within NS. For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes. That's fine. But it's time to look at new ways we can attain this change.

Let's look at some examples of straightforward, easy-to-implement changes. No WA Admissions during update? That would, at least, make updates more negotiable for defenders. Limited regional controls within the first 12 hours? Hell, that sorta tips the balance towards numbers rather than good updating, but that'd at least give a window to react, too...

I'm sure collectively we can come up with something that we can do, quickly, and completely outside of the constraints of this Summit. And it's time for that.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 8:35 am**

Guy wrote:I had written up a big post about this a few months ago, but can't find it now. You'll have to deal with a tl;dr version, but it's not any less important.

Basically, I think it's fair to say that it's been a hell of a long time since this Summit, yet we're yet to see any transformational changes to R/D. The whole concept of this summit was based upon the idea that there is a serious imbalance that requires correction within R/D*, yet here we are three years since the process began, and yet there is no real progress. We've been promised "soon" for years now, yet it's been too long already. And in another year or two..

To me, it's quite clear that it's time to jump off the Summit ship as being the vehicle for change within NS. For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes. That's fine. But it's time to look at new ways we can attain this change.

Let's look at some examples of straightforward, easy-to-implement changes. No WA Admissions during update? That would, at least, make updates more negotiable for defenders. Limited regional controls within the first 12 hours? Hell, that sorta tips the balance towards numbers rather than good updating, but that'd at least give a window to react, too...

I'm sure collectively we can come up with something that we can do, quickly, and completely outside of the constraints of this Summit. And it's time for that.

You idea will kill tag raiding

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:11 am**

Guy wrote:I had written up a big post about this a few months ago, but can't find it now. You'll have to deal with a tl;dr version, but it's not any less important.

Basically, I think it's fair to say that it's been a hell of a long time since this Summit, yet we're yet to see any transformational changes to R/D. The whole concept of this summit was based upon the idea that there is a serious imbalance that requires correction within R/D*, yet here we are three years since the process began, and yet there is no real progress. We've been promised "soon" for years now, yet it's been too long already. And in another year or two..

To me, it's quite clear that it's time to jump off the Summit ship as being the vehicle for change within NS. For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes. That's fine. But it's time to look at new ways we can attain this change.

Let's look at some examples of straightforward, easy-to-implement changes. No WA Admissions during update? That would, at least, make updates more negotiable for defenders. Limited regional controls within the first 12 hours? Hell, that sorta tips the balance towards numbers rather than good updating, but that'd at least give a window to react, too...

I'm sure collectively we can come up with something that we can do, quickly, and completely outside of the constraints of this Summit. And it's time for that.

Oh sure, let's activity give the finger to Raiderdom so Defenders can do their jobs effectively. The changed proposed are too radical and will definitely tip the scales too far towards Defenders.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:15 am**

Valrifell wrote:
Guy wrote:I had written up a big post about this a few months ago, but can't find it now. You'll have to deal with a tl;dr version, but it's not any less important.

Basically, I think it's fair to say that it's been a hell of a long time since this Summit, yet we're yet to see any transformational changes to R/D. The whole concept of this summit was based upon the idea that there is a serious imbalance that requires correction within R/D*, yet here we are three years since the process began, and yet there is no real progress. We've been promised "soon" for years now, yet it's been too long already. And in another year or two..

To me, it's quite clear that it's time to jump off the Summit ship as being the vehicle for change within NS. For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes. That's fine. But it's time to look at new ways we can attain this change.

Let's look at some examples of straightforward, easy-to-implement changes. No WA Admissions during update? That would, at least, make updates more negotiable for defenders. Limited regional controls within the first 12 hours? Hell, that sorta tips the balance towards numbers rather than good updating, but that'd at least give a window to react, too...

I'm sure collectively we can come up with something that we can do, quickly, and completely outside of the constraints of this Summit. And it's time for that.

Oh sure, let's activity give the finger to Raiderdom so Defenders can do their jobs effectively. The changed proposed are too radical and will definitely tip the scales too far towards Defenders.

Thanks for saying what I sugar coted

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:20 am**

Canton Empire wrote:
Valrifell wrote:
Oh sure, let's activity give the finger to Raiderdom so Defenders can do their jobs effectively. The changed proposed are too radical and will definitely tip the scales too far towards Defenders.

Thanks for saying what I sugar coted

Uh... no...? It would kill all of raiding, not just tagging.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:32 am**

Valrifell wrote:
Canton Empire wrote:Thanks for saying what I sugar coted

Uh... no...? It would kill all of raiding, not just tagging.

It wouldn't kill occupations, but it would make it significantly more difficult

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 10:42 am**

Guy wrote:For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes.

The admins are time constrained, yes, but the problem isn't simple coding time. It's coming up with a satisfactory bit of code that maintains game balance. As you can see by the responses to your post, your "simple" change has major consequences in game balance. That's been true of every change made to date in the entire history of the game.

No matter what the team codes, it will affect game balance. Right now, defenders are more on the back foot, with raiders on the ascendency. If we make a "simple" change that kills raiding for the most part, we lose both the raiders AND the defenders. There's no R/D game left. [violet] doesn't want to let that happen.

I mostly agree that the summit was a failure. Three years is too long. I'll talk to the admins and see if they're going to do something soon. If not, maybe it's time to dump this sub-forum into the Archives.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:02 am**

You can, for your own reasons, disagree with my proposals. Without a doubt, my views on the merits of current, prevalent forms of tag-raiding is not the highest one, but I'm quite unlikely to convince any of you to make it worthwhile arguing about. I'll just say this, in defence of my first suggestion: It always made sense to me that you can only 'affect' one region in NS at a time. Being in the WA is like having a vote on world affairs, but by essentially giving you an unlimited numbers of WA in update, you really can have a say in an unlimited number of in-game 'disputes' (i.e. military gameplay conflicts), only being bounded by how quickly you can switch. As a political simulator, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I also don't think that no WA admissions during update would be so terrible. Invaders have one shot at update to take something. And guess what? We still have to be there to stop them. And they can try again and again, every weekend and even weekdays, until they get something they like. All it means is that they won't have multiple shots at different regions within the same update.

But let's assume we scrap that. We need solutions that are implementable by Admin, not ones that we have been waiting for for 3 years (and counting). I'd really like to hear some suggestions from the other side.

--

At this point I saw Fris' post above.

Fris, first, thank you for responding. I do appreciate it. And thank you for agreeing to follow-up.

My argument would be that at this stage, there is a strong imbalance. A "simple" change might really throw it wildly to the other side, but maybe that's the only way forward? If we can't get a thorough, "not-simple" solution that will maintain balance, maybe it should just fluctuate every once in a while, pendulum-like. Might be radical, but it could seriously shake-up the game.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:11 am**

Frisbeeteria wrote:
Guy wrote:For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes.

The admins are time constrained, yes, but the problem isn't simple coding time. It's coming up with a satisfactory bit of code that maintains game balance. As you can see by the responses to your post, your "simple" change has major consequences in game balance. That's been true of every change made to date in the entire history of the game.

No matter what the team codes, it will affect game balance. Right now, defenders are more on the back foot, with raiders on the ascendency. If we make a "simple" change that kills raiding for the most part, we lose both the raiders AND the defenders. There's no R/D game left. [violet] doesn't want to let that happen.

I mostly agree that the summit was a failure. Three years is too long. I'll talk to the admins and see if they're going to do something soon. If not, maybe it's time to dump this sub-forum into the Archives.

You just can't dump what you've promised to implement. But Annex would help both sides, especially the independent side

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:17 am**

Canton Empire wrote:You just can't dump what you've promised to implement.

Nobody's dumping anything. Moving to the Archives would simply lock all the threads, and we'd go back to bitching about shit in Technical, like we always have.
There have been no promises to implement any of these specific ideas. This forum was intended to be a basket for discussing ideas, with Admin to pick and choose.
Canton Empire, you are particularly guilty of the "it's my idea, so it HAS to be great" camp. It gets old real fast. Back off some. Better yet, back off a lot.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:19 am**

Frisbeeteria wrote:
Guy wrote:For whatever reason (and I'm sure that it's a good one), Admin does not have time to implement the proposed changes.

I mostly agree that the summit was a failure. Three years is too long. I'll talk to the admins and see if they're going to do something soon. If not, maybe it's time to dump this sub-forum into the Archives.

o.O If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad. And contrary to what you said above, a huge portion of the regional officers idea wouldn't impact the balance of military gameplay. As a founder I was looking forward to being able to let other people change the WFE, flag, embassies, tags, polls, pinned dispatches, etc. That doesn't change the balance, it just makes regions more interesting and gets more people involved in managing regions. Letting ROs do ejections and passwords would impact the balance, but the rest of the things they could do wouldn't.

The only reason I can see that three years out we do not have ROs that can do at least those things is no one got around to it. It wouldn't hurt anyone, it just gives an option a lot of us would love.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 11:39 am**

Frisbeeteria wrote:
Canton Empire wrote:You just can't dump what you've promised to implement.

Nobody's dumping anything. Moving to the Archives would simply lock all the threads, and we'd go back to bitching about shit in Technical, like we always have.
There have been no promises to implement any of these specific ideas. This forum was intended to be a basket for discussing ideas, with Admin to pick and choose.
Canton Empire, you are particularly guilty of the "it's my idea, so it HAS to be great" camp. It gets old real fast. Back off some. Better yet, back off a lot.

Umm, does the 3rd point have ANY relevance to the disscussion? All I said is that Annex benefits all sides

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 12:32 pm**

Topid wrote:
Frisbeeteria wrote:I mostly agree that the summit was a failure. Three years is too long. I'll talk to the admins and see if they're going to do something soon. If not, maybe it's time to dump this sub-forum into the Archives.

o.O If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad. And contrary to what you said above, a huge portion of the regional officers idea wouldn't impact the balance of military gameplay. As a founder I was looking forward to being able to let other people change the WFE, flag, embassies, tags, polls, pinned dispatches, etc. That doesn't change the balance, it just makes regions more interesting and gets more people involved in managing regions. Letting ROs do ejections and passwords would impact the balance, but the rest of the things they could do wouldn't.

The only reason I can see that three years out we do not have ROs that can do at least those things is no one got around to it. It wouldn't hurt anyone, it just gives an option a lot of us would love.

This whole comment sums up my view for the RO option.

Especially for regions with multiple Admins. You wouldn't have a need for a founder account then there'd be no risk of losing it and in turn powers over that region.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 12:43 pm**

Lockdownn wrote:
Topid wrote:o.O If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad. And contrary to what you said above, a huge portion of the regional officers idea wouldn't impact the balance of military gameplay. As a founder I was looking forward to being able to let other people change the WFE, flag, embassies, tags, polls, pinned dispatches, etc. That doesn't change the balance, it just makes regions more interesting and gets more people involved in managing regions. Letting ROs do ejections and passwords would impact the balance, but the rest of the things they could do wouldn't.

The only reason I can see that three years out we do not have ROs that can do at least those things is no one got around to it. It wouldn't hurt anyone, it just gives an option a lot of us would love.

This whole comment sums up my view for the RO option.

Especially for regions with multiple Admins. You wouldn't have a need for a founder account then there'd be no risk of losing it and in turn powers over that region.

And also int brings legitimacy to GP regional positions

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 5:31 pm**

Topid wrote:If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad.

Just because it's been three years doesn't mean the door is forever closed. I know for a fact that [violet] coded up a version of ROs some time ago, but couldn't get the game balance aspects sorted. The code is still there awaiting inspiration and solutions.

Don't read too much into what I said about archiving this forum. That was Fris, acting entirely on his own without consultation with anyone else on the team. I still think it's a good idea, but I'm just one of 20+ active mods/admins, and I don't have the ability to move a whole subforum in any event.

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 5:48 pm**

Frisbeeteria wrote:
Topid wrote:If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad.

Just because it's been three years doesn't mean the door is forever closed. I know for a fact that [violet] coded up a version of ROs some time ago, but couldn't get the game balance aspects sorted. The code is still there awaiting inspiration and solutions.

Don't read too much into what I said about archiving this forum. That was Fris, acting entirely on his own without consultation with anyone else on the team. I still think it's a good idea, but I'm just one of 20+ active mods/admins, and I don't have the ability to move a whole subforum in any event.

So can we get a beta put in At least?

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 6:31 pm**

Frisbeeteria wrote:
Topid wrote:If after years of teasing us with regional officers we do not actually get them I will be very sad.

Just because it's been three years doesn't mean the door is forever closed. I know for a fact that [violet] coded up a version of ROs some time ago, but couldn't get the game balance aspects sorted. The code is still there awaiting inspiration and solutions.

Don't read too much into what I said about archiving this forum. That was Fris, acting entirely on his own without consultation with anyone else on the team. I still think it's a good idea, but I'm just one of 20+ active mods/admins, and I don't have the ability to move a whole subforum in any event.

Well I suppose I'll talk request directly to the admins then: Just let us have the parts that don't affect the (un)balance of the game right away and look at giving ROs the ability to do things that would normally cost influence later.

I actually totally agree that letting ROs eject and ban nations would be bad, unless the influence costs were god-tiered it would make griefing regions easier, and if the costs are god-tiered no one will use it (I said this many times in its thread). But the more cosmetic parts of regional administration, the only parts most of us use anyway, that won't make it any easier or harder for raiders or defenders. No one cares if 15 people can change the WFE instead of the normal 1 or 2. No one cares about the WFE at all.

While I can see the appeal of a nice and clean all-at-once-release, now that we are three years down the road I think it'd be cool to just get any improvements out of this. Even if it is only the non-"R/D" part of the "R/D Summit".

@Fris: No worries. If I had to constantly respond to .. certain users.. without having the ability to speed this process along, I'd be ready to throw this forum away too.

Although I will also say I disagree with your post above that none of these changes were promised. We've seen Sedge say they are on the to-do list and that ROs were coming short/mid term or something like that (earlier this year even).

Posted: **Sat Aug 22, 2015 7:34 pm**

@Guy - The second point, about a not making certain changes for 13 hours (to account for variance) is reasonable, already applied to things like region wide telegrams, something that would kill of tag raiding, but especially if it didn't apply to ejections (say only to embassies, WFE, and flag) would allow large raids to occur still. While I wouldn't support it, and it would majorly change things, it's stomach-able.

No WA admissions during updates hamstrings everyone. It limits your ability to get people online mid-update to response to a mass, and basically kills you ability to stop raids in progress unless everyone keeps a live WA ready 24/7. It also needlessly messes with a large portion of regular players more so than the above does.

Although, I believe this is all needless. Any changes that would be made have, I believe, been noted already.

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:17 pm**

Ever-Wandering Souls wrote:@Guy - The second point, about a not making certain changes for 13 hours (to account for variance) is reasonable, already applied to things like region wide telegrams, something that would kill of tag raiding, but especially if it didn't apply to ejections (say only to embassies, WFE, and flag) would allow large raids to occur still. While I wouldn't support it, and it would majorly change things, it's stomach-able.

No WA admissions during updates hamstrings everyone. It limits your ability to get people online mid-update to response to a mass, and basically kills you ability to stop raids in progress unless everyone keeps a live WA ready 24/7. It also needlessly messes with a large portion of regular players more so than the above does.

Although, I believe this is all needless. Any changes that would be made have, I believe, been noted already.

Back in the day I routinely had like, 30 switchers prepped. It's not impossible.

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:30 pm**

Sovreignry wrote:
Ever-Wandering Souls wrote:@Guy - The second point, about a not making certain changes for 13 hours (to account for variance) is reasonable, already applied to things like region wide telegrams, something that would kill of tag raiding, but especially if it didn't apply to ejections (say only to embassies, WFE, and flag) would allow large raids to occur still. While I wouldn't support it, and it would majorly change things, it's stomach-able.

No WA admissions during updates hamstrings everyone. It limits your ability to get people online mid-update to response to a mass, and basically kills you ability to stop raids in progress unless everyone keeps a live WA ready 24/7. It also needlessly messes with a large portion of regular players more so than the above does.

Although, I believe this is all needless. Any changes that would be made have, I believe, been noted already.

Back in the day I routinely had like, 30 switchers prepped. It's not impossible.

No no emails during update. No admission is what he said. You get one WA, pre-joined, for the entire update.

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:51 pm**

Ever-Wandering Souls wrote:
Sovreignry wrote:Back in the day I routinely had like, 30 switchers prepped. It's not impossible.

No no emails during update. No admission is what he said. You get one WA, pre-joined, for the entire update.

Which makes tag raiding impossible, and regular invasions incredibly difficult

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:41 pm**

How does it affect 'regular' raids at all? Being just the slightest bit organised and bingo, nothing different to now.

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 4:44 pm**

Land filled with People wrote:How does it affect 'regular' raids at all? Being just the slightest bit organised and bingo, nothing different to now.

I doesn't affect us nearly as much as it affect you.

"Hey guys, I see some raiders massing tonight. Let's try to intercept?"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to lave a nation in the WA. Too bad."

Not to mention it opens up a whole *world* of issues in dealing with regular players who just want to join the WA whenever.

Posted: **Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:34 pm**

IDK how much things have changed these last few months, but if any military is that disorganised, then all I can say is lol.

A simple solution is just to have admits delayed until after update finishes - with some page popping up saying "The Council is currently deliberating your admission" in the meantime.

NationStates

Summit Progression - Changes To Be Implemented