Things About Gameplay | New Musical "Into the Forums"

[La Navasse]

Predicting, not just watching

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Editions:

1 Thing About R/D Gameplay | July 12, 2016 - republished December 19, 2018

A Study in Toxicity | December 23, 2018

New Musical "Into the Forums" Premieres Pt. 1 | December 31, 2018

New Musical "Into the Forums" Premieres Pt. 2 | December 31, 2018

New Musical "Into the Forums" Premieres Pt. 3 | December 31, 2018

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Please, upvote our dispatches!

A long time ago, when I was only a little more than five months into NationStates, I wrote a very short essay detailing what I thought as the one thing about R/D gameplay at the time. This was back when my GP alignment was at near-Unibotian levels (-18, -10) and I strongly supported defenderdom, while also bringing a radically pessimistic attitude to almost everything. However, having matured somewhat and having a radically different alignment, I think I can bring better and more interesting things to the table on what I think and analyze on Gameplay. Having written Gameplay essays before (albeit not under my name)*, I feel confident that I can write on topics that will expand our horizons on how we think and open our minds on what could be true.

12/19/2018: I'm simply republishing the first Thing that I thought about Gameplay, which you can see here since I need to free up the OP for a future redesign and cover. I understand that you might simply disregard the repost and simply allow "this thread to sink to oblivion," as I have said before, but I'd like to hear about your opinions on the current state of R/D gameplay back then, and what has changed now.

*I won't answer requests on what I've published before, but this is an example I'm willing to release: Legitimacy of TITO and YDS

[The Forsworn Knights]

1 Thing:

Defenders are far outnumbered by Raiders.
Defenders rarely win.

When will this game end up in a time where defenders win at relatively the same frequency as raiders?
I'm thinking: never. It'll probably take up too much time to recode the various conditions that have to do with WA Delegates to let Defenders have a fighting chance.

Right now, regions are regularly being taken over by raiders. They aren't regularly being defended. The most is a liberation. Nothing more.
I guess we should "Let NationStates 'be' and just make do with raiders" for now - possibly forever. Who knows?

I won't be surprised if this thread sinks to oblivion.

From what I understand the Defenders used to be the dominant faction, however the rise of groups like The Black Riders who simply spammed raids on miniscule regions kinda drowned them out until they just gave up.
Then again, I am not a Gameplayer, so I am not the most reliable source.

[Gatito]

It's been a looooooong time since defenders had a significant advantage. Although the playing field has been somewhat leveled since predator was axed, so things may change soon.

[Tyrinth]

I get the impression you haven't raided recently.

[Tim-Opolis]

I get the impression you haven't seen the work of The Grey Wardens

Yeah, there's still a tough uphill, but we're getting more wins on the board these days for sure.

[The Forsworn Knights]

I believe that there are two reasons why Raiders seem to be having more of a noticeable impact.
>Raiders openly advertise their organizations very blatantly on every region they seize- Defenders dont.
>All of the Raider Groups that I have seen (Not saying this is every Raider Group) seem to primarily hit 5-15 inactive regions that generally only have 1-10 nations total, including puppet accounts. This means that there is an overwhelming number of regions that make good trophies for Raiders, but are simply not worth a Defender's time- whereas I have seen quite a few active mid-sized regions actively thanking Defender Organizations for helping them stay afloat and get back on track.

[Indo-Malaysia]

If there weren't any Raiders, the Defenders would be out of a job.

[Drop Your Pants]

If there weren't any Raiders, the Defenders would be out of a job.

And it would be lovely. Just think of all the effort both sides put into update but instead into regional politics.....it'd be more cut throat than normal

[Indo-Malaysia]

If there weren't any Raiders, the Defenders would be out of a job.

And it would be lovely. Just think of all the effort both sides put into update but instead into regional politics.....it'd be more cut throat than normal

It would be boring.

[Evil Wolf]

From what I understand the Defenders used to be the dominant faction, however the rise of groups like The Black Riders who simply spammed raids on miniscule regions kinda drowned them out until they just gave up.

Kinda, sorta, not really.

Back before Influence Defenders absolutely used to crush raiders on the daily. The Defender alliances of old were massive, included many well known regions, and, unlike the FRA, they actually protected the founderless regions in their group and would never have allowed them to be forced out under duress. The Alliance Defense Network, for example, at one time included TWP, TNP, TRR, and dozens of other Userite regions. Then Influenced was introduced.

When Influence fist came about players on both sides absolutely hated it and many declared the game "ruined forever" and just quit. Some defenders stated that their side had "won", somehow, and that the R/D game was no longer worth playing. The ADN and RLA, the two major defender alliances, collapsed almost overnight and no successor has ever emerged that matched them in terms of power, be it political or military.

Thus there was a vacuum of power, and us raiders were more than happy to fill this gap. Militarily, the results were felt quickly, but political our advantage was unplanned and took many years to occur. In the mean time Defenders were a complete mess and seeming left the political aspect entirely. This is how hard core defender GCRs fell out of their influence and started leaning more towards the raider side. The only person who I know of that tried to "recapture" former Defender allies in the GCRs was Unibot, and he turned out to be rather political incompetent, to be kind about it.

As far as defenders giving up when Tagging was refined and coined in 2010? Most had already quit well before then and their inability to stop every little raid, like their side had historically done, only added to the frustrations of those who remained. This, combined with the addition of a second update (thank me later), did have further demoralizing effects, true. But the defender side had long given up well before that.

In truth, this isn't a matter of advantage/disadvantage, this is a matter of motivation. Back at the height of Defender power, the defenders didn't have even half of the tools the current generation have and they were able to stop raiders just fine. If the ADN had the NSA page I doubt Raiders would have been able to take any targets at all, especially given how inaccurate update times were back then.

So basically it's not a question of balanced game mechanics, it's a question of motivation. The Grey Wardens have proven that, tactically, R/D is balanced. It's up to us, the players, to determine which side wins.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I get the impression you haven't seen the work of The Grey Wardens

Yeah, there's still a tough uphill, but we're getting more wins on the board these days for sure.

This. I'd say it's about an even skirmish at this moment.

[New Dukaine]

If you have seen peeps like TITO, you should see the Grey Wardens. Oh they are fast. OHHHH

[Deadeye Jack]

In truth, this isn't a matter of advantage/disadvantage, this is a matter of motivation. Back at the height of Defender power, the defenders didn't have even half of the tools the current generation have and they were able to stop raiders just fine. If the ADN had the NSA page I doubt Raiders would have been able to take any targets at all, especially given how inaccurate update times were back then.

Isn't that last part kind of a big deal though? Inaccurate update times would allow more casually paced update deployments than what we see now for defenders. Current update defenders have a near perfect win% against bad triggers when numbers are even or in our favor. Anything outside of 10-20 seconds is a fairly easy move for almost all defenders (that are paying attention) but we regularly have to deal with much tighter windows.

[Lord Ravenclaw]

1 Thing:

Defenders are far outnumbered by Raiders.
Defenders rarely win.

You can stop here dude. You really don't know anything to be making statements and passing them off as fact.

Any raider tool has at least a 20second delay on top of any other variance issues. Defenders spotting get a massively reduced delay via the activity page. Hint: watch TGW at update.

Unfortunately, they also know how to filter the page.

[Evil Wolf]

Inaccurate update times would allow more casually paced update deployments than what we see now for defenders.

It would also be of massive benefit to the Defender side. Raiders have to jump within seconds of a regions update because you lot have the NSA page, not to mention update scripts like Telescope. As you said, anything more than 10 seconds and we're drowning in Defenders. Only if the NSA page was heavily nurfed and those scripts were banned would wildly inaccurate update times be even remotely close to fair.

Also, Jack, it seems less like you're arguing for balance and more like you just want to beat the ever living snot out of updater raiders on a more calm and less rushed timeline.

Sod that.

[Deadeye Jack]

Inaccurate update times would allow more casually paced update deployments than what we see now for defenders.

It would also be of massive benefit to the Defender side. Raiders have to jump within seconds of a regions update because you lot have the NSA page, not to mention update scripts like Telescope. As you said, anything more than 10 seconds and we're drowning in Defenders. Only if the NSA page was heavily nurfed and those scripts were banned would wildly inaccurate update times be even remotely close to fair.

Also, Jack, it seems less like you're arguing for balance and more like you just want to beat the ever living snot out of updater raiders on a more calm and less rushed timeline.

Sod that.

I'm not arguing for any changes in my post, just that when talking about the success of the ADN and comparing it to defenders now, you have to consider the inaccurate update times the ADN and other old defender groups benefited from. Motivation is certainly a part of a problem for some of defending but you kinda just glossed over the update times. I haven't been around as long as you but did old defenders still have the World Assembly application feed that existed pre full blown activity page? Because if we had to use that we'd still do ok especially if we got the inaccurate update times.

[Atagait Denral]

1 Thing:

Defenders are far outnumbered by Raiders.
Defenders rarely win.

When will this game end up in a time where defenders win at relatively the same frequency as raiders?
I'm thinking: never. It'll probably take up too much time to recode the various conditions that have to do with WA Delegates to let Defenders have a fighting chance.

Right now, regions are regularly being taken over by raiders. They aren't regularly being defended. The most is a liberation. Nothing more.
I guess we should "Let NationStates 'be' and just make do with raiders" for now - possibly forever. Who knows?

I won't be surprised if this thread sinks to oblivion.

EDIT 1: I wonder when raiders will regain the advantage.

Hahahaha! Good one! It's almost like there's an entire R/D Summit trying to shoehorn broken unbalanced mechanics into the game that will make invading impractical! And beyond that, is it my imagination, or did the update order change a lot after 20XX was released?

Sure, invaders have a numerical updater advantage when you take all the raider orgs into account, but keep in mind that raiderdom is splintered into DOZENS of different orgs that refuse to work together for various reasons, making their raids easy pickings for TGW on the field.

So you're actually completely and utterly wrong. While it was the case that, back when everyone was either in TBH or DEN, raiderdom was dominant that simply isn't the case anymore. The scales have tipped to the defenders (for now), even if only slightly. Just wait for all the tiny raider groups to implode on themselves, and for their members to consolidate into one great raider region, or for all the raider regions to work together. Then we'll see the scales tip the other way.

[Evil Wolf]

I haven't been around as long as you but did old defenders still have the World Assembly application feed that existed pre full blown activity page? Because if we had to use that we'd still do ok especially if we got the inaccurate update times.

Yes, but it was limited to 10 viable actions at a time with no recorded history there rafter, so raiders could use a technique known as "WA/UN Board Clearing to hide their nations and make "clean" puppets. Later this was made extremely difficult when the number was increased to 20 (and the game was changed to prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time) and then impossible and obsolete when the NSA page was launched.

Defenders, on their part, maintained massive UN/WA dossiers by watching the UN/WA Activity Board. At one point they had to manually go through their dossiers page by page but were later given the Dossier activity page which made their task that much easier. All of these changes came out post-influence, so ADN and RLA were already dead. It's no exaggeration for me to say that Defenders now have it way easier than the pre-influence Defenders and yet perform much worse as a community on the whole.

But they still have the tactical advantage, so most of the whining seems to be centered on how invaders should be getting their asses handed to them, but aren't due to overall poor leadership on the Defender side. Nothing to change the whole R/D game about.

[Eluvatar]

Later this was made extremely difficult when the number was increased to 20 (and the game was changed to prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time) and then impossible and obsolete when the NSA page was launched.

To the best of my knowledge, no changes have been made that prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time. Are you perhaps referring to a change that made it impossible for multiple people to be logged in to the same nation at once?

I'm reasonably sure the Activity page predates that change, and the increase in the WA happenings (and later splitting out of a lengthy WA membership log) came long before the Activity page.

[The Ik Ka Ek Akai]

1 Thing:

Defenders are far outnumbered by Raiders.
Defenders rarely win.

When will this game end up in a time where defenders win at relatively the same frequency as raiders?
I'm thinking: never. It'll probably take up too much time to recode the various conditions that have to do with WA Delegates to let Defenders have a fighting chance.

Right now, regions are regularly being taken over by raiders. They aren't regularly being defended. The most is a liberation. Nothing more.
I guess we should "Let NationStates 'be' and just make do with raiders" for now - possibly forever. Who knows?

I won't be surprised if this thread sinks to oblivion.

From what I understand the Defenders used to be the dominant faction, however the rise of groups like The Black Riders who simply spammed raids on miniscule regions kinda drowned them out until they just gave up.
Then again, I am not a Gameplayer, so I am not the most reliable source.

TBR destroyed my original region consisting of literally me and nobody else. That's just a sad excuse for a "raid", and it makes me suspicious e'ermore of the numbers boasted by raider regions.

Basically, yeah. Plenty of raids of miniscule and worthless regions.

[The Agnostic Collective]

To be fair, most defender organisations are more of a reactionary force. Raiders have the element of surprise. By the time you're aware of it, it will be too late. Really, most Defender organisations are their own worst enemy because they focus on repelling, while they should be preventing. TGW is a prime example of what Defenders need to be. Defending by attacking.

[Evil Wolf]

Later this was made extremely difficult when the number was increased to 20 (and the game was changed to prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time) and then impossible and obsolete when the NSA page was launched.

To the best of my knowledge, no changes have been made that prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time. Are you perhaps referring to a change that made it impossible for multiple people to be logged in to the same nation at once?

I don't know, Elu. I remember a time when I could have a nation per tab. Now whenever I try that, it automatically logs me out of one nation and into the other. One of the Admins added that feature a while ago, like you said to prevent multiple people from being logged into the same nation, but it seemly effects one person being logged into multiple nations as well.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

[Flanderlion]

To the best of my knowledge, no changes have been made that prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time. Are you perhaps referring to a change that made it impossible for multiple people to be logged in to the same nation at once?

I don't know, Elu. I remember a time when I could have a nation per tab. Now whenever I try that, it automatically logs me out of one nation and into the other. One of the Admins added that feature a while ago, like you said to prevent multiple people from being logged into the same nation, but it seemly effects one person being logged into multiple nations as well.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

I just use different browsers, seems to work that way? Most browsers have development versions etc. so you can keep the same browser with a slightly different skin.

[Eluvatar]

To the best of my knowledge, no changes have been made that prevent you from logging into multiple nations at the same time. Are you perhaps referring to a change that made it impossible for multiple people to be logged in to the same nation at once?

I don't know, Elu. I remember a time when I could have a nation per tab. Now whenever I try that, it automatically logs me out of one nation and into the other. One of the Admins added that feature a while ago, like you said to prevent multiple people from being logged into the same nation, but it seemly effects one person being logged into multiple nations as well.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong?

That was never possible. No web browser holds more than one of the same session cookie at a time, full stop. If you need to be logged into multiple nations at once, you have to use multiple profiles or browsers, or use custom software instead of a web browser.

[Evil Wolf]

That was never possible. No web browser holds more than one of the same session cookie at a time, full stop. If you need to be logged into multiple nations at once, you have to use multiple profiles or browsers, or use custom software instead of a web browser.

That's simply not true, I remember this quite clearly. It's how I was able to WA/UN clear so quickly, because all I needed to do was apply, close tab, apply, close tab, etc.

I don't exactly remember when the change came about, but at some point that became impossible. But don't say it never happened, Eluvatar, because I did it and I know I'm not mis-remembering it.