NationStates

Icrum wrote:

The Hellsing Empire wrote:Why are the outcomes of your choices so damn extreme? Just had a choice about tax rates and I chose that high income earners should pay a bit more and poor populace pay a bit less. But the outcome was that my high income earners pay 100% of their income in taxes.... Seriously!?!?!? That's just stupid, and doesn't make any logical sense at all. I thought his "game" was to be somewhat simulated with a few "extremeness" to it but god damn. Where is the line draw? That choice alone just almost made me want to quit this game. Hell now I spend a few hours trying to decide what to chose in a legislation because I know the outcome will only cripple my country, not help it.

Seriously the line has to be drawn somewhere. I already have one Issue I need to resolved and I'm already afraid on what the choices will be.

The game is supposed to have extreme outcomes. That's what makes it quirky.

It's supposed to have a learning effect, too. Showing you that there's no completely right or wrong way to answer an issue, that some people will always be unhappy.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:
How many times do I have to say it?

IT'S NOT THE ISSUES THAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH, IT'S THE OUTCOMES!

I don't have a problem choosing an issue, its the outcome that forces me to think if I should chose it or not.

Yes, we get it. Most of us feel the same way, so we understand your frustration, and we see where you're coming from.
But what is the point of complaining about the game's issues if you're obviously not going to change anything? I've seen dozens of complaint-based threads like this before, and I can conclude that they've been going on since the game's creation. None of them have made any impact whatsoever, so why would yours?

Sanctaria wrote:

The Hellsing Empire wrote:
You call 100% tax rate exaggerated or a quirk? It's down right stupidity.

As I said, the line needs to be drawn somewhere.

Issues will appear that will allow you to decrease that tax rate. Nothing is stopping you choosing those options.

Will it, or will it lead my nation into ruins? The way these outcomes are, most likely to ruin.

Jute wrote:

Icrum wrote:It's supposed to have a learning effect, too. Showing you that there's no completely right or wrong way to answer an issue, that some people will always be unhappy.

And I'm not trying to make everyone in my nation happy. I'm trying to make choices that will have outcomes that I'm happy about. I chose what is best for my people, not what they think is best. How can I chose the best when all it does is lead them to ruin?

United North Atlantic States wrote:

The Hellsing Empire wrote:
How many times do I have to say it?

IT'S NOT THE ISSUES THAT I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH, IT'S THE OUTCOMES!

I don't have a problem choosing an issue, its the outcome that forces me to think if I should chose it or not.

Yes, we get it. Most of us feel the same way, so we understand your frustration, and we see where you're coming from.
But what is the point of complaining about the game's issues if you're obviously not going to change anything? I've seen dozens of complaint-based threads like this before, and I can conclude that they've been going on since the game's creation. None of them have made any impact whatsoever, so why would yours?

And what is yours? Obviously your choice to tell players otherwise have not made an impact either.

This game is supposed to be comical.

Kargintina wrote:This game is supposed to be comical.

Oh really? I've seen nothing funny ever since I started. Hell that's counting the other 2 times when I started.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:

Sanctaria wrote:Issues will appear that will allow you to decrease that tax rate. Nothing is stopping you choosing those options.

Will it, or will it lead my nation into ruins? The way these outcomes are, most likely to ruin.

Depends on your outlook, really. To a diehard, Freedom loving capitalist, communism is ruin. While to a communist, the opposite is true.
Point being, your definition of ruin is not inherently the same as everyone else's. Issues have unintended results, every choice anyone made in the history of ever caused unintended consequences. I don't think that when the Holy Roman Emperor started to execute protestants in Bohemia and elsewhere* that he would start the longest and most destructive war in European history.

*might not be exact cause, point still stands though.

The answer to your question is actually located conveniently in Frequently Asked Questions

http://www.nationstates.net/page=faq

You sound like you hate nationstates. You should quit then.

Juese Banyan wrote:You sound like you hate nationstates. You should quit then.

I hate alot of things: People, Society, ect. The one thing I only hate about this game is the outcomes of your choices.

Valrifell wrote:
Depends on your outlook, really. To a diehard, Freedom loving capitalist, communism is ruin. While to a communist, the opposite is true.
Point being, your definition of ruin is not inherently the same as everyone else's. Issues have unintended results, every choice anyone made in the history of ever caused unintended consequences. I don't think that when the Holy Roman Emperor started to execute protestants in Bohemia and elsewhere* that he would start the longest and most destructive war in European history.

*might not be exact cause, point still stands though.

The only political view, or government I side with is the one I am trying to forge for my nation. I'm neither Communist, Monarchy, Democracy, ect. Only what my personal beliefs what a government should be, but that is impossible to do on here with these far left and right wing outcomes.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:

Valrifell wrote:
Depends on your outlook, really. To a diehard, Freedom loving capitalist, communism is ruin. While to a communist, the opposite is true.
Point being, your definition of ruin is not inherently the same as everyone else's. Issues have unintended results, every choice anyone made in the history of ever caused unintended consequences. I don't think that when the Holy Roman Emperor started to execute protestants in Bohemia and elsewhere* that he would start the longest and most destructive war in European history.

*might not be exact cause, point still stands though.

The only political view, or government I side with is the one I am trying to forge for my nation. I'm neither Communist, Monarchy, Democracy, ect. Only what my personal beliefs what a government should be, but that is impossible to do on here with these far left and right wing outcomes.

I still don't understand the issue, effects aren't a real reflection on your nation.

Strip it down. Nine times out of ten, the choices are self explanatory and the only difficulty I have is in figuring out whether something is civil and political (and no, the issues are not consistent in their own definitions of what civil and political is).

So, to avoid any spoilers everything here on will be wrapped in a spoiler tag. My entry in blue.



I cannot guarantee the results or even whether they are correct. What I can say is that be splitting the sentences down into components and analysing each word and what it means, you can discern the original intent and how it will affect your nation.

There's a particular tax issue for instance, that completely cripples your economy. (It frequently makes the rounds as a 'bug'). It seems like it'd be an obvious choice to reduce tax rates and therefore reduce that 80% tax you've been carrying for a while... only for it to then scupper EVERYTHING. Oh the time it took me to get my economy back on track after that... -_-.

You might not like the results you get from issues, that the tax rate jumps from 40% to 100% but consider them accidents during the legislation phase... perhaps two bills have compounded their effects. Now you have to work through and slowly resolve the situation. To me this is the nature of politics, something somewhere somehow will screw up despite every precaution you take (for instance, we took almost every precaution against the Ukraine being invaded...and then what does russia go and do?) and then you spend the next ten years digging yourself out of the hole... the best example of this is how the US and half the developed world reduced banking regulations to increase the freedom of the market, only to be stuck with a 10-year recession for it. Everyone was so convinced that if we free to the market just that little more it will be better for everyone.

Valrifell wrote:

The Hellsing Empire wrote:

The only political view, or government I side with is the one I am trying to forge for my nation. I'm neither Communist, Monarchy, Democracy, ect. Only what my personal beliefs what a government should be, but that is impossible to do on here with these far left and right wing outcomes.

I still don't understand the issue, effects aren't a real reflection on your nation.

The issue is that The Hellsing Empire believes that the Choices they are selecting have next to no relation to the outcome or are vastly too extreme. Well extreme is the nature of the game and having next to no relation is usually due to misinterpreting the statements given. Some of them can after all be very complex and some are counter intuitive (not to mention a few traps out there) but when you re-examine them, most of the time, they do what they say they're going to do.

Regnum Tutelar wrote:

Valrifell wrote:
I still don't understand the issue, effects aren't a real reflection on your nation.

The issue is that The Hellsing Empire believes that the Choices they are selecting have next to no relation to the outcome or are vastly too extreme. Well extreme is the nature of the game and having next to no relation is usually due to misinterpreting the statements given. Some of them can after all be very complex and some are counter intuitive (not to mention a few traps out there) but when you re-examine them, most of the time, they do what they say they're going to do.

I was under the impression the whole ordeal was off of him questioning the wording of the [effect] line, and as to why it was so extreme. And not the actual, programmed, results that come with the issue.

Regnum Tutelar wrote:Strip it down. Nine times out of ten, the choices are self explanatory and the only difficulty I have is in figuring out whether something is civil and political (and no, the issues are not consistent in their own definitions of what civil and political is).

So, to avoid any spoilers everything here on will be wrapped in a spoiler tag. My entry in blue.

A surprise raid conducted on ISPs over the last week in The Hellsing Empire shows that more than 30% of all Internet data transfer in The Hellsing Empire at one time or another is used by illegal file-shares to illegally distribute files, most notably songs.
The Debate

"What we need to do is hack their computers and format their hard drives," says Konrad Schultz, recording industry representative. "People need to be taught to not mess with the law. This is theft, pure and simple. And they're not only halving our revenue to tune of billions of Hellsing Marks, but you are also stealing a few hundredths of a Hellsing Mark from the artist for every song they steal. THINK OF THE STARVING ARTISTS!"

"What we need to do is hack their computers" this implies no consent and therefore authoritarianism. Consider this a -1 to Civil Rights (???). "Think of the starving artists" implies that it 'might' improve jobs... and therefore possibly your economy. -1 to Civil Rights, +1 to Economy.

"Yo, dude, like, don't be hatin' man," says teenager Marleen Winters. "We're like, going to change the whole structure of our society. Everything should be like, publicly available to, like, everybody, dude. Copyrights are so, like, uncool man and we need to get rid of them. That'd be totally radical, and cool as well."

"Everything should be publicly available" Communism anyone? This stinks of Economic oppression (-1 to Economy). I know there's a plus one in there somewhere, theft is probably a +1 to Civil rights, who knows. Copyrights tend to intrude on what a person can and cannot do for instance.

"Yo, dang, blizzity blang, yo, this ain't, right, yo," says Ivan Yeats, famous rapper with three platinum albums. "Dang, yo, we dang need to copy-protect my dang CDs, yo. That dang playability life dang decreases, yo, but it's the only way to stop this, dang, yo."

... lets translate this first... and take out all the non-words...
"this ain't, right" says Ivan Yeats, famous rapper with three platinum albums. " we need to copy-protect my CDs, That playability life decreases, but it's the only way to stop this"

So right here, you're talking about Artist rights or the rights of Producers/Business owners... possibly a +1 to Political Rights here. I'm not sure if it would affect the economy, but it does again affect how users are able to interact with their devices. Copy Protect means Digital Rights Management.

I cannot guarantee the results or even whether they are correct. What I can say is that be splitting the sentences down into components and analysing each word and what it means, you can discern the original intent and how it will affect your nation.

There's a particular tax issue for instance, that completely cripples your economy. (It frequently makes the rounds as a 'bug'). It seems like it'd be an obvious choice to reduce tax rates and therefore reduce that 80% tax you've been carrying for a while... only for it to then scupper EVERYTHING. Oh the time it took me to get my economy back on track after that... -_-.

You might not like the results you get from issues, that the tax rate jumps from 40% to 100% but consider them accidents during the legislation phase... perhaps two bills have compounded their effects. Now you have to work through and slowly resolve the situation. To me this is the nature of politics, something somewhere somehow will screw up despite every precaution you take (for instance, we took almost every precaution against the Ukraine being invaded...and then what does russia go and do?) and then you spend the next ten years digging yourself out of the hole... the best example of this is how the US and half the developed world reduced banking regulations to increase the freedom of the market, only to be stuck with a 10-year recession for it. Everyone was so convinced that if we free to the market just that little more it will be better for everyone.

Valrifell wrote:The only political view, or government I side with is the one I am trying to forge for my nation. I'm neither Communist, Monarchy, Democracy, ect. Only what my personal beliefs what a government should be, but that is impossible to do on here with these far left and right wing outcomes.

I still don't understand the issue, effects aren't a real reflection on your nation.

.... Yes, yes they are. They reflect the choices that you made and how you want your nation to be.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:

United North Atlantic States wrote:Yes, we get it. Most of us feel the same way, so we understand your frustration, and we see where you're coming from.
But what is the point of complaining about the game's issues if you're obviously not going to change anything? I've seen dozens of complaint-based threads like this before, and I can conclude that they've been going on since the game's creation. None of them have made any impact whatsoever, so why would yours?

And what is yours? Obviously your choice to tell players otherwise have not made an impact either.

My "choice to tell players otherwise"? WTF are you even talking about???

Personally, I don't take the issue effects too literally. I interpret them as more like tabloid reporting. You institute a tax. "100% tax on top earners!" scream FOX talking heads. You cut politicians' salaries. "MPs living in cardboard boxes!" moan clickbait bloggers. Political argument always defaults to slippery-slopes, and that's what NS models. So don't necessarily think of the issue outcomes as being what literally happens, but rather as how your opponents will frame your choices.

That's my 100% non-sanctioned headcanon means of playing NS and staying sane, anyway.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:

Kargintina wrote:This game is supposed to be comical.

Oh really? I've seen nothing funny ever since I started. Hell that's counting the other 2 times when I started.

I've found the issues funny a lot of times. It's part of what I like about them, especially their sometimes extreme outcomes? It's supposed to teach you the lesson that you can't always control the outcome of your decisions. And you can find ways in rp to explain the extreme outcomes away, too.

What you can do is roleplay as a nation that keeps an eye on what other nations are going through, then just google issue results before choosing what you want. Hell, it even happens in real life; before a nation decides to try out something they sometimes take a look at their close neighbors to see how well things have worked out for them.

The Flying Castle wrote:What you can do is roleplay as a nation that keeps an eye on what other nations are going through, then just google issue results before choosing what you want. Hell, it even happens in real life; before a nation decides to try out something they sometimes take a look at their close neighbors to see how well things have worked out for them.

Except that a lot of issues don't have results published. Anyone know the other results to the monorail issue?

Neither are known results 100% accurate what with all the variables, but it does make role-playing easier along with having more control.

The Hellsing Empire wrote:Why are the outcomes of your choices so damn extreme? Just had a choice about tax rates and I chose that high income earners should pay a bit more and poor populace pay a bit less. But the outcome was that my high income earners pay 100% of their income in taxes.... Seriously!?!?!? That's just stupid, and doesn't make any logical sense at all. I thought his "game" was to be somewhat simulated with a few "extremeness" to it but god damn. Where is the line draw? That choice alone just almost made me want to quit this game. Hell now I spend a few hours trying to decide what to chose in a legislation because I know the outcome will only cripple my country, not help it.

Seriously the line has to be drawn somewhere. I already have one Issue I need to resolved and I'm already afraid on what the choices will be.

I picked that issue in the past and my nation wasn't crippled. Perhaps you are being a bit extreme in your complaints. Something extreme to you might not be extreme to me or someone else.

Games should challenge you in some way. If you checked you would notice that many nations are inoffensive centrist democracies. You can't be too extreme to have that government type so they seem to be doing what you say isn't possible.

Sometimes the only choices are extreme, sometimes there are moderate choices, sometimes the issue is one sided, sometimes not and you can always dismiss.

Since most issue choices have a historical precedent I don't see what the fuss is about other than you didn't like the description. Descriptions are meant to be exagerated. It's part of the game and the descriptions are meant to describe a host of variables that pertain to any particular choice of any particular issue. It's only the WA's description of the issue results and may not accurately describe exactly what happened in your nation. That is what your factbooks are for and other issues. Unless you stop answering issues that will not be the end result for your nation and you can always tweak any results you didn't particulary like (except a rare few issue choices that completely screw up your nation and make it very difficult to recover from, but this issue isn't one of them).

Highest Ever Tax Rate UK: 99.25%
Highest Ever Tax Rate US: 91%

There has probably been higher somewhere in history.