[Region Locking] Something needs to be changed.

[General Halcones]

Triggers I use certainly aren't that short - they are no less than a minute if anything. I haven't really needed triggers in the past few updates actually, seeing that there is so little variance.

You shouldn't go too far with that. Having to use very short triggers will destroy the game.

P.S. Please bear in mind that each nation takes about 0.04 seconds to update. Introducing small variances on single nations in the range of deciseconds would have a significant impact. I do admit that it is very easy nowadays and there is barely any variance, compared to the old server which gave a longer more variable update. I am actually happy for the update to return to a more variable one, since this helps me beat some of my competition. Please ensure that you don't end up making an update that is more variable than the one on the previous server, since this would make the game too difficult.

[Cormac Stark]

This situation we have now is being masked as a technical problem because that's the easiest thing to blame, but the technical disadvantages are simply a problem kicking us further into a cycle of problems caused by dysfunctional interorganizational relations.

I'm totally with you on the need for defender solidarity, but there are still technical problems that need addressed. This isn't completely a matter of raiders being united and defenders being divided, because generally speaking one raider organization can effectively raid at update while one defender organization cannot effectively defend. If the technical situation were truly balanced then one defender organization and one raider organization would each have a balanced shot at being effective, which is not the case at the moment.

Raiders don't generally raid together at update; raider unity usually comes in after update, for piling. Given their technical advantages, greater defender solidarity would only be effective against raiders until they realize the need to work together at update -- at which time two or three raider organizations will start raiding together and we'll be right back where we are.

So I'm for promoting defender solidarity, but I don't think we should say "thanks but no thanks" to technical changes that would make the game more balanced rather than rigged in favor of raiders as it currently is. Having both raided and defended, I can tell you that raiding is much, much easier -- and that shouldn't be the case.

[Mahaj]

I'm with Cormac.

Some of the things can be fixed without admin intervention, but there are also very real problems that *do* require admin support.

[Unibot II]

I'm with Cormac.

Some of the things can be fixed without admin intervention, but there are also very real problems that *do* require admin support.

The major thing that needs to be fixed: lack of defender solidarity.. which causes most of our other problems and will continue to be a problem. If we get admin intervention now, many of us will not see a serious need for defender solidarity and horizontal intergovernmental and organizational cooperation -- but an admin intervention now is a patch-fix, not a systemic fix. Nonetheless, defenders will take this patch-fix before they go to the diplomatic table and sit down to talk... in fact a lot of bad things have to happen before defenders start collaborating again instead of just slinging poop. At this point, I'd rather those bad things happen and we overcome them later, then see the problem be "put off" with a quick admin intervention.

[Eist]

The major thing that needs to be fixed: lack of defender solidarity.

While I'm sure you really want this (as do I), I can't take you seriously if you think this is more important than fixing the game that facilitates literally unstoppable raids.

[Ballotonia]

The major thing that needs to be fixed: lack of defender solidarity.. which causes most of our other problems and will continue to be a problem. If we get admin intervention now, many of us will not see a serious need for defender solidarity and horizontal intergovernmental and organizational cooperation [...]

It is not the goal of the Admin team to either support or discourage cooperation between specific defender groups. Or invader groups, or any other groups for that matter. The game rewards cooperation in general but doesn't force it (nor should it), and the goal is to have a balanced and fun game to play overall. Withholding Admin 'intervention' isn't a tool to force something to happen in game. Stuff happening in the game is left to the players themselves, and if two defender groups fail to cooperate then they will simply have to stand on their own.

Ballotonia

[Sichuan Pepper]

Unibot is not arguing against this technical change on any solid basis. I do not believe technical formum is any place to be trying to force diplomatic cooperation and is derailing a valuable thread. Trying to manipulate this into a situation that he wont support unless TITO goes to a "bargaining table" with his organisation.
Frankly I am sick of it. Please stick to the subject matter Unibot. If you do not like the changes being suggested post a concrete alternative or reason not to do it that will affect the game and not meet your agenda.

[General Halcones]

I do believe the defenders should unite as one before requesting game changes. Uniting as one and having a real hard think together will allow them to at least keep up with the detags (you are already falling rapidly behind, only weeks after my return), and possibly allow you to stop some of our raids. If that doesn't work out, only then should you beg for game changes to save yourselves from complete defeat.

[Andacantra]

And I think that rather proves the point. You being able to tag an extortionate amount of regions in the space of a few days with such a minute chance of any possible resistance is rather indicative of why something needs to be changed. You tagging a load of region is no fun for anybody else, and you're just playing against the clock/server (which, with the exception of an update this weekend, has been pretty reliable, so that's not even much of a challenge).

Can somebody link me back to what Ballo's suggestion which has been refferred to was? I remember replying to it but I can't seem to find it.

[General Halcones]

You need to start predicting our movements, where we will strike next, rather than being reactive all the time. This is the adaptation you need. That would certainly slow us down.

[Unibot II]

Withholding Admin 'intervention' isn't a tool to force something to happen in game. Stuff happening in the game is left to the players themselves, and if two defender groups fail to cooperate then they will simply have to stand on their own.

You're being over-simplistic, Ballo. All game changes change the dynamics of the game itself; when updates were unrandomized .. this required changes to different defender organizations for them to continue to be efficient, something I'll note is, one of TITO's tactical officers at the time, adapted by increasing greater cooperation between organizations and streamlining the operational process of the organization so missions used update-times, for example.

The advent of the daily dumps meant greater accuracy for move-times just like how unrandomized updates meant greater accuracy then. I cannot comment on my knowledge of how TITO operates, but I don't think there's been as serious attempt to overhaul the procedures as AD did when he faced the threat of greater raider accuracy nor has there been more cooperation, there's been less interorganizational cooperation.

Players are currently holding out on cooperation because they're waiting for admins to magically fix stuff before they're forced to go sit down and talk about solutions and be constructive in their own camps and abroad. Cooperation and defender methodology changes were the solution before when we faced game changes with similar effects (albeit to not as great of an extent); that that is what is needed now and an admin fix would just be putting regrind on a bumpy road when we need to work together as players to pave the road anew.

If your basis of fixing things in game is to improve military gameplay (greater equality, for example), then I don't think you should risk undermining the actual improvement of Military Gameplay.

The major thing that needs to be fixed: lack of defender solidarity.

While I'm sure you really want this (as do I), I can't take you seriously if you think this is more important than fixing the game that facilitates literally unstoppable raids.

There are two totally unstoppable type of raids at two levels (the invasion and the post-invasion stage):

1. Raids done in under two seconds.

2. Raids that use extensive piling over about 100+ raiders as non-updaters.

I think (1) is becoming increasingly rare (Halcones is lying in Technical as usual, update is becoming inconsistent not less and his update-time margins are less and less prolific) and I would support game technology to limit (2), like a WA resolution to turn those situations into barrages.

Most tag-raids are run at about a four or five second margin .. these are totally stoppable if you have the man-power and you're using the right methodology. You and I both know the difference in how UDL/FRA and TITO operate (one specific thing I'm thinking of was a change the FRA had to make which TITO hasn't -- UDL was created later and adopted the new FRA style of defending) and why a group of UDLers can stop tag-raids, but TITO cannot with its current procedure -- arguing here it's just "impossible" is intellectually dishonest. Make changes, train and advance, Eist. I'm sorry.

Wordy, I don't think anything I've said is out of place in this discussion -- it's simply a different voice, discussing how Tech changes really aren't what is needed; there's stuff like inter-organizational cooperation which hasn't been genuinely tried. My only "agenda" is that I want to see Military Gameplay be more competitive and I'd like to see native communities be safer.

[Improving Wordiness]

What change are you arguing against?

[Unibot II]

What change are you arguing against?

I don't think the locking would be particularly helpful, it'd be a patch fix that would cause defenders not to do what needs to be done: adjustment and cooperation. If it were simply a lock that made sure raids and liberation could not be conducted in anything under a 4 second margin (with that as a -set- minimum), I think that'd be fine -- since that would simply stop invasions from happening that aren't possible to actually defend against -at all-.. often 2-3 second raids are too quick for your refresh to even show the invasion in time.

What I'd advocate for is update to occur for anyone in a region during the entirety of it's update plus a mandated four seconds. I called it a "ghost update" that trailed the actual update and counted endorsements and changed the delegate, four seconds after update occurs in the region. While the actual update for issues and stuff ran at the same speed as usual.

[Improving Wordiness]

The best proposal we have at the moment, in my opinion, is Ballotonia's idea about postponing Delegate elections for X seconds after someone moves in to the region. As discussed earlier, the benefit here is that it allows us to impose a minimum on the amount of time between someone moving in and the region updating. It might only need to be a small floor, e.g. 30 seconds, but this would narrowly target our main problem, that the system encourages raiders to launch unstoppable invasions that occur within a few seconds of a region's update time.

I'd like to hear more comments around this. E.g. how might players react and adapt? How might they abuse it? What if someone moves in and out every 30 seconds for several hours?

Well this is currently under discussion.

[General Halcones]

I think (1) is becoming increasingly rare (Halcones is lying in Technical as usual, update is becoming inconsistent not less and his update-time margins are less and less prolific)

Incorrect. The variance is considerably less nowadays than before. I am being absolutely honest. Perhaps your calculation methods are just awful, Uni?

[Frisbeeteria]

I think that if the interpersonal snarkiness continues, this thread will become useless and the idea will be dumped. Get back on topic, and knock off 100% of the flamebaiting.

[Unibot II]

I think (1) is becoming increasingly rare (Halcones is lying in Technical as usual, update is becoming inconsistent not less and his update-time margins are less and less prolific)

Incorrect. The variance is considerably less nowadays than before. I am being absolutely honest. Perhaps your calculation methods are just awful, Uni?

Variance is considerably less than before you retired with the old server, but variance has been increasing since the creation of the new server which will become a problem again for raiders. After variance returns to pre-new-server levels and surpasses the old levels, my calculative methods will seem perfectly fine, Halc.

Often times, dealing with new issues and how to adapt to these issues when they arise not only emphasizes the importance of innovation and observation for organizations, but institutional memory as well. Will TBRers, five months from now deal the same way with variance as you did? Will they be able to overcome greater variance than you had to deal with? All questions I look forward to see answered when the time comes.

[Mallorea and Riva]

If Unibot is correct then this problem will soon resolve itself. I haven't triggered recently so I don't know if he is. Someone could get some hard numbers on this, Ballo is there any kind of record that is kept that could indicate whether variance is on the rise?

[Gest]

What change are you arguing against?

I don't think the locking would be particularly helpful, it'd be a patch fix that would cause defenders not to do what needs to be done: adjustment and cooperation. If it were simply a lock that made sure raids and liberation could not be conducted in anything under a 4 second margin (with that as a -set- minimum), I think that'd be fine -- since that would simply stop invasions from happening that aren't possible to actually defend against -at all-.. often 2-3 second raids are too quick for your refresh to even show the invasion in time.

What I'd advocate for is update to occur for anyone in a region during the entirety of it's update plus a mandated four seconds. I called it a "ghost update" that trailed the actual update and counted endorsements and changed the delegate, four seconds after update occurs in the region. While the actual update for issues and stuff ran at the same speed as usual.

If I were on the other side I would hold out for a bigger number. 10 seems like a solid number to me but who knows. Frankly anything seems better than a nation being able to move back and forth between a region and thus extending the delegate change of a region indefinitely. There's no "skill" , a word thrown around far too often and frankly demeaned by both sides, involved in such a maneuver.

[Mahaj]

I think that if the interpersonal snarkiness continues, this thread will become useless and the idea will be dumped. Get back on topic, and knock off 100% of the flamebaiting.

I hope not.

That's *exactly* what some people want to happen.

[Eist]

If Unibot is correct then this problem will soon resolve itself. I haven't triggered recently so I don't know if he is. Someone could get some hard numbers on this, Ballo is there any kind of record that is kept that could indicate whether variance is on the rise?

I haven't noticed any change in the variance. That said, because triggers are placed only a few seconds before a target region updates, I hardly see how what amounts to a fraction of a fraction of a second really matters. We are talking about variance in the order of muscle movement speeds here -- patently ridiculous.

[Unibot II]

If I were on the other side I would hold out for a bigger number. 10 seems like a solid number to me but who knows. Frankly anything seems better than a nation being able to move back and forth between a region and thus extending the delegate change of a region indefinitely. There's no "skill" , a word thrown around far too often and frankly demeaned by both sides, involved in such a maneuver.

I'm more looking at preventing what is impossible to defend against -- the game breaks down at about less than 4 seconds. If you refresh too hard, oftentimes the reports page just breaks apart.

10 -used- to be the de facto standard for FRA liberations when I was involved with them back in 2009 -- in other words, you planned for 10 seconds between the move-time and update-time .. you could get more or less depending on variance.

But there was a change to the system: eject and ban buttons were added to nation pages, making raiders more efficient at banning and ejecting people arriving into the region.

In my experience, raiders are usually slow to react.. but quick once they react. So if your move-margin is.. say, five seconds before update, you're not likely to have any more than one casualty. If your move-margin is 10 seconds before update, you're likely to burn through about 10 causalities. There aren't too many missions that can survive ten causalities.

[General Halcones]

Triggers are certainly never placed a few seconds before a target. I usually place them a minute back, if anything. Currently, I am finding triggers unnecessary due to the little variance. Very interesting Uni, that you think variance will increase. I'd perhaps welcome that as it makes my game with the server more challenging.

[Unibot II]

Triggers are certainly never placed a few seconds before a target.

I'm talking about likelihood liberators will be ejected and banned due to specific move-times-to-update-time margins which are mere seconds, not trigger-time-to-move-time margin which is more than a few seconds for defenders too.

[[violet]]

Let's break this into two parts. In the short-term, we're going to make a relatively small change to slightly increase randomness into update times. This is meant as a band-aid to the situation where invaders can confidently move into a target region within a second or two of update time, leaving nothing for defenders and natives to do. It won't be a perfect fix, but it will be better than what we have now.

In the longer-term, by which I mean possibly around November or December, I would like to run a summit to comprehensively review the R/D game, with a view to making significant changes. This will consider things like the switching mechanism, influence, unique rules for feeders, deferred elections, and other similar ideas.

Because it's difficult to discuss these ideas in a regular thread without it becoming derailed, this summit will be highly structured. It will work like this: firstly, we'll put out a call for applications to join the summit. We'll be looking for a representative from most major stakeholder groups--which includes defender or invader organizations, but need not be limited to those. Anyone can apply, but we will be looking for people who want to engage in constructive dialog rather than political point-scoring.

We'll select a number of representatives and a chairperson (who will probably be a mod/admin). The chairperson will open a thread for the summit. The only posts permitted in the thread will be those explicitly called for by the chairperson: all other posts will be deleted. Even reps must wait their turn, and not post whenever they feel like it. The chairperson will first call for an opening statement from each rep to provide a (word-limited) overview of their community/organization/belief system's feelings about R/D: what works, what doesn't, and how we can make it better.

Everyone will have a little time to digest that and prepare a response, which the chairperson will then invite them to post, and we'll move forward from there, eliminating some ideas and refining others.

The aim of the summit will be to identify what changes we can make to best improve the R/D experience overall. Hopefully we can emerge from it with a relatively small set of interesting proposals which we can implement over the following months.