Get rid of the ban limit

[Mallorea and Riva]

Now that influence places limitations on one's ability to empty a feeder/sinker, is there any reason why we need a 200 nation cap on the ban list? Speaking from personal experience I can tell you that it is rather annoying to watch groups of players flood a region with hundreds of puppets to fill the ban list in an attempt to overwhelm a feeder.

[Eist]

Puppet flooding is illegal and you should report it when you see it: viewtopic.php?p=8150549#p8150549

[Sedgistan]

Sadly, it's also a nightmare to enforce, particularly in large regions such as feeders and when several players may be involved over a period of days. Mall has a fair point.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Puppet flooding is illegal and you should report it when you see it: viewtopic.php?p=8150549#p8150549

We tried, but thousands of puppets do not make it easy.

Sadly, it's also a nightmare to enforce, particularly in large regions such as feeders and when several players may be involved over a period of days. Mall has a fair point.

is there any reason not to remove it?

[Ballotonia]

If someone wants to puppet flood a region, they are technically not stoppable by a regular game mechanic. If they run out of puppets they can simply make new ones. Even having no ban limit at all doesn't prevent this.

So, removing the ban limit isn't a solution to your problem. It merely means more puppets will be created, and the banlist will get longer, and longer, and longer.

Ballotonia

[Mallorea and Riva]

If someone wants to puppet flood a region, they are technically not stoppable by a regular game mechanic. If they run out of puppets they can simply make new ones. Even having no ban limit at all doesn't prevent this.

So, removing the ban limit isn't a solution to your problem. It merely means more puppets will be created, and the banlist will get longer, and longer, and longer.

Ballotonia

At least they would have to make new nations first. Besides, they did it BECAUSE there is a ban limit. There is an incentive to flood, namely an outdated game mechanic that no one has thus far found any justification for keeping.

[Ballotonia]

If someone wants to puppet flood a region, they are technically not stoppable by a regular game mechanic. If they run out of puppets they can simply make new ones. Even having no ban limit at all doesn't prevent this.

So, removing the ban limit isn't a solution to your problem. It merely means more puppets will be created, and the banlist will get longer, and longer, and longer.

Ballotonia

At least they would have to make new nations first. Besides, they did it BECAUSE there is a ban limit. There is an incentive to flood, namely an outdated game mechanic that no one has thus far found any justification for keeping.

The banlist was instated in response to the situation you're welcoming back...

EDIT: viewtopic.php?p=22122#p22122

Ballotonia

[Tsmida Eri]

Why not just limit people to only being able to create, say, 30-50 nations? I mean really, most people barely have more than 5 nations anyway. What's all this 'as many as you like' crap? That only encourages them to spam, troll, flame, and bait.

[Sedgistan]

Why not just limit people to only being able to create, say, 30-50 nations? I mean really, most people barely have more than 5 nations anyway. What's all this 'as many as you like' crap? That only encourages them to spam, troll, flame, and bait.

While apparently that is correct in your case, there are plenty of gameplayers who use large numbers of nations to play the game in a rules-abiding manner.

[Mallorea and Riva]

At least they would have to make new nations first. Besides, they did it BECAUSE there is a ban limit. There is an incentive to flood, namely an outdated game mechanic that no one has thus far found any justification for keeping.

The banlist was instated in response to the situation you're welcoming back...

EDIT: viewtopic.php?p=22122#p22122

Ballotonia

And what good does the banlist limit serve now Ballo?

[Mallorea and Riva]

Bump for comments/Ballo's response.

[Ballotonia]

Bump for comments/Ballo's response.

It is so the banlist doesn't become unwieldy large. Removing it also means people that who insist on spamming a region will simply do so by creating even MORE throwaway nations. Let's not start a battle between who is faster: nation creation by X people or a delegate banning them all. While the server has quite some disk space, there IS a limit.

The only way I see for feeders/sinkers to not become overwhelmed in a puppet flood is modly interference.

EDIT: also, a flaw in your logic is that you should be arguing what the advantages are of a suggested change, not proposing something and then demand others explain why it should not be so.

Ballotonia

[Mallorea and Riva]

Bump for comments/Ballo's response.

It is so the banlist doesn't become unwieldy large.

If it becomes large then the players can deal with it. Embassy lists become unwieldly large but you haven't placed a cap on those, you let the players make their own choices on the matter.

Removing it also means people that who insist on spamming a region will simply do so by creating even MORE throwaway nations.

You're failing to make a distinction between those who spam a region for the sake of spam, and those who spam for a gameplay purpose. In the events that Sedge and I were thinking about the players are spamming the region specifically to overwhelm the ban list so that I could not remove other puppets of theirs. This was nearly impossible to moderate due to the number of players participating. In the event you are talking about, a single player would be responsible (presumably). Since every region with the exception of the GCR has the admin ability to lock themselves in order to prevent further spamming until moderation arrives, you are basing your argument on both a solved problem and a misinterpretation of my position.

The only way I see for feeders/sinkers to not become overwhelmed in a puppet flood is modly interference.

In the event of a malicious attack you may be right, although a continue ability to banject may help alleviate the spam on the feeder/sinker's RBM. However in the gameplay related scenarios which we are actually talking about here, you have a moderator above me agreeing with my assessment.

EDIT: also, a flaw in your logic is that you should be arguing what the advantages are of a suggested change, not proposing something and then demand others explain why it should not be so.

Ballotonia

I did explain the advantages Ballo. There is currently an incentive to puppet flood in order to overwhelm a sitting delegate in a feeder/sinker, and there is next to nothing that player can do about it.

[Afforess]

Bump for comments/Ballo's response.

It is so the banlist doesn't become unwieldy large.

The fact is that skilled players with scripts (*looks at Mahaj*) can easily create thousands of nations in an hour to flood a region. This makes defending it particularly hard, and makes ban-lists pointless. Banlists are ineffective unless they have no size limit. Regions don't have a size limit, so why should ban lists.

Removing it also means people that who insist on spamming a region will simply do so by creating even MORE throwaway nations. Let's not start a battle between who is faster: nation creation by X people or a delegate banning them all. While the server has quite some disk space, there IS a limit.

I think you are wrong. If delegates can ban nations as fast as a scripter can create them, then flooding puppets becomes an ineffective tactic. You have artificially imposed barriers on delegates, but not on puppet-makers, which is the only reason it is an effective tactic. Either limit the number of puppets you can make (to match the banlist size), or remove all the limits on the banlists. Otherwise you are clearly favoring defenders and are biased.

[Luna Amore]

The fact is that skilled players with scripts (*looks at Mahaj*) can easily create thousands of nations in an hour to flood a region. This makes defending it particularly hard, and makes ban-lists pointless. Banlists are ineffective unless they have no size limit. Regions don't have a size limit, so why should ban lists

It's illegal to create nations or move nations via scripts.

OSRS

It is illegal to use a tool to automatically cause something in the gameworld to change, other than your own nation. Examples include: moving regions, sending a telegram to another nation, banning a nation from a region, creating a nation, and endorsing another nation.

[Afforess]

The fact is that skilled players with scripts (*looks at Mahaj*) can easily create thousands of nations in an hour to flood a region. This makes defending it particularly hard, and makes ban-lists pointless. Banlists are ineffective unless they have no size limit. Regions don't have a size limit, so why should ban lists

It's illegal to create nations or move nations via scripts.

OSRS

It is illegal to use a tool to automatically cause something in the gameworld to change, other than your own nation. Examples include: moving regions, sending a telegram to another nation, banning a nation from a region, creating a nation, and endorsing another nation.

Oh he has a button he presses to make each one, so it's technically legal. He can still make then plenty fast though.

[Mallorea and Riva]

It's illegal to create nations or move nations via scripts.

OSRS

It is illegal to use a tool to automatically cause something in the gameworld to change, other than your own nation. Examples include: moving regions, sending a telegram to another nation, banning a nation from a region, creating a nation, and endorsing another nation.

Oh he has a button he presses to make each one, so it's technically legal. He can still make then plenty fast though.

Indeed.

[Ballotonia]

However in the gameplay related scenarios which we are actually talking about here, you have a moderator above me agreeing with my assessment.

When making decisions on changing the game or not, one has to consider ALL groups in the game. Not merely focus on one group (Gameplayers) or one type of region (feeders).

Secondly, in technical / game code matters Moderators do not trump Game Admins (just like Game Admins do not trump Moderators when it comes to moderation issues).

Thirdly, Sedge merely stated you had a fair point. I'll also concede you have a fair point. That doesn't automatically mean that what you propose is a Good Idea. There are other (technical) considerations: we don't want the banlist to become unwieldy. That's not unwieldy for players, but unwieldy for the game to process. It should be sufficiently fast to process as to not increase the occurrence of timing-related bugs.

Otherwise you are clearly favoring defenders and are biased.

Funny accusation. Mall is arguing that the banlist limit makes it too difficult to defend regions, GCR's specifically. You here argue that I'm favoring defenders by not immediately removing the banlist when he asked.


[violet] instituted the banlist limit when banlists became 'too big'. That's quite some time ago though, and servers are a lot faster nowadays. We haven't revisited the banlist limit since, so increasing it is definitely a consideration. So let's argue the pro's and cons and possible side-effects, and then decide. Reminder: "why not?" is not a valid argument.

Ballotonia

[Afforess]

Otherwise you are clearly favoring defenders and are biased.

Funny accusation. Mall is arguing that the banlist limit makes it too difficult to defend regions, GCR's specifically. You here argue that I'm favoring defenders by not immediately removing the banlist when he asked.

I don't see how that is incongruent. GCR's are in general, raider regions. So making it harder for raiders to defend their regions is a clear defender bias.

[Purpelia]

Here is a proposal than. Why not allow the region to ban players instead of nations? As in just make an additional button to IP ban someone from your region. That should at least discourage the less technically minded flooders.

[Mallorea and Riva]

However in the gameplay related scenarios which we are actually talking about here, you have a moderator above me agreeing with my assessment.

When making decisions on changing the game or not, one has to consider ALL groups in the game. Not merely focus on one group (Gameplayers) or one type of region (feeders).

That is obviously not true.

Secondly, in technical / game code matters Moderators do not trump Game Admins (just like Game Admins do not trump Moderators when it comes to moderation issues).

Yeah which is why when you tell me something that Sedge disagrees with in terms of the way moderating gameplay works, I am inclined to believe him over you. On top of that you have not expressed any coding concerns regarding this change other than the banlist becoming large (you still have failed to indicate why exactly that is a problem) and nations being created (which I indicated will not happen in the scenarios we are discussing).

Thirdly, Sedge merely stated you had a fair point. I'll also concede you have a fair point. That doesn't automatically mean that what you propose is a Good Idea. There are other (technical) considerations: we don't want the banlist to become unwieldy. That's not unwieldy for players, but unwieldy for the game to process. It should be sufficiently fast to process as to not increase the occurrence of timing-related bugs.

At what point would that happen? Three hundred? Three thousand? Three hundred thousand? Sedge agreed that there is a problem (contrary to your claim that I failed to indicate any reason to change this besides "we can!").

And I am skeptical of your claim that the banlimit exists to prevent the game from slowing down. It was my understanding that the limit was put into place as a result of the delegacy of Francos Spain. Kandarin certainly seems to share the thought in this thread, which was never responded to sadly. In fact until you said it here, I have never heard that given as the raison d'etre of the banlimit. I have further agreement from Goober. None of them say anything about the game slowing down or glitching as a result of the bans, but rather that the limit was in place because of the lack of influence/the difficulty the mods had ruling in the case.

Otherwise you are clearly favoring defenders and are biased.

Funny accusation. Mall is arguing that the banlist limit makes it too difficult to defend regions, GCR's specifically. You here argue that I'm favoring defenders by not immediately removing the banlist when he asked.

Ehhhh that isn't entirely accurate. I was doing my best to grief The South Pacific while this was happening, I was defending it only in the sense that I was defending my control over the region. Raiders as a group would not have done things the way defenders had if the shoe had been on the other foot. Not saying I agree with Afforess regarding your bias mind you, I have no idea whether or not it is your intention to try to destroy raiding.

[violet] instituted the banlist limit when banlists became 'too big'. That's quite some time ago though, and servers are a lot faster nowadays. We haven't revisited the banlist limit since, so increasing it is definitely a consideration. So let's argue the pro's and cons and possible side-effects, and then decide. Reminder: "why not?" is not a valid argument.

Ballotonia

If you make it bigger, you are just going to get a greater inclination to spam in the event of a coup. Mind you coups which result in a violent struggle to retake the delegacy are rare (Osiris being the strange exception recently), so it isn't like we'd be pumping thousands of nations into the banlist every day.

Pros:

1. No more incentive to puppet flood.
2. Reduction in number of nations created during coups as a result.
3. Players attempting to liberate a couped feeder/sinker no longer have an unfair advantage.
4. Moderation does not have to attempt to deal with the gameplayers breaking the rules since the incentive is removed (just those who spam for the sake of spamming).
5. Kandarin's ghost is made happy.
6. Regions are better able to deal with malicious flooders (historical evidence.)

Cons:

1. Time required to code.
2. Banlists might get big (waiting to see if there is any factual basis behind Ballo's disputed claim regarding the purpose of the banlimit).

Here is a proposal than. Why not allow the region to ban players instead of nations? As in just make an additional button to IP ban someone from your region. That should at least discourage the less technically minded flooders.

I would imagine that this would be either incredibly difficult to do, or a terribly bad idea for some other reason. Not the least of which being that players *should* be able to have more than one chance to liberate a region in the traditional sense, which that would block.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? (Still awaiting Ballo's response)

[Afforess]

Here is a proposal than. Why not allow the region to ban players instead of nations? As in just make an additional button to IP ban someone from your region. That should at least discourage the less technically minded flooders.

I'm inclined to think this is the root of the problem. When you ban a nation you aren't literally trying to ban the nation; you are banning the player responsible for the nation. Except this reality is not reflected in how banning works.

A reasonable compromise to leave then a list size unchanged but make it ban players.

[Sedgistan]

Which of course isn't possible.

I'd agree with Mall - the banlist limit isn't necessary any more. It does cause some problems, as it encourages a type of puppet flooding that is hard for mods to combat.

Removing it also means people that who insist on spamming a region will simply do so by creating even MORE throwaway nations.

That's more likely to be detected by mods and acted on, so not much of an issue.

[Mallorea and Riva]

Here is a proposal than. Why not allow the region to ban players instead of nations? As in just make an additional button to IP ban someone from your region. That should at least discourage the less technically minded flooders.

I'm inclined to think this is the root of the problem. When you ban a nation you aren't literally trying to ban the nation; you are banning the player responsible for the nation. Except this reality is not reflected in how banning works.

A reasonable compromise to leave then a list size unchanged but make it ban players.

See:

I would imagine that this would be either incredibly difficult to do, or a terribly bad idea for some other reason. Not the least of which being that players *should* be able to have more than one chance to liberate a region in the traditional sense, which that would block.