Regional Officers

[Alustrian]

Just because you are not willing to put the work into NS to make use of the technical change does not make it any less unfair for defenders. You won't do it, fine. Someone will.

Let me state this really simply - even if someone cared, the odds of someone seeing detaggers jump into a region, going "oh, hey, I want to stop that," them having been the last delegate and appointing themselves RO, them finding and logging into the specific puppet that was delegate, and then proceeding to eject said detaggers before the region updates are incredibly slim to none, for anyone, period. It is not worth the effort. Especially since in that period, they could probably have hit 3-5 new tags, for a net gain. Tags are not worth the effort. At all.

I am just soaking up a raider complaining about a few extra clicks that would help them immensely when we are expected to express an infinite dedication to this game to have even the hope of playing (and returning some semblance of balance/activity to R/D. see Summit. where this idea came from)

[Improving Wordiness]

I don;t think you quite get how we do tags - especially in regions that do standard tags (DEN, TBR), the fun part is more the run, for more people. Prepping and tagging are the time sinks that drive many people (like me) to other disciplines. You're especially not coming back through hours later just to add minimally effective RO's. Most of us don;t even both to suppress the last page of the RMB anymore. And again - no one wants to go dig up which one of 100+ puppets they used in region y just to go retag it. It'll be hit again in a run or three, probably. Tags just aren't worth the effort.

The time is taken to tag...suppress posts, change embassies...forgive me but I highly doubt that appointing an RO is a difficult task. There was a huge outcry when it was suggested long ago that Delegate executive power was lost upon resignation of WA simply because raiders wanted that 12 hour window to allow the leisure of returning to do those things. If the option to hold power is there I have little doubt it will be taken.

[Topid]

On one hand I'm really excited because I reside in a region with an active founder (me) and I can FINALLY give power to someone to change the appearance of my region without letting them ban members.

On the other hand I said OVER AND OVER in the suggestion thread that we should not allow regional officers to ban nations unless the cost was punitively high. With 12 regional officers that face 2x the cost as a delegate would cost to eject natives in effect you just gave these groups the equivalent of six extra delegates. They are now going to be able to eject natives at six times the speed they were able to before. That is not a good change for this game, this is going to bread nastiness. I'm just so sad my repeated warnings on that issue were ignored.

I don't like a lot of the other issues defenders are raising in this thread, but this is only the first thing implemented in a long while and I have some faith that on the smaller things Violet will make things balance (and then we shall see the whining flip and double in intensity).

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

To be blunt - For libs failing to show that this new change is harmful to libs would require that libs pre-change have been effective. I get everything you're saying, of course. I don't see how I'd motivate people there either. I just don't see how failing on practically the same level as before is intended to change much.

Also - two points regarding the dreaded 13 people banjecting

1. The odds of more than half of the body of RO's/delegate being online to watch the update is slim. Granted, the point could make anyone online an RO - but look at most tag runs for an idea of who's online. 3-4 tops, most updates, without prior planning/notice. Tonight, getting six was cool, and that was only because we were all talking about this

2. 13x More cooks in the kitchen will not result in 13x the ejections. 6x the cooks with not result in 6x the ejections. You'll have a high rate of people trying to eject the same nations at update - i.e. everyone clicks the first nation in, only one of them actually ejects it, the rest don't have any effect. I'd expect the benefit beyond 2-3 to be minimal, with decreasing returns, the return from even more than one to be less than you'd might expect. Granted, an extra one or two ejections can make or break a lib. But 3x the people will never be 3x the ejections, and so forth.

[Cormac Stark]

Let me state this really simply - even if someone cared, the odds of someone seeing detaggers jump into a region, going "oh, hey, I want to stop that," them having been the last delegate and appointing themselves RO, them finding and logging into the specific puppet that was delegate, and then proceeding to eject said detaggers before the region updates are incredibly slim to none, for anyone, period. It is not worth the effort. Especially since in that period, they could probably have hit 3-5 new tags, for a net gain. Tags are not worth the effort. At all.

Just fyi, I have personally been banjected by raiders from former TBR -- Cora among them, but one or two others -- when trying to detag the update after a tag, while the raider still has access to regional controls. Defenders call these "active detags" and move much closer to update than they do with other detags, precisely because we've all experienced being banjected doing detags before.

Don't assume just because you're not interested in doing something you see as trivial, no one else is. Tag raiding is life for a small but effective minority of the raider community.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Let me state this really simply - even if someone cared, the odds of someone seeing detaggers jump into a region, going "oh, hey, I want to stop that," them having been the last delegate and appointing themselves RO, them finding and logging into the specific puppet that was delegate, and then proceeding to eject said detaggers before the region updates are incredibly slim to none, for anyone, period. It is not worth the effort. Especially since in that period, they could probably have hit 3-5 new tags, for a net gain. Tags are not worth the effort. At all.

As usual, you are skirting the entire problem of this implementation.

RO isnt meant for bloody tags. They never were. It would be much appreciated if you could stop harping about worthless tags since both yourself and anyone here know that tags are worthless, and inherent silly due to their temporary nature.

I never said they were, EE. I was replying to someone who said this would make tagging worse/more harmful/harder for defenders to detag.

[Zemnaya Svoboda]

On one hand I'm really excited because I reside in a region with an active founder (me) and I can FINALLY give power to someone to change the appearance of my region without letting them ban members.

On the other hand I said OVER AND OVER in the suggestion thread that we should not allow regional officers to ban nations unless the cost was punitively high. With 12 regional officers that face 2x the cost as a delegate would cost to eject natives in effect you just gave these groups the equivalent of six extra delegates. They are now going to be able to eject natives at six times the speed they were able to before. That is not a good change for this game, this is going to bread nastiness. I'm just so sad my repeated warnings on that issue were ignored.

I don't like a lot of the other issues defenders are raising in this thread, but this is only the first thing implemented in a long while and I have some faith that on the smaller things Violet will make things balance (and then we shall see the whining flip and double in intensity).

Very close to my thoughts as well.

I will, indeed, pay close attention to how the mechanics are adjusted in the near to medium term.

[Alustrian]

To be blunt - For libs failing to show that this new change is harmful to libs would require that libs pre-change have been effective. I get everything you're saying, of course. I don't see how I'd motivate people there either. I just don't see how failing on practically the same level as before is intended to change much.

We have gotten close plenty of times, with a reasonable shot at winning. This change removes that shot.

1. The odds of more than half of the body of RO's/delegate being online to watch the update is slim. Granted, the point could make anyone online an RO - but look at most tag runs for an idea of who's online. 3-4 tops, most updates, without prior planning/notice. Tonight, getting six was cool, and that was only because we were all talking about this

You are complaining about finding 13 people. We needed 40+ before this change. With this change we are talking ...100?

2. 13x More cooks in the kitchen will not result in 13x the ejections. 6x the cooks with not result in 6x the ejections. You'll have a high rate of people trying to eject the same nations at update - i.e. everyone clicks the first nation in, only one of them actually ejects it, the rest don't have any effect. I'd expect the benefit beyond 2-3 to be minimal, with decreasing returns, the return from even more than one to be less than you'd might expect. Granted, an extra one or two ejections can make or break a lib. But 3x the people will never be 3x the ejections, and so forth.

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

[Cormac Stark]

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

He seems oblivious to the absurdity of his position, that raiders should continue to have everything easily handed to them by game mechanics while defenders should have to turn NationStates into a full-time job (with overtime, and no pay).

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Let me state this really simply - even if someone cared, the odds of someone seeing detaggers jump into a region, going "oh, hey, I want to stop that," them having been the last delegate and appointing themselves RO, them finding and logging into the specific puppet that was delegate, and then proceeding to eject said detaggers before the region updates are incredibly slim to none, for anyone, period. It is not worth the effort. Especially since in that period, they could probably have hit 3-5 new tags, for a net gain. Tags are not worth the effort. At all.

I am just soaking up a raider complaining about a few extra clicks that would help them immensely when we are expected to express an infinite dedication to this game to have even the hope of playing (and returning some semblance of balance/activity to R/D. see Summit. where this idea came from)

Immensely help tags in what world? Tags are done, then forgotten. Redone by the dozen later. There's a reason we don;t fight detag groups - they rarely do more than a half dozen in a run, and we can do fresh tags far more efficiently.

I don;t think you quite get how we do tags - especially in regions that do standard tags (DEN, TBR), the fun part is more the run, for more people. Prepping and tagging are the time sinks that drive many people (like me) to other disciplines. You're especially not coming back through hours later just to add minimally effective RO's. Most of us don;t even both to suppress the last page of the RMB anymore. And again - no one wants to go dig up which one of 100+ puppets they used in region y just to go retag it. It'll be hit again in a run or three, probably. Tags just aren't worth the effort.

The time is taken to tag...suppress posts, change embassies...forgive me but I highly doubt that appointing an RO is a difficult task. There was a huge outcry when it was suggested long ago that Delegate executive power was lost upon resignation of WA simply because raiders wanted that 12 hour window to allow the leisure of returning to do those things. If the option to hold power is there I have little doubt it will be taken.

We have protocols for tagging, click by click. Change flag, add tag x, etc. Most were about ten steps. Adding an RO would be 2+. Difficult? No. But needless for what little return it gives. Yes, having 12 hours to go run through your tags is nice - if you live like me where update ends at one amish, you can go to bed and tag in the morning. That's not the point. The point is that RO's add no tangible benefits to tags worth increasing the number of steps to do each tag by about 20%.

On one hand I'm really excited because I reside in a region with an active founder (me) and I can FINALLY give power to someone to change the appearance of my region without letting them ban members.

On the other hand I said OVER AND OVER in the suggestion thread that we should not allow regional officers to ban nations unless the cost was punitively high. With 12 regional officers that face 2x the cost as a delegate would cost to eject natives in effect you just gave these groups the equivalent of six extra delegates. They are now going to be able to eject natives at six times the speed they were able to before. That is not a good change for this game, this is going to bread nastiness. I'm just so sad my repeated warnings on that issue were ignored.

I don't like a lot of the other issues defenders are raising in this thread, but this is only the first thing implemented in a long while and I have some faith that on the smaller things Violet will make things balance (and then we shall see the whining flip and double in intensity).

Yes, this would help in clearing out regions for refounds.

I was one of the first here to suggest a waiting period on RO appointments You won;t see me whining if it's added.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

To be blunt - For libs failing to show that this new change is harmful to libs would require that libs pre-change have been effective. I get everything you're saying, of course. I don't see how I'd motivate people there either. I just don't see how failing on practically the same level as before is intended to change much.

We have gotten close plenty of times, with a reasonable shot at winning. This change removes that shot.

1. The odds of more than half of the body of RO's/delegate being online to watch the update is slim. Granted, the point could make anyone online an RO - but look at most tag runs for an idea of who's online. 3-4 tops, most updates, without prior planning/notice. Tonight, getting six was cool, and that was only because we were all talking about this

You are complaining about finding 13 people. We needed 40+ before this change. With this change we are talking ...100?

2. 13x More cooks in the kitchen will not result in 13x the ejections. 6x the cooks with not result in 6x the ejections. You'll have a high rate of people trying to eject the same nations at update - i.e. everyone clicks the first nation in, only one of them actually ejects it, the rest don't have any effect. I'd expect the benefit beyond 2-3 to be minimal, with decreasing returns, the return from even more than one to be less than you'd might expect. Granted, an extra one or two ejections can make or break a lib. But 3x the people will never be 3x the ejections, and so forth.

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

Granted.

There are ways to fight it, yes. "You eject every third nation" is more trouble than it is worth though, as well. My point wasn't that it's limiting - no matter what, it's more than one player can do - but that it's not as apocalyptic as 13 points sounds. In reality, I'd estimate it not to be more than triply effective max, and probably closer to doubly. That's still a significantly greater disadvantage, but it's not a 13x disadvantage.

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

He seems oblivious to the absurdity of his position, that raiders should continue to have everything easily handed to them by game mechanics while defenders should have to turn NationStates into a full-time job (with overtime, and no pay).

Picking points in your suggestions and complaints doesn't mean I don;t recognize the responsive side is much more difficult in many cases. I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

[Topid]

Yes, this would help in clearing out regions for refounds.

I was one of the first here to suggest a waiting period on RO appointments You won;t see me whining if it's added.

Uhh, help? Ten sleepers used all at once? You actually could do fundamental damage to regions like Canada, Anarchy, Belgium, etc within the next year or two. This comes close to swinging in favor of region destruction as far as Liberations did in the other direction.

A waiting period wouldn't help much honestly. The influence could still be used, it just wouldn't be able to be used day 1.

I meant something more like no switching during update, WA ability to end occupations, or something that would be as big a knock to raiding as this is to defending to counteract the unbalance.

[The Blaatschapen]

[v] will there be API calls to retrieve a list of ROs and their permissions?

[Cormac Stark]

I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

So then you agree that raiders should not be handed up to 13 leads on a raid? Excellent. It's good to have a raider in agreement.

You arguing that defenders shouldn't have stuff handed to them is like a Republican born with a multimillion dollar trust fund saying low income people shouldn't get hand-outs from the government. The entire game has been handed to you.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Yes, this would help in clearing out regions for refounds.

I was one of the first here to suggest a waiting period on RO appointments You won;t see me whining if it's added.

Uhh, help? Ten sleepers used all at once? You actually could do fundamental damage to regions like Canada, Anarchy, Belgium, etc within the next year or two. This comes close to swinging in favor of region destruction as far as Liberations did in the other direction.

A waiting period wouldn't help much honestly. The influence could still be used, it just wouldn't be able to be used day 1.

I meant something more like no switching during update, WA ability to end occupations, or something that would be as big a knock to raiding as this is to defending to counteract the unbalance.

Yes, I just agreed with that. It wasn't sarcasm It would make refounds much easier. Slingshots could be used just for high-influence targets and passwording, and RO's could eject lower influence nations. 10 nations at double influence is still five equivalent help hands, and that'd speed things up a lot.

The waiting period for appointments would allow some time for a liberation to be attempted with less resistance, especially a waiting period greater than a single update.

Those have all been shot down before

[Bounty Bertie]

Granted.

There are ways to fight it, yes. "You eject every third nation" is more trouble than it is worth though, as well. My point wasn't that it's limiting - no matter what, it's more than one player can do - but that it's not as apocalyptic as 13 points sounds. In reality, I'd estimate it not to be more than triply effective max, and probably closer to doubly. That's still a significantly greater disadvantage, but it's not a 13x disadvantage.

When you are ejecting ~6 nations per lib attempt now, another 6 is a hell of a lot of people to be getting. Sure you can say defenders should get better triggers, but they can't really get much shorter. 2x, 13x, doesn't really matter, it's a *massive* shift. Not to mention that you can use the ROs to empty a region faster, letting you put a P/W up faster, preventing any further libs.

Picking points in your suggestions and complaints doesn't mean I don;t recognize the responsive side is much more difficult in many cases. I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

Indeed it's much more effective to be very successful, win almost all the time, and make a lot of posts about winning, to have things handed to you in this game.

[Alustrian]

Granted.

There are ways to fight it, yes. "You eject every third nation" is more trouble than it is worth though, as well. My point wasn't that it's limiting - no matter what, it's more than one player can do - but that it's not as apocalyptic as 13 points sounds. In reality, I'd estimate it not to be more than triply effective max, and probably closer to doubly. That's still a significantly greater disadvantage, but it's not a 13x disadvantage.

I stand by earlier statement:

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

There exists an easier fix for this.

Also, for my bold you are again complaining about marginal extra work that would give you an unbelievable extra advantage that has been handed to you* yet expect defenders to invest infinitely more in this game.

*

I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

You were handed this change.

[[violet]]

[v] will there be API calls to retrieve a list of ROs and their permissions?

I haven't added it yet, but intend to... depending on how many bugs I have to fix right away, it may be there before full rollout.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

So then you agree that raiders should not be handed up to 13 leads on a raid? Excellent. It's good to have a raider in agreement.

You arguing that defenders shouldn't have stuff handed to them is like a Republican born with a multimillion dollar trust fund saying low income people shouldn't get hand-outs from the government. The entire game has been handed to you.

Yes, I think that this will be an effectively unfair level of advantage. Which is why I said this would be huge for us on page one of this thread, as well as asking so many questions to confirm it was as OP as it sounded.

At every step of this game, I've chosen to start as low as possible and work my way up. Do things by hand rather than depend on someone else's tool. Cover all bases of everything I valued myself. I may have chosen the side that has quite an easier time of it (if suffering from hatred from a chunk of NS as a result), but I didn't pop right in and ask for Halc's toolbox and some tag sheets from Bob. Let's not go personal here.

[Improving Wordiness]

A couple of suggestions. Either one will avoid the whole taggers retaining power issue really.

A delay of 12 hours on being able to appoint an RO unless you are the founder of the region

or

Executive Delegate powers are lost at the moment WA is dropped.

[Topid]

Those have all been shot down before

R/D has just fundametnally changed. This isn't the harmless little activity it was last month now. This is going to gin up a lot of anger when these tactics start being used. Liberations and the Security Council would have never happened until the Belgium raid either. A "Security Council" had been shot down numerous times before, too. The first time you drain 80% of a region in an update will bring a game changer, I have faith in that. I suppose there's the chance you guys won't totally use these powers to the greatest extent, to cause as much frustration as possible, but the odds are pretty slim.

Now, since R/D is not my main focus most of the time.. What on earth is the "World Assembly" power listed in the news update? Other than voting for the region what kind of powers do Delegates/Founders have in the WA that they could even give away? O.o

[Elke and Elba]

Notwithstanding violet's resistance, can we actually have a time lag before ROs are fixed in their position - say 12 hours to account for an update?

I mean, well, there must be a reason embassy construction is delayed. Or is there not?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Granted.

There are ways to fight it, yes. "You eject every third nation" is more trouble than it is worth though, as well. My point wasn't that it's limiting - no matter what, it's more than one player can do - but that it's not as apocalyptic as 13 points sounds. In reality, I'd estimate it not to be more than triply effective max, and probably closer to doubly. That's still a significantly greater disadvantage, but it's not a 13x disadvantage.

When you are ejecting ~6 nations per lib attempt now, another 6 is a hell of a lot of people to be getting. Sure you can say defenders should get better triggers, but they can't really get much shorter. 2x, 13x, doesn't really matter, it's a *massive* shift. Not to mention that you can use the ROs to empty a region faster, letting you put a P/W up faster, preventing any further libs.

Picking points in your suggestions and complaints doesn't mean I don;t recognize the responsive side is much more difficult in many cases. I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

Indeed it's much more effective to be very successful, win almost all the time, and make a lot of posts about winning, to have things handed to you in this game.

Yes, It is a big difference, as I just said, when 1-2 nations can make or break a lib. It is still, as I just said, a "significantly greater disadvantage" - or in other words, a "massive shift". It's not, as I just said, quite as apocalyptic as a 13x shift. Unless you wish to argue that finding 6 extra people is as hard as finding 72 extra people?

IT's more effective not to follow a patter of doing the same thing to the same effect and then whining about that effect.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Granted.

There are ways to fight it, yes. "You eject every third nation" is more trouble than it is worth though, as well. My point wasn't that it's limiting - no matter what, it's more than one player can do - but that it's not as apocalyptic as 13 points sounds. In reality, I'd estimate it not to be more than triply effective max, and probably closer to doubly. That's still a significantly greater disadvantage, but it's not a 13x disadvantage.

I stand by earlier statement:

Again, I will not do your work for you, but this problem is easily worked around. You tell us we need to be more strategic, yet raiders cannot add marginally to their strategy, even if they have all of the structural advantages?

There exists an easier fix for this.

Also, for my bold you are again complaining about marginal extra work that would give you an unbelievable extra advantage that has been handed to you* yet expect defenders to invest infinitely more in this game.

*

I do not think that asking for things to be handed to you is the way to go about fixing that though.

You were handed this change.

If so, that'll be a bridge we'd cross when it came. It's not even on my radar right now, as compared to more interesting ways to use RO's.

I didn' ask for this change, nor this level of a benefit from it.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

A couple of suggestions. Either one will avoid the whole taggers retaining power issue really.

A delay of 12 hours on being able to appoint an RO unless you are the founder of the region

or

Executive Delegate powers are lost at the moment WA is dropped.

The former is on a list of several suggestions to check raider use of RO's, and is quite reasonable. A greater time would also be reasonable. Delays on such things as WFE changes with the intention of *killing* tagging have been shot down before, but as this would effectively retain the status quo of tagging to little effect, I see no reason not to implement such a feature.

The latter has been shot down by admin before.