The Activity Feed is making stealth raiding unviable.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Currently, the activity page only has a 3 or 4 second delay on happenings. That's nice for most users, but the R/D consequences are huge. If any person at page=activity can see any set of moves after 3 or 4 seconds, then stealth raiding is dead- defenders don't need to try and track suspicious puppets and raiders can gain no advantage from using clean puppets, because literally anyone can see the move.

This is an issue that was discussed and understood back when the activity page was first introduced -

viewtopic.php?p=16559156&sid=6f4ade4de941b988783a98e2979a8c35#p16559156

As far as everything else, regarding your statements about how scripts already made all of this possible, that the super dossier made all of this possible, etc: that is my point. You extend the WA happenings, then you extend them to absurd lengths, then you create super dossiers, and now this. I understand that we are on an unstoppable march towards automated gameplay, but don't expect me to be happy about it.

I understand that completely, but I think the way to prevent "automated gameplay" is to make success less reliant on being overlooked by your opponents. (There are several things we can do along these lines and several already on the drawing board.) Because we no longer live in a script-free world; we have to deal with the fact that bots crawl the site pretty much constantly, and collect everything they find. If we ignore that--if we veto a Reports page because we want it to remain hard to collate that information--then all we do is widen the divide between the people with scripts and people without. That actually encourages the shift to scripts and tools.

I don't believe we can stop the data-gathering, no matter what rules we make. For all the criticism Afforess gets, he's often only doing in public and within the rules what others have done privately and/or illegally. I have to track down and block illegal scripts, and it's painful and time-consuming and getting worse and worse. If it's possible today to publish information on the site but hide it from bots, it's not going to be possible for much longer.

But obviously stealth is an important part of the invasion game today, and the new Reports page makes life difficult. In particular it helps the casual defender, who couldn't be bothered figuring out scripts and tools, but will use this. I am aware of that, and I am a supporter of balance in the invasion game.

viewtopic.php?p=17087993&sid=077e4d79975671308aa96cccfbe3aa22#p17087993

The problem is the World API has a 28 second delay.... why is this?

See the discussion at the beginning of this thread.

Tldr: if it weren't on delay it would've cut down on defender's response times to invasions. Since that wasn't the objective for this feature, the delay was put in. That way whether or not to remove the delay, what its effects would be, etc... is a separate discussion from moving the old style reports to the new style Activity page.

Ballotonia

I do not believe that increasing the delay back out to 10-15 seconds would have significant consequences for any participants outside of R/D.

[Bears Armed]

I do not believe that increasing the delay back out to 10-15 seconds would have significant consequences for any participants outside of R/D.

By making raiding easier, it would potentially have consequences for the inhabitants of the regions targeted by raiders.

[Raionitu]

If you have an 8 seconds trigger, it takes about a second for people to react, then the 3 second delay, fendas get about 4 seconds to react. I'd say that's pretty fair .

Also, the activity feed makes stealth harder, but not impossible, you just have to put some effort into it.

[The Glorious Hypetrain]

If you have an 8 seconds trigger, it takes about a second for people to react, then the 3 second delay, fendas get about 4 seconds to react. I'd say that's pretty fair .

Also, the activity feed makes stealth harder, but not impossible, you just have to put some effort into it.

Rai makes a good point, perhaps you should try shortening your triggers to 4-5 seconds, which should decrease the chance of being spotted early. While most likely unrealistic for your case, I've seen some 3 second triggers pulled before. Raiding can take effort at times.

[Landscaping Buddies]

Stealth raiding was already dying/dead by the time the activity page came in. The activity page was the final nail, but definitely not the only problem facing stealth raids.

Triggering/update timing certainty came about in part because of stealth failing...but it's also easier to do. Have one person work to find a good trigger, or have twenty people work on making properly clean pups? Even without reports/activity page/whatever, where is the incentive to have an entire raid party use stealth over simply using a reasonably tight trigger? I would like to see stealth raiding come back but by itself I don't think a delay would work.

@Hypetrain: Unless I've misunderstood, you have a different idea of what stealth is compared to myself (and probably Ava). Defenders don't first 'see' you when you jump at update. They are well aware of your nations and movements before you jump. It's the hiding your nations during this before the jump that is typically considered stealth. Using a shorter trigger won't suddenly make you stealthy.

FWIW the types of raids that typically go unseen today are the same types of raids that went unseen 3, 5, probably 10 years ago. You won't take Hell, but you aren't limited to one nation regions either. This is not to mention the array of other raiding methods that could be used (or at least tried) but aren't.

[The Glorious Hypetrain]

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@Hypetrain: Unless I've misunderstood, you have a different idea of what stealth is compared to myself (and probably Ava). Defenders don't first 'see' you when you jump at update. They are well aware of your nations and movements before you jump. It's the hiding your nations during this before the jump that is typically considered stealth. Using a shorter trigger won't suddenly make you stealthy.

Most likely. Yeah, our procedure was to doss puppets and spam-refresh the reports page until we saw movement (for chasing). While I do concur that you can't be 100% invisible, a shorter trigger helps compensate for it (less reaction time from defenders). I only defended for a few months, and have been a raider for a few now (ongoing), so I'm pretty sure I've got a different idea of stealth. No misunderstanding.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Stealth raiding was already dying/dead by the time the activity page came in. The activity page was the final nail, but definitely not the only problem facing stealth raids.

Triggering/update timing certainty came about in part because of stealth failing...but it's also easier to do. Have one person work to find a good trigger, or have twenty people work on making properly clean pups? Even without reports/activity page/whatever, where is the incentive to have an entire raid party use stealth over simply using a reasonably tight trigger? I would like to see stealth raiding come back but by itself I don't think a delay would work.

@Hypetrain: Unless I've misunderstood, you have a different idea of what stealth is compared to myself (and probably Ava). Defenders don't first 'see' you when you jump at update. They are well aware of your nations and movements before you jump. It's the hiding your nations during this before the jump that is typically considered stealth. Using a shorter trigger won't suddenly make you stealthy.

FWIW the types of raids that typically go unseen today are the same types of raids that went unseen 3, 5, probably 10 years ago. You won't take Hell, but you aren't limited to one nation regions either. This is not to mention the array of other raiding methods that could be used (or at least tried) but aren't.

Yes, this is my understanding of stealth. No, I'd rather have the properly clean pups. Just because people may generally prefer one option, it doesn't mean the other one should be closed off.

Please go reread the quotes in the OP- the point is that the activity page was never meant to be this fast in the first place. I want to know what's changed that makes administration not interested in supporting stealth, and I'll be bumping this thread until I get a reply.

Also, Rai's comments are particularly unhelpful. They amount to, "Hey, you should make yourself stealthy by taking the other, boring option that raiding has homogenized into, so then stealth is irrelevant".

[Bears Armed]

Please go reread the quotes in the OP- the point is that the activity page was never meant to be this fast in the first place.

If we go by what was meant "in the first place" then, of course, in the first place Max didn't anticipate 'raiding' becoming a part of the game anyhows...

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Please go reread the quotes in the OP- the point is that the activity page was never meant to be this fast in the first place.

If we go by what was meant "in the first place" then, of course, in the first place Max didn't anticipate 'raiding' becoming a part of the game anyhows...

If we want to go down that path of throwaway logic, then Max didn't anticipate the game being more than a 2 week advertising pitch anyway, so why continue supporting it in any way at all?

[Raionitu]

Alright, I'll address this in a more direct way. You believe that increasing the delay back out would have a significant impact on R/D. But in the quote that you used they specifically mentioned it was effective because they didn't have the reports page. We now have a reports page that gives the defenders literally instant feedback on anything they are watching. That means that if your puppet is not stealthy enough to go unnoticed enough to get by in the current situation, adding a bigger delay will do nothing because defenders will still see your move right away on their reports page.

Additionally in the quote you linked [v] says that making it harder for people to manually collect information makes it easier for people who are using scripts to make people using manual methods incapable of doing anything. By making it easier for people to get information manually it makes it a lot harder for scripts to make the human element of GP irrelevant. In other words, there are bots that can collect the same information instantaneously. Removing the ways to manually get the information just means that only players with good scripts will be able to win.

Also right now when TBH goes out on a tag raid we almost always hit more than TGW defends from us, and that is with them using the reports page with instant feedback and us using dirty puppets from our well known jump point. Things are already tilted in the raiders favor, so why should we do something to make raiding even easier in the first place by reducing defenders ability to watch for raiders? Every change made to game mechanics for R/D purposes is meant to make R/D more balanced.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Alright, I'll address this in a more direct way. You believe that increasing the delay back out would have a significant impact on R/D. But in the quote that you used they specifically mentioned it was effective because they didn't have the reports page. We now have a reports page that gives the defenders literally instant feedback on anything they are watching. That means that if your puppet is not stealthy enough to go unnoticed enough to get by in the current situation, adding a bigger delay will do nothing because defenders will still see your move right away on their reports page.

Additionally in the quote you linked [v] says that making it harder for people to manually collect information makes it easier for people who are using scripts to make people using manual methods incapable of doing anything. By making it easier for people to get information manually it makes it a lot harder for scripts to make the human element of GP irrelevant. In other words, there are bots that can collect the same information instantaneously. Removing the ways to manually get the information just means that only players with good scripts will be able to win.

Also right now when TBH goes out on a tag raid we almost always hit more than TGW defends from us, and that is with them using the reports page with instant feedback and us using dirty puppets from our well known jump point. Things are already tilted in the raiders favor, so why should we do something to make raiding even easier in the first place by reducing defenders ability to watch for raiders? Every change made to game mechanics for R/D purposes is meant to make R/D more balanced.

Is the reports page not page=activity ? What the hell are you talking about?

None of those scripts are supposed to be legal right now. None of this triggering is supposed to be here- we were promised that Estimated Update Times would be the best times available. Why the hell did we get all this thunder from moderation about how we didn't want anything like Predator in the game and we wanted to move far far away, and now with changes like this we've moved in the exact opposite direction?

[Vincent Drake]

The reports page is page=reports. Defenders don't typically use the activity page to move, we use reports. With raiders utilizing ever-shorter triggers, any delay is unacceptable in a chase, so the activity page won't be used for that purpose whether the delay is 1 second or 28. You need to be able to contest 3s triggers, which requires reports or region happening pages that load less information than activity and in predictable ways. The activity page suffers from non-user controllable incoming scroll bounce, which would screw with attempts to move off it. It also loads an excessive volume of irrelevant information and slows down quickly if not kept refreshed.

As Rai pointed out, even with the instant reports page, chasing is the most difficult activity defenders take part in. There is no need to make it more difficult. If you have 10 chasers online, but only 2 are fast enough to contest the taggers' trigger speeds, you only have 2 chasers, and can lose almost every single region to a tiny tagger force. I face this reality on an almost nightly basis. You need to switch fast, cross fast, doss fast, spam refresh, be paying attention, catch the raiders the moment they move, and make your jump quickly and cleanly. Many can do 1 of those, few can do all, consistently. Even if you can do most of that, you still need to make the jump. With most TBH triggers, you see them move, but then the influence change hits reports before you have even made your move. You need to be fast enough that you don't see the change hit, and that's not easy. There is a specific, unintuitive cadence you have to master in order to achieve chase speed faster than 2s, if your internet connection is even fast enough to begin with. It took me almost 5 months to get my first 1s chase jump, and it still amounts to nothing if you can't get all your people in, too.

Raiders capable of quality triggering don't even need stealth. Come chase and see the situation for yourself ^. Many attempts at stealth raiding are pretty bad, anyway. Making clean pups and then moving them all to an obvious JP or IJP is not exactly stealthy, nor is making clean pups and moving to obscure regions without even answering issues. Stealth raiding takes real effort, and the activity page doesn't make a shred of difference with a good one. I mean, in a good stealth raid, you should be able to have your admits, moves, and endos out in the open and not get picked up since they aren't suspicious in the first place.

The estimated update times feature is unlikely to replace triggering. Sorry, but "estimated" is in the name, I automatically have low expectations. It'll be more like 20xx and less like Drake set an obvious trigger and. You can always just trigger manually if you don't like scripts, there is no disadvantage to that except time and effort taken. There are plenty of elements to the game that can't be replaced by scripts and bots, and actually, some things are faster or easier using the manual method. Try move+endo using a script vs manual, you'll lose to the manual method if the player knows what they are doing.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

The reports page is page=reports. Defenders don't typically use the activity page to move, we use reports. With raiders utilizing ever-shorter triggers, any delay is unacceptable in a chase, so the activity page won't be used for that purpose whether the delay is 1 second or 28. You need to be able to contest 3s triggers, which requires reports or region happening pages that load less information than activity and in predictable ways. The activity page suffers from non-user controllable incoming scroll bounce, which would screw with attempts to move off it. It also loads an excessive volume of irrelevant information and slows down quickly if not kept refreshed.

As Rai pointed out, even with the instant reports page, chasing is the most difficult activity defenders take part in. There is no need to make it more difficult. If you have 10 chasers online, but only 2 are fast enough to contest the taggers' trigger speeds, you only have 2 chasers, and can lose almost every single region to a tiny tagger force. I face this reality on an almost nightly basis. You need to switch fast, cross fast, doss fast, spam refresh, be paying attention, catch the raiders the moment they move, and make your jump quickly and cleanly. Many can do 1 of those, few can do all, consistently. Even if you can do most of that, you still need to make the jump. With most TBH triggers, you see them move, but then the influence change hits reports before you have even made your move. You need to be fast enough that you don't see the change hit, and that's not easy. There is a specific, unintuitive cadence you have to master in order to achieve chase speed faster than 2s, if your internet connection is even fast enough to begin with. It took me almost 5 months to get my first 1s chase jump, and it still amounts to nothing if you can't get all your people in, too.

Raiders capable of quality triggering don't even need stealth. Come chase and see the situation for yourself ^. Many attempts at stealth raiding are pretty bad, anyway. Making clean pups and then moving them all to an obvious JP or IJP is not exactly stealthy, nor is making clean pups and moving to obscure regions without even answering issues. Stealth raiding takes real effort, and the activity page doesn't make a shred of difference with a good one. I mean, in a good stealth raid, you should be able to have your admits, moves, and endos out in the open and not get picked up since they aren't suspicious in the first place.

The estimated update times feature is unlikely to replace triggering. Sorry, but "estimated" is in the name, I automatically have low expectations. It'll be more like 20xx and less like Drake set an obvious trigger and. You can always just trigger manually if you don't like scripts, there is no disadvantage to that except time and effort taken. There are plenty of elements to the game that can't be replaced by scripts and bots, and actually, some things are faster or easier using the manual method. Try move+endo using a script vs manual, you'll lose to the manual method if the player knows what they are doing.

Finally, a helpful reply, and came from the other side of the aisle.

Yes, that's what I mean by stealth raiding. It's more about the puppets themselves not being suspicious (and thus dossiered) in the first place (obviously 4 or 5 people jumping in is still notable at any time), but you understood the principle. I'm here asking about what's happened to changes to page=activity to reduce the time delay from 28 seconds to 3-4 seconds, because anyone watching that page would see the move no matter how clean the puppets are. It's deeply depressing that it's been so long since it was done well that almost nobody else understands what I'm talking about.

The idea of EUT was that along with it would be changes to make it impossible to trigger, or otherwise get times any more accurate than the EUT.

[Landscaping Buddies]

Finally, a helpful reply, and came from the other side of the aisle.

Yes, that's what I mean by stealth raiding. It's more about the puppets themselves not being suspicious (and thus dossiered) in the first place (obviously 4 or 5 people jumping in is still notable at any time), but you understood the principle. I'm here asking about what's happened to changes to page=activity to reduce the time delay from 28 seconds to 3-4 seconds, because anyone watching that page would see the move no matter how clean the puppets are. It's deeply depressing that it's been so long since it was done well that almost nobody else understands what I'm talking about.

The idea of EUT was that along with it would be changes to make it impossible to trigger, or otherwise get times any more accurate than the EUT.

I'm pretty sure that since release the actual activity page has always been completely up-to-date whenever it (re)loads, just like the reports page. The part that becomes delayed (increasingly over time) is how often the activity page automatically refreshes, but each time it refreshes it is once again completely up-to-date. See here.

However the API related to the activity page has always had a 28 second delay on it.

So, nothing's change since release?

With the scrapping of the summit, and following discussion, admin opinion seems to be more of the view that R/D changes in general aren't really worth it, rather than any one idea/playstyle is supported/not supported.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Defenders don't typically use the activity page to move, we use reports.

I'll point out that while this is generally true, it isn't universally true. I do use the Activity page, and I use it in part because I want to see raiders I may not have dossiered, such as stealth raiders. I would much rather catch them than taggers I've dossiered, because stealth raiders usually hold regions while taggers don't. If I fail to defend some regions against taggers but see the stealth raiders, it's worth it, because chasing taggers is just something to do when nothing more significant is happening. And anything stealth raiders might be doing is more significant than tagging.

So, long and short of it, Klaus is right that this is a problem for stealth raiding, and by "a problem" I mean it has killed stealth as a viable tactic. Which is why very few raiders still engage in stealth raiding. Once upon a time, I remember when admins wanted to discourage tagging. The Activity page, and advances in automation in general, have accomplished the reverse. Tagging now reigns supreme and, much to my dismay, defenders now tend to prioritize "chasing" over real defending, and "chasers" have become the defender equivalent of taggers.

I do understand if admins aren't interested in doing anything about it though. R/D is a sub-game in which a tiny minority of players actually participate, and R/Ders are never happy with changes admins make. If raiders are happy, defenders aren't; if defenders are happy, raiders aren't. Admins can't please the R/D community and I wouldn't blame them if they've stopped trying, pay no attention to these types of posts anymore, and leave us to adapt to whatever game changes might affect us -- or fail to adapt, and die out.

[Opfornia]

Why exactly should we make raiding easier?

[Kshrlmnt]

Ok, let me explain a bit more thoroughly why this is an issue. And for you oldies, sorry if this is rehashing stuff you already knew.

To start with, the current form of raiding is actually quite new. 5+ years ago, there were no scripts, no triggers, no regional officers, no/few large raider puppet dumps like Violet Irises (though defenders did have Band Camp), little knowledge of how variance worked, and little knowledge of the API. Issues went through only at update, so the main way to check when a region updated was to watch when issues went through in its nations (via the RSS) and plot out about when you thought it'd update next time. (Even longer ago, the very realization that regions updated at about the same time every day was revolutionary.)

Since you didn't know whether a region would update 5 seconds before or after the previous day, you needed to move in earlier. Defenders are fast, and instead of a 4-6 second window like they might get now, you'd be giving them an 8-20 second window. So, instead of trying to squeak in closer and closer before update (because that'd make it all the more likely for raiders to miss it), they'd try to fool the defenders.

Defenders at that time (and to some degree still) operated off their dossier reports--refreshing like mad until they saw you move. This meant they could only see nations in their dossier, though--so if you weren't in their dossiers, they wouldn't follow you. Defenders dossiered any nation that looked like it might be a raider: first, nations that had been involved in a raid; and second, any suspicious nations. If you had a raider flag, joined the WA during update, etc, they'd see you. So raiders made new nations for every raid with innocuous names, stuffed them in unrelated regions, answered issues, etc. If you did it well, the defenders wouldn't see you and you'd be fine arriving 20 seconds before the region updated.

Because of that, you were generally looking at getting a single region per update and then holding it. So not many people cared to touch tiny regions (even if you could find the update time) or foundered regions. Some would scorn to hit anything under 10 nations, and while you couldn't always hit a nice-sized target (for example, these regions), you could at least hit something of 15-30 nations if you had a small group of well-prepared raiders. The challenge was in the prize and in outsmarting defenders while grabbing it.

This was classical stealth raiding: hiding out in various innocent regions that as far as you could tell updated after the target, then jumping and endorsing and praying you weren't spotted. Or, as Vincent Drake pointed out, moving to a late-updating or new (IJP) region and pre-endorsing your leader. Easier for defenders to spot, but being spotted wasn't a guarantee. And while that may sound painful to many newer raiders, it took skill, and success was worth boasting about.

To the best of my knowledge, a technical understanding of update mechanics came from Halcones, as did the beginning of the use of scripts in raiding. This meant speed, which meant you didn't have to rely on stealth. It also meant that the updates of tiny regions became more readily available. After a time, the glory came from not the size of a region or the stealth and coordination needed to take it, but from the number of regions you took, whether anyone cared about the region itself or not. It did require skill to take so many regions, but the conversion of the numbers game from nations and activity in the target to numbers of targets proved unhealthy for many--as we know from the demise of TBR and DEN.

Scripts became particularly needed when the game changed to make issues go through immediately; it was now even tougher to check update time without them. Triggering came even later, as a means to cope with variance and shave off those extra seconds.

The point of this, though, is not to say that tagging does not have its place. But it needs to be pointed out that tagging, as well as almost all raids nowadays (reusing nations, congregating in known late-updating regions, pre-endorsing, triggering) isn't the only way to do it. Historically, raiding has been viable without scripts or triggers by using a different skill set--after all, that's how raiding started in the first place! There's also been glory in a larger variety of targets because of the means of seizing them.

So the reasons stealth matters: It can be done without scripts (and thus without worrying about breaking site rules), it allows for more variety in raiding, and it's easier for new regions to break into. And on a less obvious note, the more relaxed raid chats can build community, and the techniques needed encourage patience, intelligence, and dedication in raiders.

And here I've written a love letter to a dying form of raiding. It's worth asking why it's dying--that's what this thread is about, after all.

One reason is raiders. Us. Scripts and tagging are instant gratification, easy to prepare for and nice to show off. Stealth raiding takes more work and planning for a less flashy reward--and as people slowly forget was stealth raiding even is, the true meaning of the resulting prize becomes less and less appreciated.

But another important reason is technology. When stealth raiding was prevalent, defenders relied on dossiering the right nations and using their dossier reports page. If they didn't spot it as a raider, they couldn't follow. Now, though, defenders don't actually have to dossier a nation to see it raid. With the activity feed (particularly if it's sorted to focus on moves and WA membership), defenders can see every nation in NS. It doesn't matter how innocuous a nation looks beforehand; if 5 'normal' nations move to a region and endorse someone in the middle of update, that's obviously a raid.

Now, if the activity page had a half-minute delay as planned, this wouldn't matter. Defenders would still rely on their reports on dossiered nations--which, while it may be a pain to dossier 80+ variants of Yuno, is now possible due to unlimited dossiers. The activity page would show stealth raids after they were finished--and would still show anyone who joined the WA preparatory to a raid, even if un-dossiered, though at a slight delay.

But unless you're using scripts, triggers, and pre-endorsement, there is no way to update raid without being seen almost immediately. The 4-second delay on the activity page means that the game itself has killed stealth raiding--something that game administrators did not plan to happen.

If administrators go back and honor their word, it's not going to change the game overnight. In fact, it will create an early advantage for taggers, because they can't be spotted that way. It won't completely kill chasing taggers, but it will hurt it. Raiders won't stop using scripts, either; you can't un-pop that cherry.

But the thing to remember is that raiders love to boast. And the less people bother dealing with tag raids, the more empty boasting about them becomes. Stealth has been all but defunct for a while now--but this change would give it a chance to breathe again. A revival of stealth raiding would mean a revival of new skills among both raiders and defenders, a chance for the R&D game to survive any changes to script rules, and an alternative type of raiding with less temptation to break site rules. That's why this matters, and Klaus Devestatorie spoke up about it.

[Roavin]

I'll point out that while this is generally true, it isn't universally true. I do use the Activity page, and I use it in part because I want to see raiders I may not have dossiered, such as stealth raiders.

Well, even when using reports, I'm sure most of us have the activity page opened in a separate window running in parallel anyway for, among other things, that reason.

[Jakker]

Elindra articulated Ava's point of this thread well. And I agree with them that a large aspect of stealth raiding has been done away with. There are multiple reasons for this as Elindra pointed out. Because it's a more complex issue, I don't know if one admin change would really do much. I will also counter one of Elindra's points about scripts and say that it is still and has always been possible to trigger well without them.

I totally get where this thread is coming from. In my opinion though, stealth raiding is still prevalent in terms of infiltration. Where there is definitely a change is in the update. Raiders do not really ever use clean puppets because it does not offer as much benefit as it once did. With that said, I have seen how raids can be successful if one adapts to the current environment.

Maybe it is not good enough anymore to have clean puppets and expect to have extra time before defenders spot you. But I do think that is all still possible to a degree. Just requires adaptability. Is that adaptability possible for everyone? I don't think so.

My main point is: I think the underlying issue in this thread is the accessibility of R/D. While it is still and has always been possible to be successful at it, I think the accessibility gap continues to widened by the day. You really need to understand the game mechanics and the other side inside and out to do it well. You also need to be well versed in the current trends and habits of the other side. That isn't a luxury for everyone.

[Topid]

As I recall as soon as this change was made the best way to "spot" as a defender was to take an archived list of WA members (from the API) from 3 days ago, and compare it to a currently (as of right before the update) retrieved list. Any nation that was on the latter but not the former was output into a text file which was uploaded as my dossier for the update. Ergo, I always had every new WA nation in the last 3 days flowing to my reports page, which was suffice to catch anything that wasn't WAing up during the update - you still had to watch for that.

Seems like a live activity page really just gets to that same result, but for people who couldn't manipulate API data as well as the rest of us.