Delegate suggestion

[August]

Not all regions exist for gameplay. These regions support causes such as cancer survivors, transgender support, Catholic faith support, and so on. These regions function like organizations and most do not have a WAD let alone give their WAD executive powers - they may have a Board of Directors (appointed as RO). That's because we're here for the individual player and not to participate in regional politics. God help us if our Founder dies. We have no protection other than to password, and that defeats the purpose of community service. Other regions exist as a means to keep a roleplayer organization coordinated. We, too, may have a Board of Directors.

Galiantus already covered what I would have said to this: "...there are plenty of founderless regions for [raiders] to target, so they opt to invade them instead because the cost is so great and it's not worth their time. In other words, regions with active founders are so hard to invade that it's like opting out anyways."

I agree with your premise, but I disagree that this puts undue risk on regions with active founders.

Forest's entire constitution is premised on the delegate being non-executive. I get that their would be pro's and con's to this proposal, and Forest just happens to be one of the region's to get all con no pro, but that's just my two cents.

Con #3 from the OP, then. I admit that I am not familiar with your constitution (and I will go read it now to see why you need a non-exec delegate), but I did expect this to be a concern. I am a little surprised to hear this from a ten-year delegate who has a high endorsement count and presumably a great deal of trust from their community, but again, I will gladly do some research on Forest's system. Maybe that will open my eyes to the thought process.

That still puts an undue burden on founders to log in during a limited time frame, and log in every day. Founders should not be obligated to log in every day to protect their region from raiding.

That proposed solution was only to prevent tagging. If a tag-raider delegate cannot immediately use their Executive power to modify the region or appoint an RO, they cannot tag the target region, rendering that region immune to tagging. It has little to no effect on anything else.

TFW even raiders are opposed to an idea that would make raiding easier.

This kind of implies that everyone is opposed, and that if even raiders dislike it, it must be a bad idea. We have had seventeen people respond to this, including myself, plus a number of people offsite. Those 17+ consist of current and former raiders, defenders, natives, region-builders, RPers, and delegates. Those in favor and those opposed are roughly equal in number, with a few classified as neutral, and the responses in no way fall on ideological lines. It is one of the most balanced responses to a GP suggestion I have ever seen.

A lot of natives don't want to participate R/D in directly. The ability to attack a raider's home region is completely worthless if you don't want to participate in military GP.

The point is that it opens up a big new avenue for participation that does not currently exist. Those who do not want to participate are barely affected, for a number of reasons outlined earlier.

[USS Monitor]

TFW even raiders are opposed to an idea that would make raiding easier.

Couldn't the explanation for that be this idea would also force raiders to garrison their own regions? Not that I expect raiding regions to die off because of this, but having to keep some troops home would make it harder to raid, and the potential for revenge against raider regions would be real.

People outside R/D don't want revenge against raiders as much as we want to be left alone in the first place.

If some raiding regions get attacked, that doesn't benefit natives. It doesn't change the fact that our regions would be more vulnerable to raiding.

Not all regions exist for gameplay. These regions support causes such as cancer survivors, transgender support, Catholic faith support, and so on. These regions function like organizations and most do not have a WAD let alone give their WAD executive powers - they may have a Board of Directors (appointed as RO). That's because we're here for the individual player and not to participate in regional politics. God help us if our Founder dies. We have no protection other than to password, and that defeats the purpose of community service. Other regions exist as a means to keep a roleplayer organization coordinated. We, too, may have a Board of Directors.

Galiantus already covered what I would have said to this: "...there are plenty of founderless regions for [raiders] to target, so they opt to invade them instead because the cost is so great and it's not worth their time. In other words, regions with active founders are so hard to invade that it's like opting out anyways."

I agree with your premise, but I disagree that this puts undue risk on regions with active founders.

Forest's entire constitution is premised on the delegate being non-executive. I get that their would be pro's and con's to this proposal, and Forest just happens to be one of the region's to get all con no pro, but that's just my two cents.

Con #3 from the OP, then. I admit that I am not familiar with your constitution (and I will go read it now to see why you need a non-exec delegate), but I did expect this to be a concern. I am a little surprised to hear this from a ten-year delegate who has a high endorsement count and presumably a great deal of trust from their community, but again, I will gladly do some research on Forest's system. Maybe that will open my eyes to the thought process.

That still puts an undue burden on founders to log in during a limited time frame, and log in every day. Founders should not be obligated to log in every day to protect their region from raiding.

That proposed solution was only to prevent tagging. If a tag-raider delegate cannot immediately use their Executive power to modify the region or appoint an RO, they cannot tag the target region, rendering that region immune to tagging. It has little to no effect on anything else.

TFW even raiders are opposed to an idea that would make raiding easier.

This kind of implies that everyone is opposed, and that if even raiders dislike it, it must be a bad idea. We have had seventeen people respond to this, including myself, plus a number of people offsite. Those 17+ consist of current and former raiders, defenders, natives, region-builders, RPers, and delegates. Those in favor and those opposed are roughly equal in number, with a few classified as neutral, and the responses in no way fall on ideological lines. It is one of the most balanced responses to a GP suggestion I have ever seen.

A lot of natives don't want to participate R/D in directly. The ability to attack a raider's home region is completely worthless if you don't want to participate in military GP.

The point is that it opens up a big new avenue for participation that does not currently exist. Those who do not want to participate are barely affected, for a number of reasons outlined earlier.

If people don't want to participate, then opening up a new avenue for participation is worthless to them.

Founders who don't want to participate would have to waste more time protecting their region, cleaning up after raiders, etc.

Support and opposition do break along ideological lines in the sense that this is only popular with people who participate in R/D. This is shaking up the R/D scene at the expense of every other community on NS. Your argument that those who don't want to participate won't be affected is just utter bollocks. The effect on everyone outside R/D would be overwhelmingly negative.

[August]

Thanks for all the responses, Monitor!

If people don't want to participate, then opening up a new avenue for participation is worthless to them.

That can be applied to literally anything the admins do. Some people never use the RMB. Why should there be BBCode buttons? Some people dislike N-Day. Why should anyone get to have it?

Founders who don't want to participate would have to waste more time protecting their region, cleaning up after raiders, etc.

If my one-hour suggestion were implemented, the cleanup issue would actually vanish. Tagging regions with founders would be near-impossible, which means less hassle for those founders, less complaining in the GP forum, and less graffiti in general. It is a huge positive for anyone who dislikes tagging, because it removes 65% of eligible regions (2645/4097) from the tagging pool!

...this is only popular with people who participate in R/D.

See here:

I was a native of a big, founderless UCR for many years, but I actually support this proposal.

Not to mention myself. I am 100% certified native, and I am not sure when I last updated (must have been months ago), yet I am in support.

This is shaking up the R/D scene at the expense of every other community on NS. Your argument that those who don't want to participate won't be affected is just utter bollocks.

Would you mind elaborating on who exactly would be negatively affected? Not nations in founderless regions--they only stand to gain, because raiders would be forced to keep some resources at home, instantly making founderless communities safer. Not nations in regions with exec delegates--they would feel no mechanical change. Not nations in 99% of passworded regions--nobody can touch them anyway. That already covers a huge chunk of the communities on NS.

The effect on everyone outside R/D would be overwhelmingly negative.

Emphasis mine.

Upon a quick scan of R/D organizations, it is safe to conclude that fewer than 1.5% of nations (excluding switchers, but true player counts are harder to find) are involved in R/D. If everyone else felt overwhelmingly negative effects, that would be almost 99%. We have already established, though, that the change would have zero negative effects on 20% of regions, and next to zero negative effects on another 42% of regions. Only 39% of regions can be truly affected, and even then, every last region in that 39% possesses a living founder. 39% does not sound like "everyone," and "living founder" does not sound "overwhelmingly negative."

Edit: I would like to add that no, I do not think that nobody would be negatively affected by this. Of course they would! That is the nature of every gameplay change--you can never make everyone happy all the time. I just think the window for abuse is much, much smaller than people are making it out to be, and that the tiny number of non-GP regions damaged as a result would be far outweighed by the number protected, plus the massive enhancements to inter-regional politics.

[TURTLESHROOM II]

The last thing we need is MORE raiders. The fact that institutionalized trolling and destruction of other people's work is even legal in this game is bad enough as it is.

[Khronion]

So which is true—that R/D is or isn't an integral part of the game? On more than one occasion, members of moderation (and admin) have posted that R/D is an intentional aspect of the game designed to necessitate interregional engagement and allyship driven by the presence of an actual in-game threat to a region's existence.

At the same time, it's clear this is not a consensus view, even among members of moderation, many of whom seem to espouse the opinion that R/D is more of an accident that they'd rather not touch with a 10-foot-pole and would prefer to have removed from the game entirely.

August's proposal would eliminate one of the fundamental imbalances in R/D, where foundered regions are inherently immune to military threat. As nearly all major players in the R/D scene have founders, it means necessarily that vulnerable founderless regions will become battlegrounds for R/D activities, creating a scenario where R/D depends on the existence of regions that have no interest in R/D. Moreover, R/D largely functions as a metagame that is played out through proxy battles and territory fights that never truly endanger either party's home ground (except in rare cases where a founder CTEs or is DEATed/DOSed for misconduct).

This proposal would radically alter the R/D meta to make homeland invasions viable, consequently driving new emergent gameplay that would break the cycle of "all talk no walk" where interregional conflict usually results solely in forum salt and offsite drama, since there's no actual onsite contest of any significant value. In a sense, regions would look a little more like a Warzone, where the community treats its region as the primary objective in a game of capture-the-flag, as opposed to a founder entitlement.

Of course, this is all under the assumption that you think R/D should be fostered as an intentional aspect of NationStates. I understand there is a significant faction of players on this site who believe that it should be eliminated completely, but every message we've gotten from site admin so far has upheld the legitimacy and intentionality of the R/D metagame. If the game's design ethos is meant to fundamentally accommodate R/D, I don't see why we shouldn't push for game changes that further vitalize it past the current dynamic of tagging and refounding dead regions. Basically, if we're gonna engage in the business of raiding, there's no reason why we shouldn't open ourselves up to legitimate in-game risk.

[Bedetopia]

This isn't the August I know...

You seem to forget that NS is supposed to be first and foremost a nation simulation game. One aspect of the simulation is interaction between nations, which is why regions exist. It's important to guarantee the existence of secure regions that are open to all.

NS is not Raidingland.

[Aclion]

Thanks for all the responses, Monitor!

If people don't want to participate, then opening up a new avenue for participation is worthless to them.

That can be applied to literally anything the admins do. Some people never use the RMB. Why should there be BBCode buttons? Some people dislike N-Day. Why should anyone get to have it?

R/D is fundamentally different because it is inflicted on nonparticipants.

[Khronion]

This may be a contentious statement, but it seems to me that upon creation of a nation, you've agreed to participate in all the mechanisms the game inflicts upon its participants, ranging from absurd national statistic changes, the right of founders/delegates to inflict their arbitrary whims upon regional residents, and R/D.

It is totally fair to assert that players should not engage in R/D, but those assertions are in-game rhetoric (unless those assertions are serious requests to have admin remove or mitigate R/D's presence). As it is, the game automatically opts nearly all new nations into the R/D meta, with the exception of school regions. As such, it seems appropriate to consider any changes that would improve the competitive nature of R/D and reduce the fundamental imbalance between foundered and founderless regions.

[Aclion]

This may be a contentious statement, but it seems to me that upon creation of a nation, you've agreed to participate in all the mechanisms the game inflicts upon its participants, ranging from absurd national statistic changes, the right of founders/delegates to inflict their arbitrary whims upon regional residents, and R/D.

It is totally fair to assert that players should not engage in R/D, but those assertions are in-game rhetoric (unless those assertions are serious requests to have admin remove or mitigate R/D's presence). As it is, the game automatically opts nearly all new nations into the R/D meta, with the exception of school regions. As such, it seems appropriate to consider any changes that would improve the competitive nature of R/D and reduce the fundamental imbalance between foundered and founderless regions.

As has been pointed out before, the R/D meta is not the only form of gameplay. Regionbuilding and the WA are already held back by R/D interests. If it is truly necessary that regional security be sacrificed to open new fodder to military gameplay then yes, it is time for the admin to seriously reconsider whether NS benefits from R/D.

[Digory Kirke]

This isn't the August I know...

You seem to forget that NS is supposed to be first and foremost a nation simulation game. One aspect of the simulation is interaction between nations, which is why regions exist. It's important to guarantee the existence of secure regions that are open to all.

NS is not Raidingland.

Could you lighten up? August is busier than most people on NS, but somehow, he's still able to be an active founder in 5 regions. This is what he's advocating for: incentive for founders to be active and think about their choices. I'd argue this would actually harm raiding significantly, as defenders like TGW would have no issue raiding new regions that claimed to be raider. Additionally, you have an increased layer of politics. Swith's region could stay behind lock and key, but if you wanted to grow, you'd have to find allies, lest you get raided. To me, this is an expansion of Gameplay and politics. This is a political game by nature, and any war system will be unpopular. However, this system gives the opportunity for natives and defenders to take revenge on raiders, to be proactive in their efforts.

Furthermore, this would give the opportunity for the recycling of region names and communities. I'm totally for this, as an inactive founder can kill a region, and a rogue RO can wreack havoc. This would politicize the game to a new level, and as NS is a political simulator, that is good. One more opportunity I'm seeing is for the creation of regions with dynamic political systems.

I'd also like to point out that this is not disaster for RPers: I am the delegate of an RP region with an executive delegacy. No one is attacking us, and if they do, our founder will right it (love you, august). I see your concerns, but I dismiss them because this game is, by nature, insecure, and insecurity can be battled with activity and recruitment.

[August]

Regionbuilding and the WA are already held back by R/D interests.

I had been here for seven years before I ever participated in R/D. I started region-building in 2010. At no point have I ever felt held back. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but I disagree with this premise.

This isn't the August I know...

Took longer than I expected for someone to make it personal. I am impressed.

...eliminate one of the fundamental imbalances in R/D, where foundered regions are inherently immune to military threat. As nearly all major players in the R/D scene have founders...
...consequently driving new emergent gameplay that would break the cycle of "all talk no walk" where interregional conflict usually results solely in forum salt and offsite drama, since there's no actual onsite contest of any significant value...

This hits the nail on the head.

---

Look, I have been throwing out hard data left and right in this thread, but I am not sure people are really paying attention to it, so let me put it this way:

Right now, there are 2645 regions (12.6%) with a founder, an exec delegate, and no password. This is not a majority, but once you take out the passworded one-nation regions, puppet storages, etc, this category makes up a good chunk of the active communities on the site. Now tell me, how often do these regions get raided? Not tagged, but genuinely raided. Defenders, do you frequently liberate regions with active, living founders? Raiders, do you make plans to raid such regions? Natives, do you flee from these regions for fear of being raided? Of course not, because raiding these regions is strategically ridiculous, unless one of them is your gameplay enemy. These regions are already out there. They are not being regularly targeted. This proposal, if implemented, would only make more of them.

[Deadeye Jack]

I am strongly against this proposed change for a few reasons some of which are already touched upon by others in this thread.

People who are "natives" or neutral aren't doing gameplay because they don't want to not because they can't target the regions they want. The first and most foremost effect of this change is to encourage the tag raiding of a whole new host of regions that previously were only targets if you wanted to tip the delegate not actually deface the WFE and all the other tagging changes. It's folly to believe that natives who had never shown interest or know how are all of a sudden gonna get organized and some how conduct some major operation to take vengeance on a raider organization's home region that would have an actual meaningful impact. It's like thinking that now that natives can set a bunch of Border Control RO's they're going to be able to keep the raiders out. People involved in R/D have a huge advantage in understanding the intricacies of the mechanics behind that form of gameplay that natives don't. That's not to say that they can't learn these things, but many don't have the time or interest to do so nor the availability to apply this knowledge at updates. In reality all that's happening is more natives will be in the line of fire while R/Ders generally remain safe in their home regions.

Second, the ability for conflict between opposing groups is vastly overstated because the regional founder will still exist. It would take years and years to get the influence necessary to say boot the founders of some of these old, large GP regions. And that's not even counting all the other nations in the regions you'd have to boot for a refound. Regions involved in R/D understand the necessary security measures to take to stay safe.

Third, I think this change gives further advantage to GCRs and already well established and large UCRs. These regions with their already existent high endo counts are basically untouchable as long as the delegate isn't going rogue. Regions that have had sustained success and high endo counts like 10000 Islands and Europeia would be able to prey on any smaller or newer region if they wanted to.

[August]

The first and most foremost effect of this change is to encourage the tag raiding of a whole new host of regions that previously were only targets if you wanted to tip the delegate not actually deface the WFE and all the other tagging changes.

This is understandable, but what are your thoughts on my proposed one-hour solution to tagging?

It's folly to believe that natives who had never shown interest or know how are all of a sudden gonna get organized and some how conduct some major operation to take vengeance on a raider organization's home region that would have an actual meaningful impact.

One word: TBR.

In reality all that's happening is more natives will be in the line of fire while R/Ders generally remain safe in their home regions.

That is the current situation. This proposal would push things in the opposite direction.

Second, the ability for conflict between opposing groups is vastly overstated because the regional founder will still exist. It would take years and years to get the influence necessary to say boot the founders of some of these old, large GP regions. And that's not even counting all the other nations in the regions you'd have to boot for a refound.

Refound? Not the only way to attack another region. Take a typical region where the bottom 75% of nations hold 25% of the influence. Kick all of those and you devastate the region. Appoint sleepers as ROs and amplify that effect. Total destruction is unnecessary.

...basically untouchable as long as the delegate isn't going rogue...

Well, yeah, that is part of the point. I believe XKI has had a non-exec delegate for most of its existence. Under this proposed change, if a raider sleeper joined the region, worked his way up through the ranks, and became delegate, he could do some actual damage. Alternatively, they could endo-swap until they were close, then other raiders could move in and push them over. I am not suggesting that anyone would conduct a conventional raid on a mega-region like that--they would not need to.

[Galiantus VII]

It seems to me the basic desire here is for regions participating in gameplay to be vulnerable to each other. That is the entire goal of the discussion. The problem is, you can't easily change the rules for gameplay regions without also changing the rules for non-gameplay regions, so most players will naturally be against proposed solutions of this nature.

There needs to be some clear division between which regions are participating in gameplay and which are not, such that it is not possible to participate in gameplay without using a vulnerable region as your base of operations.

As August said:

Defenders, do you frequently liberate regions with active, living founders? Raiders, do you make plans to raid such regions? Natives, do you flee from these regions for fear of being raided? Of course not, because raiding these regions is strategically ridiculous, unless one of them is your gameplay enemy. These regions are already out there. They are not being regularly targeted. This proposal, if implemented, would only make more of them.

The exposure non-executive delegate regions not participating in gameplay will suffer from this change compared to the consequences R/D regions with non-executive delegates will suffer is minuscule, if anything. This will actually allow raiders and defenders to be enough of a threat to one another that they will be forced to shift some focus away from non-R/D regions in response to the new threats. The result should actually be more along the lines of fewer regions outside R/D being affected, not more.

[Deadeye Jack]

The first and most foremost effect of this change is to encourage the tag raiding of a whole new host of regions that previously were only targets if you wanted to tip the delegate not actually deface the WFE and all the other tagging changes.

This is understandable, but what are your thoughts on my proposed one-hour solution to tagging?

It would cut down on tag raiding of regions with founders I suppose. Of course there is still the opportunity for raiders to hit Joe Native's region and do damage when Joe Native's founder is away for a few days. It takes away the protection these regions have of not being raided because their founder isn't active everyday or if the founder goes on vacation.

It's folly to believe that natives who had never shown interest or know how are all of a sudden gonna get organized and some how conduct some major operation to take vengeance on a raider organization's home region that would have an actual meaningful impact.

One word: TBR.

That's more like three words one acronym . TBR was basically half raiders infiltrating the "natives" trying to take over the region and resulted in raiders securing the region. The effort was largely disorganized and only possible because there was no founder at all due to its deletion.

In reality all that's happening is more natives will be in the line of fire while R/Ders generally remain safe in their home regions.

That is the current situation. This proposal would push things in the opposite direction.

My point is I don't believe that natives are getting more benefit out of this change than R/Ders. There will be 100s and 1000s of raids of regions that wouldn't have been raided before for every 1 instance of R/Der's regions being successfully targeted. Just like Border Control ROs have been far more detrimental to natives than they have been helpful to them in preventing raids.

...basically untouchable as long as the delegate isn't going rogue...

Well, yeah, that is part of the point. I believe XKI has had a non-exec delegate for most of its existence. Under this proposed change, if a raider sleeper joined the region, worked his way up through the ranks, and became delegate, he could do some actual damage. Alternatively, they could endo-swap until they were close, then other raiders could move in and push them over. I am not suggesting that anyone would conduct a conventional raid on a mega-region like that--they would not need to.

Endo caps will just be instituted where they previously weren't a necessity. As for the rest of that yeah I guess it's possible for a hostile to infiltrate the region and get in its good graces over the course of a couple years and then when they ascend to the delegacy do some damage. I'm not sure the inherent distrust you'd have to look at everyone with would be worth the change though.

EDIT: More Stuff Below

Defenders, do you frequently liberate regions with active, living founders? Raiders, do you make plans to raid such regions? Natives, do you flee from these regions for fear of being raided? Of course not, because raiding these regions is strategically ridiculous, unless one of them is your gameplay enemy. These regions are already out there. They are not being regularly targeted. This proposal, if implemented, would only make more of them.

The exposure non-executive delegate regions not participating in gameplay will suffer from this change compared to the consequences R/D regions with non-executive delegates will suffer is minuscule, if anything. This will actually allow raiders and defenders to be enough of a threat to one another that they will be forced to shift some focus away from non-R/D regions in response to the new threats. The result should actually be more along the lines of fewer regions outside R/D being affected, not more.

Let's say right now I have a foundered region with a non-exec delegacy. I go on vacation for three weeks. Under the current rules no damage can be done to my region. Under August's proposed change, let's say 2 weeks into my absence raiders notice and say "hmm here's a region we never raided before because we were never able to do any damage what with its founder and non executive delegate". Instead of having to wait two more weeks minimum in the region before they can do any damage they will be able to start doing stuff right away. Acropolis was a region with a founder with a day or two left of activity left that was raided recently and ultimately refounded. No more non-executive delegates means more scenarios like that and even though they might not end in refound they would still result in the potential for damage that didn't previously exist.

[August]

There will be 100s and 1000s of raids of regions that wouldn't have been raided before for every 1 instance of R/Der's regions being successfully targeted.

The only thing I can do at this point is repeat myself:

These regions are already out there. They are not being regularly targeted. This proposal, if implemented, would only make more of them.

If this change would result in raiders lining up around the block to destroy regions with founders and exec delegates, why are they not doing it already?

EDIT:

Let's say right now I have a foundered region with a non-exec delegacy...

If you cannot rely on or trust your residents to protect the region in your absence, you should probably just password the region until you return from vacation. If you have no residents (or very few) at the time you leave, you should password without a doubt. That is just the sensible move. If your region is more established, it would take a long time for raiders to do lasting damage, even without a password.

[Galiantus VII]

You said a couple things I think are worth discussing:

It would cut down on tag raiding of regions with founders I suppose. Of course there is still the opportunity for raiders to hit Joe Native's region and do damage when Joe Native's founder is away for a few days. It takes away the protection these regions have of not being raided because their founder isn't active everyday or if the founder goes on vacation.

Endo caps will just be instituted where they previously weren't a necessity. As for the rest of that yeah I guess it's possible for a hostile to infiltrate the region and get in its good graces over the course of a couple years and then when they ascend to the delegacy do some damage. I'm not sure the inherent distrust you'd have to look at everyone with would be worth the change though.

For the first one, yeah. You're absolutely right. A few thousand regions will be made viably open to that kind of attack. That's why I have been suggesting that very small and/or new regions still be allowed to have non-executive delegates. The point is to open up more of the larger regions to possible retaliation for participation in R/D, not to make small regions a target.

On the second one, I see what you're getting at, but the net effect of these regions having to put more resources into regional security is the whole point. If you're going to do R/D, you are naturally going to make a lot of enemies. If you just don't have anyone as a WA delegate, you can get update raided by a short sleeper and have new members of the region kicked out relatively easily, thus inhibiting region growth. So anyone in R/D will have to subject their own region to a WA delegate to prevent the gradual erosion of their size, meaning they will have fewer resources for operations outside the region. Most such regions won't ever have to deal with a large-scale invasion threatening their existence, but they will need to make allies and garrison themselves to remain viable.

[USS Monitor]

Thanks for all the responses, Monitor!

If people don't want to participate, then opening up a new avenue for participation is worthless to them.

That can be applied to literally anything the admins do. Some people never use the RMB. Why should there be BBCode buttons? Some people dislike N-Day. Why should anyone get to have it?

Because those things do not negatively impact the players who don't need them.

...this is only popular with people who participate in R/D.

See here:

I was a native of a big, founderless UCR for many years, but I actually support this proposal.

Not to mention myself. I am 100% certified native, and I am not sure when I last updated (must have been months ago), yet I am in support. [/quote]

Vince is a defender and getting out of the game for a few months is different from being an actual outsider.

This is shaking up the R/D scene at the expense of every other community on NS. Your argument that those who don't want to participate won't be affected is just utter bollocks.

Would you mind elaborating on who exactly would be negatively affected?

Everyone who has a non-executive delegate and wants to keep it that way. For whatever reason.

Raiders raiding is not inherently negative. Natives losing the ability to control how much risk they take on is negative.

[Leutria]

I don't think this would hinder people who raid as much as you think it would. I am from an imperialist region, and while we don't make people endo our delegate currently, there are currently about 50 WA natives in our region, so without forcing the military to say home we already could have a good number of native endos. Even if we wanted that extra security, I have been a part of a pile and tag raiding at the same time. You just need to make sure you switch back to your nation at home for it's update, but you can raid all you want before and after your region's update. It is just one extra switch.

[Deadeye Jack]

There will be 100s and 1000s of raids of regions that wouldn't have been raided before for every 1 instance of R/Der's regions being successfully targeted.

The only thing I can do at this point is repeat myself:

These regions are already out there. They are not being regularly targeted. This proposal, if implemented, would only make more of them.

If this change would result in raiders lining up around the block to destroy regions with founders and exec delegates, why are they not doing it already?

I'd have to look more in depth at the issue. Suffice to say, if I were a raider I'd probably do it more than the current crop do if I have a good idea I can hold the region for a few days without founder interference and that is my goal instead of refounding.

Let's say right now I have a foundered region with a non-exec delegacy...

If you cannot rely on or trust your residents to protect the region in your absence, you should probably just password the region until you return from vacation. If you have no residents (or very few) at the time you leave, you should password without a doubt. That is just the sensible move. If your region is more established, it would take a long time for raiders to do lasting damage, even without a password.

Well there isn't much of a track record for natives using BC RO to rid themselves of raiders either during the initial jump or after. They'd have an hour sure but that's not always managed. Also while we are hyper aware gameplayers that understand security risks you're asking for these relatively inexperienced folks to know what we know. I think many would have to learn the lesson the hard way before they even started being paranoid enough to think about security the way you are saying.

[Alusi]

But what if you just made it that only after holding the WA Position for like 7 to 10 days can you actually become executive... Therefore it means that it would be pointless for regions... with only, lets say, 5 people... to get raided. However it provides more of a challenge (a fun one in my case) and more of a reward for those who take over larger regions.

It would also mean that the delegate would have to be elected, and stay there. This means that planted puppets will actually have to try.

[Mount Seymour]

Please no.

So a portion of our figurative NS 1% in GP want a couple more chances to raid regions they've never gotten to raid before, and therefore we should throw every single other community's interests out the window? "Nope, sorry, you can't protect your region from being vandalised without killing it yourself or being online every single night" isn't exactly appealing for prospective players. It's not all about R/D.

The number of R/D regions that would be vulnerable to raiding after this change would be, what, 15? It's worth making hundreds of non-gameplay regions much more easily destroyed just so you can have those 15 to play with?

@August The numbers that you're missing from the OP, though, are how many nations are in the regions which fall into each of those categories.

Category	# of Nations	% of total Nations
Passworded	29572	17.54%
Founderless*	6980	4.14%
GCRs	57507	34.12%
Founder + Exec	19134	11.35%
Founder Non-Exec	55358	32.84%
All regions	168551	100%

* Not counting the GCRs.

It's not 2.5% of NationStates that's "most heavily affected". It's a third. And for the benefit of 0.008% of the game.

[Bubblegum Soviets]

Let's please not. When I created my region so I could be left alone, I didn't remove exec from the delegate. Shortly thereafter, I was tagged by Lily, so I had to take exec off of the delegate. I don't see why we should be catering to you military folks when it will just make me have to regularly clean up graffiti. It's a selfish proposal and not one that will at all benefit the game.

[Reploid Productions]

CAPTAIN BUZZKILL IS HERE TO RUIN THE DAY!

I propose that we completely remove the Non-Executive option from delegates.

The option for non-executive delegates was put in place by the techies as part of a way for foundered regions to secure themselves against R/D gameplay, so that they could opt-out while still enjoying the other aspects of gameplaying (regional interaction, government, region building, etc) which stricter security measures such as a password would interfere with.

The techies are not going to remove a tool that was put in place specifically to give foundered regions an easy way to ensure regional stability and control, especially on the argument that it will increase instability. The argument about opening R/D home regions to attack falls flat, because the people who want to opt-out of R/D are not magically going to want to partake in R/D just to go after R/Ders. In addition, as evidenced by events in TBR in the time span between their original region falling vulnerable and their complete obliteration as an R/D "brand" due to Predator, R/D groups are quite capable of operating in total absence of a secure "home region," and a change like this would merely encourage the growth of such non-regional R/D organizations.

The various suggestions to put various limitations on the non-executive delegate tool, such as if the delegate has X number of endorsements or higher likewise falls flat. In a foundered region, by very intentional design the founder is God Almighty of that region, especially when that founder is in residence (if the founder leaves the region, the delegate reverts to executive already.) The techies are not going to put such a limitation on the founder's control over their region, especially on the argument that it will increase instability.

CAPTAIN BUZZKILL AWAAAAAAAAAAY!


~Evil Forum Empress Rep Prod the Ninja Mod
~She who wields the Banhammer; master of the mighty moderation no-dachi Kiritateru Teikoku

[Galiantus VII]

It's not 2.5% of NationStates that's "most heavily affected". It's a third. And for the benefit of 0.008% of the game.

I keep having to go back to this because no one has seemed to notice, but what if this change only affected larger regions? You know, the ones with enough players that not everyone has to go out and learn about regional security to protect the region. I absolutely agree small regions shouldn't have to deal with this I'm curious how things would look if you took out regions smaller than 20 nations and compared the number of affected nations then, with the consideration that it might be a good thing that regions with 100 or more nations are affected.

Also, you should leave puppet storage regions out of your data (if you aren't already doing so) because they aren't a good indicator of numbers of players affected, which is the really important number here.