[Discussion] Delegate-Elect

[Cormactopia Prime]

Really wish we could come with ideas to help natives in the R/D game not make it even easier for raiders.

This. It would be nice if admins would stop pandering to the R/D game in general and care about the actual communities that people spend years building.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

In short, the two reasons I am against this are 24 hour R/D and the lessening of regions' ability to defend themselves.

The former is pretty simple. Any military action can start at any time of day. A raid can start by gaining del elect at any hour, and defenders must be prepared to notice, jump in, and defeat the delegate elect at any and all hours of the day. I can have folks jump into a region at 2 in the afternoon with more people than defenders have on at that given moment, pile the gap up to 20-30e in 30 minutes or so with proper planning, and get it a bit higher given a few more hours. You're putting the burden of organizing a large response on a whim to a pre-planned one at an and every hour of the day. The same plays into liberations, coups, and other situations. A bit more on that in part 2. I don't think you'll see greater participation, as much as greater burnout.

So let's go to part 2. This is a *huge* backtrack on RO abilities. A GCR makes an easy example, so let's start there. Regional Officer McCoupy knows the delegate just went to bed. McCoupy has BC powers and decides to go rogue. McCoupy ejects 30 people endorsing the delegate but not him, and maybe calls some friends to pile on him, putting him in lead. At this point, one of the other security officers notice. "Oh no, McCoupy is is couping!" What can they do? Spoiler alert: Jack Shit. They can't eject his supporters, or new pilers coming in. They can try to call on others to pile, but they can't remove exec powers from him themselves, so McCoupy just ejects them. The only one who can do *anything* is the delegate, who can remove BC powers from McCoupy, allowing an attempt to win the pile, but he's asleep. Maybe we even know s/he leaves for work first thing in the morning, without checking NS, and is unable to be reached until lunch! Even once the delegate gets on and removes BC powers from McCoupy, McCoupy's supporters are still immune from ejection. In short, it renders having security officers utterly useless! The same applies to other coups, sleeper missions, etc - no one ever reasonably expects your average RO to defeat a hostile force as it jumps in. Their role in reality is to increase the number of trusted people with the ability to respond to threats, and thus increasing the liklihood someone does so in a rapid manner. Anything that renders them further useless is just plain dumb. Hell, no one can even play an influence game, and try to determine who to eject, maybe focusing those vocal on the RMB, or those with low influence, etc, that add flavor to combatting a contested delegacy. It takes things down to pure numbers, and in defensive situations against an internal threat, the delegate themselves responding. I dislike things that a) counter the ability of regions to properly defend themselves, and b) that move R/D from skills towards numbers.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Strongly against this. It is hard enough for founderless regions and this will only make it easier to raid us if the delegate elect and all their endosers can't be ejected. They can just dog pile us and we're screwed.

It will also effectively kill Hell, as it destroys our ability to safely bring in nations in between the update. They just need to get the password and dog pile us and boom we're doomed.

Really wish we could come with ideas to help natives in the R/D game not make it even easier for raiders.

I wouldn't even say this universally makes things easier for raiders. Any upside it has, mainly regarding occupations, comes with the equal downside of defenders being able to act the same way. Just like we can try to start a raid at any hour, defenders and start a liberation and try to force a pile-off at any hour. In your specific case, aye it does make your region more raidable, but I think overall I'd describe it as increasing chaos and decreasing the ability of the delegate-in-power to secure their region. And yes, I think the difference in describing that is important ;P It's worth noting in considering this how many large GP orgs have close ties to GCR's. One impact that may balance things out further in regard to "easier for raiders" is that those GCR's would be under threat and require support far more often, either directly requiring the involvement of said orgs, or indirectly limiting the resources available for them to use.

[Great Alemonia]

Are you insane? This policy is absolutely terrible. If this is introduced, I will cease to take you seriously as well as all the others who pushed to have this introduced. Grow up, and listen to our opinion, because bloody hell mate, this is awful.

[Eluvatar]

In some GCR Constitutions, it's illegal for a Guardian to resign WA or they lose Guardianship (or citizenship if leave region.)
In other cases, a person is more likely to coup than be forced to regain 300-400 endos from scratch. Theyre not so willing to lose hard earned endo progress and would sooner "wait it out" than restart. The problem with this approach is that nations don't read, they automatically endorse the sitting delegate and ignore all else, which keeps the illegal Delegate as Delegate for weeks longer. For me it took a third of my term because I spammed TEP regularly XD
Anyway. See ya around! *runs away*

Thank you. If you or someone else can make sure this chain of reasoning makes its way into the Request for Comments topic and/or unless there's a good reason aired not to, I imagine that if this goes forward I will make sure to allow a Delegate-Elect to be able to eject their own endorsers.

Strongly against this. It is hard enough for founderless regions and this will only make it easier to raid us if the delegate elect and all their endosers can't be ejected. They can just dog pile us and we're screwed.

It will also effectively kill Hell, as it destroys our ability to safely bring in nations in between the update. They just need to get the password and dog pile us and boom we're doomed.

Really wish we could come with ideas to help natives in the R/D game not make it even easier for raiders.

If nations are permitted to enter for a short period of time immediately after a region just updated, there would not be enough time if they brought in more than expected to deal with that?

The intention is to help all players be able to be more involved, not just raiders. If it only helps raiders, that is a problem, and the feature would need serious reconsideration. I would be very interested in your perspective in the Request for Comments topic.

In short, the two reasons I am against this are 24 hour R/D and the lessening of regions' ability to defend themselves.

I would be very concerned at any change reducing the ability of the natives of founderless regions to defend themselves.

The former is pretty simple. Any military action can start at any time of day. A raid can start by gaining del elect at any hour, and defenders must be prepared to notice, jump in, and defeat the delegate elect at any and all hours of the day. I can have folks jump into a region at 2 in the afternoon with more people than defenders have on at that given moment, pile the gap up to 20-30e in 30 minutes or so with proper planning, and get it a bit higher given a few more hours. You're putting the burden of organizing a large response on a whim to a pre-planned one at an and every hour of the day. The same plays into liberations, coups, and other situations. A bit more on that in part 2. I don't think you'll see greater participation, as much as greater burnout.

It seems to me that pre-planning 20-30 people showing up in 30 minutes is the kind of thing that is vulnerable to the intelligence game. That's one aspect off the game that it's been my impression people missed. Perhaps, however, there are reasons to not mourn its passing. I'd be interested in thoughts on this.

So let's go to part 2. This is a *huge* backtrack on RO abilities. A GCR makes an easy example, so let's start there. Regional Officer McCoupy knows the delegate just went to bed. McCoupy has BC powers and decides to go rogue. McCoupy ejects 30 people endorsing the delegate but not him, and maybe calls some friends to pile on him, putting him in lead. At this point, one of the other security officers notice. "Oh no, McCoupy is is couping!" What can they do? Spoiler alert: Jack Shit. They can't eject his supporters, or new pilers coming in. They can try to call on others to pile, but they can't remove exec powers from him themselves, so McCoupy just ejects them. The only one who can do *anything* is the delegate, who can remove BC powers from McCoupy, allowing an attempt to win the pile, but he's asleep. Maybe we even know s/he leaves for work first thing in the morning, without checking NS, and is unable to be reached until lunch! Even once the delegate gets on and removes BC powers from McCoupy, McCoupy's supporters are still immune from ejection. In short, it renders having security officers utterly useless! The same applies to other coups, sleeper missions, etc - no one ever reasonably expects your average RO to defeat a hostile force as it jumps in. Their role in reality is to increase the number of trusted people with the ability to respond to threats, and thus increasing the liklihood someone does so in a rapid manner. Anything that renders them further useless is just plain dumb. Hell, no one can even play an influence game, and try to determine who to eject, maybe focusing those vocal on the RMB, or those with low influence, etc, that add flavor to combatting a contested delegacy. It takes things down to pure numbers, and in defensive situations against an internal threat, the delegate themselves responding. I dislike things that a) counter the ability of regions to properly defend themselves, and b) that move R/D from skills towards numbers.

I find parts of this difficult to follow. If or when you submit a comment along these lines to the Request for Comments topic, I think it would help me if you could break up the separate parts into separate paragraphs, and possibly explain some aspects a little bit more.

The general gist, as far as I can parse it, however I find quite interesting and would love to dig into further. I don't want regions to be less able to defend themselves.

Strongly against this. It is hard enough for founderless regions and this will only make it easier to raid us if the delegate elect and all their endosers can't be ejected. They can just dog pile us and we're screwed.

It will also effectively kill Hell, as it destroys our ability to safely bring in nations in between the update. They just need to get the password and dog pile us and boom we're doomed.

Really wish we could come with ideas to help natives in the R/D game not make it even easier for raiders.

I wouldn't even say this universally makes things easier for raiders. Any upside it has, mainly regarding occupations, comes with the equal downside of defenders being able to act the same way. Just like we can try to start a raid at any hour, defenders and start a liberation and try to force a pile-off at any hour. In your specific case, aye it does make your region more raidable, but I think overall I'd describe it as increasing chaos and decreasing the ability of the delegate-in-power to secure their region. And yes, I think the difference in describing that is important ;P It's worth noting in considering this how many large GP orgs have close ties to GCR's. One impact that may balance things out further in regard to "easier for raiders" is that those GCR's would be under threat and require support far more often, either directly requiring the involvement of said orgs, or indirectly limiting the resources available for them to use.

Reducing isolation and allowing for more back and forth do seem like good things to me. I'd be interested in the articulation of other, possibly more important, goods that they'd harm.

[Reploid Productions]

It would be nice if admins would stop pandering to the R/D game in general and care about the actual communities that people spend years building.

Are you insane? This policy is absolutely terrible. If this is introduced, I will cease to take you seriously as well as all the others who pushed to have this introduced. Grow up, and listen to our opinion, because bloody hell mate, this is awful.

I would like to remind you both of the ground rules laid out in the OP by Elu:

Ground Rules

1. A player may post using one (and only one) nation in this topic. Do not use puppet nations.
2. Please address other players only in a completely respectful and cordial manner.
3. Please keep in mind site rules in general and the bad faith policy specifically (which applies to this topic).

These are neither respectful, cordial, nor particularly adding anything of merit to the actual discussion. If you would like to elaborate on how and why you believe the proposed idea is a poor one, please do so without the blatantly bad faith jabs.


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

[Guy]

I’m not convinced that the idea, as it stands, should be supported. However, I believe that it has significant potential, and deserves close examination, some tweaking, and re-evaluation. I will be commenting more formally on that.

What is unfortunately not surprising is the lack of high-quality feedback. Without going to the character of any of the posters here, the majority have not posted an intelligible argument, let alone an intelligent one. Only a minority follow a logical progression to their conclusion. EWS’ post does make some of its points very lucidly, and I hope that we see more posts like it (and that admin seriously engages with it).

[Adytus]

The intention is to help all players be able to be more involved, not just raiders. If it only helps raiders, that is a problem, and the feature would need serious reconsideration. I would be very interested in your perspective in the Request for Comments topic.

In the Sinkers, this proposal will pretty much ensure less people are involved in regional security. The long term impact of this change will likely result in tyrant looking governments to ensure the delegate does not have to live in continuous fear of outside forces or the people around them. It will, in a way, kill a lot of the game for people. Anyone with endorsements but the delegate will be frowned upon. Balder, Lazarus, and Osiris will all likely look just like the Pacific security wise shortly after this goes into place. I'm not a fan of democracy in this game, but you will pretty much kill it in-game attempting to make players more involved. Governments will pick to eliminate the role of guardians or security officers rather than put up with it at all. There will no longer be a middle ground for trust as people will not pick carefully who is near them in endorsements but just get rid of it entirely. Furthermore, if regions decide to keep security officers in place or maintain high endorsements, they will be subjected to the whims of anyone with an army or any UCR with an agenda until they get tired of that and put in place the tyrant government. You will be creating more dictatorships than anyone else on this game with this proposal out of fear of it.

[Eluvatar]

I’m not convinced that the idea, as it stands, should be supported. However, I believe that it has significant potential, and deserves close examination, some tweaking, and re-evaluation. I will be commenting more formally on that.

What is unfortunately not surprising is the lack of high-quality feedback. Without going to the character of any of the posters here, the majority have not posted an intelligible argument, let alone an intelligent one. Only a minority follow a logical progression to their conclusion. EWS’ post does make some of its points very lucidly, and I hope that we see more posts like it (and that admin seriously engages with it).

Thank you for your consideration.

There is a reason why I thought pretty carefully about what sort of ground rules to go with. I hope these help steer the discussion in the direction you suggest, and away from the unsurprising alternative we've seen many times before.

The intention is to help all players be able to be more involved, not just raiders. If it only helps raiders, that is a problem, and the feature would need serious reconsideration. I would be very interested in your perspective in the Request for Comments topic.

In the Sinkers, this proposal will pretty much ensure less people are involved in regional security. The long term impact of this change will likely result in tyrant looking governments to ensure the delegate does not have to live in continuous fear of outside forces or the people around them. It will, in a way, kill a lot of the game for people. Anyone with endorsements but the delegate will be frowned upon. Balder, Lazarus, and Osiris will all likely look just like the Pacific security wise shortly after this goes into place. I'm not a fan of democracy in this game, but you will pretty much kill it in-game attempting to make players more involved. Governments will pick to eliminate the role of guardians or security officers rather than put up with it at all. There will no longer be a middle ground for trust as people will not pick carefully who is near them in endorsements but just get rid of it entirely. Furthermore, if regions decide to keep security officers in place or maintain high endorsements, they will be subjected to the whims of anyone with an army or any UCR with an agenda until they get tired of that and put in place the tyrant government. You will be creating more dictatorships than anyone else on this game with this proposal out of fear of it.

Historically, people believed that influence would result in lower endorsement caps and less democracy. I'm not convinced they were right.

In Game Created Regions in particular though, I'm curious as to the fundamental difference between before and after Delegate-Elect as it's my understanding that governments typically seek to keep all nations at a distance from the Delegate sufficient that no 'update' (simultaneous) group could come in and shift the balance: why would this be more likely at other hours of the day? Further, in large regions such as the Game Created Regions, I would expect that endorsement and unendorsement campaigns would have a very large effect on timescales longer than minutes. Thoughts?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

I thought my McCoupy example was pretty simple, but I'll rephrase for you Elu

The Story of McCoupy 2.0:

-McCoupy is an RO in a region, and has BC

-McCoupy decides he wants to coup

-McCoupy ejects a ton of nations when he knows the delegate is offline for a while, for sleep, work, whatever. Maybe he also calls in some outside friends to endorse him.

-McCoupy now has the most endorsements due to his ejection spree and a handful of friends, and is delegate-elect

-Another RO, we'll call him McGuardian, notices there's a coup attempt ongoing. Oh no!

-McGuardian can't do anything at all. He cannot eject people endorsing McCoupy. He can't reach the delegate because the delegate is at sleep, working, on a plane, whatever. He can reach out to allies, but they can't jump in to help, because McCoup will just eject them. McGuardian cannot remove BC powers from McCoupy because he is not delegate. He is helpless.

-A few hours later, the delegate comes on. On no, a coup attempt! The delegate immediately pulls McCoup's BC powers! What now? Their allies can come in and pile, but McCoupy has already been doing that with his friends for hours. No one, not the delegate, not McGuardian, not the other RO's, can eject any supporters of McCoupy - they're all immune as long as he's delegate elect. The odds of recovering from this coup attempt are very low!

-How is this different from the normal opportunities to coup? Pretty simple: the ability to act whenever. Ejection can narrow the gap, but the friends are needed to finish things off. McCoupy can have his friends get on and come in at a time when no one is online to see McCoupy starting ejections, or nations streaming in to endorse McCoupy. That's easy enough to keep an eye on for a couple minutes a day at update, but near impossible to watch all day. It's hard for McCoupy to pull that off fast enough to not be stopped in time at update. Ejecting 30 nations alone will take 40-45 seconds if you're on point, now that we have 1/s ejection rate limits. A region can easily watch for those ejections and respond at update. It's a hell of a lot easier for McCoupy if he can do this at any point in the day, become elect, and become immune to response. All he needs are the numbers to get elect, and he's set.

-As a follow up to this, in a contested situation where the RO's notice but the delegate is not online, one thing they can play with tactically is maximizing the influence available to them towards things like ejecting the most McCoupy supporters, ejecting the nations on the RMB shouting "Unendorse the delegate, Endorse McCoupy!", etc etc. With no ability to eject, even that tactical response ability is removed. The great equalizer between RO's is that they cannot remove each other, so if one can eject, another can too. This removes that equalizer the moment one uses surprise to acquire elect.

[Benjabobaria]

Yeah, no. This would annihilate all current raiding concepts.

[Adytus]

I’m not convinced that the idea, as it stands, should be supported. However, I believe that it has significant potential, and deserves close examination, some tweaking, and re-evaluation. I will be commenting more formally on that.

What is unfortunately not surprising is the lack of high-quality feedback. Without going to the character of any of the posters here, the majority have not posted an intelligible argument, let alone an intelligent one. Only a minority follow a logical progression to their conclusion. EWS’ post does make some of its points very lucidly, and I hope that we see more posts like it (and that admin seriously engages with it).

Thank you for your consideration.

There is a reason why I thought pretty carefully about what sort of ground rules to go with. I hope these help steer the discussion in the direction you suggest, and away from the unsurprising alternative we've seen many times before.

In the Sinkers, this proposal will pretty much ensure less people are involved in regional security. The long term impact of this change will likely result in tyrant looking governments to ensure the delegate does not have to live in continuous fear of outside forces or the people around them. It will, in a way, kill a lot of the game for people. Anyone with endorsements but the delegate will be frowned upon. Balder, Lazarus, and Osiris will all likely look just like the Pacific security wise shortly after this goes into place. I'm not a fan of democracy in this game, but you will pretty much kill it in-game attempting to make players more involved. Governments will pick to eliminate the role of guardians or security officers rather than put up with it at all. There will no longer be a middle ground for trust as people will not pick carefully who is near them in endorsements but just get rid of it entirely. Furthermore, if regions decide to keep security officers in place or maintain high endorsements, they will be subjected to the whims of anyone with an army or any UCR with an agenda until they get tired of that and put in place the tyrant government. You will be creating more dictatorships than anyone else on this game with this proposal out of fear of it.

Historically, people believed that influence would result in lower endorsement caps and less democracy. I'm not convinced they were right.

In Game Created Regions in particular though, I'm curious as to the fundamental difference between before and after Delegate-Elect as it's my understanding that governments typically seek to keep all nations at a distance from the Delegate sufficient that no 'update' (simultaneous) group could come in and shift the balance: why would this be more likely at other hours of the day? Further, in large regions such as the Game Created Regions, I would expect that endorsement and unendorsement campaigns would have a very large effect on timescales longer than minutes. Thoughts?

I like to think the counterbalance to influence was the creation of guardians and security officers. A form of accepted oligarchy has formed as a result in every GCR to excerise control over influence, which at face value does not seem very democratic to me. In every one of them there is a group of 3-5 nations that work to enforce whatever government is in place. So yes, TNP or TSP can be considered democratic, but this is only allowed by that group. You can afford to keep the endorsements higher because within this group there is enough influence to oppose any opposition, even if it comes from a guardian. But under the proposal, you break this system in half. The delegate can no longer trust the guardian or security officer to maintain control as a group because the delegate can no longer easily maintain control over them. This tool threatens the balance. The security officers become a part of the problem; they become a part of the threats because there is a way the delegate can no longer stop them. People already believe this tool, if introduced, will provide incentive for people in guardian positions to make a move. So why would people provide that opportunity to begin with? The natural incentive to maintain security is to eliminate the role of guardian altogether, and impose strict watch on endorsements as to allow the delegate to be away for long periods of time (like a day or two or longer) if need be. With no guardians or any form of check on the delegate just to maintain day to day security, unless by some grace they are benevolent, they will naturally lower the endorsement cap, be in office longer, and drive people away with a static government. I do not think I addressed the endorsement campaign part, but I think what I am talking about has more to do with a community's natural backlash to these changes overtime rather than the event of the delegate-elect being used.

EDIT: I'm getting rid of typos as I see them. I typed this on iPhone so no telling.

[Kanglia]

Elu, I normally like your ideas, but I strongly oppose all of these changes, but most importantly this one, for every reason mentioned above.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Thank you for your consideration.

There is a reason why I thought pretty carefully about what sort of ground rules to go with. I hope these help steer the discussion in the direction you suggest, and away from the unsurprising alternative we've seen many times before.

Historically, people believed that influence would result in lower endorsement caps and less democracy. I'm not convinced they were right.

In Game Created Regions in particular though, I'm curious as to the fundamental difference between before and after Delegate-Elect as it's my understanding that governments typically seek to keep all nations at a distance from the Delegate sufficient that no 'update' (simultaneous) group could come in and shift the balance: why would this be more likely at other hours of the day? Further, in large regions such as the Game Created Regions, I would expect that endorsement and unendorsement campaigns would have a very large effect on timescales longer than minutes. Thoughts?

I like to think the counterbalance to influence was the creation of guardians and security officers. A form of accepted oligarchy has formed as a result in every GCR to excerise control over influence, which at face value does not seem very democratic to me. In every one of them there is a group of 3-5 nations that work to enforce whatever government is in place. So yes, TNP or TSP can be considered democratic, but this is only allowed by that group. You can afford to keep the endorsements higher because within this group there is enough influence to oppose any opposition, even if it comes from a guardian. But under the proposal, you break this system in half. The delegate can no longer trust the guardian or security officer to maintain control as a group because the delegate can no longer easily maintain control over them. This tool threatens the balance. The security officers become a part of the problem; they become a part of the threats because there is a way the delegate can no longer stop them. People already believe this tool, if introduced, will provide incentive for people in guardian positions to make a move. So why would people provide that opportunity to begin with? The natural incentive to maintain security is to eliminate the role of guardian altogether, and impose strict watch on endorsements as to allow the delegate to be away for long periods of time (like a day or two or longer) if need be. With no guardians or any form of check on the delegate just to maintain day to day security, unless by some grace they are benevolent, they will naturally lower the endorsement cap, be in office longer, and drive people away with a static government. I do not think I addressed the endorsement campaign part, but I think what I am talking about has more to do with a communities natural backlash to these changes overtime rather than the event of the delegate-elect being used.

Particularly well put. As undemocratic as GCR's are by nature, the current situation balances a desire to have high endorsement guardians (to respond to a coup by the delegate or another guardian) with the risks of having people close to the delegate in endorsements. Influence decay already added the potential for a bit more chaos there.

On the other hand, this just encourages a total crackdown. Why trust guardians at all? Go for a single or dual person control. Low endo caps, so half the military forces on NS combined could not force someone into elect. Yeah, you're fucked if they go rogue, but it's easier to pick one or two safe people than pick 5 or 6, which you'd have to do in this case, because any guardian could coup pretty easily and unstoppably with this. If they did go rogue, it's not like said guardians could do anything anyways.

[Reploid Productions]

Two posts have been deemed to be made in bad faith, and as such have been removed from the thread. Please be aware that we are authorized by [violet] to remove bad faith posts from public view outright and relocate them to the evidence locker:

So I have simply instructed moderators to remove posts from discussion threads that are bad faith.

Once again, I remind everyone, particularly those who had posts removed to review the OP:

Ground Rules
This topic is intended to be a way for site administration and the community to discuss the feature and improve understanding. This topic will not be permitted to become a flaming free-for-all of an argument, useless to everyone and infuriating to many.

1. A player may post using one (and only one) nation in this topic. Do not use puppet nations.
2. Please address other players only in a completely respectful and cordial manner.
3. Please keep in mind site rules in general and the bad faith policy specifically (which applies to this topic).

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

[Kylia Quilor]

This makes regional defense untenable, renders it nearly impossible for raiders to hold their occupations for long, takes what skill their is from R/D out entirely and leaves GCRs more insecure.

I'm not entirely sure how this is supposed to help? I mean, yes, it would be nice if update wasn't at Midnight and Noon, because that's sometimes mighty inconvenient, but making R/D a 24 hour game is not the solution to the problem, at least not under the proposal you are giving us, mods.

[The Stalker]

Strongly against this. It is hard enough for founderless regions and this will only make it easier to raid us if the delegate elect and all their endosers can't be ejected. They can just dog pile us and we're screwed.

It will also effectively kill Hell, as it destroys our ability to safely bring in nations in between the update. They just need to get the password and dog pile us and boom we're doomed.

Really wish we could come with ideas to help natives in the R/D game not make it even easier for raiders.

I wouldn't even say this universally makes things easier for raiders. Any upside it has, mainly regarding occupations, comes with the equal downside of defenders being able to act the same way. Just like we can try to start a raid at any hour, defenders and start a liberation and try to force a pile-off at any hour. In your specific case, aye it does make your region more raidable, but I think overall I'd describe it as increasing chaos and decreasing the ability of the delegate-in-power to secure their region.

Well I guess a better way to phrase it might that it makes raids more likely to occur, which to me helps raiders most, but yea defenders get some action too. Really no matter how you put it though, natives loose.

If nations are permitted to enter for a short period of time immediately after a region just updated, there would not be enough time if they brought in more than expected to deal with that?

So instead of being able to safely let folks in after the update and just changing the password before the next update, I'd have to be on the whole time to ensure raiders aren't walking in guys. Then when the more likely case of them all jumping in at once making themselves un-ejectable, I have to hope I can find enough defenders in time to save us.

The whole point of our system is to be independent. This turns us back into helpless ducks who must rely on defenders to save us. No safe way to bring folks in anymore as every time will be a huge raid risk and require having defenders on standby should the inevitable happen.

Honestly if this goes into effect I'll most likely close Hell permanently. I refuse to allow Hell to ever be raided again.

[Bedetopia]

You seem confused as to why so many people treat this idea like it's the apocalypse, even though there are many reasons.

It's not fun nor challenging for raiders to win by mass piling into a target. It's even less fun if raiders find themselves unable to stop a liberation because the defender point got more endos, despite having gained the influence to eject enough people and spent days getting BC on their ROs. It's a chore for defenders to be forced to watch the feed 24/7. It's torture for the natives and GCR governments who will need to monitor their regions all the time, sometimes forced to watch as a blitzkrieg renders them powerless.

This isn't just threatening R/D. This is threatening communities. This is threatening players' enjoyment. This is threatening a good chunk of NationStates.
I suggest stopping this alienating idea before it's too late.

[Gladio II]

You seem confused as to why so many people treat this idea like it's the apocalypse, even though there are many reasons.

It's not fun nor challenging for raiders to win by mass piling into a target. It's even less fun if raiders find themselves unable to stop a liberation because the defender point got more endos, despite having gained the influence to eject enough people and spent days getting BC on their ROs. It's a chore for defenders to be forced to watch the feed 24/7. It's torture for the natives and GCR governments who will need to monitor their regions all the time, sometimes forced to watch as a blitzkrieg renders them powerless.

This isn't just threatening R/D. This is threatening communities. This is threatening players' enjoyment. This is threatening a good chunk of NationStates.
I suggest stopping this alienating idea before it's too late.

^^This

Like everyone else, I am strongly opposed to these new changes.

[Mutesetsa]

You seem confused as to why so many people treat this idea like it's the apocalypse, even though there are many reasons.

It's not fun nor challenging for raiders to win by mass piling into a target. It's even less fun if raiders find themselves unable to stop a liberation because the defender point got more endos, despite having gained the influence to eject enough people and spent days getting BC on their ROs. It's a chore for defenders to be forced to watch the feed 24/7. It's torture for the natives and GCR governments who will need to monitor their regions all the time, sometimes forced to watch as a blitzkrieg renders them powerless.

This isn't just threatening R/D. This is threatening communities. This is threatening players' enjoyment. This is threatening a good chunk of NationStates.
I suggest stopping this alienating idea before it's too late.

This and to Souls' stuff and everyone else's! It seems basically all of GP is saying NO and I pray to Allah that the admins will listen to us. Yes you can argue about influence and etc but really this is not that, this is admins wanting to hurt not only GP but communities that make NS NS.

[Niwhand Felers Islands]

I will admit I'm relatively new to the game, However it seems as thought raiding would become boring just launch a raid whenever you feel like it and as long as you become Del-elect you and your raiders are impervious to banjection. Same things with defenders as long as you get enough pilers your good no skill or timing needed. It also would increase tensions within regions because it forces you to trust all your guardians completely or put an endo cap on the guardians so you don't have to worry. It would make a coup easier, lets say I suddenly become popular in my region and decide the coup as long as I have the required endos the delegate cannot ban me or my followers. Also from what I've read there is a pretty strong stance against it.

[Tim-Opolis]

First of all, since it couldn't be stated clearly enough, Ever-Wandering Souls has basically said everything I'd want to say in a flawless manner, and his posts identify why this idea is incredibly detrimental.

Now, since we're not allowed to just make posts agreeing with a previous poster even if we have nothing to add, I'm going to try to think of some stuff to add so my post isn't moved to the "Bad Faith" locker.

To start, I'm really concerned moving forward about this Admin Fixation on changes that were proposed from the dumpster fire that was the R/D Summit. I'm not sure if it's a case of being out of touch with modern R/D, or simply stubbornness, but it seems like many of the substantive R/D Changes we see proposed are still being borne out of those initial concepts. That Summit happened years ago, and the problems that it identified have been primarily dealt with or adapted to. Delegate-Elect was seen, at the time, as a way to stop tagging. Defenders have since become much better at stopping taggers, and the Predator-fueled Tag Rage of 2014-2016 was snuffed out when it was shown to all be illegal. Let's stop living in the past.

While I'm all for reducing the barrier of entry to R/D, this change effectively changes the entire way that R/D works and not in a positive manner.

It hurts natives. It hurts raiders. It hurts defenders. It hurts GCRs.

1. Natives

I'm really not sure if there's a better way to put this than Souls' McCoupy 2.0 Story. While his is only pointing out the situation from a purely internal conflict perspective, it's worth expanding it even further. Sleepers are a massive part of the R/D Game, and I think most raiders will agree with me that your most high-profile raids are more or less completely reliant on them to provide an initial native endorsement. This only makes sleepers even more devastating against natives, most of whom have no ability to perceive and stop a suspected sleeper. Under this new system, raider sleepers put more effort in and get themselves a BC RO post. From there, you can basically run the McCoupy 2.0 story as is. He'll eject enough delegate endorsements to become the Delegate-Elect, call in his friends to pile on him, and begin consolidating forces. Furthermore, that raider can then stay online and make sure to eject any defender pilers right as they enter the region before they endorse a native. By the time an actual update hits, this Delegate-Elect will have an insurmountable lead due to the natives having no ability to remove those endorsements, and the region falls.

With this, natives are effectively castrated from their last abilities to defend their regions, and a feature that Admin so actively painted as "here to help natives protect their regions" is going to be made nothing but a tool that helps raiders more effectively take over a region without any sort of resistance. Now, while I'm sure you could attempt to counter that "Oh, those moving in will be safe once they endorse the delegate too", it's worth pointing out that your average piler is going to be slower to endorse than your average raider lead will be to ban that nation if both are online.

Furthermore, by giving raiders a choice of when they can pull this off, it tips the scales significantly in their favor by putting all the time management, troop management, and so forth in their camp. If I'm a raider under this new system, my troops will already know to be check in so as to effectively pile this as quickly as possible, while defenders are forced to play against a stacked deck.

Furthermore, we shouldn't be setting a system where natives can't effectively defend themselves. They shouldn't have to rely on defenders, they should have their own tools to stop this, and this feature limits those tools.

2. Raiders

I'm not a raider, but I think summing up what they're all saying in this thread is an effective argument as many. There's nothing fun nor challenging nor rewarding for raiders about just piling off into a target. Furthermore, once they do occupy a region, if defenders are actually able to take the delegacy, in the few circumstances where we can, it's basically game over because then we'll do a similar piling tactic and raiders will have effectively no chance to stop it because we'll just drop a group of updaters on them right at update to secure the win that our pilers already provided.

3. Defenders

Both for defenders who are in this for fun and for those who are in it for moral reasons, this hurts us. For those of us who are in it for fun, there's nothing fun or challenging or rewarding for just piling into a liberation, especially when the deck is stacked against us from the start. For those of us here for moral reasons, yet another change is being instituted that makes defending significantly more difficult. Yes, if we do succeed it's great, but those odds are now lessened. Furthermore, in the chances where we do succeed, it becomes an instant-win based on unskilled piling rather than any sort of actual R/D skill.

4. GCRs

This feature is absolutely awful for the majority of GCRs, and particularly those with lower endorsement levels. Creating a situation in which a coordinated piler push can destabilize a GCR is not what we want or need from this game. You don't even need to be couping internally to pull this one off, and let me explain why. In fact, I'll use a realtime example that maybe our thread OP will feel near and dear to.

> setting: The North Pacific

Delegate Pallaith is on vacation for the weekend, and is unlikely to be online to do anything in his region.

Like a sensible GCR, The North Pacific has other high-endorsement trusted nations at endorsement levels within relatively close distance to Delegate Pallaith

Because The North Pacific has a multi-tiered security system, not all of these high-endorsement nations have Border Control Powers

The North Pacific is also very, very, very passionate about everyone having a ton of endorsements. While the endorsement cap is technically that of the Vice Delegate, let's not godmod too much and pretend that our sleeper in the region has tarted himself to a respectable 800 endorsements. Sure, it takes time, but you've got to be patient to capture the largest region in the game.

Delegate Pallaith is currently on 1087 endorsements, but let's run a hypothetical and say there's currently a delegate transition. Maybe Delegate Pallaith is closer to 950 endorsements due to this. Vice Delegate Siwale,
who happens to not have Border Control, is sitting on 900. While the current margin between Pallaith and Siwale is closer, just humor me here. So we've got a 50 endorsement gap between the Vice Delegate and The Delegate, on a weekend when The Delegate is away.

Hello, it's me the 800 endorsement sleeper. Now, you might say that "Tim, you can't get that many pilers", but Admin's own argument is that this will increase the number of people participating in R/D. Now imagine just how many people might be interested in gloriously taking over the largest region in the game. It's every raider's dream probably, even if they can't politically admit it. So, you start with 50. You can get 50 with your traditional R/D Organizations. You do this during/right after an update. Boom, Siwale is now the Delegate elect.

Siwale is an RO without BC, so he can't eject anyone moving in. Furthermore, because he doesn't have BC, he can't eject his own endorsements. This is where the fun begins.

While we we're all sitting around wondering how this leads to a coup, it turns out that through a massive coalition of people really unhappy with this technical change and wanting to prove the damage it could cause, I've got my 200 closest random associates all having been actively tarting in TNP. Then there's me, Sleeper McSleeperface.

Sleeper McSleeperface is sitting on a cool 800 endorsements, because he's been planning this ever since Admin killed competitive R/D and a lot of people were fired up about this. It so happens that, with the delegate offline, and Sleeper McSleeperface continuing to endorse Siwale, Sleeper McSleeperface is immune because he's endorsing the delegate elect.

First you give the order across all your various 200 coalition troops, that they should start un-endorsing Siwale and endorsing Sleeper McSleeperface if they haven't already. Yes, they can get banned, that's not incorrect. Then you step it up and by pooling financial resources, because we all pay Max for stamps anyway, Sleeper McSleeperface buys himself 24,000 stamps and telegrams every WA nation in the game that isn't in TNP to come endorse him. This isn't technically a recruitment telegram, so it sure as hell isn't going to be blocked. You stress the glory of the situation, talk about the corruption of Pallaith, really sell it up, and ensure them that they can leave in like 12 hours.

Now, I dunno about you, but if I'm a random WA sitting around, I'm gonna be intrigued by this and will most likely move because random WA nations are lemmings (just look at WA votes). Suddenly, tons of WAs are joining The North Pacific and endorsing Coupy McCoupface. Now, I know Asta and GBM, TNP's two BC ROs, and neither of them are R/Ders and I imagine neither are very quick on the ban. They also are people with lives, and can't sit and ban constantly. More likely than not, the still-immune from banning Coupy McCoupface is gonna update with more endorsements.

Now, does this plan have flaws? Sure, but it's also exposing a significant danger that this opens up, and I'd personally be willing to bet that Coupy McCoupface would end up in the delegacy.

First I'm going to clarify that I have no ill will or intent towards The North Pacific, and this is a purely hypothetical scenario made for this thread. TNP, don't sue me thanks.

Anyways, let's use an easier example. Osiris has 129 endorsements, an endocap of 30, and no Border Control Officers. If Syberis is gone for the weekend, this plan becomes even easier there. You boost an RO into the delegate-elect position, only a gap of ~30 in Osiris, and then do the same flip plan but significantly easier due to the lack of any BC ROs. While you could criticize those regions for not having better security, the fact of the matter is that they're very secure right now and this would significantly destabilize them.

Furthermore, if you do happen to be a BC RO who wants to internally coup, you've basically got it in the bag because once you're delegate-elect they can't ban your endorsements and you can ban anyone who tries to come in to support the opposing delegate - i.e the problem I've already identified with the natives example at the top.

---

Anyways, this was a very long-winded post. In case anybody's curious how defenders would deal with a technical change like this, by the way here's what's up. The Grey Wardens are effectively the largest defender military in the game in terms of regular updater output. So far, both myself and Chamberlain Vincent Drake have already confirmed we'd be going raider if this change goes into effect. That's already 1/3 of TGW Command confirming intent to bail on defending if this passes, and I'd be willing to bet 1-2 more would join up too. Our current plan would be to "burn the world down", because there's no point defending in a world where defending is impossible.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Tim, you put into words something that was right on the edge of my head and kept slipping away before I could nail it down. I knew there was some way to abuse pushing someone else into Delegate-Elect and being unejectabld because you were endorsing them. Thanks for picking that out.

To put that in another light, defenders could push an offline raider RO into the delegate elect while also endorsing the native del and each other, pile in while endorsing that raider and being thus unejectable, and then only have to withdraw endorsements at update, not even jump. If they endorse all the high endorsement raiders as such, we can’t do anything, because anyone we put into the elect slot is also being endorsed, protecting them. On the flip side, we could take down even a watchful region, or take a recent liberation back with the same method - put someone offline or harmless into del elect, and then become unejectable by endorsing them. While this does add an interesting back and forth dynamic potentially, the drawback is that the dynamic becomes all about a numbers tug of war.

[Trotterdam]

I'm afraid this is slightly off-topic, but...

There was a previous plan called "Delegate Elect". This is not that plan.

That's a shame, because I liked that plan.

Neither the incumbent WA Delegate nation, nor any Regional Officer nation appointed by them (alternatively, any Regional Officer nation, period: under no circumstances will this affect a Founder nation, however), may eject the WA Delegate-Elect nation or any nation endorsing it.

Does the game track the difference between regional officers appointed by delegates and regional officers appointed by founders?

I have asked before for the ability for founder-appointed officers to perform actions without spending Influence, but this was ignored.

If a mechanism for this is added (perhaps in the form of an "ignores influence" power that only founders can set or remove, and does not function if there is no founder), it could handily support both features.

It would be nice if admins would stop pandering to the R/D game in general and care about the actual communities that people spend years building.

[This is] neither respectful, cordial, nor particularly adding anything of merit to the actual discussion. If you would like to elaborate on how and why you believe the proposed idea is a poor one, please do so without the blatantly bad faith jabs.

I'm not sure that's possible. We can debate until the cows come home on whether this proposal would benefit raiders/defenders/natives, but if we're not in agreement on whether benefiting raiders/defenders/natives is a desired goal to begin with, there's not much point. Disagreeing with a change because you dislike what it's attempting to do is just as valid as disagreeing with a change because you don't agree it will succeed at what it's attempting to do.

He'll eject enough delegate endorsements to become the Delegate-Elect,

This highlights a good point. If merely being or endorsing the delegate-elect can protect you from ejection, then being or endorsing the actual delegate (especially when there is not currently a delegate-elect) also should. Or you could just say that in this circumstance, the delegate is also the delegate-elect.

Unfortunately, this would significantly limit the ability of regions to eject nations for non-R/D reasons. It would also allow nations to endorse the delegate at first to gain immunity, then drop that endorsement at the tactically-appropiate moment.

Furthermore, we shouldn't be setting a system where natives can't effectively defend themselves. They shouldn't have to rely on defenders, they should have their own tools to stop this, and this feature limits those tools.

I really agree with this. This change would make raiding easier, and it might also make defending easier (which may or may not result in a net negative effect for raiders), but it clearly reduces the ability of natives to prevent themselves from being raided in the first place.

Unfortunately, most methods to make it easier for natives to protect against raiders would also make it easier for raiders to protect against defenders once they have seized a region (which ends up being bad for natives again), one of the rare exceptions being Influence.

[Kylia Quilor]

And the last thing R/D needs is to make it more about numbers, which is why these changes seem so fundamentally alien to the actual problems being faced.