[Discussion] Delegate-Elect

[Scardino]

First of all, I would like to commend Eluvatar and express my appreciation for the hard work he puts in. It can be a thankless job at times, as this thread shows, and he may not hear often enough what a good job he's doing. For the sake of brevity, I will simply say that, having read the plethora of counter-arguments, this still seems like a wonderful idea to me. It does throw a wrench in the traditionally non-numbers reliant approaches Lone Wolves United has used over the past twelve years or so but it does give us an unprecedented ability to infiltrate a region at times where eyes are not in focus, render the native delegate helpless, and proceed to destroy their region. Even better, as Tim pointed out, we can endorse trusted natives to suddenly make ourselves un-ejectable as we trickle into the region and prepare for the overthrow. There are no doubt other angles that haven't been considered yet but, rest assured, we will be coming up with plenty of creative ideas. Tactically speaking, this is a very interesting rule change. After all, the focus on timing and quick clicking can be a bit tiring as youth and sobriety fade.

[Kylia Quilor]

Your creative tactics would let you have the region for maybe 12-24 hours before the simple math of raw numbers this creates loses you the region. It's not much of a boon to raiding.

[Eluvatar]

Alright, so for the sake of providing input, I'm going to make a suggestion. Maybe it's not the best, but it can't be the worst.

So, before it's decided whether this feature gets fully implemented or not, do a beta test of this and other planned update features. Use some temporary regions, or just requisition the warzone regions for a few days, whatever. Invite players to try out the features so you can get some feedback.

I would definitely like to do a beta test one way or another, though there are obvious limitations on how good a picture that can give.

I liked the census bits though - can we have that without the rest?

I must have missed that part of the proposal. Lemme have another look...

The game will track endorsements live. A "World Assembly Endorsements Given" census scale will be introduced, and the "World Assembly Endorsements" census scale and ranking will be updated whenever an endorsement is given, withdrawn, or a nation moves.

Wait a moment, we already have this.

Assuming this works like the zombie censi did, the sorting isn't 100% live (but updates pretty frequently), but the numbers themselves are. A random check on a nation that recently gained an endorsement suggests this to indeed be the case.

Yes, we already have "World Assembly Endorsements". We don't have "World Assembly Endorsements Given".

I really don't like this idea, but I agree with this sentiment. It would be interesting to see how this would actually work.

The problem is that since the appeal of raiding comes from vandalizing regions people actually care about, both raiders and defenders are likely to put in a half-baked effort in such a beta test, making it an unreliable test for what tactics each side would use when playing seriously.

Same reasons the warzones in general failed.

Yes, there are limitations to how good such a test could be.

One could do something radical, like randomly selecting some fraction of the regions of the world to have this mechanic apply to them to see what happens comparing to the others, but that's probably not sensible.

One would likely have to be satisfied with what information could be gleaned from people trying the mechanics out in something more of a short lived wild west.

---

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

[Flanderlion]

I must have missed that part of the proposal. Lemme have another look...Wait a moment, we already have this.

Assuming this works like the zombie censi did, the sorting isn't 100% live (but updates pretty frequently), but the numbers themselves are. A random check on a nation that recently gained an endorsement suggests this to indeed be the case.

Yes, we already have "World Assembly Endorsements". We don't have "World Assembly Endorsements Given".

NS++ has (or had, haven't used for years) nations endorsed by you (and nations you hadn't endorsed in the region), would we be able to get that brought across? If the game would be tracking nations you have endorsed (rather than nations who have endorsed you), this seems a lot easier than before.

Edit: Fixed tags

[Eluvatar]

Yes NationStates would be tracking both who you endorsed and who endorsed you. This could well have other, non-update-related, implications. Not precisely the subject of this topic.

[Todd McCloud]

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

It'd be a pile-on party.

[Trotterdam]

I must have missed that part of the proposal. Lemme have another look...Wait a moment, we already have this.

Assuming this works like the zombie censi did, the sorting isn't 100% live (but updates pretty frequently), but the numbers themselves are. A random check on a nation that recently gained an endorsement suggests this to indeed be the case.

Yes, we already have "World Assembly Endorsements". We don't have "World Assembly Endorsements Given".

What is the difference supposed to be? Since you describe the other scale as "given, withdrawn, or a nation moves", are you implying that an endorsement which is given and immediately withdrawn again would still count? (Until the next update or what?) Or are you measureing the new endorsements on a particular day, ignoring old ones that are still valid? (This sounds like it would encourage people to daily withdraw and reassign their endorsements.)

Oh, after seeing Flanderlion's post, now I get it. The endorsements you gave to others, rather than others gave to you? An entirely reasonable thing to track (and it would be nice if we also had a way to see the actual list of nations, rather than just the total number), but it seems irrelevant to the delegate-elect proposal, which would depend on how many endorsements you've received and on which specific nations you've endorsed, not on how many total endorsements you've given.

One could do something radical, like randomly selecting some fraction of the regions of the world to have this mechanic apply to them to see what happens comparing to the others, but that's probably not sensible.

If you're going to select regions to test on randomly, that could easily hit regions who really don't want it. At that point you might as well implement the beta for everyone, and then if it doesn't work out, roll back the beta for everyone. Overall, not a good idea.

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

Assuming that I'm allowed to count myself under "others", I already covered this:

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.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Yes, there are limitations to how good such a test could be.

One could do something radical, like randomly selecting some fraction of the regions of the world to have this mechanic apply to them to see what happens comparing to the others, but that's probably not sensible.

One would likely have to be satisfied with what information could be gleaned from people trying the mechanics out in something more of a short lived wild west.

---

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

1) I do not think most people here are at all fans of "well despite everyone hating this, let's press forwards and try it in a few places, see how it goes."

2) I think you're not listening if you think that that's at all a solution, given the repeated insistence all around on "lets not make Gameplay all pile-offs," and the fact that that reply is basically "well what if we made it *more* of a pile-off, just a bit more equal of one (and further make it impossible for RO's to do the job they were added for to boot)!

[Tim-Opolis]

Yes, there are limitations to how good such a test could be.

One could do something radical, like randomly selecting some fraction of the regions of the world to have this mechanic apply to them to see what happens comparing to the others, but that's probably not sensible.

One would likely have to be satisfied with what information could be gleaned from people trying the mechanics out in something more of a short lived wild west.

---

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

1) I do not think most people here are at all fans of "well despite everyone hating this, let's press forwards and try it in a few places, see how it goes."

2) I think you're not listening if you think that that's at all a solution, given the repeated insistence all around on "lets not make Gameplay all pile-offs," and the fact that that reply is basically "well what if we made it *more* of a pile-off, just a bit more equal of one (and further make it impossible for RO's to do the job they were added for to boot)!

I'm in agreement with Souls on both of his points.

To expand on it further, I don't think it changes anything from our previously described scenarios. You'd simply have a pile-off, which reduces any sort of skill basis in GP and if we want to be super real about it makes the game less dependent on actual R/D numbers and more dependent on how many random WA nations you can convince to move into a region for you. The reason we like our events happening at update is because Updating is a demonstration of R/D skill, whereas piling is being a nothing more than a number. They're tactically important, but there is absolutely no reason to make the game about them.

I also think turning into a pile-off significantly disadvantages defender-aligned regions. I believe it's fair to say that the majority of defender regions, with the only major exception being TGW, are regions that were created and also happen to have a defender military. The majority of raider regions, on the other hand, are regions that were specifically created for military purposes. Given that, whereas those with defender-aligned communities will frequently have focus such as a high-endorsement WA Delegate, those more focused on military will be utilizing those WA's primarily for piler operations.

If anything, forcing R/D to become a pile-off not only reduces competition but makes it a necessity for founderless regions to twiddle their thumbs and wait for someone to come save them. Furthermore, with the inability to secure their own region against invaders, some of these occupations become completely unwinnable. For example, if The Black Hawks were able to elevate a sleeper in a passworded region to Delegate-Elect then there's nothing that can be done about it because more likely than not defenders don't have the password, and the native delegate or ROs have no ability to eject/ban this Delegate-Elect.

I don't think there's any benefit in testing this feature on the main site. Putting aside the dumbing down of R/D that it causes, it significantly hurts native ability to defend themselves - something y'all claim to not want to do.

To be perfectly honest, it's incredibly disheartening to see the "Well I'd still really like to test it" mentality from Admin, despite facing overwhelming opposition from literally every side of Gameplay on this matter. It just completely reads as something that will result in the feature staying past any sort of "test", and past interactions with Admin on R/D Changes (see Ballotonia's demeanor and actions during the debate on Estimated Update Times when he completely disregarded the majority opposition and said it was happening anyway) have led to a pretty widespread feeling that all these requests for input are just for show and the technical change is going to happen whether we like it or not.

I think if you were just to institute Parts 1 and 2 of the Delegate-Elect system (i.e live tracking of endorsements, and saying who the "delegate-elect" of a region is before the update), that would be cool. However, Part 3 is completely unnecessary, dumbs down R/D to a pointless piling game, significantly limits native ability to defend themselves, and destabilizes Game Created Regions due to the ever-present risk of coup. You're trying to fix something that's not broken, and thus breaking it in the process.

[Lord Ravenclaw]

Speaking as a member of The North Pacific security council, a former Delegate of The North Pacific (and Osiris) as well as someone who has been involved in security operations for various GCRs, I must acknowledge that Tim's scenario is not just very plausible, it could conceivably carried out under this proposed system with considerable ease.

I am all for allowing the Delegate to designate a delegate-elect in a mechanic that will facilitate democratic changeovers, I am not however, supportive of a change while well intentioned (the road to hell is paved with them), would allow TNP to fall to a false flag operation like this (I am getting echos of UDL, Osiris December 2012 mentally as I type this).

I do like the idea of a live endorsement measurement as I think that has potential perks for both sides of R and D in that it lower the barrier of participation greatly. I may be WA immobile now but update falls at 4/5 am depending on the time of year for me, and that is prohibitive to anyone who resides in Western Europe.

[Dysmastan]

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

I would think the immunity would run counter to one of the original purposes for having "eject/ban" options.

[Consular]

I mean, I'd kinda like to see it tested.

[Raionitu]

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

Assuming this is all the time, it one, makes it so certain players get ejection immunity by endorsing, which provides two big problems.
1. RMB spammer X comes in, endorses delegate, and starts spamming. Yay, now they can't be ejected and will continue spamming RMB until a mod is able to get on to stop them.
2. Pure number piling game. And then if the delegate group gets ahead for even 2 minutes, that would mean the other person is no longer immune and them and their es go bye bye. This means that sitting WAD has a massive advantage, both native WAD or raider point.

[Eluvatar]

Souls, Tim, and others, what effect do you think applying the same immunity to the incumbent Delegate's endorsers as the Delegate-Elect's endorsers would have?

Assuming this is all the time, it one, makes it so certain players get ejection immunity by endorsing, which provides two big problems.
1. RMB spammer X comes in, endorses delegate, and starts spamming. Yay, now they can't be ejected and will continue spamming RMB until a mod is able to get on to stop them.
2. Pure number piling game. And then if the delegate group gets ahead for even 2 minutes, that would mean the other person is no longer immune and them and their es go bye bye. This means that sitting WAD has a massive advantage, both native WAD or raider point.

No, this would only be during a Delegate-Elect situation.

[Rammeludia]

Not sure if this was stated already, this idea could kill new R/D groups, if they do not make friends with the big groups quick enough. Or if they have a unique theme like the Eternal Knights did.

[Eluvatar]

Not sure if this was stated already, this idea could kill new R/D groups, if they do not make friends with the big groups quick enough. Or if they have a unique theme like the Eternal Knights did.

How so?

[Bedetopia]

Not sure if this was stated already, this idea could kill new R/D groups, if they do not make friends with the big groups quick enough. Or if they have a unique theme like the Eternal Knights did.

How so?

The need for a massive amount of pilers under this system.

[Kanglia]

I think Ravenclaw's idea of a designated Delegate-elect would be very useful for GCR's and any region that has actual elections to determine a WA Delegate, but I have to imagine that that number isn't large enough to make that change really one that would have a large impact on the game.

Now that I've been able to sleep on the subject, allow me to further echo some of the points made by both Tim and Souls.
This would kill any hopes for new R/D groups to be established(I know I'm echoing the Bedtopia & Rammeludia) and would essentially kill all organizations that aren't allied with TGW, as far as defending goes. The only work they'd be able to do is rather tedious detagging, which most defenders have an intense apathy for, myself included. Secondly, this would turn R/D into a pile off. Let's have a small & short scenario, of Founderless region X

Founderless region X gets raided by a coalition of TBH, Osiris, Balder, EPSA, & TWPAF. The inital endorser count on the new Delegate-Elect(a sleeper in the region) before the combined forces move in is 6, two less than the delegate has pre-update. The endorsement count after the update is 45, with 39 successful raiders moving in during the update. Two hours later, after the raid leads have decided to log off for the night & prepare for minor, Defender McDefenderface moves into the region, capturing the 14 native endorsements, the 6 from the natives who endorsed the delegate elect, and the 8 who endorsed the original delegate. Around 6 AM EST, TGW puts a call out for all of their members to move in and endorse Defender McDefenderface. They get a total of 18 Wardens, along with 6 SPSF members, 4 UDSAF members, and 6 RRA members, that number gives them a total 48 endorsements. That gives them a 3 endorsement lead, without any of the native endorsers on the sleeper unendorsing that nation, assuming it doesn't happen.
Then, the raiders would have to try and get some reinforcements, and then defenders the same, and so on and so forth until the battle is completely mute. All this would end up becoming is a pile-off war, where so long as all are crossed, even the party with the fewer endorsements would have a hard time of being ejected from the region due to influence, and the inevitable possibility of more individuals coming to their side and endorsing their lead.

Sorry if that didn't make a lot of sense, the TL;DR version is simple: This will lead to pile-offs being the only true R/D left in the game. That, that is not good.

[Dvorak The Great]

I leave for a few months and I return to this? Come on now. What we have now isn't perfect, but it's been a working system and has been for a good amount of time. There is so many other things that NationStates could implement (such as the annexation, which I saw was already brought up in this thread and I am not sure if update times were added or not because I haven't been staying up to date on gameplay changes since I just came back to NS yesterday), instead of this proposal, which would make gameplay nothing more than who has the most numbers at any given time wins. I for one would rather not be bothered focusing on what's being raided/defended outside of updates because I have a life to live, people to care for in real life, and a job to maintain. I slightly see the point of this, but I feel this isn't doing any good for defenders or raiders both alike and would be a pointless addition that would just ruin gameplay in the long run in my honest opinion.

I do understand that making it to minor and major updates can be time consuming and over a good period of time can become rather exhausting, which this would kind of solve to a small extent, but it would make gameplay more confusing than it ever needs to be. It's hard enough already getting actual, new members in the loop of how gameplay works already. Instead of this, wouldn't it make more sense to adjust the update times? Making Minor occur a bit more later and Major a bit more earlier? I honestly only been active during minor about six times in my life, one being during the entire Lazarus crisis. Although, I'm not sure if a lot of people take part in minor as, so sorry if I offend you by saying I don't care for minor, but I don't care for minor and that's mainly due to (school in the past), work, my actual. Isn't major way more popular regarding gameplay activity anyways?

Instead of putting something in the game that could ruin years of work that has been invested into community building within GCRs and UCRs. I feel what currently can happen now with the system we have at the moment is enough already. It is and has been effective when it is used correctly (which most R/D organizations have perfected already) Currently, both UCR and GCR regions alike can make the proper defenses they need to protect their regions against raids with the help of defenders, if needed.

Same with raiders, they can make the changes needed to deter most liberation attempts by defenders and natives during an occupation if done correctly. I feel this proposal will take most of the skill and any fun there is out of gameplay for good. All I ask is that can NationStates focus on something that actually compliments gameplay? Something that both raiders and defenders both agree on? It might seem impossible, but all I'm saying is if you had a conversation regarding what NS needs to add in order to make gameplay great (which has been done in the forums already in the past) in a Discord channel with 25 prominent defenders and 25 prominent raiders-you would find a few things that both sides equally want, I assure you of that.

Being a person who is trying to find a good reason to get truly active in gameplay again, stuff like this would ruin any possible chance of enjoyment I could ever get out of gameplay. I always loved the feeling of adrenaline I always got before getting ready to jump regardless of when I was a defender, spy, or as a raider-updates always were fun until Predator was around. With this random Delegate-Elect, that would kill all of that for me. If this gets implemented, I will only be focusing on roleplay and I will be out of gameplay for good.

I seriously don't want to see gameplay reduced/dumb downed to where there's simply two big groups of defenders and raiders are going at it at random times of the day, because it would get way too boring, way too quick. I like seeing the rivalry against different organizations, or the feeling knowing something is going to go down in a couple of minutes before updates start based on who's crossing and not. I like hearing stories about defenders knowing a raid was coming at major and had the means to stop it-but were out witted, out numbered or didn't arrive in time. I definitely love hearing the stories even more about raiders occupying a region to have it all crumble down by a coalition of different defender organizations coming together from different regions with different ideologies, yet works together to stop the occupation. That's the thing about this system currently. You know if something is coming and you can stop it, but you can also be outsmarted at the same time. That's what I always loved about NationStates's gameplay. I honestly think this feature could ruin what the R/D community wants gameplay to be.

P.S.
Sorry if none of this makes sense, I literally stayed up all night working on my region and writing this.

[Rammeludia]

How so?

The need for a massive amount of pilers under this system.

This. The new groups would need to make friends with large established regions, so that any operation they carry out has the sligbtest chance of success. And lets use the Eternal Knights as an example. If Delegate-Elect was a thing when they first formed, that organization would have failed almost immediately. A very unique idea that worked outside the "norm" of gameplay placed them as friends with no one. They became successful and were able to grow due to wins at updates. But under delegate-elect, they would have not gotten the momentum needed to gain wins and thus members. Just stuck in a while-loop extravaganza. While no wins, no new members. While no new members, no new wins.

A recruitment TG stating "we have the skills to be good at this, but are too small, so maybe if you and fifty more people would join...." is awful compared to that of an established organization that has bodies to throw at an pile-off.

[Bears Armed]

All I ask is that can NationStates focus on something that actually compliments gameplay? Something that both raiders and defenders both agree on?

And hopefully that would be acceptable to the natives of the regions which might be targeted, too?

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

All I ask is that can NationStates focus on something that actually compliments gameplay? Something that both raiders and defenders both agree on?

And hopefully that would be acceptable to the natives of the regions which might be targeted, too?

It is indeed possible, or at least for it to neutral towards them. This? This hurts them too.

[Dvorak The Great]

All I ask is that can NationStates focus on something that actually compliments gameplay? Something that both raiders and defenders both agree on?

And hopefully that would be acceptable to the natives of the regions which might be targeted, too?

I am sorry that I did not take in account for any natives that could have been impacted by gameplay in general. I do agree that any gameplay mechanics that are planned to be worked on in the future or present, should have the natives' of all regions in mind as well. However, almost all regions these days have the possibility of finding any information on how to protect their region all over the NS forum, which is available for anyone to read and can be found with a few simple forum searches. There is also a thread on how to restore your region after a raid as well, so there's no excuse why you couldn't get your region back to normal, unless it is an occupation-then your best bet is to put some faith in defenders.

I'm also not that guy that doesn't care about natives at all either, so please don't' get me wrong. I was mainly attempting to hammer out my opinion regarding the proposal of how it would impact the core functions of R/D in my view point. Which is simply that, my view on the subject-which should be taken with only a grain of salt. I was not trying to get into the deep politics of gameplay by how it impacts natives last night as I was dead tired, as that would have been even more words to write. #ImLazy.

[Vuori Kunin-Grrs]

I think mainly, we need a good idea for an "opt-out", and this is not the best way to do it - it has unintended consequences.

[Feng-Huang]

I think mainly, we need a good idea for an "opt-out", and this is not the best way to do it - it has unintended consequences.

You mean a founder. These already exist.