[Proposal] More Feeders

[Galiantus III]

@Souls: AGAIN, How is this proposal something else than: I want a Feeder for TBH?

Be honest. Because that's what it is.

Then go and try to coup one, instead of taking this lowskill path of attempting to worming you to one through technical.

See, this is why I have suggested a more organic way to introduce feeders to the game. Just plopping new feeders in is unnatural and provides a jackpot to be won by the luck of the draw. Sure, it might be exciting for the first year, but the chaos will eventually die, and we will be back here in another thread discussing the same thing. Someone wanting a feeder or sinker should either have to build one from the ground up (with none of the typical UCR benefits) or coup one.

[Flanderlion]

Kinda amused reading through this thread specifically with the timing. So Souls goes to a GCR, realises that he won't win an election in one because most of the GCR playerbase is politely apathetic towards or dislikes him, and as soon as TRRs election closes he makes this thread.

Firstly, disclaimer, I'm pretty obviously in a Feeder, and I'm obviously against this change, even if it wasn't attempting to fight your enemies through a tech thread rather than in game.

Secondly, I'm in the opinion that bigger regions are better. We work far harder for our activity, we monitor our WAs/work on promoting WA nations and are great communities both on and offsite, which explains why many players across NS either stay in or return to their Feeder after spending time elsewhere.

Size: In raw nations Feeders are tiny. Like, a few years ago Feeders had closer to 14k nations than 7. Sinkers are pretty much the same size as TWP (upper 6k to mid 6k)

WAs: Each Feeder have stepped up their game massively. Sinkers as well. This has led to higher WA conversion rates. If you go to a UCR most don't bother to ask you to join the WA bar the odd regional TG and the welcome TG. In Feeders, we do, as if people don't, dodgy people come in, destroy our communities and turn our regions into trophies. You will likely be asked several times a month in GCRs and they highlight how simple and why it saves us. Different GCRs have different methods (TNP and TEP I'd put as best) but the reason GCRs do better is because GCRs work harder for those WAs.

In examples such as 10KI, which let itself stagnate for a while, doing a WA program can have a dramatic impact on their total and delegate endorsements.

I'm on mobile and it's taking a while to load each page, but this time 2 years back our region had 1k WA nations, not 800. TNP had pretty much the same as then, but they've got way better at keeping their WAs.

Our endorsement percentages I think have increased (don't have the historical figures in front of me) but that isn't due to the game, that is down to work.

Game power: Like, GCRs are stronger than UCRs on a one to one ratio. But it isn't usually 1 UCR vs a GCR. Generally it is a collection of UCRs and GCRs vs a collection of UCRs and GCRs.

GCRs don't want UCRs coming in and wrecking their regions. So they band together to protect themselves from dodgy people coming from UCRs who are either going to destabilise their region, or make other members uncomfortable. I really don't get what's controversial about safeguarding our communities. It might give the impression we're one group, but we're 5/9 (warzones get protected by us GCRs but generally no one refers to them when saying GCRs) very different regions, all forced together by circumstance. Not to say we can't get along despite our differences, N day was a blast.

WA bloc wise, there are now at least 2 of similar strength (which should be pretty obvious so not going to spell it out). It's not like years ago where it was only WALL which was undefeatable.

There isn't really a case for a change. Feeders have less nations, and similar to less WAs from 2 years back despite enormously increased work to gain, retain and have endorsements on their delegates. Bloc wise there are now multiple, leading to WALL not being the factor that'd win or lose a resolution.

Bigger regions make better communities. Inactivity is the death of regions, and having someone online at all times, and having players in each region knowledge about nearly all aspects of NS, leads to a far more enjoyable experience. Big GCRs obviously aren't perfect for everyone, but they provide a decent environment for new players, and trying to shrink them/break them up won't be good for the average new player. For a small segment of Userites, sure, but generally the game should cater for the majority, not a group that hurts far more than they help.

Also more nitpicking, not convinced on the names, but guessing that was more placeholder. I actually liked the Venter names, simple for all.

Tldr: Souls wants this as GCR peeps don't want him so he wants to have his own. Feeders have half the nations and similar WA numbers to 2 years ago. This is despite massive stepping up in all GCRs in WA efforts. WALL is not all powerful unlike back then. There isn't really a case for change.

[Tupelope]

All these conspiracies are crazy about why Souls posted this at this time. If you were around in the TRR discord where this was discussed with him and other members, me included, you would know that I basically told him to post this because I agreed with his gripes about the imbalances between the feeders and other GCRs and UCRs. Everyone who is saying that he is only doing this because he lost the election is pretty much wrong. If I recall correctly we even talked about this before the election even came into place but Souls was hesitant about posting it because he knew how everyone here would react, and this just proves his worries right. The fact is that the feeders have a tremendous amount of power in recruitment, especially with welcoming telegrams being sent out from them even before someone is able to disable them, and other factors as well that it should be addressed for the health of the game and the communities in it. Souls makes some good points but again there are other things that could be implemented that would potentially please everyone, but people are too focused on the person who presented this.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

Kinda amused reading through this thread specifically with the timing. So Souls goes to a GCR, realises that he won't win an election in one because most of the GCR playerbase is politely apathetic towards or dislikes him, and as soon as TRRs election closes he makes this thread.

Firstly, disclaimer, I'm pretty obviously in a Feeder, and I'm obviously against this change, even if it wasn't attempting to fight your enemies through a tech thread rather than in game.

Jesus Fucking Christ, do y'all in The Pacific get paid every time you spin conspiracy theories or something? Am I going to have to reply to this every time one of y'all come into this thread? This isn't GP, and again -

1) I joined TRR months before a surprise election that no one knew was coming a week before it, much less two months
2) I'd talked about joining TRR in my "old age" for literally years prior
3) TRR has been incredibly welcoming, and I have a ton of fun there - people there asking me to run was why I ran, and I hold zero hard feelings over not winning
4) I've been tossing ideas along these lines around for years, and specifically settled on wanting about 5 new feeders for at least the past 3-4 months - I've already posted a screenshot of such from a month ago
5) I posted this today because I actually had time to breathe for the first time in two weeks, and some folks were talking about the evolution of early governments in a few GCR's on discord, which reminded me that I'd been meaning to make this post
6) I can prove any of that, and would prefer that y'all stop making random character snipes here in Technical and focus on the content.

Secondly, I'm in the opinion that bigger regions are better. We work far harder for our activity, we monitor our WAs/work on promoting WA nations and are great communities both on and offsite, which explains why many players across NS either stay in or return to their Feeder after spending time elsewhere.

You've got some crossed logic there - I'd agree to technically the opposite of what you've stated, kinda: Better regions deserve to be bigger. This proposal does nothing to prevent that. It just fixes the scale a bit, so that when TNP is twice as "big" (powerful in this case, as I'm calling my metrics for ease of use) as the average feeder, that's not then another 2-3 times more so than the average Sinker.

Mind you, I also thing that it's silly to pretend like the Sinker's don't do exactly the same, or that the largest UCR's don't match the sinkers without the benefits of having *any* spawns.

There is zero reason why strong communities would still not only be large, but still the largest in the game - just with less disparity, less margin.

Size: In raw nations Feeders are tiny. Like, a few years ago Feeders had closer to 14k nations than 7. Sinkers are pretty much the same size as TWP (upper 6k to mid 6k)

This is not about raw nation count. This is about comparative unique player count, as far as can be determined by the average user (admin may be able to do better), WA count, etc. If it was an update-breaking issue, it's just be done already - it's, rather, a balance-breaking issue.

WAs: Each Feeder have stepped up their game massively. Sinkers as well.

I'm glad you recognize that sinkers have done much of the same work. That makes my point clear - with the same work, mechanics leave the feeders 2-3 times more WA's than sinkers, generally. That's one of the major issues I am gunning for.

This has led to higher WA conversion rates. If you go to a UCR most don't bother to ask you to join the WA bar the odd regional TG and the welcome TG. In Feeders, we do, as if people don't, dodgy people come in, destroy our communities and turn our regions into trophies. You will likely be asked several times a month in GCRs and they highlight how simple and why it saves us. Different GCRs have different methods (TNP and TEP I'd put as best) but the reason GCRs do better is because GCRs work harder for those WAs.

In examples such as 10KI, which let itself stagnate for a while, doing a WA program can have a dramatic impact on their total and delegate endorsements.

Besides my strong disagreement along the lines that the top tier of UCR's use many of the same WA methodology as the Feeders, I'm not entirely sure of the relevance of this whole section - what does this have to do with balancing down the feeders to be closer to the Sinkers and said top UCR tier?

I'm on mobile and it's taking a while to load each page, but this time 2 years back our region had 1k WA nations, not 800. TNP had pretty much the same as then, but they've got way better at keeping their WAs.

Our endorsement percentages I think have increased (don't have the historical figures in front of me) but that isn't due to the game, that is down to work.

I'd love to look at more historical data, if I can get my hands on any. Again, though - there is no change from this proposal that would prevent more competent region from growing larger and stronger than their peers.

Game power: Like, GCRs are stronger than UCRs on a one to one ratio. But it isn't usually 1 UCR vs a GCR. Generally it is a collection of UCRs and GCRs vs a collection of UCRs and GCRs.

GCRs don't want UCRs coming in and wrecking their regions. So they band together to protect themselves from dodgy people coming from UCRs who are either going to destabilise their region, or make other members uncomfortable. I really don't get what's controversial about safeguarding our communities. It might give the impression we're one group, but we're 5/9 (warzones get protected by us GCRs but generally no one refers to them when saying GCRs) very different regions, all forced together by circumstance. Not to say we can't get along despite our differences, N day was a blast.

If you've been reading my posts, I've spoken on this in several directions. For one, I've noted that the top two GCR's have the strength of the bottom six combined. You could replace one or two of those six with some of the largest UCR's if you wanted, and you'd have the same point. There's a large disparity, and that plays into various facets of politics. More feeders, on more equal ground with Sinkers, would allow more interesting "bands," and perhaps even the existence of some actual politics there. I think it's a bad thing if the only option is for them all to all play nice, and also bad if there's no danger at all. I think that more Feeders could allow multiple, more fluid groups, and greatly strengthen the diplomatic scene + provide more modern meaning to it.

WA bloc wise, there are now at least 2 of similar strength (which should be pretty obvious so not going to spell it out). It's not like years ago where it was only WALL which was undefeatable.

There are two, though equal is kinda underselling it. That's improved, but it could be improved further still by a wider, more varied base.

There isn't really a case for a change. Feeders have less nations, and similar to less WAs from 2 years back despite enormously increased work to gain, retain and have endorsements on their delegates. Bloc wise there are now multiple, leading to WALL not being the factor that'd win or lose a resolution.

The case for change is that even in this supposed weakened state, the average of the smaller half (we'll count 3) of the feeders is 2x the "power" of the average of the largest half (2) of the sinkers. If you count all the sinkers and only exclude TNP from the feeders, it's more like 3x. The former numbers especially is not your outliers. There is a large difference between them, and I think it's an imbalance that stifles the game. If this is your "down," then surely your "up" is even worse?

Bigger regions make better communities. Inactivity is the death of regions, and having someone online at all times, and having players in each region knowledge about nearly all aspects of NS, leads to a far more enjoyable experience. Big GCRs obviously aren't perfect for everyone, but they provide a decent environment for new players, and trying to shrink them/break them up won't be good for the average new player. For a small segment of Userites, sure, but generally the game should cater for the majority, not a group that hurts far more than they help.

Sinkers do not seem universally dead - surely you can survive just fine at their size? Still many, many times larger than the average (active) UCR. I'd also pose the contrary re "shrinking" - slightly smaller regions, especially some without decade-old regimes, should create new openings for players, in at least the short through medium terms, and ideally the long one as well. Additionally, this will not at all "break up" the existing communities - no existing nations are being forcibly moved.

And again - "big GCR's" would still be *plenty* big - just maybe twice as "big" as their peers, rather than 6 times.

Also more nitpicking, not convinced on the names, but guessing that was more placeholder. I actually liked the Venter names, simple for all.

As I said, wouldn't be a proposal without names There are better names out there, but few that a) fit the sea theme, and b) would not have to be stolen from existing owners.

Tldr: Souls wants this as GCR peeps don't want him so he wants to have his own. Feeders have half the nations and similar WA numbers to 2 years ago. This is despite massive stepping up in all GCRs in WA efforts. WALL is not all powerful unlike back then. There isn't really a case for change.

See: top. Can we please cut the personal attacks?

Read the rest to see where else I disagree.

[Ever-Wandering Souls]

@Souls: AGAIN, How is this proposal something else than: I want a Feeder for TBH?

Be honest. Because that's what it is.

Then go and try to coup one, instead of taking this lowskill path of attempting to worming you to one through technical.

See, this is why I have suggested a more organic way to introduce feeders to the game. Just plopping new feeders in is unnatural and provides a jackpot to be won by the luck of the draw. Sure, it might be exciting for the first year, but the chaos will eventually die, and we will be back here in another thread discussing the same thing. Someone wanting a feeder or sinker should either have to build one from the ground up (with none of the typical UCR benefits) or coup one.

On one hand - this should still lead to the "decay" side of things being quite organic among the existing feeders

On the other hand - I think a little chaos and excitement would be a good jumpstart to things. Obviously you can't just then go and boom, "add more feeders!" every time parts of the game are slow, but in combination with other reasons, it's not a detractor.

You're missing part of the point though - in reality, the GCR's, feeders especially, as is are nigh on impossible to coup, even from within, for both mechanical and political reasons. This proposed change would both somewhat affect the mechanical side, by making the endo margins just "nuts" instead of "absolutely insane," but more importantly and interestingly, shake up the politics side of things both in the near *and* long term - more "players" should lead to a long-term increase variability there, and create more opportunities for politics with a real impact.

Anyone able to claw their way to the top of one of these would *absolutely* have to "build" it up, because running a feeder remains inherently different than wherever they're coming from, and also incorporating the founding and new players in is after all the major benefit of a feeder - few would want to just sit on one and do nothing within it. They will have to do this against strong opposition, and from comparative scratch.

[Flanderlion]

Sinkers are small partially due to the decent refounded nations leaving, but mostly due to community. Of the 3, only Osiris had someone post in the last hour. If you're a new nation looking at that, why would you stay?

Balder has had the only decent WA program running for an extended period of time, and while they're doing the best WA wise of the 3, it doesn't make up for having an inactive RMB. A player joining a region doesn't want to join an inactive one, and most don't want to sign up somewhere else.

Lazarus has just been through a coup, and their WA numbers are increased from various groups old pilers left in the region who won't move until an @everyone call. Plus the usual suspects that flock to whatever GCR is weakest to get gov positions. Community wise though, an inactive RMB and many members just upped and left to other regions.

You always hear of the brief burst of activity from a coup, but usually not the people who leave the region or game. A car crash is good for GDP, but not for society, just like a coup is good for the measure of activity, but not for the community. That said, not all coups are bad, but generally making them easier isn't really a good thing for the players. So much seems to focus on what's good for a segment of GP, and not much attention seems to be paid towards the players who would actually be hurt by the change.

Osiris I haven't checked in with for a couple of months, so not sure how Altino is running things, but the RMB is active atm. which is a good sign. But it hasn't been active long enough for results to show.

I don't think the Sinkers do the same work as Feeders. They might at times do more TGs/effort to get people WA, but it never lasts consistently (Balder is doing good with consistent) while also working on a decent gameside community. Feeders work on WA stuff consistently (for years Feeders had basic WA efforts, and now 3/5 are moving towards WADP programs). I can't think of a UCR that has done similar, Europeia are Europe are probably closest.

Europeia did so well for a long period of time, and then after (I've actually lost count) of integral members of their region turned out to be creeps and worse, the other decent players lost interest. This resulted in less new nations, less RMB posts and resulted in the region going inactive.

Europe under IA has done awesome. The RMB is generally active, tarting is good, and the region is 2nd for UCR WAs after 10ki. It's also first for influence (well, has the nations with the most) and average endoes. But there hasn't been enough years of concentrated effort to build up the WA counts.

10KI, first for UCR WA count has a WA count over every region bar Feeders. And that is with only having an effective WADP for a few months.

Basically, what I'm getting at, is UCRs don't put in the consistent effort into WAs over an extended (I'm talking 5+ years for us Feeders) period of time. UCRs also have to worry about recruitment (the trade off for having founders, which give absolute security unless someone messes up). When we're looking at the top tier UCRs they generally do have active RMBs/communities. But they haven't had the necessity to build up their WA counts, as if they have a low endo delegate it doesn't result in their region becoming invaded and their community destroyed, as they have a founder.

Sinkers on the other hand are more haphazard. They have brief moments of great activity, great WA programs, great community, but they never sustain it through burnout until the point where the gameside community sustains itself and is active 24/7. They often change forms of government and are a poster child of why shrinking Feeders is a bad idea. They are less active, have lower endo counts and are a lot less stable. Notice how few players stick around and choose to make them home longterm? The lack of stability results in players leaving and going elsewhere, and lack of long-term community results in nobody properly settling to make a long term community.

Feeders on the other hand have the burst of new active players. Despite the inherent instability of the region with no founder, influence that only lasts 6 months and no real way to properly vet every single member of the region, we've adapted and became stable. The RMBs of all Feeders when posting in contrast to the Sinkers had posts measured in minutes or seconds ago, not hours. Already that is a reason for a player to stay. Most people don't like being in an inactive place.

Feeders have worked on getting nations into the WA for the time I've been playing. Most of us bar TNP were more basic, but it was consistent. Over the years, all 5 of us have explored automation and progressed our WA efforts to far more advanced levels. Some of us Feeders WA efforts are probably worse at times than some UCRs/Sinkers, but we've kept consistent, and had an active gameside.

People aren't going to stay in the region if gameside isn't active enough for them, and people aren't going to be another WA if they aren't in your region.

The disparity is due to Feeders having been around and working on our WA/community for years, while UCRs have only put emphasis on their WA programs for shorter periods of time (like a year or two) because it isn't essential to their communities existence.

Sinkers haven't kept consistent efforts due to unstable inactive communities. Sinker communities don't bring people to them the same way as top tier UCRs or Feeders, as a community split with infighting and inactivity isn't really a good base for a region.

Basically, I think it'll lead to 2 or 3 alright communities and 7 inactive ones rather than 5 decent ones we have now. I also think it'll lead to a higher attrition rate of new players - stopping this post here. Phone ran out of power and thought I lost it. Will edit in the rest.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

In that case, Flanderlion, I'd go back to another point I made- unify the functions of all current feeders and sinkers, so nations found and refound in both.

[Flanderlion]

In that case, Flanderlion, I'd go back to another point I made- unify the functions of all current feeders and sinkers, so nations found and refound in both.

From a neutral point of view - doesn't seem a bad idea. I like them being seperate, but it's been obvious for years that a refounded nation isn't equal to a new nation. There was the various game agreements to allow Sinkers to recruit to remedy that, but given my post just above the results aren't there. Also allows refounded nations to be in an active environment, which is always good. Minor annoyances like having to reword welcome TGs aside and us Feeders having to deal with refounded banned nations are pretty easy to overcome.

I'd prefer the tags to remain the same if that was on the table. Even if they were mechanically identical, for ingame ideologies etc. would be nice to be able to rally against those who aren't the pure Feeders. Also for TRR to get the catcher tag, but that's kinda off topic. Or even just give 40-45% of new nations and 55-60% of refounded to sinkers and vice versa to keep the differences on paper but having in reality next to no difference. Or giving each Feeder 12% new and 10% refound, and Sinkers 10% new and 13.333% refound (splitting the last 10% on each cat between the original ones)

--

From an IC pov - I'm against, because, taking away from our region (not that it'd significantly harm it), and giving to regions that haven't exactly loved us Feeders in the last few years. Plus not convinced the IC govs of the Sinkers would be better options for new players than the current Feeders. It'd almost be better if we just moved all the refounded nations to be refounded into the Feeders. Also don't see that Sinkers should be equal to Feeders.

This entire covo might be a moot point though, as although guessing a change like this might be easier than some suggestions, hopefully admins don't see a need for change, or this change above any of the other cool features hinted at.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

There's a lot of pros and cons to the various positions.

My own thought here is that it is good for the game to have these huge active regions, as it gives players the choice of what sort of community they want to be part of, ranging from regions with a handful of close friends to ones with a constant stream of voices and newcomers. Breaking them up for their own sake seems counter-productive: it'd be like saying that New York has to be split into a bunch of little cities for being bigger than Pensacola. Some people like being in New York, some like being in Pensacola, and it's good to have those options.

However, equally there's the question of easier access to political influence, and whether that is fair.

I think the first thing to recognise is that it manifestly isn't fair, and while Feeder delegates do work hard for their endorsements, it's definitely easier to gain endorsements when you're constantly welcoming new players who can be told / pressured to endorse the current delegate as a matter of course.

On the flipside though, who said that NS had to be fair?

The big question here, I suppose, is whether fairness in NS politics is a desirable outcome, or whether systemic and self-perpetuating power inequality is a feature rather than a bug. For sure, the leader of TWP has more worldly influence than the leader of 10ki, but that could be seen as saying "sure, and the US president has more power than the South African one, that's how it is."

Now personally, I think that the number of feeders should remain as they are, but that from a game design point of view I think it would be a better game if there were some mechanism to make the WA and SC votes more of a game played by all delegates, rather than directed by a small handful.

For example, I would suggest something like a universal "translation curve" where the number of WA votes you gets gives diminishing returns with the number of endorsements. That is, going from 1 endorsement to 2 endorsements gives +1 votes, but going from 100 to 101 gives +0.5, and going from 200 to 201 gives +0.25, and so on. Should be a smooth curve, I don't have the maths for it.

By being a universal rule, such a thing would not be discriminating against anybody, and not being a hard cap, it wouldn't remove the reward for Pacific delegates to keep campaigning for endorsements. What it would do, of course, is increase the relative voice of smaller regions, and make them feel more significant in global politics.

[Jar Wattinree]

For example, I would suggest something like a universal "translation curve" where the number of WA votes you gets gives diminishing returns with the number of endorsements. That is, going from 1 endorsement to 2 endorsements gives +1 votes, but going from 100 to 101 gives +0.5, and going from 200 to 201 gives +0.25, and so on. Should be a smooth curve, I don't have the maths for it.

By being a universal rule, such a thing would not be discriminating against anybody, and not being a hard cap, it wouldn't remove the reward for Pacific delegates to keep campaigning for endorsements. What it would do, of course, is increase the relative voice of smaller regions, and make them feel more significant in global politics.

This ain't half bad. It's like a nation's stats where you get diminishing returns over time compared to the huge jump ups when you're new. Mechanically, the R/D game is unchanged, it's just that the WA is going to be shaken up, and that seems to be a good thing in my eyes.

Also, that's what this debate is reminding me of, griping that the elderly have all the good toys despite being old and more set in their ways while the young have potential and also the will to change and grow. I'd love to have the high stat nations lose their hard-earned stats and have it redistributed more fairly to those new nations that will either CTE in a month or are puppets -- but sadly this won't happen so I'll just to actually invest in growing my nations to get anywhere instead of getting rewarded by doing nothing.

[Xoriet]

You lose a Delegate election and your solution is to give yourself the chance to have your own GCR? If you'd timed this before the election, it might have looked better. You aren't even trying to work for it. Instead, you want admin to give you everything on a silver platter because it gives you a chance to try something different whereas you'll likely never win a fair election in one of the democratic regions as things stand and it will take you months or years to get to the delegacy of one of the GCRs that don't support democracy. Oh wait, you've been arguing that they need more democratic process or openness to new faces, haven't you?

I think I've already sufficiently gone on rants about this topic, so I'll just leave my skepticism in your motives here.

[Lord Dominator]

You lose a Delegate election and your solution is to give yourself the chance to have your own GCR? If you'd timed this before the election, it might have looked better. You aren't even trying to work for it. Instead, you want admin to give you everything on a silver platter because it gives you a chance to try something different whereas you'll likely never win a fair election in one of the democratic regions as things stand and it will take you months or years to get to the delegacy of one of the GCRs that don't support democracy. Oh wait, you've been arguing that they need more democratic process or openness to new faces, haven't you?

I think I've already sufficiently gone on rants about this topic, so I'll just leave my skepticism in your motives here.

All these conspiracies are crazy about why Souls posted this at this time. If you were around in the TRR discord where this was discussed with him and other members, me included, you would know that I basically told him to post this because I agreed with his gripes about the imbalances between the feeders and other GCRs and UCRs. Everyone who is saying that he is only doing this because he lost the election is pretty much wrong. If I recall correctly we even talked about this before the election even came into place but Souls was hesitant about posting it because he knew how everyone here would react, and this just proves his worries right. The fact is that the feeders have a tremendous amount of power in recruitment, especially with welcoming telegrams being sent out from them even before someone is able to disable them, and other factors as well that it should be addressed for the health of the game and the communities in it. Souls makes some good points but again there are other things that could be implemented that would potentially please everyone, but people are too focused on the person who presented this.

[Galiantus III]

On one hand - this should still lead to the "decay" side of things being quite organic among the existing feeders

On the other hand - I think a little chaos and excitement would be a good jumpstart to things. Obviously you can't just then go and boom, "add more feeders!" every time parts of the game are slow, but in combination with other reasons, it's not a detractor.

Depending on how an "organic" idea is implemented, it could have a chaotic side: Let's say, for example, that these mechanics are granted only to the five regions that have the delegates with the most endorsements of regions with non-executive founders. This obviously wouldn't be as much of a jump-start as what you have suggested, but it would result in a rotating caste of neo-feeder-sinkers in direct competition with each other, and it would create an in-game reason to create or join a region with a non-executive founder. (Perhaps along with this, delegates of non-executive regions would have to be barred from using passwords)

You're missing part of the point though - in reality, the GCR's, feeders especially, as is are nigh on impossible to coup, even from within, for both mechanical and political reasons. This proposed change would both somewhat affect the mechanical side, by making the endo margins just "nuts" instead of "absolutely insane," but more importantly and interestingly, shake up the politics side of things both in the near *and* long term - more "players" should lead to a long-term increase variability there, and create more opportunities for politics with a real impact.

Anyone able to claw their way to the top of one of these would *absolutely* have to "build" it up, because running a feeder remains inherently different than wherever they're coming from, and also incorporating the founding and new players in is after all the major benefit of a feeder - few would want to just sit on one and do nothing within it. They will have to do this against strong opposition, and from comparative scratch.

The nice thing about a more organic system is that you can still have these absolutely huge feeders that can't be couped, but regardless of what happens it is possible for someone else to come into the picture and use the same mechanics to build their way to the same position. I understand why a lot of the current GCR players are opposed to creating new feeders from thin air, and I think if we try and address this problem it should be in a way that they can at least oppose via gameplay.

For example, I would suggest something like a universal "translation curve" where the number of WA votes you gets gives diminishing returns with the number of endorsements. That is, going from 1 endorsement to 2 endorsements gives +1 votes, but going from 100 to 101 gives +0.5, and going from 200 to 201 gives +0.25, and so on. Should be a smooth curve, I don't have the maths for it.

That's an interesting suggestion, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. It would certainly balance WA power, but it also seems arbitrary, and doesn't actually address the issue of feeder and sinker mechanics naturally concentrating WA power in the hands of very few regions. This would definitely shake things up a bit, but it is also arbitrary. Rather than just nerfing the relative power of regions, I would prefer a system which makes that power harder to handle by involving more people in the equation. For example, in the past, I suggested either (1) distributing bonus delegate votes between the most endorsed nations of the region, or (2) only granting the region extra votes on the condition that a high enough portion of the region votes the same way. Either way, the total votes a region can cast wouldn't change, but getting a whole bunch of votes going in a particular direction would be more difficult.

[Xoriet]

That's an interesting suggestion, but I'm not sure how I feel about it. It would certainly balance WA power, but it also seems arbitrary, and doesn't actually address the issue of feeder and sinker mechanics naturally concentrating WA power in the hands of very few regions. This would definitely shake things up a bit, but it is also arbitrary. Rather than just nerfing the relative power of regions, I would prefer a system which makes that power harder to handle by involving more people in the equation. For example, in the past, I suggested either (1) distributing bonus delegate votes between the most endorsed nations of the region, or (2) only granting the region extra votes on the condition that a high enough portion of the region votes the same way. Either way, the total votes a region can cast wouldn't change, but getting a whole bunch of votes going in a particular direction would be more difficult.

I'd just rather see a cap on the endorsements that can count for a vote.

[Flanderlion]

For larger regions having too much influence over the WA, I do agree is a problem for WA fairness, as although I'm for the idea of regions having a lot of influence over the WA, there is such thing as too much (even if it is our regions who are some of those who benefit the most from it). I've put what I think would solve it in the spoiler:

I think you shouldn't be able to view the world vote until after voting, only your regional/delegate vote. This would hopefully significantly reduce the effect of larger delegates voting in the early stages. Despite what a certain GA mod thought about the lemming effect after passing a single resolution after it was losing at first, it's pretty commonly accepted that the lemming effect is a real thing. viewtopic.php?f=15&t=440819, viewtopic.php?f=15&t=427544 and a few other threads in the past mention this.

Also, as Candlewhisper Archive said earlier, a proportional reduction of larger delegate votes would be nice, so a region with 1000 endorsements would be worth more than a region with 800, but each vote wouldn't be as current, which is 1001 and 801 votes they cast. I'm not sure what the ideal delegate size would be, but personally having not looked at numbers of dels with 100+ endoes (TNPs thing is down since their forum upgrade, and IAs only does a selection - although IAs is great) I'm pretty sure that 100 would be an alright limit. After 100, basically each extra endorsement doesn't give 1 vote, and is rounded up. So 1000 would only translate to 550, or 200, etc. while 800 would only translate to 450, or 180 etc.

But more on the topic, this thread (and its ilk) can't really get consensus on whether there is a problem, let alone what it is, nor a solution. There have been lots of posts saying 'the current situation is bad' but nobody really stops to explain what is bad and why it is bad objectively for the game. There have been focuses on certain subgroups, which is fair enough, but not really a reason why the game should be changed to the detriment of others to cater for their niche interests. There have been a lot of focus on what we can do, but not enough focus on why it should happen, and the holistic view of would it help the game as a whole.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I agree, it's all about what is good for the game as a whole.

My thought, game-design wise, is that it's good to preserve the association between more endorsements = more power, as there ought to be some reward for campaigning for support.

However, I also think that the World Assembly game often feels like being a process where the stats of a vast number of nations are shaped by the decisions of a very small number of players, and this decreases the engagement in the game of a vast number of players.

I hesitate to support more Feeders as the solution, as shrinking feeder regions would take away a lot of what makes them fun and excellent regions - that they are always full of conversation and activity. It seems like trying to force the game towards homogeneity, while it is actually diversity of types of regions that is one of the game's strengths.

Admittedly, giving diminishing returns on voting power for endorsements has its flaws too. For a start, it's far less intuitive than the current system. For another, it means that the endorsing "vote" of someone in a big region has less weight than that of someone in a small region, and that could be felt to be undemocratic, much as in RL when being in a less populous US constituencies means you individually have more say in who is the President.

Largely though, I think that the gain here -- a sense of engagement for all delegates without reducing the ability of the big Feeder delegates to rightfully be big players, and a sense that the game recognises the intrinsic endorsement-creating advantage of being a Feeder region -- is worth that small loss of democratic equitability.

Both change and no change are unfair to different people. What matters most, in my opinion, is what makes the game most fun and engaging for the largest number of people.

[Weed]

Basically, what I'm getting at, is UCRs don't put in the consistent effort into WAs over an extended (I'm talking 5+ years for us Feeders) period of time. UCRs also have to worry about recruitment (the trade off for having founders, which give absolute security unless someone messes up). When we're looking at the top tier UCRs they generally do have active RMBs/communities. But they haven't had the necessity to build up their WA counts, as if they have a low endo delegate it doesn't result in their region becoming invaded and their community destroyed, as they have a founder.

Admittedly, I have not run the numbers anytime recently, (I could probably do so tonight) but every time I have it has shown the GCRs containing a far larger share of WA nations than they did pre-script legalization / stamps. GCRs didn't get bigger because they got better at GCRing, actually quite the contrary the GCRs of today look eerily similar to what they did when I became active in game-play in 2008. Granted yes, they do have a lot more tools to do stuff we did manually. The same is obviously true in the UCRs too, probably even more so since recruitment was such a time hog before.

By and large the growth of the feeders is a result of a change in game mechanics that made newer nations less likely to move regions (because making recruitment easy for everyone made way, way too much of it out there and shrank the pool of newcomers that are willing to listen to it at all). The existing GCRs grew larger in terms of percentage of WAs (unique players) as the UCRs shrank.

Adding more feeders might resolve the most obvious symptom of the problem, by making it so the GCRs delegates aren't as likely to dominate WA votes. But it won't make the game any better, because then we will have a few more boring, unchanging GCRs that make up a quarter of the total game population instead of 9. And a large share of the new nations will stay put in regions that are almost guaranteed to see no meaningful gameplay for the entirety of the average NS lifespan. Specifically, I dispute what Souls said here:

n the longer terms, these regions should still be generally stable, but "generally" will be, on average, somewhat lower than it is today.

I just don't buy it. We saw the influence decay in feeders implemented with the stated goal of breaking up the dominance of the "old ways" in each feeder, in the hopes things would be more dynamic. That fell flat. We've chased this goal so many times over the years and ultimately I think we should have realized long ago that the feeders will never be places where significant Gameplay events occur more than once or twice over the span of years. I don't think the people in the GCRs want GP activity, plus we (as the greater NS community) judge GCRers based solely on the ability to prevent in-game Gameplay from occurring. Dynamism just isn't their thing by their (and our) choice.

I'm sure as you say, in the short/medium term there'd be turmoil and chaos if we chucked a few more out there. But a couple years down the line they'd have stabled off and assume their permanent, unchanging form. And that's all assuming that the groups that grab them at the first update are as nice as the groups that grabbed Osi and Balder and let them go. If the raiders wanted to keep one, they almost certainly could by the numbers. And once the region filled out with newbies you wouldn't need stackers to hold it.

If you want to make NS better, we should be trying - for lack of better terminology- to Make UCRs Great Again. UCRs are changing and dynamic. They rise, they fall, the people in them actually have impact on what their region looks like and does, so ultimately, the people matter. Whereas, in the GCRs, when you put aside all of the drama about who likes who better, and the gossip and the .. junk. There's not a whole lot really happening, and it is hard to look at my GP starting point (ten years ago almost) compared to today and think that ultimately any of the very dramatic comings and goings of players really mattered much at all.

[Fecaw]

I support this idea. Having a few more regions would be interesting and make the WA less dominated.

[USS Monitor]

Mod opinion: We don't care what Souls' motivation was for making this thread. New feeders are a discussion that's been kicking around since long before this thread, and Souls' ability (or inability) to win elections will not be a factor in when or if it gets implemented. Please try to focus on the merits or drawbacks of the actual suggestion.

For example, I would suggest something like a universal "translation curve" where the number of WA votes you gets gives diminishing returns with the number of endorsements. That is, going from 1 endorsement to 2 endorsements gives +1 votes, but going from 100 to 101 gives +0.5, and going from 200 to 201 gives +0.25, and so on. Should be a smooth curve, I don't have the maths for it.

By being a universal rule, such a thing would not be discriminating against anybody, and not being a hard cap, it wouldn't remove the reward for Pacific delegates to keep campaigning for endorsements. What it would do, of course, is increase the relative voice of smaller regions, and make them feel more significant in global politics.

Personal opinion: I don't have a problem with this general concept, but you've made the curve too steep with those numbers.

[Luziyca]

I agree, it's all about what is good for the game as a whole.

My thought, game-design wise, is that it's good to preserve the association between more endorsements = more power, as there ought to be some reward for campaigning for support.

However, I also think that the World Assembly game often feels like being a process where the stats of a vast number of nations are shaped by the decisions of a very small number of players, and this decreases the engagement in the game of a vast number of players.

I hesitate to support more Feeders as the solution, as shrinking feeder regions would take away a lot of what makes them fun and excellent regions - that they are always full of conversation and activity. It seems like trying to force the game towards homogeneity, while it is actually diversity of types of regions that is one of the game's strengths.

Admittedly, giving diminishing returns on voting power for endorsements has its flaws too. For a start, it's far less intuitive than the current system. For another, it means that the endorsing "vote" of someone in a big region has less weight than that of someone in a small region, and that could be felt to be undemocratic, much as in RL when being in a less populous US constituencies means you individually have more say in who is the President.

Largely though, I think that the gain here -- a sense of engagement for all delegates without reducing the ability of the big Feeder delegates to rightfully be big players, and a sense that the game recognises the intrinsic endorsement-creating advantage of being a Feeder region -- is worth that small loss of democratic equitability.

Both change and no change are unfair to different people. What matters most, in my opinion, is what makes the game most fun and engaging for the largest number of people.

If that is the case, then why not simply remove the additional votes that the delegates have from all regions, so the delegates from a region of two and a region of ten thousand can have the same "amount" of votes?

[The Tri State Area and Maine]

There isn't really a case for change.

The case for change is that the game is stagnant and boring. Nobody wants to do anything because they risk losing power, and nobody wants to change anything because there is no need to.

[Lord Dominator]

On a peronal opinion note, based on some conversations here and offsite, a case could be made for adding one or two (maaaaaybe three) new Feeders, but adding five new ones is probably a bit much.

[Glen-Rhodes]

Regarding the World Assembly, adding a couple more players who automatically get a couple hundreds or more votes isn’t going to change anything. There’s no meaningful difference between 8 elite powerful GCR delegates versus 13 elite powerful GCR delegates. Adding Osiris and Balder didn’t change anything about the WA mechanically.

[The Tri State Area and Maine]

On a peronal opinion note, based on some conversations here and offsite, a case could be made for adding one or two (maaaaaybe three) new Feeders, but adding five new ones is probably a bit much.

I don't see the problem. 5 still leaves enough for GCRs to be reasonable competitive on the world stage, and they don't need to be any stronger than that.

[Glen-Rhodes]

On a peronal opinion note, based on some conversations here and offsite, a case could be made for adding one or two (maaaaaybe three) new Feeders, but adding five new ones is probably a bit much.

I don't see the problem. 5 still leaves enough for GCRs to be reasonable competitive on the world stage, and they don't need to be any stronger than that.

None of this increases competition anyways. The World Assembly -- that is, the General Assembly and the Security Council -- is little more than a curio to GCRs. None of the 8 of our regions has a large presence in the General Assembly, outside of casting a vote. Few GCR delegates care what goes on in the General Assembly. And on the Security Council side, there's slightly more interest, but the Security Council hasn't been a truly pivotal institution in Gameplay in a looooong time. Gameplayers got so bored, they've started using Liberations on foundered regions for the symbolism. And that's not because of delegate voting power, but because of the culture and norms of the SC that make pivotal Liberations hard, if not downright impossible, to pass.

Adding 2 or 3 o 5 new GCRs isn't going to change anything. What's so game-changing about TNP going from 1,100 votes in the WA to 700, and some new GCR getting the other 400 votes? Nothing at all. Why? Because every single one of these new GCRs is going to be controlled by the existing Gameplay elite. They're going to have the same culture, the same norms, and the same dynamics as the existing 8 GCRs. There's not going to be anything new in any real sense. Osiris and Balder prove that. Both regions were dominated by pre-existing elitists and fostered communities that didn't radically change how the game had worked before their existence. So these new GCRs are going to have the same disinterest in the General Assembly, and they're not going to impact the Security Council's entrenched culture and norms.

If people are concerned about how much voting power the 8 GCRs have in the WA, the debate we should be having is how to alter delegate voting power in the WA.