Gameplay and Security Council Tech Development

[Sedgistan]

A general update on where things stand:

• Frontiers/Gateways/Strongholds/Democracy/Autocracy is my priority, in particular working out the remaining details as there's still a few significant decisions to be made on the design.
• Make the Secretary-General meaningful remains on my agenda, but is on pause for now. My original vision was for the S-G to have a veto power, as shuffling the queue did not seem a significant enough power. With the potential introduction of anywhere up to 3 new SC categories with meaningful powers to impact gameplay, re-ordering the queue becomes much more important. I'm therefore waiting to see the end result of the above change first.
• A better "region finder" page is high up on the list. Refuge Isle's thread is the most promising one on this matter but needs a lot more input to get it close to a final stage.
• Confirmation when leaving a region (with a password, or when Delegate) has been requested to admin.
• I really like the Treaties suggestion - it's a good addition to the game, moving content/relationships onsite and mostly piggy-backing off existing Dispatch/Embassy code. The thread really needs more input from players. When the big F/G/S/D/A (etc.) change is finalised I will likely move my focus to this.
• I've talked about feeder stability before, and various means of addressing this (e.g. shorten influence decay period, reduce banjection costs for Delegate), but am currently leaning towards parking this until I have an idea of when I can get F/G/S/D/A finalised and implemented, as that will reduce feeder size, which should have an impact.
• Revamp of WA pages; this would be a joint project with Mall and the GA. I've wanted to see these improved for a long time. If anyone wants to start a thread on this (or link me to a good existing one), please do.
• In-game voting mechanism; this was brought up in passing in this thread. Basically "more meaningful polls". Someone should jump on this idea.
• International Conference system - similar situation to above. Interesting general idea, needs details and a thread.

[WayNeacTia]

Just spit balling here, but I have foreseen a scenario where raiders could theoretically raid a region, and then flood the queue with legal declarations thus clogging up the queue and making passing a liberation to remove the password almost impossible to get to vote in time. Would be awesome if we could have a some sort of mechanism where an emergency liberation could be pushed to vote very quickly to prevent something like this akin to the U.N. Security Council hosting an emergency session. Is it possible for something like that to be implemented?

[Flanderlion]

Just spit balling here, but I have foreseen a scenario where raiders could theoretically raid a region, and then flood the queue with legal declarations thus clogging up the queue and making passing a liberation to remove the password almost impossible to get to vote in time. Would be awesome if we could have a some sort of mechanism where an emergency liberation could be pushed to vote very quickly to prevent something like this akin to the U.N. Security Council hosting an emergency session. Is it possible for something like that to be implemented?

That's on paper part of the SecGen, queue reordering (along with other stuff)

[WayNeacTia]

Just spit balling here, but I have foreseen a scenario where raiders could theoretically raid a region, and then flood the queue with legal declarations thus clogging up the queue and making passing a liberation to remove the password almost impossible to get to vote in time. Would be awesome if we could have a some sort of mechanism where an emergency liberation could be pushed to vote very quickly to prevent something like this akin to the U.N. Security Council hosting an emergency session. Is it possible for something like that to be implemented?

That's on paper part of the SecGen, queue reordering (along with other stuff)

Which is the shittiest idea I have ever heard of, unless it is an appointed group of people like the GA GenSec.

[Reploid Productions]

Just spit balling here, but I have foreseen a scenario where raiders could theoretically raid a region, and then flood the queue with legal declarations thus clogging up the queue and making passing a liberation to remove the password almost impossible to get to vote in time. Would be awesome if we could have a some sort of mechanism where an emergency liberation could be pushed to vote very quickly to prevent something like this akin to the U.N. Security Council hosting an emergency session. Is it possible for something like that to be implemented?

Just spitballing here, as WA is most definitely not my area of expertise, but what about a modification to the queue that adjusts the vote order based on the number of delegate endorsements, so that props with higher endo counts (presumably ones that the assembly feels more strongly about) get pushed forward in the queue? Really vague idea, probably loads and loads of finer details to examine like "highest number of endorsements WHEN? At update?" and such. ... Frig, which also would bring quorum raiding into a more prominent position in Gameplay too I imagine.

Well, maybe someone more versed in the mechanics of GP and the WA can do something more productive with the notion.

[Lord Dominator]

To be blunt, if it’d hypothetically became an issue that there never wasn’t anything at vote, either you have to play politics and convince people to withdraw or we just add a second vote at one time based on the same ordering as the current one (and I’ll say the same if the GA ever has such a problem).

Edit: That is, I think both of these are better solutions than relying on queue reordering - particularly as particularly egregious cases of backlog could hypothetically leave a proposal sitting in queue the entire time under any system other than first in, first out.

[Haganham]

[*]In-game voting mechanism; this was brought up in passing in this thread. Basically "more meaningful polls". Someone should jump on this idea.

I've had a go at this. I'm sure there's more to be said on the topic and I've certainly overlooked some things

[Sedgistan]

We've got some parallel discussion going on here with regards to SC voting queues. Please can I ask that to continue in this thread instead: viewtopic.php?p=38926193#p38926193

[*]In-game voting mechanism; this was brought up in passing in this thread. Basically "more meaningful polls". Someone should jump on this idea.

I've had a go at this. I'm sure there's more to be said on the topic and I've certainly overlooked some things

Thanks.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

I've talked about feeder stability before, and various means of addressing this (e.g. shorten influence decay period, reduce banjection costs for Delegate), but am currently leaning towards parking this until I have an idea of when I can get F/G/S/D/A finalised and implemented, as that will reduce feeder size, which should have an impact.

How is that difficult to predict? You're planning to divert half of their new recruits. Best case scenario is in about 6-12 months, they'll be half as active and have roughly half as many WA delegate endorsements, and even then, they'll still be functionally invulnerable. At least commit to doubling them.

[Sedgistan]

At least commit to doubling them.

Doubling what exactly? The suggestions on addressing feeder stability call for measures to shrink (influence costs, or influence decay period) not to grow.

[Flanderlion]

At least commit to doubling them.

Doubling what exactly? The suggestions on addressing feeder stability call for measures to shrink (influence costs, or influence decay period) not to grow.

He's been pushing to make 20-30 Feeders over the years, so he's referring to doubling the number of Feeders, not the size.

[Sailiopia]

[*]In-game voting mechanism; this was brought up in passing in this thread. Basically "more meaningful polls". Someone should jump on this idea.
[/list]

^
This. I've had this thought for ages but was unsure about whether anyone would support it.

Basically, the problem at the moment is that any region that holds elections (particularly politics-focused regions) has had issues with finding a good way to hold elections. Firstly, in-game polls (the obvious way to hold elections has flaws) - there's the 'lemmings effect', no way to do preferential voting, no way to do elections for multiple seats at the same time (such as a legislature) etc. Regions have resorted to other methods - the most common ones I have seen are: TG voting (possible trust issues), forum voting (only accessible to a small portion of a region's community), use of software such as google forms (time-consuming to set up and issues with verifying nations are who they say they are) and use of an embassy to vote in a custom region. None of these really work well enough.

So I definitely second this idea. We could have a 'voting mode' for polls, which allows options to make the results of polls (while they are open) only visible to ROs, the ability for nations to select a particular amount of options and preferential voting. They are limited to only residents and can be further limited by influence and/or WA membership similar to regular polls. If anyone could expand upon this with ideas for how this could become a proper elections system (at least to an extent) then that'd be great.

[Sedgistan]

Doubling what exactly? The suggestions on addressing feeder stability call for measures to shrink (influence costs, or influence decay period) not to grow.

He's been pushing to make 20-30 Feeders over the years, so he's referring to doubling the number of Feeders, not the size.

Ah. Well that's not happening.

[*]In-game voting mechanism; this was brought up in passing in this thread. Basically "more meaningful polls". Someone should jump on this idea.
[/list]

^
This. I've had this thought for ages but was unsure about whether anyone would support it.

Basically, the problem at the moment is that any region that holds elections (particularly politics-focused regions) has had issues with finding a good way to hold elections. Firstly, in-game polls (the obvious way to hold elections has flaws) - there's the 'lemmings effect', no way to do preferential voting, no way to do elections for multiple seats at the same time (such as a legislature) etc. Regions have resorted to other methods - the most common ones I have seen are: TG voting (possible trust issues), forum voting (only accessible to a small portion of a region's community), use of software such as google forms (time-consuming to set up and issues with verifying nations are who they say they are) and use of an embassy to vote in a custom region. None of these really work well enough.

So I definitely second this idea. We could have a 'voting mode' for polls, which allows options to make the results of polls (while they are open) only visible to ROs, the ability for nations to select a particular amount of options and preferential voting. They are limited to only residents and can be further limited by influence and/or WA membership similar to regular polls. If anyone could expand upon this with ideas for how this could become a proper elections system (at least to an extent) then that'd be great.

Haganham kindly posted a thread on this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=509236 Polls definitely could be used for much more, such as elections and legislation.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Doubling what exactly? The suggestions on addressing feeder stability call for measures to shrink (influence costs, or influence decay period) not to grow.

He's been pushing to make 20-30 Feeders over the years, so he's referring to doubling the number of Feeders, not the size.

And probably never getting anywhere, as already just stated by Sedge between me starting this post and me submitting it. I just don't understand how we've ended up with the frontiers/strongholds model over the simple option. I don't even really dislike it- it's going to achieve a very similar effect, just also with the drawbacks of making it way more complicated and massively disadvantaging frontier regions. Founderlessness is going to massively outweigh the benefits of nation spawning unless you can (initially, and perhaps permanently) arrange a protectorate agreement similar to what you'd see in-context in certain similar games. The overcomplication means many more people find reasons to not like it, and it also becomes way harder to balance, which makes it less likely to leave the suggestion stage in the first place.

[Galiantus III]

I don't think the "Womble Wall" is something we would do anything directly about - those nations exist, and we're not going to go and change their stats. But as part of changes in other areas, we are looking to reduce the incentives to have such a crazy number of nations, which longer term would reduce this kind of problem.

I've made a proposal in response to this addressing switchers used in R/D gameplay. Instead of switching between different nations, R/D players would reset their WA membership on one nation throughout an update.

[Trotterdam]

Why do we even allow people to switch between WA nations that rapidly?

It's perfectly reasonable to have a delay of an hour or so between applying to join the WA and being accepted. Presumably there's some paperwork to fill out.

[Haganham]

Why do we even allow people to switch between WA nations that rapidly?

It's perfectly reasonable to have a delay of an hour or so between applying to join the WA and being accepted. Presumably there's some paperwork to fill out.

it's needed for R/D. What I want to know is why do we still require switching at all now that the original reason for the rule was fixed

[Sedgistan]

A "where we stand" update - admin's to-code list for this area is currently the following, in priority order:

1. Frontiers/Strongholds: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=507257
2. N-Day changes: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=510507
3. Confirmation of leaving region if Delegate/passworded: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=505696
4. Display list of nations a WA member has endorsed (no particular thread that I recall)

What has been implemented already:

1. Declarations SC category: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=506661

No ETAs on anything at present. I expect Cards S3 related stuff to happen before any of these.

[Flanderlion]

A "where we stand" update - admin's to-code list for this area is currently the following, in priority order:

1. Frontiers/Strongholds: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=507257
2. N-Day changes: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=510507
3. Confirmation of leaving region if Delegate/passworded: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=505696
4. Display list of nations a WA member has endorsed (no particular thread that I recall)

What has been implemented already:

1. Declarations SC category: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=506661

No ETAs on anything at present. I expect Cards S3 related stuff to happen before any of these.

Sounds perfect, thanks for keeping us up to date.

[Debussy]

What about a proposal that prevents nations from joining a region?

[Freedomanica]

This may not be of urgency, however, it's as simple as highlighted, when manually recruiting and per say one user are to revive an excess amount of puppets or are in preparation of a military operation, it can make it extremely difficult to recruit newly founded regions whom are starting their journey in the game without squishing your eyeballs to no extent, it makes recruiting much easier as a convenience if refounds were separated with their own filter as majority of recruitment templates are aimed towards new nations in most cases.

However, should they wan to target both refounded and founded nations, they can simply exercise both filters at the same time such as now, where some target ejected nations as well.

[United Calanworie]

This may not be of urgency, however, it's as simple as highlighted, when manually recruiting and per say one user are to revive an excess amount of puppets or are in preparation of a military operation, it can make it extremely difficult to recruit newly founded regions whom are starting their journey in the game without squishing your eyeballs to no extent, it makes recruiting much easier as a convenience if refounds were separated with their own filter as majority of recruitment templates are aimed towards new nations in most cases.

However, should they wan to target both refounded and founded nations, they can simply exercise both filters at the same time such as now, where some target ejected nations as well.

Fun fact: They are. https://nationstates.net/cgi-bin/api.cgi?q=newnations for new nations only, https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... r=founding for refounds, or https://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/ap ... r=founding for founds + refounds at the same time.

[Bormiar]

Influence in GCRs strikes me as very undemocratic and easy to abuse. We could try something more extreme than influence attrition, which didn't work. Perhaps it gets cleared every six months (+- some time to add unpredictability)?

[Haganham]

Three ideas:

1. Have regions display the next projected update

2. Make regions tagged "jump point" always update after other regions. Purely to make establishing them easier.

3. Regularly resort the update order

[Sedgistan]

I've updated the OP so it's more useful going forwards, and I've included lists of implemented ideas / those on admin's to-do list / ideas under consideration / considered but rejected ideas.

There is little change to the to-do list, with Frontiers/Strongholds remaining the priority there. I do not have any update to give people on when that might be implemented. I have previously been resistent to putting too much of my own + players' time into developing a great big list of ideas to be coded, as realistically the pace of coding was never going to keep up. I am more optimistic with our new Tech-focused Mods on the staff that it could be worthwhile adding a few more to the list in the coming months, so I will probably pick some from the "Changes Under Consideration" list to progress into finished plans.

Previously this thread was used for broad spitballing over areas to address with a bit of back-and-forth on ideas, but I'd like to use it more in-line with how other DMs have run their threads - so if you're posting ideas here, please have a separate thread for each for in-depth discussion of them.

On which note - Haganham - please could you post threads for each of those, and link them here.