Beta: Environmental Beauty updates

[Bisofeyr]

During routine inspections, a World Census research intern noticed that nations with large "environmentally harmful" industries but strong environmental protections were underestimated. After a series of administrative terminations, the World Census has implemented a new methodology for measuring Environmental Beauty to more accurately reflect national environmental regulations.

Beta link

This beta updates the Environmental Beauty metric to better reflect government regulation of industry, alongside other nondescript conforming changes for performance.

[Northern Slatavia]

During routine inspections, a World Census research intern noticed that nations with large "environmentally harmful" industries but strong environmental protections were underestimated. After a series of administrative terminations, the World Census has implemented a new methodology for measuring Environmental Beauty to more accurately reflect national environmental regulations.

Beta link

This beta updates the Environmental Beauty metric to better reflect government regulation of industry, alongside other nondescript conforming changes for performance.

I don’t understand how I went from 2 to 76

[Lord Dominator]

I too am surprised that I had an increase, unless everyone generally does

[IZERN]

Nooo, my absolutely god awful environment gets slightly better, it's so joever

[Orcuo]

As a pollution lover, seeing the number tick up breaks my heart.

[Mist Haven]

#63, but i'm not sure I understand what this is

[Northern Slatavia]

#63, but i'm not sure I understand what this is

Everyone is 63 in this beta test, just like for the language everyone is 999. To answer ypur question, they’re testing out how to fix a stat.

[Trotterdam]

From a random sample test, it looks like increases are about as common as decreases. However, based on the description, I'm assuming that increases are more common in nations with strong economies, which are a lot of the older nations in the game. The very lowest-scoring nations are also far more likely to see increases, though the converse isn't true (very high-scoring nations can see either increases or decreases).

And remember that increases are relative. Lord Dominator's new value of 6.95 is still atrociously low, even if it's much higher than the old value of 0.42.

[Krusavich]

A pretty heft ~8 percent decrease on this end. But ultimately understandable given the nation's actual priorities for government spending.

[Lord Dominator]

From a random sample test, it looks like increases are about as common as decreases. However, based on the description, I'm assuming that increases are more common in nations with strong economies, which are a lot of the older nations in the game. The very lowest-scoring nations are also far more likely to see increases, though the converse isn't true (very high-scoring nations can see either increases or decreases).

And remember that increases are relative. Lord Dominator's new value of 6.95 is still atrociously low, even if it's much higher than the old value of 0.42.

I checked after I posted, Cutote for instance also has an increase so it seems likely that the lowest values will generally raise, like I thought was possible before I posted

[Frenequesta]

Definitely seems to be an older nation bias. Frenequesta gets a healthy increase of 9.5% (+565.45) while The Neighland State (which is essentially Frenequesta rebooted) drops 12.4% (-114.83). Guess one has to wait for the right issues to come up again and again…

[Fauxia]

My puppet Corporate Underlords sees its Environmental Beauty rise from 19.22 to 350.2 under this beta, yet it has a 100 economic freedom, so I'm skeptical it has the environmental protections to justify such a large increase.

[Valentine Z]

16,174.85 to 18,394.80. I can live and be happy with this !

[Dengist China]

Mine drops by 14% despite having very little in the way of environmentally harmful industry. I think this beta needs to be improved upon.

I've also seen some ridiculous increases such as my alt Pyrenizia, which despite being top 4% in timber woodchipping and also being top 38% in Mining sees a massive increase in Environmental Beauty. This change is doing the opposite of what it's meant to.

[SherpDaWerp]

This change is doing the opposite of what it's meant to.

The sentence "alongside other nondescript conforming changes for performance" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in Bisofeyr's post.

Alongside the changes for environmental regulations, there are a large swathe of changes for performance reasons. The performance changes are rank-monotone, by which I mean if you rank above Nation X right now, you will also rank above Nation X after those performance changes are implemented. Unfortunately, it's not possible for the UI to display information that helps players untangle the rank-monotone changes from the actual additional regulation tracking.

The problem is, said changes may be rank-monotone, but they may also result in substantially inflated scores relative to the old baseline. That is unfortunately just part and parcel of the ranking being re-written in this way. I can assure you that the underlying inputs are nearly identical.

[Dengist China]

This change is doing the opposite of what it's meant to.

The sentence "alongside other nondescript conforming changes for performance" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in Bisofeyr's post.

Alongside the changes for environmental regulations, there are a large swathe of changes for performance reasons. The performance changes are rank-monotone, by which I mean if you rank above Nation X right now, you will also rank above Nation X after those performance changes are implemented. Unfortunately, it's not possible for the UI to display information that helps players untangle the rank-monotone changes from the actual additional regulation tracking.

The problem is, said changes may be rank-monotone, but they may also result in substantially inflated scores relative to the old baseline. That is unfortunately just part and parcel of the ranking being re-written in this way. I can assure you that the underlying inputs are nearly identical.

That's fair. Still is quite disappointing though, though if it's not going to have a large effect on rankings then it's not such a big deal, I suppose. Especially when it's being done in the name of making NationStates work better.

[Istuvia]

I got 396. That’s an increase from before.

[Bisofeyr]

I believe I have managed to isolate the "substantive changes" -- that is, the changes that would actually affect the rankings. I cannot guarantee that this is perfect, since there are a lot of moving parts and I am deeply imperfect. The beta linked in the OP is still the """official one""" that is being considered, but hopefully this can help folks understand what's going on here better.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta/ ... yr__gm47xr

I'm also working to see if there is a way to maintain the performance improvements we got through the "other changes" without the large changes that a lot of people with low rankings noted. It's not simple, per se, so I will not promise that that's coming, but I want to keep folks in the loop of where my head's at (especially when it comes to changing existing rankings). If folks have questions I do invite them to be asked here -- I can't guarantee I can answer all of them but I will answer the ones I am able to.

[Unogonduria]

I went down... Anyways...

Anyways, I'm happy you do all these updates, thank you

[Valentine Z]

Awww that Beta will not change my Env Beauty. Still, it won't make it go down either so it's ultimately neutral!

[Mister Y]

Current: 556.48
Beta: 462.13
Change: -94.35 ⇣17.0%

[Humanlonia]

1 210.19
Progress! Today already is 1660.44
1149.66
1355.66
1353.66

[The Aquilan-Cetan Commonwealth]

576.92 with an original of somewhere around 640.2 (I can't remember it)

I mean... I guess, I am a diversified nation when it comes to environment.

[Excidium Planetis]

Oh thank God.

This change puts me from 4.27 to 182.88

I've always felt that my environmental beauty and weather scores were too low compared to my Eco-friendliness score. Like my government is throwing a ton of money at the environment and we're still a toxic hellhole.

[Coregia]

Went from 1431 to 1310

EDIT: Tried the other one that got linked with substance only, actually went slightly up by 0.8. How odd.