Updating nations (ATTN Defenders/invaders!)

[Sedgistan]

Anyone working on a 'counterbalancing' improvement for invaders should probably start a new thread to discuss their suggestions in.

[Just Guy]

It would turn raiding and defending into an exercise in creating and moving puppets quickly, and who can sit at the computer for the longest making dozens of puppets.

It already is.

Is it really a handicap if the field is unbalance in favor of defenders to start with?

The field is not unbalanced. Invaders are just not very good at what they do.

[Evil Wolf]

Trust me when I say 'you're wrong'.

Doesn't help that defenders have the Dossier tactic that basically makes defending easy as pie. All the have to do is watch the WA updates all day and dossier anyone who is admitted to the WA. Easier still, thanks to the Reports feature, all they then need to do is watch that one page during update, press F5 every so often and their almost guaranteed to spot at least one puppet partaking in a raid of any decent size.

You can argue that Raiders have the advantage in picking their targets, but defenders such superior tracking tactics that they all but erode that slight edge. This would by why I argued to hard against the addition of the "Reports" page when it came up a few years back, because it eliminated critical minutes it took for defender to sort through their 200 nation dossiers, minutes we took advantage of. Now all they need to do it refresh a page and look to see if any nations have moved recently. It has cut their response time down from a range of 2-5 minutes to about 15-30 seconds.

Unfortunately, at the time my words fell upon deaf ears. I am glad that, at least this time, someone was listening. *Tips hat to [Violet]*

[Crazy girl]

Me thinks I should post a short version of my rant to Sedgey of last night.
But I'll start with saying that this in fact wouldn't be a change. It would be undoing a change made in a time where we weren't being listened to and taken seriously.

And yeah, I'll agree with the invaders that influence sucks and I would love to see it gone.

[Evil Wolf]

Influence isn't going to go away, that's an argument the game players are never going to win, and for good reason.

I may not like influence, but even I can see why it was implemented. I'm sure the Game Mods would rather eat rusty nails and die than deal with the sheer volume of moderation required for smooth game operation in the pre-Influence game environment.

Still, room for improvement when it comes to Influence.

[Crazy girl]

Perhaps, had they been a tad more patient and listening, we would have found a better solution. I mean, that is why we were invited, to that discussion back then, no?

[Just Guy]

...

All it takes is timing.

[Evil Wolf]

Yeah, because the game should be so in favor of defenders that Raiders need to perfectly time out their attacks to within 15 seconds of update in order to win. I think your just making up excuses to support your point at this stage.

Oddly enough, at the half update the Defender response times is just terrible, in fact its to the point where I'd go so far to say that they have no real response time at all. Sooner or later Crashers are going to figure this out and it will turn into a situation where Defender might rule the full update but Crashers own the half.

Maybe that will make the game a bit more even.

[Ballotonia]

Ok, let me spell out the MAJOR advantage invaders already have, since it seems to be lost on even the invaders themselves:

1. updates are predictable. Regions update in the same sequence every single day.
2. invaders can plan where they will attack. Defenders would need spies to figure this out.
3. invaders can infiltrate their target(s) beforehand and build up influence.
4. natives are typically sleepy and unsuspecting anyway. They're not sitting there every singly update guarding a region waiting for an incoming invader army, ready to kick 'm out.
5. due to 1., invaders can time their attack to mere seconds before a region updates. I know this for a fact cause defenders can already do this as part of liberations. I've done this myself.

The result of the above is that if invaders knew what the hell they were doing they'd be winning every single battle out there. Thing is, they make dumb mistakes, and repeat them ad nauseam:
1. They pick targets bigger than they can chew. See Evil Wolf's classic example above.
2. They spill the beans on where they will attack.
3. They don't plan ahead, insist on instant gratification, and lack patience to infiltrate properly and undetected.
4. They move in way too soon, allowing for oceans of time for defenders to respond.
5. Their actions after taking a region are ad-hoc. I don't think they spend a lot of time contemplating what to do after obtaining delegacy. They hence lack purpose.

And knowing all that, I sit here and read invaders complaining that what they choose to do isn't easy enough for them?!? Get a grip already, ok? I not only remember what defending was like in the old days, I also remember some of the good invaders from way back, the ones who DID understand the above, acted accordingly, and who were utterly unstoppable. So guess what defenders did? Those invaders were left alone. If they took a region, they kept it. If you're an invader and you see defenders on your doorstep, you know you've made a mistake and should be thinking about how to overcome that. It's not the rules, or the game. It's you.

Ballotonia

[Ananke II]

Trust me when I say 'you're wrong'.

Doesn't help that defenders have the Dossier tactic that basically makes defending easy as pie. All the have to do is watch the WA updates all day and dossier anyone who is admitted to the WA. Easier still, thanks to the Reports feature, all they then need to do is watch that one page during update, press F5 every so often and their almost guaranteed to spot at least one puppet partaking in a raid of any decent size.

You seriously think that defenders sit all day to dossier every single nation, which joins the WA? Most of us aren't quite that dedicated... Just the thought of spending so much time staring at the screen - which I expect would be very boring and not give me that much additional info on invasions happening - gives me a headache.

[Just Guy]

Ballotonia

you made the point I was trying to make in a much... Better fashion.

Invaders have it easy.

[Wopruthien]

Trust me when I say 'you're wrong'.

Doesn't help that defenders have the Dossier tactic that basically makes defending easy as pie. All the have to do is watch the WA updates all day and dossier anyone who is admitted to the WA. Easier still, thanks to the Reports feature, all they then need to do is watch that one page during update, press F5 every so often and their almost guaranteed to spot at least one puppet partaking in a raid of any decent size.

Haha in agreement with Ananke there. I enjoy this game and I really enjoy defending, but no way in hell would anyone sit and watch the WA happenings all day and night in order to dossier them. Believe it or not, a lot of defenders have lives and work we have to do

[Eruestan]

Ok, let me spell out the MAJOR advantage invaders already have, since it seems to be lost on even the invaders themselves:

1. updates are predictable. Regions update in the same sequence every single day.
5. due to 1., invaders can time their attack to mere seconds before a region updates. I know this for a fact cause defenders can already do this as part of liberations. I've done this myself.


Ballotonia

When was the last time you participated in a liberation? And how frequently have you taken part in them... Recently?

"invaders can time their attack to mere seconds before a region updates"

Going on what you have written, I'm sure it can't have been a very frequent occurrence of late. "Why's that, young upstart raider?" you might ask. Well friend, one word can answer that question, I'll give you a hint - it starts with "v" and ends with "e"....

No comprende?

VARIANCE!

I could plan a raid to perfection, every one of my fellow raiders could have clean, well built puppets. I could have got the Update Time of the region, down to the very last second. Great, this will be an easy perfect raid, I will jump 4 seconds before the regions update, and my fellows will endorse me before it updates.

Surely defenders won't be able to get there in time?

Course not, however, due to variance, the update time I gathered from last nights update can only give me a rough time frame. SO, me and my compadres jump, everyone endorses me, BOOM, according to last nights Update, I should be the Delegate now... Any second... Is my clock wrong? What the... Great, now some defenders have appeared and endorsed the Native Delegate = fail raid.

"Variance" can put an update out by anything from 10 seconds, to a couple of minutes.

Luck comes into it.

But yes, if there was no variance then "invaders can time their attack to mere seconds before a region updates" - and it would be incredibly easy to say the least.

[[violet]]

I'm not sure we're adding much with a debate on who's got it easier in a perfect world where all invaders and defenders operate with perfect timing and co-ordination. Both sides can probably smite the other if they do everything just right.

[Wopruthien]

I'm not sure we're adding much with a debate on who's got it easier in a perfect world where all invaders and defenders operate with perfect timing and co-ordination. Both sides can probably smite the other if they do everything just right.

If there was a like button I'd like it

Well said.

[Eruestan]

Haha, you're right, I digress.

However, it is closely linked to the topic at hand. Any changes to do with updates will affect Raiders and Defenders.

[Crazy girl]

Apparently it's necessary because you don't want to undo this change because the invaders whine about having a hard time. And yeah, I have participated in a liberation recently. Which are harder than invasions because invaders expect the defenders. Natives dont expect the invaders, usually.

[Ballotonia]

I'm not sure we're adding much with a debate on who's got it easier in a perfect world where all invaders and defenders operate with perfect timing and co-ordination. Both sides can probably smite the other if they do everything just right.

This debate is a direct consequence of your own commentary:

I'm persuaded by Evil Wolf's post about this change making life harder for invaders, and since I think the current state of gameplay is (somewhat) too weighted against them already, I don't plan to implement this.

Apparently you decide on stuff like this based on how you feel things are 'weighted'. And so I've been trying to explain how the advantage is already weighted heavily in favor of the invaders. Them not being able to win is entirely their own shortcoming. Other invaders had no problem winning (bottomline: invaders pick the target and hence always have the ultimate upper hand).

The 'variance' response is a good example of their shortcoming. Invaders run into a complication and just give up without thinking things through. As I said before, timed jumps is what I've done before, and what defenders still do these days, and we had variance back then as well (in fact, the variance was larger then compared to what it is now. Faster hardware makes a difference, as does there simply not being as many invaders/defenders during update to bog the system down). Defenders have to deal with variance too, we're using the same game system invaders do. I will however refrain from pointing out in detail what their logical flaws are, since I'm not in this debate to provide assistance to invaders.

Ballotonia

[[violet]]

Sure, I'm just saying, let's not disappear down the "if you all did everything right..." rabbit-hole. Because in theory you can spend every second 24/7 scouring the site for activity, but I don't think anyone would find that enjoyable. (At least, for long.) I'm not that interested in a game that's theoretically possible to win if you engage in sustained, unfun activity. I think we should make reasonable allowances for people being people.

I totally take the point that invaders acting perfectly should not lose to defenders. But I think that's less relevant than what happens in practice, where both sides act competently but imperfectly.

[Crazy girl]

The watching happenings all day would be a defender chore, not invaders. They pick the target, we need to go find them.
It's not like I'm a saint. I have invaded regions before. And of course, liberations, in a way, are invasions too, with that difference that the delegate is expecting us.

You claim invaders have it hard. We disagree and point out why. No need to be perfect. Just need to use your head.

But I guess we could go back to the original topic, undoing the change that was made where nations could only update once each cycle.

(ugh, posting in a second language around 1 am while exhausted is harder than I thought. Sorry if it's incomprehensible or filled with typos. )

[Crushing Our Enemies]

Allow me to clarify my earlier post by saying that I am just fine with the way things are. I think that any structural advantages the defenders may have are overcome by the continued innovation, initiative and adaptability of the raider community.

If update surfing goes into effect, we will overcome that, too. My statement about getting rid of influence was, in part, facetious. I know that influence is not going anywhere, and no, raiders do not need a handicap.

[Ballotonia]

I totally take the point that invaders acting perfectly should not lose to defenders. But I think that's less relevant than what happens in practice, where both sides act competently but imperfectly.

What happens in practice is that there's a defender community which, although it's substantially diminished from what it was before Influence, has kept up perfecting their skills for years, learning from mistakes and becoming quite expert in what they do. Part of that is building up a base of know-how, and level of expertise which has taken a lot of investment of effort to achieve. On the other side is a seemingly never-ending rotating group of invaders. New invaders come in, invade for some time, fail, and give up. I think it's an almost inherent part of the type of players who like to invade that they seek instant gratification. When they lose to defenders often enough, they don't seem to persevere and become better at what they do. They quit.

The downside of looking only what happens 'in practice' instead of how the game is mechanically tilted towards one side or the other is that it punishes those who invested time and effort into becoming better, and rewards those who have shown to be (comparatively) lazy and don't bother to get better at what they do. It's of course much less effort for invaders to complain that it's all too hard for them and that the game should be tilted in their advantage, then actually invest time and effort as well.

So... what if defenders were to decide that, say, starting tomorrow, they're really not gonna bother anymore and sit back and relax. Would you then decide to give them more advantages in the game to make up for that? Would be consistent, given your approach towards invaders...

Ballotonia

[Klaus Devestatorie]

LOL

I'd have sent in a WA first to collect a few native WA endorsements first then moved in my main body of troops if I was you EW.

That removes a valuable soldier from the field for a month to prepare for a raid that might not just have someone coming in quick (and the response times of Improving Wordiness and Anime Daisuki are either within 5-10 seconds or not at all- wouldn't be suprised if someone's writing scripts for that and I'm going to be running some tests to see if I can prove it), it might be outright compromised from a defender or paranoid delegate getting suspicious of him. If I can spot someone who's trying to sneak up on a delegate with a casual eye, a trained defender who's looking for suspicious activity will spot them, too.

5. due to 1., invaders can time their attack to mere seconds before a region updates. I know this for a fact cause defenders can already do this as part of liberations. I've done this myself.

See my previous post. Update times are not solid- they variate by a few seconds, minimum. We can't go -too- close- I'd estimate about a third of the times that we try and move within 10 seconds results us accidentally moving in after the update. And then there's the people with awful internet and awful software/hardware, who can't get their pages to load fast enough for that to happen. I hate my vista laptop, but I'm not going to spend a thousand dollars on an upgrade in the hope that everyone else in Unknown does it so we can shave 5-6 seconds off page loading times.

What I'd like to see is to bring back some nuance of stability in update times. People who are monitoring them on our side are noting -daily- variations of up to 3 minutes on some of the later updating regions- it's simply not raidable . Just pick an exact point for every region and stick with it- maybe reset them all every 3-4 months to mix things up, and have a flat playing field between what is effectively speed (raider initiative) vs firepower (5 defenders can bust a 15 raider assault). Don't tell me it's "interesting"- unstable regions are as good as sentinent. We could move in at a "safe" time, but the only way you're going to win that one is if the defenders don't actually know the region exists.

As for update surfing, I support. It means 3 FRA Rangers can't end the night of the combined forces of 3 entire raider armies and vice versa for decoys fooling an overzealous defender squad. If you lose, you try again somewhere else. I'd sure as hell go back to actively raiding if I knew the entertainment would last the entire hour instead of 2 minutes of "yay, we took the region, whaddayamean you're all heading to bed ".

[Improving Wordiness]

That removes a valuable soldier from the field for a month to prepare for a raid that might not just have someone coming in quick (and the response times of Improving Wordiness and Anime Daisuki are either within 5-10 seconds or not at all- wouldn't be suprised if someone's writing scripts for that and I'm going to be running some tests to see if I can prove it).

If you suspect someone is running scripts you should certainly run tests or report it. I doubt very much that anyone is. We certainly don't although hey.....that would be a handy gizmo!
Coast watching is a pain in the ass with all the switchers but it's not like they are trying to be sneaky. No ninja tactics, just brute force.

There are still invaders out there that are very good at what they do. Those are the ones I don't spot without digging. Lucky I am Obsessive compulsive. (yeah never thought I was say that)

[[violet]]

So... what if defenders were to decide that, say, starting tomorrow, they're really not gonna bother anymore and sit back and relax. Would you then decide to give them more advantages in the game to make up for that? Would be consistent, given your approach towards invaders...

Well, yes. If defenders all vanished tomorrow, and invaders roamed the world as they please, I would think we should balance that. I wouldn't run out and start coding, because, as you know, we tend to go years between major gameplay changes. But over the long run, I am focused on the practice of the invasion game; i.e. how often it actually happens and how often it's defeated. I'm not an invader or defender; I'll never understand exactly how easy or difficult certain things are as well as you guys do. I only observe how frequently things are happening. And my mandate is to ensure there is a reasonably active invasion game.

I don't think we should require invaders and defenders to be equally proficient at the same things. Differences between those groups are generally good; you're not supposed to be morally, practically, or technically the same. Taking your premise about it being easier to be an invader (not sure it's that simple, but for the purposes of this paragraph, okay): I still don't think it would be bad if players could get more easily into invading, and have to graduate to defending. I think each side should get reward for effort and skill, but it's okay if one side of the invasion game is harder to play, so long as in practice there are opportunities for both sides.

That's not my ideal, of course: my ideal is good entry points on both sides, and both sides playing with matching skill and experience.