Mall's Drafting Factory [Invite Only]

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Sun Dec 09, 2012 2:16 pm

The purpose of this thread is to gather ideas and concerns from those who I will be representing at this Summit. As such posting will be restricted to the individuals listed below. If you feel that you fit into the category of players that I will be representing then please telegram me for permission to post in this thread.

Players Permitted to Post:

For clarification I applied to the Summit with the understanding that "I am one of the few active raiders who consistently advocates for the destruction of regions that are taken during raids." As such this drafting thread will have as its primary focus ideas regarding this topic, more commonly known as "griefing".

The Rules:

As ironic as it is, no griefing will be allowed in this thread. If you do not take the opportunity to post here seriously and act maturely then you will be removed.
Keep your posts as concise as possible without totally limiting yourself. If you feel that a historical example would be useful to illustrate your point, or that you must go into depth on a particular issue, then put it within a spoiler and I will read it. If you are responding to a post made by a player in this thread or any other thread, spoiler and label it. It will keep this thread cleaner and make it easier for me to find each specific topic that we address.
Stay on topic. If you cannot relate your point back to the focus of my selection, then do not post it in this thread. There are several excellent raider/defender representatives for other positions/concerns
When in doubt, go ahead and post an idea. I know you are all intelligent players who have your own ideas, I would love to hear them.

Let's get to it.

by **Evil Wolf** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 4:56 pm

What's on the agenda, Mall?

by **Tim-Opolis** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 8:18 pm

Thank You for the Invite Mall. I think it's going to be interesting being the Token Defender in this thread

I'll try to contribute as much as I can

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Mon Dec 10, 2012 11:05 pm

I would like to look at a couple of ideas and have your comments on them.

People are continuously posting new ways to "get natives involved" in R/D. That is great and all, but as things currently stand there are some aspects of R/D that are just broken. I will start by listing a few new ideas I have regarding influence.

These ideas are just the beginning of what I am looking to do in this summit. Obviously there are other issues that need to be tackled, but for now I would like to focus on comments about the above ideas, any ideas you have seen elsewhere that you think would be worth considering, or perhaps your own ideas!

by **AS22** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 1:52 am

by **Skyrim Diplomacy** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:55 am

Drain: I sort of like this idea, though I can't see any real reason for it besides that of sapping a powerful native for the sake of preventing them from opposing raid action. What would the perks be for implementing this outside of the very specific case of a long-term raid being opposed by a powerful native?

Cap: Needs a lot of fleshing out, obviously, but I can see the merits of this as well. Though I'm not sure how one would determine a cap or practically implement it at this time.

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 5:48 pm

AS22 wrote:
This is very interesting. I'm not sure about it yet, but let me lay out some possible ramifications of this being implemented.

My first thought is that "drains" could become legislated into regional governments, in the same way that endorsements are regulated by endorsement caps.

For example, if you take the TNP Sec Council or the TWP Guardians, they could start setting and enforcing an influence cap...or what would stop Krulltopia from arbitrarily doing the same thing?

You didn't specify if this tactic cost influence, if it does it will mitigate the issue of this becoming a policy of stagnation...but on the other hand it will also make it not very effective.

The other concern with "drains" that I have, is one viable method of taking a large target is to toss natives against each other. For example, I can engineer an "Endorse X" campaign, if X is a native with comparable influence to the delegate, causing a problem for the delegate as two competing influences set to collide. Drain influence would be a very quick way out of this.

It seems to me the idea of "drain" should be something programmed into the game based on some kind of equation. In your example, someone clearly does not have the same level of "influence" in terms of control over the region when they are a lone roadblock to an occupying army. I think perhaps cap is the way to go on this though because it simply prohibits obnoxious amounts of influence.

You raise some interesting points, particularly with the idea of an influence cap. In my mind, however, an influence cap can only be a good thing for nations seeking to take over a region. Krull can set an influence cap, but if he is taken out of power he will be the only nation left with significant influence, making him the certain target of the new delegate's Drain ability.

I would hope that setting up a drain on a nation would either not cost influence, or it would cost a very low amount of influence. Obviously Drain is not an excellent name for the concept, perhaps Propaganda/Taxation/Anything would be better.

AS22 wrote:
This has potential. Although to really make a difference in some places, it would have to be applied retroactively and essentially rob some players of their influence. I see a lot of opposition on that front.

As do I. I really feel as though this idea could do a lot to help a number of the stagnation problems that we see. Then again, if one takes these two ideas together they complement each other rather nicely.

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 5:54 pm

Skyrim Diplomacy wrote:Drain: I sort of like this idea, though I can't see any real reason for it besides that of sapping a powerful native for the sake of preventing them from opposing raid action. What would the perks be for implementing this outside of the very specific case of a long-term raid being opposed by a powerful native?

As AS22 mentioned above the Drain could be used to enforce certain regional security protocols, or even because a Delegate wishes to punish a nation etc. There are a number of possibilities here. The fact that it plays very well into my area of expertise/representation is marvelous, and the other uses are a bonus.

Skyrim Diplomacy wrote:Cap: Needs a lot of fleshing out, obviously, but I can see the merits of this as well. Though I'm not sure how one would determine a cap or practically implement it at this time.

Yeah the technical details are tough on this one, but then again if the idea is interesting it will be worth pursuing. Basing caps based on regional power seems to make a lot of sense to me. The higher the regional power, the more influence you can accumulate before you hit the ceiling.

by **Erastide** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 8:14 pm

This is not fully formed yet, but it relates to the cap idea, so this seems the most appropriate place to put it.

I foresee one possible issue with a cap. I hold the highest influence now. (Former English Colony) So I drop my WA and pass it on to another nation and hold for a year. Rinse, wash, repeat. I build up a force in a feeder of quite high influence nations. All capped out. I am at that point (I think) impossible to kick out. Granted, that's *really* long term planning, but there are some really long term players.

As a possible alternative to a cap per nation, what about basically having a pool of influence points for a given region? Then each nation has some proportion of those points. That way it's not quite an absolute upward push to the highest influence level possible. I'm not sure I'm up to working out all the details and pitfalls to this right now.

Something else that would have to happen as part of this would be loosening the requirements on ejections/banning. At this point, older regions should be pretty well protected by their influence levels. So making it not quite as difficult for the raiders/defenders to kick people out would be good.

by **Tim-Opolis** » Tue Dec 11, 2012 9:42 pm

Mallorea and Riva wrote:
Idea: Allow the delegate to institute an influence drain on a nation. The influence of that nation will be siphoned off after every update. The rate of the drain will have to be determined, perhaps equal to the rate of influence gain of the delegate.

Purpose: to limit the power that influence wields to some degree. Looking at the most recent example in the Eastern Islands of Dharma we can see that Quelesh, a nation which has been incredibly inactive lately, singlehandedly blocked any possible action by thirty plus raiders. Certainly his time as delegate earns him the opportunity to be a roadblock, but for over two months, for dozens of other players? That is absurd.

I think it's an interesting idea, to say the least. I'm not sure how much I agree with it, since this does allow for easier griefing. I'm not going to deny that there does seem to be a bit of a problem with long accumulated influence. I think this idea might have some sort of potential, but it would have to definitely be developed carefully. If input, this should also have a fairly high influence cost to use.
I'd think that if we develop a system for the Delegate to take down influence of other nations, a counter-system should also be developed. Personally, I like Astarial's system where nations in the region can basically take stabs at the Delegate's influence. Of course, there need to be kinks worked out such as puppet flooding a region, but I think it's an idea to look at.

Mallorea and Riva wrote:
Idea: Once influence reaches a peak, it will no longer accumulate. This peak can vary based on the regional power of the region in question.

Purpose: to help to "fix" the feeders and sinkers by making them viable targets for raids again. While the above technical solution may also do that, this cap would make it so that "Security Councils" such as in TNP are not an absolute and total guarantee that attacking a feeder or sinker will end with a large group of players, who have accumulated massive amounts of influence, simply sitting around.

These ideas are just the beginning of what I am looking to do in this summit. Obviously there are other issues that need to be tackled, but for now I would like to focus on comments about the above ideas, any ideas you have seen elsewhere that you think would be worth considering, or perhaps your own ideas!

This is actually a really interesting idea. I think it's definitely something that could be considered. Some of the influence amounts that are accumulated in the older regions are indeed ridiculous. I think that an Influence Cap could potentially make them at least a tad more vulnerable. This could lead to more intel and Politics playing into it, because the GCRs wouldn't be able to completely rely on Security Councils anymore.

That's my basic thoughts on the matters. I'll post more of my own thoughts later, but I hope that this post somehow contributed in the way you wanted it to.

by **General Halcones** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 3:47 pm

I strongly agree with the fundamental of removing high stability regions. Allow them to gain some stability, enough to give them a chance to survive a raider attack, but not so much that it would take several months for raiders to destroy the region. That gives both the natives and defenders ample time to claim the region back.

Any game is only fun if it is dynamic. Constant flux is essential to maintaining high activity. Many things in NationStates become static, such as influence in these regions. It is important that influence is made a lot more dynamic. Dynamic is an important property in general - we were all born to experience the dynamic. The physical world is a dynamic one, under constant flux. NationStates should represent that, as that is what we'd all enjoy, and which would keep us fixated.

One possible solution to preventing natives from gaining extremely high influence is to drop the time factor, after x number of days. During those initial days, their influence rises due to the time factor. After x number of days, the time factor is removed from the equation. This prevents a nation sitting idly in a region only logging on once per week, yet doing nothing to contribute to the region, from being able to gain high influence. WA activity and endorsements count much more.

What we really need though, which goes in line with the argument on making the game more dynamic, is something like the following:

Allows nations to spend influence outside of WA delegacy. Currently, the only native capable of spending any influence is the delegate. All the other nations go on building influence, yet it's all for nothing. No wonder you end up with regions having a large number of nations with huge wallets. The influence is saved up, allowed to mount, because it has no exit routes. If any nation could spend its influence in some way, even in small amounts, it would make influence more dynamic, and would prevent cases where raider delegates are stuck for months (which does no good to the game, at all), trying to slowly get rid of the hugely influential natives, one by one. Of course, this may depend on the natives themselves. They could decide not to spend, to give their region greater stability, better security against destruction by raider forces.

So the question then becomes - how to get nondelegate nations spending their influence? What things can we make that they would "buy"?

Well, here's one possibilty: Regional issues.

Just like nations, regions would also receive issues. They would have a similar formatting, and be accessed from the region page. The outcome of the issue would affect all nations in the region, just like their own issues. That would make a lot of sense too - the region in which a nation resides should have an effect on their nation. This could tie in very well to recruitment. Nations would want to move to regions where similar ideals are to be found, so that any region issues don't have a drastic effect on their nation. For example, you wouldn't get a socialist nation moving to a fascist region, as this would push their nation towards fascism. The idea of regional issues could be very far reaching, adding a whole new element to the game, that would draw in the political players even more.

So, how does all this give a means to spend influence?

Any nation in a region could have some impact on the outcome of a regional issue. This would be to the nation's choice. The nation would basically spend influence to push the regional issue to a particular outcome. The final outcome would simply be down to maths - how much influence was spent on each of the outcomes - the one with the most at update would go into effect.

The native can decide how much influence they spend on the regional issue. For a particular outcome, they can either give no support, weak support, medium support, or strong support, let's say. Giving no support would cost them nothing. Giving weak support would cost them only a little, while giving strong support would cost them more, with medium in between. Nations may want to save up on their influence, so they can have a more powerful effect on more important issues, rather than wasting it on issues that they don't consider detrimental to their own nation.

Of course, the WA delegate would have the most influence, so they'd have the most powerful say on the outcome of a regional issue. That makes perfect sense. However, it should be such that if all nations in a region grouped together to push a regional issue to a particular outcome, then this would outweigh the delegate.

So, that's that. It's something that would definitely get the natives spending their influence away, making the influence picture a lot more dynamic, rather than it becoming static which it does now.

I also think it's something that could have a hugely positive impact on the non-R/D game.

by **Former English Colony** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 8:44 pm

This is primarily a response to General Halcones.
Okay, so two points to touch on.

1) Influence
So, if my logic is correct, if you have a point where only being WA counts, wouldn't that make it basically that raiders/defenders could get puppets up to a certain level in a region but no higher? (Assuming they're out actively doing other missions). I think then the idea of removing time could be quite good for protecting natives that agree to be WA active. It doesn't really get at the absurd influence levels in the feeders though.

2) Regional issues
I have to say I am much less fond of this idea. Mainly because I don't see the gameplayers actually caring about them. People already don't answer their nation issues, if the regional issues don't affect regional security or something prominent why should I bother?

Could you possibly have natives be able to spend influence on something like banning people or setting a password? Something where the cost is quite high proportional to the region's influence, but could it be used a defense mechanism for natives? It would have to build in agreement among multiple nations, but if some large percentage of influence in the region agrees person x should be kicked out, then... they get kicked out.

by **General Halcones** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 2:00 am

Alright, so here's another way we could get them spending:

Allow natives in the WA to "subtract" endorsements from the raider delegate. At an influence cost, they would be able to click a button called "Subtract", which would be found next to "Endorse". Clicking subtract would effectively remove one endorsement from the raider delegate. The endorsement flags still show up, but the number of endorsements at the end will not be equal to the number of flags. The number of endorsements is calculated from the number of endorsement flags and the number of subtracts. To maintain the subtract, there would be an influence cost at each update - this would either slow a native's influence gain down, or cause it to drop. Eventually they'd have so little influence that they could no longer afford the subtract, in which case the game would automatically drop their subtract. At this point, this native would also be considerably more vulnerable to banjection by the raider delegate.

This way natives have a way of defending their region from within, without having to rely on the defenders. The natives could team together, with as many of them joining the WA as possible, in response to the invasion. They would cross-endorse to increase the influence gain of them all, thus allowing them all to afford a subtract and maintain it for longer. Together, the natives could potentially knock down a raider delegate's "pile", thus opening up an opportunity for defenders to liberate. Currently, defenders are complaining about piling making it too hard to liberate.

This idea kills two birds with one stone - it solves both the static influence problem, and the piling problem.

Raiders could also use this to their advantage, through long term sleeper operations. Through sleepers, they gain enough influence to afford a subtract on the native delegate. The subtract appears on their nation's happenings so could trigger defender intervention. Through subtraction, the larger regions where the native delegate has a huge pile of endorsements, would soon become more vulnerable to invasion. That is a good thing.

So, are you more fond of that idea?

I understand what you say about region issues potentially being ignored, and therefore having no effect.

EDIT: I suggest the subtraction can be on any WA nation carrying endorsements, not restricted to a delegate. Otherwise, raiders may have a means of bypassing the subtractions, by switching delegacy between two raider points.

Also, the subtraction would appear on the nation happenings, as "Subtracted endorsement from Nation A".

by **General Halcones** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 5:05 am

Through extensive negotiation with Unibot, we have come up with the following "compromise", that we both agree to and are willing to back:

The Unibot-Halcones Compromise

Proposal:

Deapproval Mechanism

A variation of the Astarial Dissention Model is applied for all regions, both Game-Created and User-Created. Deapproval buttons would appear on WA Nations for WA Nations to "disapprove" of their fellow residents.

The general gist of the Deapproval Buttons would be to make it easier for (1) defenders to combat piling through attrition, (2) natives to participate in the liberation of their region, (3) raiders to reduce natives' influence. Here is just one specific proposal to do that (I think), but there may be other variations of it:

Deapproval would both subtract an absolute value off of a nation's Regional Influence, both also reduce the growth rate of a nation's Regional Influence. How much of an absolute value or the extent of growth rate reduction would be determined by (A) How much influence the disapproved nation has, (B) How much influence the disapproving nation has.

These factors would provide a complex set of dynamics to balance out different interests:

A: A low influence nation disapproving another low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on Absolute Value (A.V) but also Growth Rate (G.R).

B: A low influence nation disapproving a medium influence nation would have a large effect on G.R, but a small effect on A.V.

C: A low influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a medium effect on both G.R and A.V.

D: A medium influence nation disapproving a low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on A.V but also Growth Rate (G.R).

E: A medium influence nation disapproving another medium influence nation would have a small effect on both G.R and A.V.

F: A medium influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a medium effect on A.V, but a small effect on G.R.

G: A high influence nation disapproving a low influence nation would have an almost nil effect on A.V but also Growth Rate (G.R).

H: A high influence nation disapproving a medium influence nation would have a small effect on G.R and a large effect on A.V.

I: A high influence nation disapproving a high influence nation would have a small effect on G.R and a large effect on A.V.

These relationships assume that low influence nations should be protected for deapproval; the lower the influence, the more the nation's deapproval contributes to prospective losses in influence but additionally the more vulnerable that nation is to influence growth decay. Whereas, the higher the influence, the more the nation's deapproval contributes to absolute losses in influence but additionally the more vulnerable that nation is to losses of absolute values of influence.

There would be no "cost" to disapproving, similarly there is no cost to endorse nations. It would show up on national happenings when nations disapprove other nations.

Safer Nation Donation

Safer donation of nations between players, to allow defender updaters to safely give their nations to non-updater defenders once they have successful evaded being ejected and banned.

Reduction of Endorsement Statistics in National Happenings

It would no longer say when you've endorsed or un-endorsed a nation in the national happenings of the receiving nation to aid in those who wish to commit to "stealth raiding". It would say when you have endorsed or unendorsed a nation in the national happenings of the "giving" nation.

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 8:10 am

I'll start off by saying that I think that the dissension idea is fundamentally broken and unworkable. Allow me to go into my reasons why:

Raiders get no benefits out of it. Yeah we can target a high influence native. But all of those natives are then just going to target our lead, totally negating any advantage we seek to gain.
It doesn't actually get natives more involved. Giving them another button to click is not getting them involved. They already click buttons when they cross endorse to maximize their own influence. This just gives them one more button.
This won't make piling go away, it will encourage it. For griefers we will need more troops to make up for the influence lost through dissent. For everyone else they'll need more troops simply because you need influence to counter any future surprises.
Attrition is not the type of gameplay anyone wants to see. I don't know about you, but personally the idea of watching defenders chuck nations into a region just before update for a few nights in a row until the raider's influence is depleted and then simply sitting there and accumulating people does not sound like exciting gameplay. It sounds boring and irritating.

If raiders want to decrease piling, then we can do so without technical changes to the game. We can simply... you know... not pile to a huge extent.

Safer nation sharing is meh, I can't think of any technical way it could be done. When you're sharing nations you're not doing it under the duress of update like switching, so I really don't see what the reason for needing this is.

The increased stealth options are very interesting.

by **General Halcones** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 11:30 am

Mall - what do you think of the ideas I proposed before I posted that compromise?

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 1:37 pm

General Halcones wrote:Mall - what do you think of the ideas I proposed before I posted that compromise?

by **Erastide** » Thu Dec 13, 2012 5:16 pm

First off, I don't really get the issue people seem to have now with "piling." It's called activity! But maybe there's something I don't see there. :eyebrow:

So, onto Halc's two ideas.

1) Suppressing endorsements. I like this as a native tool. There would also be some strategy to waiting to suppress until everyone in the region was ready so that you could suppress the votes for longer. One concern, if the raiders do try and switch WA delegates, I would worry the natives would run out of their influence so fast trying to cover all the raider nations. Could the cost to suppress be tied to how much influence the nation being suppressed has? Such that a long-term delegate would be cost more to suppress than a new, raider delegate?

2) Dissension (Influence only model)
I think my main issue here is how long this kind of war would take, as Mall said. It's getting at two factors of influence, your absolute level and how fast you gain, but if the goal is to get the raider delegate *out* of the region, I would rather go for the more direct approach of #1.

Regional Issues... Is it bad I don't even remember thinking about that 3 years ago? >_> But happily I still agree with myself.

by **General Halcones** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 2:53 am

I don't think raiders could ever take out a delegate with 30-40 endorsements, so why should we expect defenders to? To have 30-40 updaters is extremely difficult, as we all know. I mean, I couldn't even dream of having that many.

Liberations are simply too difficult. It's a crucial part of the game - it's the second stage of an invasion, after the capture stage. The R/D battle should last through both stages, with raiders gaining the upper hand as they proceed through the holding stage. It used to be the case that piles weren't so high, and liberation attempts were very frequent. Back then though, it was also the case that defenders could time their liberations such that raiders would have no chance whatsoever to hold them off. That is unfair too.

The Uni-Halc compromise goes some way to fixing that part of the game.

My endorsement subtraction idea could also go quite far to reducing piles, but not in all cases. Where there are very few active WA natives, it wouldn't have much impact. However, if the natives really cared about their region, they'd ensure measures are in place to defend it.

Could the cost to suppress be tied to how much influence the nation being suppressed has? Such that a long-term delegate would be cost more to suppress than a new, raider delegate?

I would support that.

As for clicking buttons, well, most of NS is clicking buttons. I really don't see any weight behind that argument.

And what's wrong with regional issues??

by **Mallorea and Riva** » Fri Dec 14, 2012 12:53 pm

General Halcones wrote:
The Uni-Halc compromise goes some way to fixing that part of the game.

My endorsement subtraction idea could also go quite far to reducing piles, but not in all cases. Where there are very few active WA natives, it wouldn't have much impact. However, if the natives really cared about their region, they'd ensure measures are in place to defend it.

I agree with that second bit. Erastide's post also seemed very fair for the most part. Explain to me why Attrition based warfare, the result of your talking to Unibot, is in any way a good thing when compared to our other option (endo negation).

by **AS22** » Sat Dec 15, 2012 8:21 pm

The UniHalc compromise does not meet the feeder test and seems to me to not be thought out at all.

First of all, understand you are creating another button for people to ask other people to use against each other. So in the feeders you could see governments instituting influence caps to cement their power. On the other side, you could have rouges unilaterally conducting "disapproval" campaigns in tandem or in exclusion of unendorsement efforts.

So realize just on a basic level, what putting the power to alter each other's influence in a button means.

Secondly, the idea of a "rate" or whatever seems very poorly thought out, especially if this is going to be on the happenings. Removing or witholding an endorsement from another is with not in itself malicious, and is within a nation's own sphere (it is their endorsement after all), but disapproving is an attack, you're assaulting someone's influence.

On some fundamental levels it doesn't even make sense. If I'm a WA -not- endorsing you, I'm not giving you influence. But on top of that, I can now rob you of influence that others are consensually giving you? Doesn't make sense, and it over leverages high influence nations by allowing them to literally roll over on top of you. They don't have to do anything, just "disapprove" you. And you are still giving them to protection of influence, which protects them from being kicked.

And speaking of being kicked, how does that work? If I kick you out from the region after disapproving me, do I get my influence back? Does my rate go back up?

What stops me from making hundreds of puppets and plopping them in all the founderless regions so I can pretend to be a native ready to disapprove a raider delegate?

OH WAIT! Defenders pull those kinds of stunts already! :lol:

Or making hundreds of nations in a feeder to just continuously wear on a delegate? Is that allowed?

I don't like the idea. High influence nations have enough power, they don't need more. Influence needs to be reformed, but this idea makes it worse not better.

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