[Summit #4] Realizing Nirvana Commentary [OPEN]

[Frisbeeteria]

This thread is for comments and commentary on the Realizing Nirvana, as posted by the selected Summit reps in that thread.

When replying to a specific Agenda post, you should incorporate a link to that post by clicking the icon next to the relevant post and copying the URL. You may also [quote] relevant posts, though you need to be sure not to post in the Rep's Only thread. All posts by non-Reps will be removed, and offenders will be slapped with a large trout at the very least.

No threadjacks, please! If you need to expound on a point at length, post to the relevant Gameplay or Technical topic. Feel free to use the various Drafting threads already in place (assuming you have an invitation to [Closed] threads), or start your own Summit-related drafting thread if you wish.

Forum rules apply, of course. Whatever else you do, play nice.

[Unibot III]

Intelligence Operations
Older players complain that much of the intrigue has gone out of R/D, such as intelligence networks.
The Fix: Defenders need to actually... try... They never plant spies in our midst despite endless possibilities, so there is never an incentive to really do the same to them. It seems as though Defenders just gave up on this tactic. If they do not want to use it, then I really don't see any technical path to solving the problem.

Inaccurate; we do have spies. Spies are junk for stopping tag-raiding though and piles only use one lead and they're usually one of the most trusted people in the organization. If we did get a spy into the circle of trust, I don't think we would burn that spy unless the raid was planned to be a griefing.

One way to give spies more of a purpose is for a technical proposal that makes it advantageous for raiders to want to cross-endorse. So far proposals to make griefing more "easy", haven't opened up griefers to new risks, perhaps a double-bladed sword would make for a more fair proposal.

Tag raiding
Some raiders and some defenders believe that the number of tag raids that are capable of being done in a single update is simply too great.
The Fix: ensure that defenders have a fair chance to defend against these raids through tools such as variance, but other than that if raiders feel like trying to hit a thousand regions more power to them. The more one tries to hit, the harder it becomes.

Agreed, I see no reason why the game should try to "limit" tag-raiding beyond extremely unreasonable parameters, since that is mostly just a way for certain players to use Technical to suppress certain ways to play the game so that they play their form.

Liberations become possible
Defenders face regions where the gap between native and raider can exceed 25 players. This makes it rather difficult for defenders to compete.
The Fix: in my ideal R/D world Defenders would learn to work together to counter the raider threat. In my nirvana this would lead to large scale liberations becoming possible, although there is always the logical conclusion that raiders will simply find more nonupdating troops. Defenders should have difficulty with liberations, they should not be nearly as easy as defenses. But if we gave natives the ability to spend influence to negate endorsements on a raider lead, or if their was some bonus such as accelerate influence gain for delegates with fewer endorsements, then piling could be mitigated to some extent.

1. As you point out, non-updater raiders can easily match updater-defenders. You can go back to the old "raiders recruit" defense, but that's just silly, the ratio between non-updaters and updaters is about 4:1 on both sides, so you're expecting defenderdom to recruit four times as much as raiderdom. We need a way to include our non-updaters in the liberation game but within undermining the purpose of updaters -- that's where the War of Attrition model comes in that you hate so much.

2. A proposal to allow natives to wipe endorsements off a raider lead would be totally useless -- in most of your targets, there's less than a handful of natives. As a proposal it is another carrot-dangling to cause natives to burn their influence for no gain. Although it may have been useful in Capitalist Paradise, it would have been detrimental to natives in RORMs or Whitereach and most other cases of griefing.

[Eist]

We don't have spies. I think, and this is not because of nor resulting in TITO policy, befriending people with other intentions is not something that I am comfortable doing. While I see the value in it (if it wasn't just going to result in a list of shitty tag-raids update after update after update), we are not going to pretend to be friends with raiders, because when the truth inevitably comes out, it sucks. I should know as it has happened to me, and I wouldn't want that on anyone else. The friends I have made in TITO and to a lesser extent XKI in general, are real friends and I place my trust in every one of them to not have ulterior motives. I've been mocked for this by others, but I don't think these people have experienced this before.

Unlike Unibot, I was disappointed in Mall's next comment as well. I was particularly disappointed because up until his Realising Nirvana post, I thought his ideas were not only well thought out but struck a pretty decent balance between raiding and defending while increasing the quality of the game itself. I continue to maintain that it is not healthy for this game if raiders try and hit 1,000 regions an update -- even if defenders stop half of them. I think without some restriction of raiders to tag raid, tag raiding will continue to be the overwhelming dominant form of raiding. Naturally, this works well into the MO of UDL (increased activity increases UDL advertising which inevitably leads to new members), hence Unibot's avid, bordering on zealous, support for no limits to tag raiding does not surprise me at all.

Finally, I agree with Unibot on Mall's last point: at the moment there are 40 raiders endorsing the invader delegate in Ether. In order to liberate the region we would need at least 41 defenders move in literally a second before the region updates, and even then because there are so many raiders there 2.1 seconds before the raider lead updates and the delegate switches. To say that defenders just need to work together is just nonsense, and I'm sure he knows it. I am extremely disappointed in Mall's post which continues the old raider rhetoric, particularly considering I think we've seen some pretty progressive comments and potential solutions from both sides so far in this summit. However, getting the feeders more involved in gameplay, reducing or capping extreme influence levels and increasing natives' ability to "fight back" (although I do not see how draining influence really helps) are all things I do support.

[Cormac Stark]

Unlike Unibot, I was disappointed in Mall's next comment as well. I was particularly disappointed because up until his Realising Nirvana post, I thought his ideas were not only well thought out but struck a pretty decent balance between raiding and defending while increasing the quality of the game itself. I continue to maintain that it is not healthy for this game if raiders try and hit 1,000 regions an update -- even if defenders stop half of them. I think without some restriction of raiders to tag raid, tag raiding will continue to be the overwhelming dominant form of raiding. Naturally, this works well into the MO of UDL (increased activity increases UDL advertising which inevitably leads to new members), hence Unibot's avid, bordering on zealous, support for no limits to tag raiding does not surprise me at all.

That's a very cynical view that you're entitled to hold if you wish, but it's not accurate. Unibot's concern -- which is shared by many defenders, myself included -- is that the summit will become so bogged down with addressing the less significant issue of tag raiding that it does not address the much more significant issue of piling. If we impose unreasonable limits or (as some have suggested) outright end tag raiding without effectively addressing piling, what we will see are more piles and more regions griefed with defenders unable to do anything about it as a result.

This is why many defenders (and I think more than a few raiders) would prefer for the summit to focus on the issue of piling -- either how to curb it or, my preference, how to get defender non-updaters involved just as raider non-updaters can be -- rather than focusing on tag raiding. To be clear, I don't like tag raiding much either. Defending against a constant string of tag raids throughout update is monotonous, you are virtually guaranteed not to be successful against them all, and I for one don't enjoy the constant post-tag detags that result. So it is an issue. But it is also an issue that I think is caused by raider boredom with the uncompetitive nature of piling, so they tag raid between piles. Once again, the solution is to make longer occupations more competitive. That would naturally reduce the number of tag raids without eliminating them completely.

[Eist]

Unibot's concern -- which is shared by many defenders, myself included -- is that the summit will become so bogged down with addressing the less significant issue of tag raiding that it does not address the much more significant issue of piling... This is why many defenders (and I think more than a few raiders) would prefer for the summit to focus on the issue of piling -- either how to curb it or, my preference, how to get defender non-updaters involved just as raider non-updaters can be -- rather than focusing on tag raiding.

I personally reject that tag raiding is or should be less of an issue and do not think you should argue this as fact. Furthermore, I would be interested whether others outside of UDL would agree with this sentiment (although after Mall's post I am sceptical that raiders are willing to improve the game over their continuing game-entitled dominance). Piling is certainly an issue, but they are relatively rare (there must be over 100 successful tag raids for every pile), and the vast majority of piling raids are completed without significant long-term damage (such as emptying and passwording a region or even ejecting any natives -- EID being a notable recent exception).

As I see it, tag raiding is choking the life out of this game and I know that many agree. Piling is, too, but to a much lesser extent. I was going to address your other points but are going off the topic of Mall's post. If you want to take this to Gameplay, then you can do that.

[Cerian Quilor]

Have you been paying attention at /all/ Eist?

Oh, wait, I forgot nothing gets through to TITO members.

[Frisbeeteria]

Oh, wait, I forgot nothing gets through to TITO members.

Snarkiness is not welcome here. Knock it off.

[Unibot III]

As I see it, tag raiding is choking the life out of this game and I know that many agree. Piling is, too, but to a much lesser extent. I was going to address your other points but are going off the topic of Mall's post. If you want to take this to Gameplay, then you can do that.

Snarkiness, aside. CQ is absolutely correct to object -- that sentence, Eist, is completely incorrect and demonstrates an absolute misunderstanding of our current predicament.

Tag-raiding is not choking the life out of the game, it is one of the few things keeping it alive at this point. What has been choking the life out of the game is piling and it has really limited the entertainment value of occupational raids for just about anyone in Military Gameplay -- this has left tag-raiding as, just about, the only competitive thing left in R/D.

So, no, piling is not the most pressing issue for just people in the UDL.

[Eist]

Sorry, UDL and CQ.

You might think piling is a more important issue than tag raiding, but really you have absolutely no evidence supporting this other than CQ's irrelevant post above. Fortunately, the mods and Admin have presented limiting tag-raiding as a pressing issue for the summit -- as you well know. Until the mods finally decide to put a stop to it, you can of course lamely and blatantly try and derail every thread here so you get your wish that NationStates is subjected to just as much tag-raiding as it is now.

Disregarding this nonsense for now (although I will still do everything reasonable to limit your fervour in raising the defender flag while advocating for no limits to tag raiding), I will now bring this back a little and comment on the two non-GPers that have presented their Realizing Nirvana posts. While I like the idea in general, I have concerns with Communist Eraser's idea of appointing founders. The problem being that if a sleeper griefer is appointed then they could destroy the region in seconds. Also, if a sleeper raider became delegate and had high enough influence they could elect themselves founder. This idea is good in theory, but as I see it, it really needs to be worked on to overcome these issues. I think tying a nation to another is too complicated for the supposed benefit. With Xanthal, I do not like the idea of multiple people being able to access the admin controls. I do not really see the point if there is not much power given, and I think it would be deadly if too much power was granted (it also greatly increases the complexity of the game). However, I do like the idea of a native resistance kind of fleshed out there where nations can "drain" influence off a sitting delegate, although I think this should be limited to WA nations only becuase I think this should be automatic for all WA nations not endorsing a delegate as it gives incentive for delegates to increase participation in a region and circumvents the power that would be gained by the masses of R/D puppets currently in founderless regions.

[Unibot III]

Sorry, UDL and CQ.

You might think piling is a more important issue than tag raiding, but really you have absolutely no evidence supporting this other than CQ's irrelevant post above.

CQ's post isn't the most substantive post, but your evidence in regards to tag-raiding is simply propaganda posted by The Black Rider that even The Black Riders has admitted is deliberately misleading, inaccurate chains of logic (which I have constantly tried to demonstrate) and smoke and mirrors.

I, on the other hand, have clearly laid out the dynamics that I suggest are occurring and can provide significant examples of piling raids done every month that demonstrate the infrequency of successful liberations against piling, the comparatively competitive game of defending v. tagging and draw from that, logical conclusions that suggest tag-raiding is a symptom of a greater imbalance not a grand nuisance that you have laid it out to be. So much so that I am confident that if you limit tag-raiding without first dealing with piling, you will hurt the R/D game overall as well as make regions more likely to be griefed -- neither an admin's goal nor a defender's goal is achieved with your politicking.

Additionally, I'll note that lumping CQ into the UDL bracket is entirely callous -- he has his operational interests firmly vested in the continuation of piling as someone running a political raider (imperalist) region that provides non-updaters for raids. I don't believe he even tags regularly. Anyone being reasonable about Gameplay notes that piling is too much of a "game ender" at times, liberations are too difficult and defender non-updaters aren't useful enough -- solutions should try to make piling competitive ultimately and it's refreshing to see commentators, like CQ, be reasonable and relatively objective, as well as propose solutions.

Fortunately, the mods and Admin have presented limiting tag-raiding as a pressing issue for the summit -- as you well know. Until the mods finally decide to put a stop to it, you can of course lamely and blatantly try and derail every thread here so you get your wish that NationStates is subjected to just as much tag-raiding as it is now.

The mods and Admins keep telling me, on the contrary, that their use of "Clock Raiding" in the OPs wasn't meant to imply that this was a fundamental premise agreed before hand (both the Speaker and [violet] have said this) just a talking point for discussion -- I have proposed that the term is very inaccurate nowadays.

Disregarding this nonsense for now (although I will still do everything reasonable to limit your fervour in raising the defender flag while advocating for no limits to tag raiding)

Yes, go on, call something nonsense when you're unable to debate the substance of it. Oh and while you're at it, question my honour. [violet] has told us she wants a healthy R/D game; I am not going to lie or cheat to try to get a beneficial imbalance or a gameplay-suppressor for natives sneakily -- I'm going to do my best to explain how ideas could make the game healthier and more competitive, or less healthy or less competitive whilst recommending the former proposals and strictly objecting to the latter proposals. Just because I am a defender does not mean I cannot offer objective advice on how to improve the game for both sides and people like you, who seem to think that being a defender means being a full partisan in Technical, even trying to deceive [violet], gives defenders a bad name, in my opinion.

[Sichuan Pepper]

I am going to completely ignore unibots post as it follows his pattern of attacking others and sneaky name calling.

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=12136796#p12136796

Intelligence Operations
Older players complain that much of the intrigue has gone out of R/D, such as intelligence networks.
The Fix: Defenders need to actually... try... They never plant spies in our midst despite endless possibilities, so there is never an incentive to really do the same to them. It seems as though Defenders just gave up on this tactic. If they do not want to use it, then I really don't see any technical path to solving the problem.

I do not believe it is factual to say defenders gave up on intel gathering but rather the fact that knowing the target region is useless when deployments from invaders are following a close trigger. Defenders cannot move in before the invasion without becoming the invaders. Spies would again be a useful tool if the current invader pattern changes. Certainly spies are useful to plant misinformation. It may also be the case that they became so good at it you believe there are none
Invaders certainly use this tactic currently and I could name at least 3 invader spies right now that are entrenched in a defending org.

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=12061008#p12061008

I see the following steps to achieving my plan.

1.) Allow a way for founderless regions to appoint founders, something like Mousebumples idea from a while back with long serving and/or high influence delegate + waiting period of not being toppled before becoming founder: viewtopic.php?p=11449432#p11449432

I quite like the idea of regions being able to appoint a founder, mind you invaders could make good use of this so I believe it could be balanced out.
Have you considered founder inheritance at all as well? A founder being able to appoint a second to take founder position if they CTE after a substantial waiting period?

[Cerian Quilor]

Founder inheritance is stupid. Passing off the founder nation is far, far more pratical.

Now, creating new founders...depending on the difficulty of it (too easy and we lose targets, too hard and no one ever uses it), I could support some variation on it.

[Eist]

Founder inheritance is stupid. Passing off the founder nation is far, far more pratical.

Your argument is very well thought out and extremely compelling, but I was hoping you would expand upon it even further as I don't see why it is "stupid" at all.

[Unibot III]

I am going to completely ignore unibots post as it follows his pattern of attacking others and sneaky name calling.

In this post you,

1. Failed to ignore me "completely".

2. Committed the same ad hominem attacks you complained about.

I remain unconvinced that you are actually able to respond to the argument I had laid forth, if you continue to resort to calling me a name-caller who attacks people when I am simply setting up an argument regarding priorities and how piling affects the game fundamentally.

Founder inheritance is stupid. Passing off the founder nation is far, far more pratical.

Your argument is very well thought out and extremely compelling, but I was hoping you would expand upon it even further as I don't see why it is "stupid" at all.

Neither is actually practical if you're making a trade, since someone can continue to login into a founder nation even when the password is altered. Which is one of the reasons why I am advocating for safe-nation-donations.

But nonetheless, in the event that you're just giving founder powers to a trusted member, I would recommend passing a nation as opposed to inheritance unless for some reason you're using a main nation as the founder and you want to give the region away without losing your main nation (which seems like a strange sitution). Inheritance has the major risk of being used by griefers, which Wordy points out, whereas just giving your nation to someone else is not easily exploited by griefers.

EDIT: Actually, sorry if its an Inheritance scheme involving the WA Delegate (which is what all of the popular renditions of these ideas usually are), it's liable to be used by griefers. If it's just an inheritance scheme only usable by the founder, then it's not open to griefers anymore than passing a nation is.

[Cerian Quilor]

I don't need to go into detail, Eist, because the idea is prima facie stupid.

Anyway, on Abbey's post in the reps only thread - the reason why people pile is not just to grief the natives (TNI Has piled without doing so). The main reason to pile is to make it harder for defenders to win, because, after all, Raiders don't want to lose when they have the option to pile.

(This isn't to say technical solutions to reduce overall piling aren't something we should consider, in the interests of game balance, but you need to understand why piling happens.)

[Unibot III]

Anyway, on Abbey's post in the reps only thread - the reason why people pile is not just to grief the natives (TNI Has piled without doing so). The main reason to pile is to make it harder for defenders to win, because, after all, Raiders don't want to lose when they have the option to pile.

I also think that piling gets raider non-updaters and "political invader" regions involved.

[Cerian Quilor]

Anyway, on Abbey's post in the reps only thread - the reason why people pile is not just to grief the natives (TNI Has piled without doing so). The main reason to pile is to make it harder for defenders to win, because, after all, Raiders don't want to lose when they have the option to pile.

I also think that piling gets raider non-updaters and "political invader" regions involved.

political raiders still have update forces (TNIAF, RKA, ERN, Asgard, when it was actually Raiding/doing anything, Exshaw, when it existed, and I'm sure others).

Piling as a military tactic emerged primarily as a means to ensure raiders could hold what they went through the effort to take (an understandable desire, no?). The other benefit are there, but I highly doubt they ere at the top of people's consideration when they first started it.

[The Bruce]

In the case of tag-raiding, there really should be limits to how many WA shells you can discard like peanuts during a single update, as you graffiti raid your way from one inactive region to another. After a while many of these tiny regions are more populated by inactive invader shells than inactive natives. It has no meaning. Having defenders similarly racing through the same tiny, inactive regions has almost as little meaning. It’s like having a huge city police department chasing intruders through a series of ghost towns. It’s really more spam than raiding and more a battle of scripts than a battle of wits.

One problem with liberations is that the rules allowed multiple players to simultaneously control the same WA Invader Lead, to banject incoming liberators faster than any one player could humanly accomplish. If there was one thing that stopped liberations from happening it would be this bit of trickery. Has this loophole been closed off or is this still a legal game tactic? If it still remains a viable tactic for invaders then it should be addressed.

Having the ability in the regional controls for a founder to appoint a back-up founder, from among the region’s current occupants wouldn’t be a bad idea. It’s not a regional control you would want to give to delegates though, because it would be used by invaders or by defenders to prevent invaders from doing so.

Giving founderless regions the chance to apply for founder status in the Technical section of the forum would work, after they met any criteria the moderators established, provided that the process was open to comment. With input from the NationStates community there would be less chance of invaders being given founder status to recently invaded regions, as was the case with Blarney Castle and America, the last time moderators were allowing founders to be appointed by moderators. Also, since invaders would be outright lying to moderators, in order to be made the founders of invaded regions, one would hope there would be harsh penalties for doing so (this is providing of course that the criteria for adding a founder didn’t include the possibility of raided regions to be handed over as prize regions).

[Cerian Quilor]

More comment from the peanut gallery of 'in the good old days'

[Andacantra]

I don't need to go into detail, Eist, because the idea is prima facie stupid.

Anyway, on Abbey's post in the reps only thread - the reason why people pile is not just to grief the natives (TNI Has piled without doing so). The main reason to pile is to make it harder for defenders to win, because, after all, Raiders don't want to lose when they have the option to pile.

(This isn't to say technical solutions to reduce overall piling aren't something we should consider, in the interests of game balance, but you need to understand why piling happens.)

I'm well aware why it happens. Both piling and tag-raiding are indicative of a greater problem within the game. That raiders are able to do any sort of almost guaranteed success in the first place. Every action should be a toss-up between gain/loss. I didn't directly address non-destructive piling as I don't currently see any non-awful suggestions to counter it.