What happened to the invasions we use to love?

[Hungry]

[*]Get a 'pro-raider' mod - This is down the road I guess, but it feels like the last few mod selections have been former defenders or very pro-defender. Maybe it would help to get another person on the team who has a more raider-sympathetic mind?[/list]

We need a mod who is biased? I don't see that as being good.

[Todd McCloud]

[*]Get a 'pro-raider' mod - This is down the road I guess, but it feels like the last few mod selections have been former defenders or very pro-defender. Maybe it would help to get another person on the team who has a more raider-sympathetic mind?[/list]

We need a mod who is biased? I don't see that as being good.

Well I'm certainly not advocating for any bias. Just a different perspective.

[Hungry]

We need a mod who is biased? I don't see that as being good.

Well I'm certainly not advocating for any bias. Just a different perspective.

If the mods need the opinion of an ebil war criminal a raider, they can just ask one of them? Appointing someone because of allegiance wouldn't be fair would it?

[Tramiar]

Well I'm certainly not advocating for any bias. Just a different perspective.

If the mods need the opinion of an ebil war criminal a raider, they can just ask one of them? Appointing someone because of allegiance wouldn't be fair would it?

If we wanna talk about fair, don't forget the biased mods who don't like raiding. We have "yay defending is a great thing!" mods. I don't see how it'd be any less fair trying to even that out than it is in the first place. The whole point is that they wouldn't ask the opinion of a random raider for mod decisions (and rightfully so).

[Hungry]

If the mods need the opinion of an ebil war criminal a raider, they can just ask one of them? Appointing someone because of allegiance wouldn't be fair would it?

If we wanna talk about fair, don't forget the biased mods who don't like raiding. We have "yay defending is a great thing!" mods. I don't see how it'd be any less fair trying to even that out than it is in the first place. The whole point is that they wouldn't ask the opinion of a random raider for mod decisions (and rightfully so).

I honestly believe that Mods who act on their biases shouldn't be mods.

[Tramiar]

If we wanna talk about fair, don't forget the biased mods who don't like raiding. We have "yay defending is a great thing!" mods. I don't see how it'd be any less fair trying to even that out than it is in the first place. The whole point is that they wouldn't ask the opinion of a random raider for mod decisions (and rightfully so).

I honestly believe that Mods who act on their biases shouldn't be mods.

What you believe doesn't matter all that much, and doesn't affect NS moderation decisions. But this topic isn't about this.

As for the actual topic... COE pretty much knows what he's talking about.

[Sedgistan]

Tramiar is correct - this thread isn't about getting a raider mod, unless you want to argue that having former defenders as mods has resulted in the changes to the invasion game that we've seen (in which case, you're going to need to post an explanation of exactly how that works).

If you do want to discuss whether a raider mod would be a good thing, you're welcome to start a separate thread for it, or to use the Neutral Ground thread.

[Mahaj]

Todd: I get from your post the impression that you think the game is biased against raiders and raiding.

My question for you is: How the heck do you manage to get that view?

[Wopruthien]

unless you want to argue that having former defenders as mods has resulted in the changes to the invasion game that we've seen (in which case, you're going to need to post an explanation of exactly how that works).

By taking away leading Defender figures from active duty and placing them into a neutral sphere. Preventing them from actively partaking in the R/D game causing a huge skill/leadership gap that has still yet to be filled. Meaning raiders have been able to exploit this gap, causing strife and disunity between our ranks.

That's the best i can do.

[Todd McCloud]

Todd: I get from your post the impression that you think the game is biased against raiders and raiding.

My question for you is: How the heck do you manage to get that view?

Well I'm not trying to say the game is absolutely biased toward one viewpoint, I think the game adjusts, but there have been big adjustments for defenders, not so much for raiders. For instance, liberations, the rise (and maintaining of) influence, and the current availability of scripts and tools legally being used in the game have given defenders an in-game advantage, I believe. Raiders have been given some advantages too, to be fair, but they can be exploited by both sides. For instance, scripts can approximate when a region will update - that's a pretty big advantage for raiders, but defenders can also use this tool too. To be fair, though, liberations and influence have been used by raiders in the past, too.

Then again, I'm a throwback to the older times of raiding, so I could be wrong.

[Of crazed]

Dont worry, I'm not retired from NS

[Belschaft]

Todd: I get from your post the impression that you think the game is biased against raiders and raiding.

My question for you is: How the heck do you manage to get that view?

Well I'm not trying to say the game is absolutely biased toward one viewpoint, I think the game adjusts, but there have been big adjustments for defenders, not so much for raiders. For instance, liberations, the rise (and maintaining of) influence, and the current availability of scripts and tools legally being used in the game have given defenders an in-game advantage, I believe. Raiders have been given some advantages too, to be fair, but they can be exploited by both sides. For instance, scripts can approximate when a region will update - that's a pretty big advantage for raiders, but defenders can also use this tool too. To be fair, though, liberations and influence have been used by raiders in the past, too.

Then again, I'm a throwback to the older times of raiding, so I could be wrong.

What Mahaj was referring to, I think, is the fact that the R/D game is currently balanced somewhat in favour of raiders, and that even the majority of raiders acknowledge that fact. Your pretty much the only person arguing that it is balanced in favour of defenders. That's less to do with technical aspects and more to do with how the R/D game is currently played though. Whilst influence and liberations do, on the face of them, seem to give an advantage to defenders in reality they are largely irrelevant, as only a handle of raids are conducted with the intent of passwording a region. The only technical aspect that matters is the ability to accurately determine update, and then get a crap ton of WA's in region. Both sides have identical ability there, but due to the nature of R/D the raiders have an easier time.

[Of crazed]

I'll actually try to answer the question now.

It takes a long time to set up a raid like Catholic, now, not only do you need to endoswap a bit to get you closer to the delegate, but you need to build up influence to be an effective delegate. Many people find this boring, though I happen to find it one of the most fun raiding activities.

Also with variance defending now pretty common, the ONLY protection against a massive defender sweep is PWs or what is called a pile on I guess.

When I first started raiding, it was a lot of luck if a liberation attempt failed or succeed, now it boils down to a numbers game.

So to capture and hold a region, you need a point (who if they are talented at raiding, might not be worth keeping off the battlefield for the amount of time required). You need multi-org co-operation, AND then you need them to commit to the hold or a grief. Plus it has the same success rate as a tag. Add in the risk of spy's blowing the mission, and its not something easy to do.

[Ravania Ultra]

In my opinion tag-raids are not really a problem. Once the record will be unbeatable, let's say 50 for a single team would be the maximum in a 65 minute update, raiders will get bored of it and it will reverse to a training method for raiders, tagging a few regions. I just checked our logs and in July and August there were 50 tag raids in total, now we see 41 in one update.

The R/D game will always be guided by what the game allows. If the game allows raiders and defenders to switch we will use it to both our advantage, if we can trigger a region, both sides will use it, if influence prevents you to kick or password, this effects both sides...

I can think of a few other ways of raiding than what we see at the moment, but I won't tell.

It's not because we had a lot of tag-raids last week, this will be the new raiding, or we should worry about it. I think raiders are much more inventive and all this tagging is just a smoke-screen.

Tagging/detagging in fact is boring, raiders meet almost no opposition, defenders feel like dung-beetles cleaning up the...
But on the other hand detagging is rewarding, If I would list all the thank-you-TG's I got from residents of founderless/delegateless regions...

Tag-raids make defenders more popular to the non-R/D-ers and, sorry guys, make raiders less popular.
So tagging is a bit like image-building for raiders (Isn't this last explosion of tag-raids caused to a raider returning?), but in the end we, the defenders/detaggers, get the credit for cleaning up.

[Todd McCloud]

Well I'm not trying to say the game is absolutely biased toward one viewpoint, I think the game adjusts, but there have been big adjustments for defenders, not so much for raiders. For instance, liberations, the rise (and maintaining of) influence, and the current availability of scripts and tools legally being used in the game have given defenders an in-game advantage, I believe. Raiders have been given some advantages too, to be fair, but they can be exploited by both sides. For instance, scripts can approximate when a region will update - that's a pretty big advantage for raiders, but defenders can also use this tool too. To be fair, though, liberations and influence have been used by raiders in the past, too.

Then again, I'm a throwback to the older times of raiding, so I could be wrong.

What Mahaj was referring to, I think, is the fact that the R/D game is currently balanced somewhat in favour of raiders, and that even the majority of raiders acknowledge that fact. Your pretty much the only person arguing that it is balanced in favour of defenders. That's less to do with technical aspects and more to do with how the R/D game is currently played though. Whilst influence and liberations do, on the face of them, seem to give an advantage to defenders in reality they are largely irrelevant, as only a handle of raids are conducted with the intent of passwording a region. The only technical aspect that matters is the ability to accurately determine update, and then get a crap ton of WA's in region. Both sides have identical ability there, but due to the nature of R/D the raiders have an easier time.

Well when it all boils down to it, yeah, raiders have the advantage in that they inherently know what target(s) they're going after, while defenders have to figure out what that target will be. That won't change. But, there is a lot to go into planning a raid. So, with only cosidering the raw aspects, they're both difficult in their own ways. As for me, I was arguing about technical matters.

[Eist]

Todd, I don't think you are making sense at all.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

Why should we spend 2-3 months preparing a raid on a decent target and fail with 10 people, when 2 people can hit 30 regions in one night?

[Densaner]

As an ex delegate i'm glad invasions have gone down. I know it's part of the game but in a previous tenure as delegate I nearly lost control. Without TITO we would have lost control. In NS like the rest of life it's easier to destroy than create.

[Solorni]

When I was more active in military operations, nothing gave me more satisfaction (in that mode) than helping start piling as well as helping put together some of the biggest piles together due to the UDL. With their attitude, I liked nothing more than to utterly crush their hopes for success, consigning them to defeat and being in complete and utter control to claim an absolute victory. Helping get TNI to 96 endorsements in Belgium, with Unibots ridiculous speech: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=134455&p=8295877&hilit=belgium#p8295877, it just felt good to throw it back in his face and show him how ridiculous he was being.

So I disagree with your second point Sedge, because I loved piling in order to crush UDLers hopes and dreams and advance more mature theories.

[Klaus Devestatorie]

^thats the other thing. Most raiders these days don't raid for the fun of raiding. They raid because f*** defenders. If this attitude doesn't go away, the raiding world isn't going to be helpful to any efforts at fixing matters.

[Free Noldor States]

While most of the reasons that have been mentioned are probably true to some extent, the difficulties I personally encountered during the last year or so were mostly related to being spotted by defenders while infiltrating a target. While getting spotted happened in the past too, it started to become more and more often to the point where I'd rather look for alternative, safer methods.

I have no clue how defenders do their work in that aspect and they are definitely not telling us, but it seemed to me like they, at least on those particular infiltrations, consistently spotted our point man shortly after our number of endorsement surpassed the native delegate's tally. Defenders now have other tricks up their sleeve than they didn't have a few years ago and so do raiders. Both sides have had to reconsider their way of doing things and maybe one came out of top of the other. If it's noticeably more difficult for raiders to infiltrate a region over an extended period of time it is logical to resort to instead moving in as close as possible to update.

This change in the style of raids occurred not because someone sat down and planned it, but rather because of the developments in raider and defender techniques, tactics and resources that moved gameplay in that particular direction. Also, NS has changed considerably too besides the rule changes and that has had an effect too. The change in raids was a 'natural' process and it took a few years for the change to happen, as anyone who has been defending or raiding for the last few years can tell.

[Tramiar]

^thats the other thing. Most raiders these days don't raid for the fun of raiding. They raid because f*** defenders. If this attitude doesn't go away, the raiding world isn't going to be helpful to any efforts at fixing matters.

We can raid for both. >.> I raid for fun. And occasionally that other reason. (it counts if its really just one or two defenders, and really just a happy side effect of the fun of raiding, right? )

But anyway, I haven't noticed many raiders claiming that nothing needs fixed. There just haven't been any ideas that a lot of us think actually would fix it. If you're going with that logic, defenders won't be helpful either.

[Jakker]

Since I finally got the chance to catch up on everything that has been said, I guess I should chime in

When I got into raiding last year, it didn't seem like there was a big focus on big raids or "these ideal raids" we are calling them where we use steal, infiltrate, and hold. There were still some great raids that occurred in 2011, so a generalization should not be made, but that was what I saw. I think it all really depends on what the leadership of a raiding group likes. When Halc was leading TBH's military and now currently with TBR, he really liked tag raiding, so that's what we did. I, personally, don't enjoy tag raiding that much since they do that a lot of work and are annoying to set up (contrary to popular belief). I have always been a fan of holding regions for the interaction with natives and defenders and being in control of another region for a set period of time. Partially why I started that challenge at the beginning of this year was because I wanted to see more of the larger raids and some people may disagree, but this year has had some pretty awesome raids.

Asia
Atheist Empire
Catholic
ITALIA
Capitalist Paradise
Portugal
Hippiedom
Belgium
Scotland
South America
SPACE

Those are just some off the top of my head. Several of them had delegates with double digit endorsements. I would disagree that these kind of raids have died. At least for me, I have been busy, so I haven't been able to do much with NS recently, so I can't plan as many raids as I'd like. But I love every aspect of larger raids. I love planning them, sleeping in the regions, getting a lot of updaters, raiding them, holding them etc. That is simply what I like to see and do, so I do them. Other leaders of groups might feel differently and they should be able to do what they want.

In regards to the issues raised, I do believe the second point that Sedge made is accurate. Also, COE's response is very true. For a better idea of my thoughts on piling, you could see an earlier post I made about it. viewtopic.php?p=10379331#p10379331

[Of the Free Socialist Territories]

It could be that raiders these days just don't enjoy that kind of invading any more. It's been "done" and tag raiding is the new, and fun thing. Certainly, there are people who love tag raiding, but we also have plenty of "old school" raiders around, and it's not just defenders who claim the "old days" were more fun. This may be a factor with some people, but I don't think it's a significant one.

There are some of us who still embark on "old school" raids rather than tag raids, particularly the large gang of anti-fascists.

It's just too hard to hold onto a region. This, in my view, is probably the key reason for the change. Just as the daily data dump means that raiders can move in seconds before a region updates, it means that defenders can do exactly the same. To combat this, you need to pile - which means you'll end up with at least 50 endorsements. Defenders will struggle to get enough updaters to liberate - so perhaps will only manage that once during an occupation. This means that most the time, invaders are sitting around in a region, bored silly - not an incentive to hold a region. When defenders do liberate, there's very little chance to kick them out first, so really they're just racing against the clock. Moreover, double updates means you need to be vigilant twice a day (or have your delegate nation shared), so it's even harder to guess when defenders will arrive.
If this is a reason for the change in raiding style, then clearly to address it, you'd need to make it easier to hold a region.

Provided that you can actually get the necessary endorsements, or that, when on smaller raids, you keep it quiet, then it's still entirely possible to hold a region. I don't buy it.

Switching is to blame. Switching has been around for years - even when these "ideal" invasions took place, but it could be that invaders have finally woken up to the opportunities it allows, resulting in their change of behaviour. The fact they get several chances in an update means that they no longer have to sneak into a region in advance - they can simply blitz in, and then try again elsewhere if that fails.

Some invaders have. It's not a tactic I've used much yet, but we'll have to wait and see.

Defenders have improved their information gathering skills. I'm not privy to the information that defenders gather, but with the amount of script use these days and the improvement of tools such as the dossier, I'd expect that defenders have a much better picture of the movement of suspicious nations than they did a few years ago. This makes infiltration extremely hard to do.

Creation of new puppets blows this one to the wind anyway. Besides which, defenders are sometimes subject to leaks as well, information that raiders have been able to put to good use.

The Security Council changed everything. Most of the "ideal" invasions (as described near the top) didn't result in griefing - but the threat was always there. Liberation resolutions means that it's near-impossible to password, empty and re-found a medium-sized region. Even if invaders weren't going to grief a region, they fact they could panic defenders into thinking they would, might have been an incentive to conduct these kinds of invasions.

That I'll accept.

There may be a lack of incentive. Following on from the previous point, there's not really much reason to conduct these kinds of invasions any more. This combines with the fact they may be more difficult than previously. In this case, something like the "annexe" feature would restore an incentive.

The incentive depends upon why you're raiding. Some "mainstream raiders" may no longer have the incentive. Some of us, however, whether it be for ideological reasons or just lulz, still enjoy what we do, and don't tag.

We may be misremembering - many of these "ideal" invasions may in fact have been griefing attempts. Macedon and Mencer used to be regular invaders - their operations being of a similar scale to what I've described as an "ideal" invasion - just that they would attempt to grief the region. These have stopped because of SC Liberations. If this were the case, either you'd need to make griefing more easily possible again, or accept that these invasions are gone.

I can't really comment on this - it's way before my time.

It could be that these invasions still happen. Catholic is an example, and there have been other occupations of regions (though generally with higher endorsement counts). It could be just that the weight of tag raiding means that we think they've declined in frequency.

I'll go with the latter. A dramatic increase in tagging does not necessarily mean that the number of larger, concealed raids has fallen.

[Blackbird]

I'm going to modify some commentary I made on a similar topic when it was discussed in the Neutral Territory Summit of 2008 (http://z11.invisionfree.invalid.com/Neutral_Ter ... &p=1758864). I believe some of you were there:

The problem with the game is that there have been a lot of changes that minimize conflict. Sedgistan already mentioned regional influence, which I believe plays heavily into it, but even before that, a political situation came into being that minimized equal sides of conflict.

Once upon a time, we nations were created in the Pacific. There was only one, mind you. We looked for regions to go to, usually associated with our own personal politics or interests. There weren't many of those, either. I am leftist, for instance. I can still tell you, on one or two hands, the major leftist regions that were around then. I chose to go to one of them.

That region I went to, The Proletariat Coalition, governed its entire government off of its Regional Message Board. Crazy to think of that, huh? We TGed elections to a trusted person. We had elections for Delegate, and three Ministers. All off of a 10 msg-limited RMB. I remember the arguments we once had over whether or not to move to a forum. "Isn't that too much security?" we asked. "Won't it discourage people from participating?" we thought.

As you can imagine though, things worked out alright. We began having government. And at the same time, other regions were doing the same thing. And so were raiders, specifically, the Farkers, and the French Pirates. I have no idea where the latter came from, but the former came from fark.com, and they knew what forums were, and they knew how to organize them well. Remember, this was when many people were on dialup still, so there was lots of low-res BBS type forums but these guys knew them.

And with invasions, we needed to find allies to help defend ourselves. That's when we started reaching out and realizing that there was a world outside our own region. For many regions, my own included, this was an incredibly eye-opening experience. For my region, based on leftist politics, we sought out like-minded left-wing regions, any of whom had forums, some of which didn't.

This is the stage many of our regions have reverted to. A stage where contact with our regions is extremely minimal. A stage where we are entirely taken with our own regional politics. And most importantly, a stage where most user-created regions don't even have the activity anymore to justify having a forum.

Now obviously, we moved beyond that stage. We moved onto a stage where regional politics, for most non-feeder regions, became secondary to alliance politics for major players, and became secondary even to those ties that had brought us to our regions in the first place.

Well, we're back in that Stone Age where this is nothing to lull people out of their regions or attract new players. I remember what woke me up: conflict. It was a fear of invasion of my region. It was the knowledge, that if invader took my founderless region, they would eject every single person in the region, and cause the region to cease to exist, and then they would move back in there, and take it, and hold it forever. They would make a Fort out of it, and never let me back. It was the knowledge that our civilization, for indeed, we had created a civilization in our region, with its own laws, government, courts, culture and history, would be buried in the dirt and have salt plowed into the earth.

I don't fear that anymore.

And I haven't feared that for a long time. For many of us veterans on the defender side of things feared this as well. And we banded together, and we created institutions that last to this day. No, I don't mean the the UDL, FRA, RLA, ADN, SCDT, GLA, the Pacific Army, or TITO or any of the alphabet soup we know and love, although all of those exist, in one form or another, some less than others, today. But rather, we created a culture of defending, we hashed out tactics, we lobbied moderators, and we won. We found a way to protect our regions. And in a heart beat, we can fall back into those old patterns, and defend again. Certainly the effort to take my region last year demonstrated that on an anecdotal level for me I think.

Moreover, in creating a culture of defending, we excluded the casual player. I mean the player who would post on the RMB when all the region was governed off of the RMB, but was too lazy to go on the forum. That player died that day we moved to forums. And that player is long, long dead. Regions made a decision, the active player was the valued player. For we needed activity in order to defend ourselves from threats. Only activity could vanquish our fear.

But what it's important to recognize, is that NationStates itself was made for that player. It was made for the lazy player, who got a whimsical chuckle out of answers 30 stupid, endlessly repeating issues. And that was the player we killed that day we moved to forums, for we valued something far beyond what NationStates had to offer. And those players are all still out there, for they never feared. Because in order to fear, you have to have something to lose, and these people never built a civilization.

I do not know when the last time a major region of consequence was threatened by anything. I think it was Great Bight in the North Pacific, who threatened the very civilization of TNP. I remember writing those very words, when I described what was being done there. That was what, 6 years ago? In all seriousness, I do not believe, in this game, you can lose anymore. It's not possible. Sure, you can say, take San Francisco Bay Area, or Palestine, or hell, even Ukraine, but really, those aren't civilizations. Those are, at best, oases, outposts in the desert. There was a time when nearly every feeder was threatened and contested, when intrigue was so alive that hardly a week or month went by without a major coup attempt. Do people remember TheDoc? Francos? I'm sure you know those. Norion? Savage Lands Relaoded? Great Bight? UPS Rail? That Nazi who took the East Pacific? Major user-created regions too, were constantly being threatened by imperialist alliances, such as the Atlantic Alliance.

The reason, I think, of why we need to talk about conflict, is that that what made you get out of bed in the morning (figuratively speaking, of course, for this game). The reason why you stayed up at update. If you didn't stay up, if your region didn't have that one extra endorsement, your civilization might die.

That's why we need conflict.