A Comprehensive Set of Recruitment Changes

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

While many topics have been made in this thread about the incredibly low efficacy of recruitment in all forms as late, none seem to propose the kind of complete overhaul that the telegram recruitment system sorely needs.

Right now there are countless problems, from new players being spammed by telegrams and possibly being overwhelmed, to the fact that at this point you need to spend 100s of dollars a year to remain even slightly relevant as a UCR. Many proposals in this thread will be borrowed from already suggested items.

1. In the first 10 minutes of a nations existence, only Manual recruitment tgs can be received. Perhaps the largest goal I have in this set of changes is making manual recruitment a vital part of NS, rather than the secondary role to stamps that it currently plays. I can't think of a better way to do this than make it so that the first few telegrams a nation will receive are manual. This will also cut down on the initial spam.

2. Move the feeder welcome tg into the manual recruitment queue and away from being immediate. Much has been discussed on this topic and I think this is a worthwhile compromise. The welcome tg will still be among the first, but it won't always be the first.

3. Opt-in puppet identification system in the API and the nation creation page. If you click the "I am a puppet" box or make an API call similar to that, your nation starts with telegrams blocked. After some time perhaps this can be made mandatory. If this is too much perhaps the suggestion of just being allowed to block nations with numbers natively will work.

4. Reduce the API rate limit to 120s. This way those that don't want to pay for stamps can still have a slightly more effective way of recruiting than the current incredibly slow 180s API. This is also still slow enough that the pre-changes stamp spam won't return.

5. Double the price of stamps. This is likely to be unpopular but right now stamps allow way, way, way too much spam. No new nation is going to look through 30 recruitment telegrams half of which are probably low effort anyways. This way even with the reduced usage of stamps the site can still make money and regions are further incentivized to preform manual recruitment.

This set of changes won't solve every single problem the Recruitment system currently has, but hopefully it will make it more fair for active regions, regions that don't want to pay 100s of dollars for stamps, and less spammy.

[Comfed]

I support every one of those ideas except for doubling the cost of stamps.

[Merni]

1. In the first 10 minutes of a nations existence, only Manual recruitment tgs can be received. Perhaps the largest goal I have in this set of changes is making manual recruitment a vital part of NS, rather than the secondary role to stamps that it currently plays. I can't think of a better way to do this than make it so that the first few telegrams a nation will receive are manual. This will also cut down on the initial spam.

This would only provide an immense advantage to large regions which may have more people willing to sit around and click buttons for hours on end. Stamps and API recruitment provide an easier way for relatively smaller regions to still recruit effectively.

[Wymondham]

In favour of 2, 3, 4 and 5 - to be honest I'd like to see the API limit cut to below 60 seconds.
I have concerns about 1 as it would massively benefit large UCRs and absolutely nobody else

[Lumio Magika]

I'm in the same boat as Wym (although I'm more neutral on 5).

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

In my opinion you can't have 5 without having 1. In order to increase the price of stamps and cut back on spam, we need a credible alternative. Making manual telegramming worth the time is the best way to do that. If someone has a better way then I am happy to say I support it, but just doubling the price of stamps with minor API changes doesn't cut it.

[Narvatus]

After some time perhaps this can be made mandatory.

Not sure about this, since it just puts people unnecessarily at risk of punishment if they forget to tick the box.

[Miravana]

I agree with 1-4, but for 3 specifically, there should be some sort of benefit nations get for clicking the "This is a puppet" checkmark. Either in creation speed or by having the throttle lower, it should provide the user with a reason to click the button besides being a kind considerate member of the community. Any positive changes to the recruitment are sorely needed, and I think 1-4 would all be such changes.

[Flanderlion]

I like the ideas here mostly.

1. Yes, manual should be advantaged more than current, and reducing the spam is good. Makes sense, timeframe wise, could be 5 instead of 10 instead?

2. Disagree, but that's from a personal preference when founding nations I like it to be super easy for me to find and save. I don't think it will make a major difference changing the timing, but if it will make people happy, coupled with other stuff yes.

3. Disagree that it could be made mandatory. Otherwise sure, think it's extra effort/taking money and spamming nations more with it happening, but if other things in this thread happen as well, there is no harm bar the dev time of adding it. Personally think it's a waste, would be better served to let players recruit via API selection with stamps, then they can filter whatever they want.

4. Uh - yes and no. My personal preference would be allowing stamps to be spent on API TGs (far better targeting than what NS provides) but I'd be fine with a rate limit decrease if there was a requirement for nations sending API TGs to have performed some form of restricted action (as login can be automated) in the last week - so you can't automate it and return back in a month without actually participating in NS gameside. Ideally both.

5. Yes. Eventually should either move to an auction system or a system that is cheaper for regions with good gameside retention and more expensive for those that are not, but doubling is fine for now.

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Personally if there are TG rejigs on the table, I would also like to be able to use stamps to block an API TG to our region, but that might be a bit of a pipe dream.

[Tinhampton]

Apathetic, opposed, I have no idea how this is going to be policed, supportive, and stamps should be made more accessible rather than less. In that order.

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

Personally if there are TG rejigs on the table, I would also like to be able to use stamps to block an API TG to our region, but that might be a bit of a pipe dream.

That would be a pretty good idea.

Bumping this and asking for other recruitment changes in general.

[Miravana]

Bumping because this got lost under April Fools. These issues with recruitment are still very glaring and something needs to be done, whether it is one of these, the change I proposed, or something else entirely, recruitment is broken and needs to be fixed.

[Topid]

I don’t want to address all of these, because I don’t care about all of them, but I would say increasing the price of stamps would probably be fair.

Also, I don’t like #1. If manual recruitment is used it already has the benefit of being in its own queue. Therefore, manual TGs should already get to the target nation very quickly. The fact there are 20 stamp TGs in their own queue for a nation does not change the fact that the manual TG queue is just as likely to come up next as the Stamp or API queues, and if there is only one manual TG queued then that TG is guaranteed to be delivered one of the first TGs. I don’t think kneecapping the other two methods will make more people choose to give up time for manual TGs. Manual is already TG for TG stronger method, it just takes time and most would rather spend their time playing the game. Making it even stronger TG for TG won’t change that fact much at all. Just my personal take.

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

Also, I don’t like #1. If manual recruitment is used it already has the benefit of being in its own queue. Therefore, manual TGs should already get to the target nation very quickly. The fact there are 20 stamp TGs in their own queue for a nation does not change the fact that the manual TG queue is just as likely to come up next as the Stamp or API queues, and if there is only one manual TG queued then that TG is guaranteed to be delivered one of the first TGs. I don’t think kneecapping the other two methods will make more people choose to give up time for manual TGs. Manual is already TG for TG stronger method, it just takes time and most would rather spend their time playing the game. Making it even stronger TG for TG won’t change that fact much at all. Just my personal take.

Manual isn't as effective as it used to be, this is mostly due to the utter spam that comes through the stamps system, but we should be incentivizing manual as much as possible. Regions that manually recruit are more likely to be active and good at keeping nations around, which should be the goal of NS anyways. In addition if a region puts in the work to have an effective manual recruitment system it should be rewarded as much as possible. Play to win is way better than the current pay to win system.

[Topid]

Also, I don’t like #1. If manual recruitment is used it already has the benefit of being in its own queue. Therefore, manual TGs should already get to the target nation very quickly. The fact there are 20 stamp TGs in their own queue for a nation does not change the fact that the manual TG queue is just as likely to come up next as the Stamp or API queues, and if there is only one manual TG queued then that TG is guaranteed to be delivered one of the first TGs. I don’t think kneecapping the other two methods will make more people choose to give up time for manual TGs. Manual is already TG for TG stronger method, it just takes time and most would rather spend their time playing the game. Making it even stronger TG for TG won’t change that fact much at all. Just my personal take.

Manual isn't as effective as it used to be, this is mostly due to the utter spam that comes through the stamps system, but we should be incentivizing manual as much as possible. Regions that manually recruit are more likely to be active and good at keeping nations around, which should be the goal of NS anyways. In addition if a region puts in the work to have an effective manual recruitment system it should be rewarded as much as possible. Play to win is way better than the current pay to win system.

That just does not make much sense to me frankly, unless admin has changed something. The three DISTINCT queues are alternated. So first you might get an API telegram, then a stamp telegram, but the third will be a manual. It cycles which it gives a nation. The queue counter for manual TGs is always pretty small. So odds are, each nation is getting only a couple manual TGs if that. If a nation gets 2 manual TGs sent within a few seconds of founding those regions have a 50% of being one of the first three TGs sent. That's far stronger than being in the stamp queue and having a tiny percentage chance of coming in first round. And it certainly does not matter how many stamp TGs get sent. They are in a totally different queue. If a new nation is sent 1 manual TG and a stamp TG for every other region in the game, the manual TG is going to be one of the first TGs that nation receives every time because it is alone in the manual queue. More stamp generated TGs does not change the effectiveness of a manual in relation to a stamp/API TG at all.

Did they chance the cycling queue system?

What do you mean by "less effective"? Less effective compared to what and when? I have made posts over the years comparing from data dumps the percentage of WAs in UCRs vs. GCRs. and the percentage of WAs below a certain population (maybe 500 million) within UCRs vs. GCRs and drawn the conclusion that recruitment as a whole is a lot less effective than it used to be. I don't think it is unique to manual TGs to say recruitment is "less effective" or that it needs some special fix.

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

Can't speak to the first question. As for less effective, manual telegrams used to have a success rate of 2-3%. my first few templates from 2020 had around there. Ever since the drew bust however, 1% is much more common. That's 1/3 to 1/2 as effective. Now there are many factors to this, insane numbers of puppets, fewer actual new nations being created, etc. But overall I believe that manual should be the most successful and necessary telegraming method. It's either play to win, pay to win, or exist to win (API). I would chose play to win.

[The Nation of the People of the Nation]

Bumping this, as many have said something should be done re:recruitment.

[Quebecshire]

I support every one of those ideas except for doubling the cost of stamps.

I second this.

Please do not double the price of stamps lmao.

[Andusre]

Bumping this because as far as I'm aware we are no further forward with respect to recruitment reform.

[A Bloodred Moon]

I agree, with the exception of #5 and maybe #1 - encouraging manual is a good idea, but especially for newer regions it isn’t as sustainable to do long-term - that all of these are good ideas and could improve recruitment. I especially like the Feeder telegram bit, considering the imbalance between the Feeders and practically everyone else in terms of endorsements and recruits.

[Cormactopia Prime]

Wouldn't reducing the API rate limit just increase the amount of spam? Even if only by a little, if one of the goals is to reduce the amount of spam then anything that would increase it at all seems counterproductive. API should, in my view, be the least prioritized method of recruitment, because it requires no effort beyond the initial setup nor does it financially contribute to the site as stamps do. As was said earlier, it's "exist to win." I wouldn't mind it being scrapped altogether.

I have some concerns about the impact of increasing the price of stamps on World Assembly campaigning or other reasons one may want to use stamps beyond recruitment (none are springing immediately to mind, but maybe some exist). Perhaps a new, higher priced category of stamps could be created for recruitment, and the lower cost stamps could still be used for the WA and other things. Unsure about the technical feasibility of that, and if it can't be done I think I would still support this change because WA campaigning and other uses of stamps don't require as many stamps as recruitment anyway so they're already lower cost than recruitment. As far as the argument that increasing the cost of stamps would make it harder to buy them and use them to recruit -- yes, isn't that the point? That's a non-argument, to be honest. If something isn't done about the massive amount of recruitment spam, everyone's recruitment is going to remain less effective.

In regard to prioritizing manual recruitment. I get the argument that it would mostly favor larger regions with more people available to recruit, and I also think maybe manual recruitment would become more effective again if stamp recruitment were reduced a bit by increasing the cost of stamps. I also get the argument that increasing the cost of stamps makes little sense without offsetting it by making manual recruitment more worthwhile, so I'm leaning in favor of it with that in mind. I've helped start up UCRs in an era when manual recruitment was the only recruitment, and while manual recruitment does favor larger regions, it's not like no smaller region can ever do it, so I think that concern is a bit exaggerated. Most of the large regions that exist today were once small regions that built themselves up with manual recruitment, so when you think of it that way it doesn't really make any sense to say small regions can't recruit that way.

So, for me it'd be support for 1-3, support for 5 but maybe make only recruitment stamps higher cost if possible, and no to 4.