So far, so disappointing

[Sailiopia]

I've joined fairly late on, but I can quite confidently say that this N-day is much more boring and disappointing than last year's (I'm in the Potato Alliance, although my main has left just in case the others get obliterated, so that I can join a smaller faction if I want).

From the looks of it, it began in a fairly lame way, with only two major factions (CotA and the Potatoes), which had a mutual defence pact for the first few hours. This meant that almost every other faction would have a negative score, preventing anyone from interfering in the impeding duel. Then, CotA, with a significant numerical advantage, overpowered the Potatoes and is now on it's way to an almost certain victory.

Part of the problem is the lack of superfactions - Augustin Alliance aren't taking part, Ba Sing Se and ATOMIC are nowhere to be seen, and others such as Fuster Cluck and CRAB aren't taking part (although the latter merged with the Horsemen to create CotA). No real new superfaction was formed. Therefore, we have no alliance webs, coalitions, or other things that would balance out the battle. Compiling so much nations into 2 factions just doesn't work, it means that one faction wins and everyone else loses, in this sense the factions are becoming too big. Another problem is the use of puppets - it's getting to a ridiculous level by this point, and is making whoever has the most card farmers, R/D gameplayers, or people willing to create hundreds of puppets, the winner.

Something needs to be done for next N-day to re-balance this - technical changes (I might post a Technical thread once this is locked), limitations etc. although it is such a big balancing act. I personally have no clue about what could make it exciting again.

Until then, I will continue to go down with my ship, before hopefully jumping off and finding another sinking ship to jump on. Looking forward to Z-day, hopefully we'll have an enjoyable one then.

[Gracius Maximus]

It all sounds a bit like sour grapes to me.

Nothing prevented other factions from forming super alliances or merging or even just joining forces in the early hours to hit the big alliances. Poor planning and execution aren't really a reason to change the structure of the game imo (and I am not claiming any sort of credit here at all - I just happen to be aligned with the masterminds behind CotA).

[Lord Dominator]

BSS is Catgirls and Atomic merged into Potato, as point of correction.

[The Reformed American Republic]

BSS is Catgirls and Atomic merged into Potato, as point of correction.

Why are there multiple Crabs of the Apocalypse factions?

[Gracius Maximus]

BSS is Catgirls and Atomic merged into Potato, as point of correction.

Why are there multiple Crabs of the Apocalypse factions?

It looks like some players have decided to block out ranks from smaller alliances.

[Sailiopia]

Why are there multiple Crabs of the Apocalypse factions?

Probably so that they could sweep the top 5 positions at the end - I wouldn't be surprised if this was their strategy from the beginning. Make a pact with the Potatoes, eliminate every medium-large faction, then take out Potato and end up with a complete domination of the day. Great advertising for them and their respective regions.

And no, I'm not that unhappy at Crabs of the Apocalypse. They've won fair and square, played by the rules, and anything they've done, the Potatoes have done as well. I'm just not happy about how we've ended up with two ultra-factions/mega-factions/level above superfactions, and as soon as one goes down, the other one wins. More to the point, no other region has really done well, with only a handful having points.

We just need some improvement in the game mechanics for next time to prevent this happening again. Because ultimately, there's little to no reason for CotA nations to split off and create their own superfactions - they've got a winning formula, and staying where they are now can give them another victory. So we'll be left with the previous situation, or worse, a domination by a Potato-CotA giga-faction, which completely destroys every other faction. So something needs to be done.

[Noachis Terra]

I don't know about the rest of you, but the reason why I'm not participating is because it's the weekend. If it was a work day I'd be playing nation-states with the rest of my class why work when you can be playing nation-states nuclear war! But now this is a war for a weekend warrior so you would need Weekend Warriors to Nuke each other to death.

I don't know about the rest of the world but it's also a beautiful weekend in most of the United States so we're outside and enjoying it or getting some yard work done instead of nuking each other ... if only it was raining I could be sitting inside playing nation-states! sigh ...

Have Fun!

[The Reformed American Republic]

Why are there multiple Crabs of the Apocalypse factions?

It looks like some players have decided to block out ranks from smaller alliances.

That's what I figured.

[Lord Dominator]

It looks like some players have decided to block out ranks from smaller alliances.

That's what I figured.

And to be more specific, dislike of several of the previously top 10 ones getting any attention (shadow collective and Anal especially)

[Great Algerstonia]

That's what I figured.

Anal

you said the funny

[The Reformed American Republic]

That's what I figured.

And to be more specific, dislike of several of the previously top 10 ones getting any attention (shadow collective and Anal especially)

I get not wanting questionable alliances in the top spot, but this does also seem like an attempt to just dominate all of the top five no matter what, depriving anyone else of attention. I'm not going to call it "unfair" but there should be new rules to prevent that next time around, as it's nothing more than a super-alliance squeezing everyone else out. The official justification notwithstanding.

[Rick Perry]

I've joined fairly late on, but I can quite confidently say that this N-day is much more boring and disappointing than last year's (I'm in the Potato Alliance, although my main has left just in case the others get obliterated, so that I can join a smaller faction if I want).

From the looks of it, it began in a fairly lame way, with only two major factions (CotA and the Potatoes), which had a mutual defence pact for the first few hours. This meant that almost every other faction would have a negative score, preventing anyone from interfering in the impeding duel. Then, CotA, with a significant numerical advantage, overpowered the Potatoes and is now on it's way to an almost certain victory.

Part of the problem is the lack of superfactions - Augustin Alliance aren't taking part, Ba Sing Se and ATOMIC are nowhere to be seen, and others such as Fuster Cluck and CRAB aren't taking part (although the latter merged with the Horsemen to create CotA). No real new superfaction was formed. Therefore, we have no alliance webs, coalitions, or other things that would balance out the battle. Compiling so much nations into 2 factions just doesn't work, it means that one faction wins and everyone else loses, in this sense the factions are becoming too big. Another problem is the use of puppets - it's getting to a ridiculous level by this point, and is making whoever has the most card farmers, R/D gameplayers, or people willing to create hundreds of puppets, the winner.

Something needs to be done for next N-day to re-balance this - technical changes (I might post a Technical thread once this is locked), limitations etc. although it is such a big balancing act. I personally have no clue about what could make it exciting again.

Until then, I will continue to go down with my ship, before hopefully jumping off and finding another sinking ship to jump on. Looking forward to Z-day, hopefully we'll have an enjoyable one then.

Tell me about it

[Sailiopia]

Update: I've left The Potato Alliance and joined the Liberty Democratic Alliance's faction, as they are a region that my region is pretty close to. I've started targeting and firing nukes at small, undefended regions to get some score. But even this isn't possible.

Turns out that CotA are so bored that they are now defending neutral factions, to avoid medium-sized factions from climbing back up the scoreboard. If anything, this is evidence of how broken this minigame is. When a faction becomes so dominant that they are defending factions that no-one has ever heard of because they don't have anything to do with their shields, then something has gone wrong.

We must institute one or several of these ideas for next N-day: A cap on nations in a faction, WA membership requirement for taking part, or preventing shielding of nukes not sent from or directed to your own faction. Ideally a combination of these, and other tweaks, must be made for next N-day to prevent something like this happening again.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Update: I've left The Potato Alliance and joined the Liberty Democratic Alliance's faction, as they are a region that my region is pretty close to. I've started targeting and firing nukes at small, undefended regions to get some score. But even this isn't possible.

Turns out that CotA are so bored that they are now defending neutral factions, to avoid medium-sized factions from climbing back up the scoreboard. If anything, this is evidence of how broken this minigame is. When a faction becomes so dominant that they are defending factions that no-one has ever heard of because they don't have anything to do with their shields, then something has gone wrong.

We must institute one or several of these ideas for next N-day: A cap on nations in a faction, WA membership requirement for taking part, or preventing shielding of nukes not sent from or directed to your own faction. Ideally a combination of these, and other tweaks, must be made for next N-day to prevent something like this happening again.

Ban on duplicate factions as well. No more CotA 3 and 4 crap as that also will keep other factions off the scoreboard.

[Vikanias]

Update: I've left The Potato Alliance and joined the Liberty Democratic Alliance's faction, as they are a region that my region is pretty close to. I've started targeting and firing nukes at small, undefended regions to get some score. But even this isn't possible.

Turns out that CotA are so bored that they are now defending neutral factions, to avoid medium-sized factions from climbing back up the scoreboard. If anything, this is evidence of how broken this minigame is. When a faction becomes so dominant that they are defending factions that no-one has ever heard of because they don't have anything to do with their shields, then something has gone wrong.

We must institute one or several of these ideas for next N-day: A cap on nations in a faction, WA membership requirement for taking part, or preventing shielding of nukes not sent from or directed to your own faction. Ideally a combination of these, and other tweaks, must be made for next N-day to prevent something like this happening again.

The mods have made that your nation has to be a week old (12 million pop.), but at this point it has so many loopholes that I can’t explain. The only problem is the number cap on nations. Considering there’s some big regions that may have members excluded from N-day because of a limit.

[That Called the Vlagh]

Ban on duplicate factions as well. No more CotA 3 and 4 crap as that also will keep other factions off the scoreboard.

I believe that is the point, though.

[The Reformed American Republic]

Ban on duplicate factions as well. No more CotA 3 and 4 crap as that also will keep other factions off the scoreboard.

I believe that is the point, though.

And the point is to make this competitive again, not just allow you to dominate the entire game no matter what. Confirming what I already know changes nothing.

[Tinhampton]

What is supposed to be the difference between a normal faction and a "duplicate faction?" If the difference is meant to be based on name alone, won't Chingis just name his Crabs of the Apocalypse [NUMBER] regions after Himalayan mountains or famous supermodels instead and still get past the proposed ban?

[The Reformed American Republic]

What is supposed to be the difference between a normal faction and a "duplicate faction?" If the difference is meant to be based on name alone, won't Chingis just name his Crabs of the Apocalypse [NUMBER] regions after Himalayan mountains or famous supermodels instead and still get past the proposed ban?

The name, flag, discord links, similar WFEs are very good clues. It won't stop all dirty tricks, but from putting virtually the same name all over the scoreboard.

[Minoa]

Sailiopia, the 6th Nuclear Apocalypse was not disappointing: it has become unplayable, especially with the Crabs of the Apocalypse dominating all top 10 spots now.

I believe that the organisers of the Nuclear Apocalypse must acknowledge that something has gone horribly wrong, and launch and immediate investigation before any future editions take place.

I am starting to doubt that the dominance of the Crabs of the Apocalypse is something to be considered a good thing at all, especially when the leading alliance has ten about 900 times as many points as All Nations Against Liberals. Since there are still far more players than the number of nations in the real world, even after discounting the card farmers, it only makes sense that measures exist to ensure that the Nuclear Apocalypse remains competitive.

If this is going to be the future of the Nuclear Apocalypse on NationStates, players are simply not going to take part at all, which will threaten the future of the Nuclear Apocalypse.

[The Batavia]

Okay so I saw OP mentioning the lack of other Super-factions, and as a member of one of those mentioned here I think I might be able to explain.

I am, or rather "was" in a sense, a member of Fuster Cluck. The reason we didn't participate is because a lot of our members said via discord that they wouldn't be able to participate this year due to IRL stuff. So I'm guessing the same happened with like Augustin Alliance, Ba Sing Se and ATOMIC and are facing similair issues in the the top brass thus they didn't partake either.

Hope I added anything of substance with this. I will say that spectating this N-Day it does look indeed like absolute horseshit.

[Toxic Scripting 124]

especially when the leading alliance has ten times as many points as All Nations Against Liberals

You missed a zero x

jk u missed two

[Minoa]

especially when the leading alliance has ten times as many points as All Nations Against Liberals

You missed a zero x

jk u missed two

I’m sorry about the oversight. I never thought how lopsided this Nuclear Apocalypse would become.

[East Stal Saillnerce]

You missed a zero x

jk u missed two

I’m sorry about the oversight. I never thought how lopsided this Nuclear Apocalypse would become.

It was inevitable, we just didn’t know when. I guess that “when” was now.

[Sailiopia]

Sailiopia, the 6th Nuclear Apocalypse was not disappointing: it has become unplayable, especially with the Crabs of the Apocalypse dominating all top 10 spots now.

I believe that the organisers of the Nuclear Apocalypse must acknowledge that something has gone horribly wrong, and launch and immediate investigation before any future editions take place.

I am starting to doubt that the dominance of the Crabs of the Apocalypse is something to be considered a good thing at all, especially when the leading alliance has ten about 900 times as many points as All Nations Against Liberals. Since there are still far more players than the number of nations in the real world, even after discounting the card farmers, it only makes sense that measures exist to ensure that the Nuclear Apocalypse remains competitive.

If this is going to be the future of the Nuclear Apocalypse on NationStates, players are simply not going to take part at all, which will threaten the future of the Nuclear Apocalypse.

^This

As I have said earlier, it has become unplayable. I've spent most of the afternoon in a smaller faction, and we're either missing all of our shots at small factions due to CotA shielding anyone they aren't attacking to prevent them getting in the top 10 (even though we were in the minus thousands), or sending barrages of missiles at us even though we were no threat, could be no threat, and mostly bombed out already. I was lucky to keep all but one of my nations alive. So it is unplayable unless if you are in CotA.

Looking at it, it was inevitable that this would happen eventually. With factions merging during last year's event, and in the months leading up to this event, and the withdrawal of other major factions, this would happen at some point. And when I checked the leaderboard last night I predicted one of two things: CotA victory with Potatoes in distant second, or a backstabbed Potatoes (at that point I didn't know that the agreement would expire), with a CotA that has a decisive victory over everyone else.

So something has to be done. It has to be a technical change, otherwise we will see a faction dominating again, if not CotA it will be another faction, if not next year then the year after, the cycle repeating. We as the players do need to lobby for this change, and if it doesn't happen, I see a possibility of many people not taking part next year, possibly me included. For perspective, last year's N-day was one of my most enjoyable NS-related events of the year, aside from possibly the Sec-Gen election and a few regional events. This has been one of the worst.