Can something be done about ridiculous n-day stuff

[Tinhampton]

The current situation with Crabs of the Apocalypse dominating 9 of the top 10 spots clearly indicates that the situation with the megafactions is catastrophically out of control...

The factions of "Crabs of the Apocalypse 2", "Crabs of the Apocalypse 3", [...] "Crabs of the Apocalypse 9" and "its Crabs all the way down btw" - as far as I know - were created by one guy with a bunch of puppets. Anybody with a couple of hundred puppets could easily have done what the COTA Numbers puppetmaster did, whether or not they belong to a big or successful faction. (This is much like any region with a few dozen WAs can easily send a bunch of them out to different regions to push that region's preferred proposals to quorum, and - in future - like regions wishing to be Strongholds can create just-about-managing Frontiers which serve no purpose except to direct people to their Stronghold base.)

Second Best Test - hardly a "megafaction" - also ran up their numbers using puppet factions in 2020.

[Minoa]

The current situation with Crabs of the Apocalypse dominating 9 of the top 10 spots clearly indicates that the situation with the megafactions is catastrophically out of control...

The factions of "Crabs of the Apocalypse 2", "Crabs of the Apocalypse 3", [...] "Crabs of the Apocalypse 9" and "its Crabs all the way down btw" - as far as I know - were created by one guy with a bunch of puppets. Anybody with a couple of hundred puppets could easily have done what the COTA Numbers puppetmaster did, whether or not they belong to a big or successful faction. (This is much like any region with a few dozen WAs can easily send a bunch of them out to different regions to push that region's preferred proposals to quorum, and - in future - like regions wishing to be Strongholds can create just-about-managing Frontiers which serve no purpose except to direct people to their Stronghold base.)

Second Best Test - hardly a "megafaction" - also ran up their numbers using puppet factions in 2020.

Sadly, the situation is still disastrous, even if the COTA Numbers factions were independent of the main COTA. The difference between the COTA Numbers factions and the Second Best Test faction, was that Second Best Test only held one position in the top ten while the rest of their factions were basically sitting ducks, while the COTA Numbers factions are currently holding nine of the top ten positions.

[Roavin]

The issue isn't faction size, and the reason I can say this with confidence is that the previous N-Day, the faction with the most nations actually lost and ended up in last place.

This year, I think the biggest issue is rather a one-off. Nobody expected there to only be 2.5 powerful factions, and I can say that Crab in particular prepared for more resistance than there ended up actually being.

That all being said, I do think there are some small adjustments that can be done here:

• It's much more efficient to create nukes than to create shields, and particularly for smaller factions that's a big problem. Changing the balance so that strat nations can produce shields at the same rate as mil nations can create nukes would go a long way toward helping particularly smaller factions.
• The addition of the Intel type is wonderful and opens the door to a lot of creative uses particularly for smaller factions (and I assume that exactly those smaller factions will, in the time leading up to next N-Day, think of a lot of cool strategies with them). That being said, here as well I think buffing their shielding capability in some sense might help a lot. A wild idea I haven't thought too much about: What if intel nations can target nukes that are only targeted rather than launched?

[Asucki]

While there are many solutions proposed by people much knowledgeable on the subject than I am, I have a suggestion for a change that could be made without harming the playerbase (like proposals such as WA requirement and faction limit caps would).

Why not introduce a league system? Factions could be automatically divided into leagues based on their size, with a small league for factions with 1-100 nations, a medium league for 101-1,000, and a large league for those with 1,001+ nations. Factions could only attack and defend within their league. Small factions would have the ability to move up into larger leagues if they wanted to compete with the big factions (but not be able to move back down in leagues). This would allow large factions to exist and compete while preventing small factions from being obliterated instantly. Big factions could then either play in the big leagues or create small offshoots to try to conquer smaller leagues (kind of what CotA is doing now with the leaderboard domination.)

Just an idea, I'm sure it has flaws but it'd likely be better than what we have now.

[Minoa]

In respect of the issues outside the superfactions, I wish to also share an idea of manually applied penalties against puppet factions that spam the scoreboard to an extent which a series of factions claiming to be puppets of the Crabs of the Apocalypse are doing right now (I imagine a lot of people easily believe that the puppets were actually part of the main Crabs of the Apocalypse superfaction).

The penalty could entail tagging them as disqualified, thus excluding them from the leaderboard but not kicking them from the minigame entirely. Since this is a serious measure, a lot of details would have to be worked out before implementation, such as a potential code of conduct for experiments like Second Best Test.

[Lord Dominator]

The satellite factions used to monopolize the leaderboard aren’t problems themselves - they’re only able to exist because actual competition ended hours ago.

[Comfed]

The issue isn't faction size, and the reason I can say this with confidence is that the previous N-Day, the faction with the most nations actually lost and ended up in last place.

This year, I think the biggest issue is rather a one-off. Nobody expected there to only be 2.5 powerful factions, and I can say that Crab in particular prepared for more resistance than there ended up actually being.

That all being said, I do think there are some small adjustments that can be done here:

• It's much more efficient to create nukes than to create shields, and particularly for smaller factions that's a big problem. Changing the balance so that strat nations can produce shields at the same rate as mil nations can create nukes would go a long way toward helping particularly smaller factions.
• The addition of the Intel type is wonderful and opens the door to a lot of creative uses particularly for smaller factions (and I assume that exactly those smaller factions will, in the time leading up to next N-Day, think of a lot of cool strategies with them). That being said, here as well I think buffing their shielding capability in some sense might help a lot. A wild idea I haven't thought too much about: What if intel nations can target nukes that are only targeted rather than launched?

I'd like to second what Roavin said. I think this was just an unexpected one-off that is unlikely to happen again.

[Refuge Isle]

The issue isn't faction size, and the reason I can say this with confidence is that the previous N-Day, the faction with the most nations actually lost and ended up in last place.

This year, I think the biggest issue is rather a one-off. Nobody expected there to only be 2.5 powerful factions, and I can say that Crab in particular prepared for more resistance than there ended up actually being.

That all being said, I do think there are some small adjustments that can be done here:

• It's much more efficient to create nukes than to create shields, and particularly for smaller factions that's a big problem. Changing the balance so that strat nations can produce shields at the same rate as mil nations can create nukes would go a long way toward helping particularly smaller factions.
• The addition of the Intel type is wonderful and opens the door to a lot of creative uses particularly for smaller factions (and I assume that exactly those smaller factions will, in the time leading up to next N-Day, think of a lot of cool strategies with them). That being said, here as well I think buffing their shielding capability in some sense might help a lot. A wild idea I haven't thought too much about: What if intel nations can target nukes that are only targeted rather than launched?

I'd like to second what Roavin said. I think this was just an unexpected one-off that is unlikely to happen again.

I'm not really sure why you believe this will be the case. The progression of N-Day has been constant and increasingly larger mergers. There are fewers individual factions as a coping mechanism for trying to have a chance in hell of surviving the event. The consolidation increases the pressure on those who don't consolidate in a feedback loop.

There were "2.5" as Roavin said this year, and next year will doubtlessly be two at best unless everyone goes for a singular all-consuming shields faction. An N-Day interaction for all nations on NS, is really either a US v USSR scenario or being a smaller faction which becomes the location of a proxy war between a US v USSR scenario as they're absorbed as food. So at least it's true-to-life.

[Comfed]

I'd like to second what Roavin said. I think this was just an unexpected one-off that is unlikely to happen again.

I'm not really sure why you believe this will be the case. The progression of N-Day has been constant and increasingly larger mergers. There are fewers individual factions as a coping mechanism for trying to have a chance in hell of surviving the event. The consolidation increases the pressure on those who don't consolidate in a feedback loop.

There were "2.5" as Roavin said this year, and next year will doubtlessly be two at best unless everyone goes for a singular all-consuming shields faction. An N-Day interaction for all nations on NS, is really either a US v USSR scenario or being a smaller faction which becomes the location of a proxy war between a US v USSR scenario as they're absorbed as food. So at least it's true-to-life.

Why would anyone go for a single all-consuming shields faction? Yes, they would win, but it would really defeat the purpose of even participating. Since the organisers of CoTA have expressed regret that this year's event was so noncompetitive, I doubt that even they would be particularly interested in reforming that faction again, just for the sake of enjoying the minigame.

[Giovanniland]

In respect of the issues outside the superfactions, I wish to also share an idea of manually applied penalties against puppet factions that spam the scoreboard to an extent which a series of factions claiming to be puppets of the Crabs of the Apocalypse are doing right now (I imagine a lot of people easily believe that the puppets were actually part of the main Crabs of the Apocalypse superfaction).

The puppet factions were part of CotA, though, this was a plan created during the event a few hours in. They weren't factions claiming to be CotA, otherwise we'd have attacked them.

[The Reformed American Republic]

I'd also like to see a ban on spamming factions as CoTA spamming the top factions...

This. One faction should not hold all of the top 10 spots, and that's what happened here.

[Lord Dominator]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

[Great Algerstonia]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

Giovanniland contradicts you by stating they were planned a "couple hours" into the event-- there was still plenty of competition then. You guys didn't play fair and took all the ten spots.

[Lord Dominator]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

Giovanniland contradicts you by stating they were planned a "couple hours" into the event-- there was still plenty of competition then. You guys didn't play fair and took all the ten spots.

And they could be planned because at that point a board clearing was obviously inevitable - that it wasn't yet is irrelevant.

Also, I was Potato

[The Reformed American Republic]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

I don't care; rules should still exist to prevent that in the case of no competition.

[Great Algerstonia]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

I don't care; rules should still exist to prevent that in the case of no competition.

This.

[Roavin]

The progression of N-Day has been constant and increasingly larger mergers. There are fewers individual factions as a coping mechanism for trying to have a chance in hell of surviving the event. The consolidation increases the pressure on those who don't consolidate in a feedback loop.

No, that's ahistorical. See N-Day 5, which had a larger and more varied roster of big, powerful factions than N-Day 4 (which was dominated by Horsemen) did.

[Sedgistan]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

This. In a more competitive N-Day (which I think is everyone's goal), satellite factions are an irrelevance. There's no point wasting time/effort on addressing them when the "problem" will be solved by addressing the main issue - increasing competition.

[Sailiopia]

We shouldn't bank on the concept that 'next year will be more competitive'. It might. But it also might not. I'd say that there is a real, yet small chance that we have one big faction that dominates, or more likely, we have two - CotA and 'Everyone who isn't CotA' (+smaller factions which will all be destroyed within a few hours). While there is a chance that factions will splinter off from CotA and TPA, this depends on careful planning and diplomacy, which we can't bank on. More importantly, it also banks on people prioritising fun over a chance at winning - we might have the very real possibility that all of the CotA high command agree that there should be more competitive factions, before deciding to stay with CotA as it gives themselves the best chance at winning. Encouraging people to create more factions, but not contributing themselves.

However, let's say that next N-day goes fine, we have at least 5 or 6 superfactions competing almost until the end, with alliance webs, back-and-forth fighting, you get the picture. Then there is a very real possibility that the N-day after that, we see a repeat of this N-day. A few factions don't form, due to IRL reasons, diplomatic reasons, or they merge into larger superfactions, and then we see this happening again. I'd say that it's an inevitability that this will happen again at some point, while not necessarily next year, unless if something is done about it.

And yes, ultimately the satellite factions were a result of lack of competition, which is a problem that should be fixed itself.

[Comfed]

The satellite factions are only possible because they cleared the board of other competitors, they’re not remotely a problem in and of themselves.

I don't care; rules should still exist to prevent that in the case of no competition.

Why? They really don’t matter and probably won’t happen very often.