Frontiers, Governors, Successors and Injunctions

[Greater Romanian-Deutsch State]

I've recently founded and started up the region The Rhineland, which is a Frontier. Obviously I needed to be WA delegate, and I did just that, on my vassal Hanseatic Frontier. My region had never been a regular region, and thus doesn't have any officers, but that's where the problem arises: I can't write in a welcome telegram because I haven't been in office long enough.
This raises the following issue: If a region's spawns are somewhat dependent on whether they have a Welcome TG set and a new region is founded as a frontier the controlling nation won't be able to get the full spawn slate for a full 26 hours. The solutions, of course, are as follows:

1. Remove the delay on setting a Welcome TG for new officers
2. Remove or lessen how much new nations spawn based on whether there's a welcome TG or not.

[Ambrella]

I've recently founded and started up the region The Rhineland, which is a Frontier. Obviously I needed to be WA delegate, and I did just that, on my vassal Hanseatic Frontier. My region had never been a regular region, and thus doesn't have any officers, but that's where the problem arises: I can't write in a welcome telegram because I haven't been in office long enough.
This raises the following issue: If a region's spawns are somewhat dependent on whether they have a Welcome TG set and a new region is founded as a frontier the controlling nation won't be able to get the full spawn slate for a full 26 hours. The solutions, of course, are as follows:

1. Remove the delay on setting a Welcome TG for new officers
2. Remove or lessen how much new nations spawn based on whether there's a welcome TG or not.

26 hours doesn't seem like an unreasonable amount of time to wait to start spawning nations.

[Sedgistan]

I'm relatively content with the factors we have that influence spawning rates, though it's possible that the multipliers may need to be tweaked.

It's a tricky one to balance as while we want to reward well-run regions, Frontiers should also be something that energetic yet inexperienced new players should be able to roll with and have a chance at, and we don't want to make new Frontiers impossible to succeed with - too much weighting towards age and endorsements doesn't achieve the "dynamic gameplay" goals of Frontiers.

Also, spawns aren't just about how staff have coded things. If you don't think a 1-endorsement Delegate should be getting so many spawns, there's an obvious gameplay solution to that problem - burn Algerheaven to the ground.

[Quebecshire]

Also, spawns aren't just about how staff have coded things. If you don't think a 1-endorsement Delegate should be getting so many spawns, there's an obvious gameplay solution to that problem - burn Algerheaven to the ground.

That's not really a solution though, it's a band-aid at best.

Alger can go on about how we just want to hog spawns but that's silly. I see some smaller Frontiers (Greater Sahara, Community) doing quite well for themselves. But the idea that a 1e region that's basically a troll shitpost can be performing on the level of well-oiled actual communities is absurd and defeats the purpose of the update.

I know you told us to "wait longer" but it's pretty clear we were misled thus far.

What factors do you think should affect spawns? At the moment:

• Age of region - tiered boosts to spawns favouring older regions
• Verified Delegate endorsements - tiered boosts to spawns favouring more endorsements
• No recent RMB activity - tiered significant reduction to spawns or no spawns at all
• No welcome TG set - significant reduction to spawns
• Regional population over 5,000 - no spawns
• No Delegate - no spawns
• Password - no spawns
• Converting away from Frontier - no spawns

These are all reasonable and I still think there should be a WAD endorsement requirement. People will say I'm trying to hog spawns, but the reality is spawns alone are bad at building a region from nothing so it's reasonable to expect people to do the bare minimum of getting 4-9 other players to endorse them.

It should be feasible for the "little guy" to get a Frontier. But it should require some level of effort, because if anyone can click a button and start getting spawns, then it'll be diluted too much among the little ones for it to be worth it to anyone. Additionally, if well-run and successful regions get no benefit, there is no incentive to actually be a Frontier.

[Sedgistan]

Give me suggested multipliers, e.g. 50+ Delegate endorsements multiplies the spawn rate by 1.5, 100+ multiplies it by 1.6 (those numbers are just made up to illustrate what I'm asking for).

I'm asking for that because yes, I'm aware we probably need to tweak numbers sooner than originally intended.

[Quebecshire]

Give me suggested multipliers, e.g. 50+ Delegate endorsements multiplies the spawn rate by 1.5, 100+ multiplies it by 1.6 (those numbers are just made up to illustrate what I'm asking for).

I'm shit at most math so I'll send Spode your way for this. I will say though, I had a disucssion with Altmoras/Aerlion about it being potentially logarithmic (his idea). Speifically, the way it was explained was "...a 60e active region gets say 10x the spawns of a 2e region, while a 120e region gets maybe 2x the spawns of the 60e region. That way established powers don't run away with it too much but you don't get 250 spawns a week for having 1 person WA up and endo you."

Those numbers might not be perfect, it was just how the example was illustrated, but te underlying idea is pretty reasonable. Effort gets you somewhere good, but it's not exponential forever/letting one person run away with everything. There may be other options, though!

I still stand by the idea of a WAD endorsement threshold as being good for both established parties, and wide-eyed people who want to build an actually viable Frontier region.

I'm asking for that because yes, I'm aware we probably need to tweak numbers sooner than originally intended.

Glad to see this.

[Eluvatar]

Keeping in mind that we can now uses the WA membership count of a region just as easily as the Delegate's endorsement count, any thoughts on how to use that?

[Quebecshire]

Keeping in mind that we can now uses the WA membership count of a region just as easily as the Delegate's endorsement count, any thoughts on how to use that?

I do think delegate endorsements is preferable to that, as it rewards regions which integrate members. That said if there’s a way to factor both in somehow, I could see that being a good metric.

[Minskiev]

I'm not exactly in a UCR but wouldn't going off of WA membership count just exacerbate a snowball effect? At least with delegate endorsements, some work needs to be put in to enjoy that increase in spawn rates, or at least more work than it takes for a nation to join the WA.

[Sedgistan]

I'm shit at most math so I'll send Spode your way for this.

No maths skills are required. The current system just has a small number of tiers with a simple multiplier for each, so you might say, for example: "Region existed more than a week/month/6 months/year: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns" or "Verified Delegate endorsements 5/20/50/100: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns".

[Aerlion]

I'm shit at most math so I'll send Spode your way for this.

No maths skills are required. The current system just has a small number of tiers with a simple multiplier for each, so you might say, for example: "Region existed more than a week/month/6 months/year: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns" or "Verified Delegate endorsements 5/20/50/100: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns".

I'm not sure heavily rewarding region age is the right thing to do, it makes little sense that I could open up one of my trophies that has sat with one non-WA resident nation for 5+ years and be rewarded for it simply because I've been playing longer than other region builders. If there's going to be an age based reward it should be based on the amount of time your region has been over X delegate endorsements/WA members.

[Quebecshire]

No maths skills are required. The current system just has a small number of tiers with a simple multiplier for each, so you might say, for example: "Region existed more than a week/month/6 months/year: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns" or "Verified Delegate endorsements 5/20/50/100: +30%/40%/50%/60% spawns".

I'm not sure heavily rewarding region age is the right thing to do, it makes little sense that I could open up one of my trophies that has sat with one non-WA resident nation for 5+ years and be rewarded for it simply because I've been playing longer than other region builders. If there's going to be an age based reward it should be based on the amount of time your region has been over X delegate endorsements/WA members.

Agreed. I think age should be included, but at a much lesser impact than WA Delegate endorsements.

[Pangurstan]

Maybe it could use time spent as a frontier instead of age

[Flanderlion]

(Delegate endoes - 10)^0.5

If a region can't get 10 endoes on the delegate, they're not a decent region. I personally think no welcome TG should be a yes/no requirement, keeps the formula simpler. The other existing reqs seem fine, just age is such a gameable stat that it seems to just exist to punish newer regions, so it shouldn't be a super major factor.

RMBs posts within the last 1000 mins. If a region hasn't managed to have a RMB post in 16 hours, they shouldn't have any spawns as they've got an inactive RMB. Sure it can be botted, but if they've got a bot, that's already someone who has invested in infra for the region.

Possibly also WA% and residency would be good factors to add in together, as if someone is trying to game WA% they'll likely kick the non-WAs and lower their average residency, while if they're trying to game residency they'd have lots of non-WA pups which would lower their WA%. But a region where people stick around more than the Frontier average or are WA more than the frontier average (should cap out the multiplier when it gets to double the residency/WA% so it's not too OP) is generally an indicator of a better region. End of the day, everything can be gamed, so it's better to keep some of the factors/specifics secret.

[Sedgistan]

...And based on those assumed priorities, something I would propose is that Frontiers have some mechanism for boosting their spawn rate as they age that is attached to their time spent as valid frontiers (i.e. frontiers that are not locked). That would allow frontiers who defend their region successfully through military might or diplomatic connections to reap a benefit that could not be fully replicated by say, someone digging a historic region like Europa (founded 2004) out of the bin and converting it into a frontier. That said, it could be a funny meta to watch people fighting over regions that predate player's births.

I like this idea. It's not something we currently record, but I don't think it'd be a problem to do so. It strengthens the incentive to attack rival Frontiers. It almost negates the need to use region age/endorsement levels as factors, as low endorsement counts obviously make a region much easier to invade.

[Quebecshire]

...And based on those assumed priorities, something I would propose is that Frontiers have some mechanism for boosting their spawn rate as they age that is attached to their time spent as valid frontiers (i.e. frontiers that are not locked). That would allow frontiers who defend their region successfully through military might or diplomatic connections to reap a benefit that could not be fully replicated by say, someone digging a historic region like Europa (founded 2004) out of the bin and converting it into a frontier. That said, it could be a funny meta to watch people fighting over regions that predate player's births.

I like this idea. It's not something we currently record, but I don't think it'd be a problem to do so. It strengthens the incentive to attack rival Frontiers. It almost negates the need to use region age/endorsement levels as factors, as low endorsement counts obviously make a region much easier to invade.

I've put some more thought into this based on your question about factors, and then Mechanocracy and Flanderlion's posts. I don't have exact multipliers for you, yet. But I do have a priority ordering. Here is my suggestion.

---

Frontier Spawn Factors Suggestions

Hard Qualifiers (If you don't have any, 0 Spawns)

• Having a WA Delegate
• Having a welcome telegram
• No password
• Not transitioning away from Frontier

Soft Qualifiers (Impact Spawn Rates)

Listed in order of priority from most impactful to least impactful.


1. Verified Delegate endorsements
2. Time spent as a valid Frontier (Mechanocracy's suggestion)
3. Region age
4. RMB activity

---

Explanations:

The listed hard requirements are simple qualifies for any region that has plans to actually exist in a meaningful form and welcome new players.

I think Verified Delegate endorsements should take priority. It's a simple measure of region building and integration success, and it can rise and fall easily with a region's effort being put in. It rewards you for building and maintaining something strong/impressive, and it should be the main indicator.

As for Mechanocracy's suggestion, I think it should be a factor but not the main one. My reasoning for ranking it lower is pretty simple. If you can just stay alive for long enough you get a pretty big benefit which requires less active effort to maintain as WAD endorsements. It's a cool idea, but perhaps places a bit too much emphasis on time as opposed to measurable success.

Region age is lower for the reasons Altmoras stated here.

I could see region age/RMB activity being flipped, but at the end of the day I think they're the least important ones. RMB activity isn't indicative of much especially with regions that have more restrictive rules to prevent spam or low quality posting. I don't think a slower RMB (not a dead one, but a slower one) is particularly terrible, and I think Flander's "all spawns stop if no post for 16 hours" is zealous.

I am also once again suggesting a 5 endorsement requirement for spawns which I'll spoiler my logic for. I kept it out of the list as to not undermine my more realistic/palatable suggestions.

At the end of the day it seems restrictive (because it is to some degree), but I do firmly believe it's better for the game across the board. A Frontier should be attainable for anyone to get started, but it should require some effort. If there are going to be dozens of smaller Frontiers splitting an already small piece of the pie, then none of them will have a real oppurtunity to grow and flourish. You can say the response should be to burn it, but that doesn't really change the underlying issue, nor is burning rival Frontiers realistically something newer players/region-builders can do before being established. 10 endos would be a bit much but a requirement of 5 is a fair one which requires you to put some level of effort/recruitment/dedication into bringing actual people into your region before getting spawns, hopefully rewarding the newer players/Frontiers who explore it beyond the surface level.

[The Ambis]

Question: What is qualified as RMB "activity"?

[Bowzin]

I feel if we are going to go off of time as a frontier, we can remove the age of the region measure all together. The idea of the region age was to favor established regions, but the other measures are doing that more accurately, as has been pointed out. Feels repetitive to have region age in there when verified delegate endorsements will favor established regions, and frontier age will favor regions who've committed to being a frontier.

RMB activity should be a measure, but it shouldn't scale heavily with the amount of activity, but rather just require some small amount to get proper spawns.

[Sedgistan]

I feel if we are going to go off of time as a frontier, we can remove the age of the region measure all together. The idea of the region age was to favor established regions, but the other measures are doing that more accurately, as has been pointed out. Feels repetitive to have region age in there when verified delegate endorsements will favor established regions, and frontier age will favor regions who've committed to being a frontier.

That seems logical.

RMB activity should be a measure, but it shouldn't scale heavily with the amount of activity, but rather just require some small amount to get proper spawns.

That is the case. It's set up not to reward activity but to penalise inactivity.

[Quebecshire]

Is staff willing to disclose, either now or when numbers are changed, which factors are most impactful in spawns?

[Eternal Algerstonia]

whatever numbers you messed with are completely absurd. algerheaven's founding rates have absolutely plummeted. no doubt this is happening to other frontiers as well besides mine. if this happened just by adjusting europeia, then this is completely disproportionate for one region.

[Quebecshire]

whatever numbers you messed with are completely absurd. algerheaven's founding rates have absolutely plummeted. no doubt this is happening to other frontiers as well besides mine. if this happened just by adjusting europeia, then this is completely disproportionate for one region.

Unless I'm misreading Sedge's post about it, Europeia's updated age should have kicked in at minor on the 11th (~33 hours ago). Algerheaven has had 40 spawns since then, source below in the spoiler. That's more than one spawn per hour. How is that unreasonable for a brand new region with one endorsement on the WA Delegate and zero apparent infrastructure to try to integrate new players?

5/12/2023, 6:54:20 PM EDT: Colia Keisestal was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 3:13:24 PM EDT: Kindurtarche was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:35:00 PM EDT: Chumastria was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:38:14 PM EDT: Palestina 2023 was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:12:45 PM EDT: Qazakstan was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:06:33 PM EDT: Malaching was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 11:55:52 AM EDT: KCF32 was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 11:30:23 AM EDT: Toesy was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 10:30:12 AM EDT: Caristona was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 9:59:10 AM EDT: Flightia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 8:38:49 AM EDT: Western Soys Rontopia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 6:32:21 AM EDT: Eastern swisslands was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:53:00 AM EDT: Tfgfeds was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:16:51 AM EDT: Bly Pice was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:02:26 AM EDT: MOFJET-UNION was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 3:49:50 AM EDT: Socialist Eastern Roman was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 2:46:02 AM EDT: TYUKIBI was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:23:08 AM EDT: Pupacdorn Fireat was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:19:24 AM EDT: 49th Engels Squadron was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:28:55 AM EDT: Supercorp was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 11:56:57 PM EDT: Novum Sacrum Imperium Romanum was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 9:26:50 PM EDT: United Jiont KoreaN Republic was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 8:26:24 PM EDT: Miss Trunchbull was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 7:33:22 PM EDT: Ummayids was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 5:57:32 PM EDT: Frifrenchsaint was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 5:13:41 PM EDT: Algerlakhavia was founded in Valley of Peace.
5/11/2023, 3:53:19 PM EDT: Quism was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 3:48:18 PM EDT: Legen Chadia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 3:26:33 PM EDT: Majkmelleys Islands was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 2:56:23 PM EDT: Balistet Cair was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 1:28:34 PM EDT: New-Scotland United was founded in Algerheaven.

I do agree that region age should be eschewed in favor of time spent as a Frontier, and that should be the secondary (though still quite relevant) factor, behind verfied WAD endorsements.

[Decacon]

I do think age should be a factor, since it's more likely to correlate with how established a community is, but I would say past 2 years there probably isn't any benefit.

Maybe a factor could be average WAD endorsements over the past year? I think this is a bigger indicator of how established a community is, and how much people are invested in it. For example, a region that just got 100 endorsements last night, is not as established as a region that has had 50 endorsements for the whole year. I think it is important to tie this to WA Membership to some extent, since that's the only way to be sure how many "real" people are involved in the community.

A sort of outside the box idea I had is to require a Regional Officer to click a "Request Spawns" button every X hours, to verify the region is active. Maybe, the first two hours after the button is pushed you have a slight boost, 3 to 24 hours after you have the base spawn rate, 24+ hours after you have a slightly decreased spawn rate, and then after a week it dies off. The most active/organized communities could organize a system to keep themselves in the 2 hour zone as much as possible. This idea comes from my old Minecraft days when I had to remember to 'bump' my server's ad on server listing websites every 24 hours, in order to keep the server growing.

Something Discord does when considering servers for "Partnership" is looking at their retention rate, basically. We could measure what percentage of nations are staying in a region and becoming engaged (RMB messages, WA membership, or other factors), and give a boost to regions that have the most successful integration.

In line with Mechanocracy's comments, I would say our goals is to give spawns to the most engaged regions, or regions putting in the most effort, and also to reward the regions taking the biggest risks by being a Frontier. I am a bit biased obviously as President of Europeia, our established community has taken a substantial risk, but I've tried to think of fair gameplay suggestions here.

In closing, I think what we have now is a good starting point, and agree it would be good to watch it for a couple months. I am just brainstorming possible future enhancements (which all probably would take a few months to code anyway).

[Eternal Algerstonia]

whatever numbers you messed with are completely absurd. algerheaven's founding rates have absolutely plummeted. no doubt this is happening to other frontiers as well besides mine. if this happened just by adjusting europeia, then this is completely disproportionate for one region.

Unless I'm misreading Sedge's post about it, Europeia's updated age should have kicked in at minor on the 11th (~33 hours ago). Algerheaven has had 40 spawns since then, source below in the spoiler. That's more than one spawn per hour. How is that unreasonable for a brand new region with one endorsement on the WA Delegate and zero apparent infrastructure to try to integrate new players?

5/12/2023, 6:54:20 PM EDT: Colia Keisestal was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 3:13:24 PM EDT: Kindurtarche was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:35:00 PM EDT: Chumastria was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:38:14 PM EDT: Palestina 2023 was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:12:45 PM EDT: Qazakstan was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:06:33 PM EDT: Malaching was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 11:55:52 AM EDT: KCF32 was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 11:30:23 AM EDT: Toesy was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 10:30:12 AM EDT: Caristona was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 9:59:10 AM EDT: Flightia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 8:38:49 AM EDT: Western Soys Rontopia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 6:32:21 AM EDT: Eastern swisslands was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:53:00 AM EDT: Tfgfeds was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:16:51 AM EDT: Bly Pice was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 4:02:26 AM EDT: MOFJET-UNION was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 3:49:50 AM EDT: Socialist Eastern Roman was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 2:46:02 AM EDT: TYUKIBI was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:23:08 AM EDT: Pupacdorn Fireat was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 1:19:24 AM EDT: 49th Engels Squadron was founded in Algerheaven.
5/12/2023, 12:28:55 AM EDT: Supercorp was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 11:56:57 PM EDT: Novum Sacrum Imperium Romanum was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 9:26:50 PM EDT: United Jiont KoreaN Republic was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 8:26:24 PM EDT: Miss Trunchbull was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 7:33:22 PM EDT: Ummayids was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 5:57:32 PM EDT: Frifrenchsaint was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 5:13:41 PM EDT: Algerlakhavia was founded in Valley of Peace.
5/11/2023, 3:53:19 PM EDT: Quism was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 3:48:18 PM EDT: Legen Chadia was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 3:26:33 PM EDT: Majkmelleys Islands was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 2:56:23 PM EDT: Balistet Cair was founded in Algerheaven.
5/11/2023, 1:28:34 PM EDT: New-Scotland United was founded in Algerheaven.

I do agree that region age should be eschewed in favor of time spent as a Frontier, and that should be the secondary (though still quite relevant) factor, behind verfied WAD endorsements.

somethings off lately then, because algerheaven has had only three spawns the last eight hours. although admittedly i didn't look into the details as much as you did. dropping the argument.

[Ambrella]

I feel if we are going to go off of time as a frontier, we can remove the age of the region measure all together. The idea of the region age was to favor established regions, but the other measures are doing that more accurately, as has been pointed out. Feels repetitive to have region age in there when verified delegate endorsements will favor established regions, and frontier age will favor regions who've committed to being a frontier.

RMB activity should be a measure, but it shouldn't scale heavily with the amount of activity, but rather just require some small amount to get proper spawns.

Perhaps "time as a frontier" could displace region age completely eventually, but, in the short term, larger/older regions were promised some benefits for converting. It would seem unfair to me that Europeia and Concord would be outpaced by The Wellspring (or other brand new Frontiers) that have technically been frontiers for longer and quickly amassed high endorsement numbers. Region age should be a factor, if a reduced one, especially if we hope other established regions might convert.