MY RECREATIONAL DRUG USE!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Happy crappers 2]

I have no idea how this happened, but is there a possibility that certain Nation Traits, like Recreational Drug use, be reset?
I was ranked in the 270 range of the world in Drug use and my pineapple fondness rating was 511.8. Now the rating is 12.2.
I can't really explain how this happened. I did have an issue that increased it but when it was increased It was at 11.80.

[Gregicstan]

probably the issue affect was really extreme if you feel that it is an issue I would try contacting an admin... I wouldn't worry about it as long as you continue your original path it should even back out.

[Ransium]

See this, essentially we’ve recently made some changes.

Does having drugs in the water supply make recreational drug use illegal?

Yes and no.

The two were linked in a very messy way for many years, but this is no longer the case, as I unpicked them in the last month or so. Now adding chemicals to the water supply is a bodily autonomy issue, and does not relate to recreational drug freedoms.

The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged.

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register.

Is there a 'no more drugs in the water supply' issue? (I'll draft one if there isn't.)

Cheers, but there is one. However, it will only apply prospectively. That is, only nations who started drugging their water since the changes and updates were made will be registered in the system as having drugged water.

It's all a bit of a fudge, but it's worth it for the long term integrity of the game engine, and will cause considerably fewer unexpected results in the months and years to come.

[Happy crappers 2]

`

[Happy crappers 2]

probably the issue affect was really extreme if you feel that it is an issue I would try contacting an admin... I wouldn't worry about it as long as you continue your original path it should even back out.

How do you contact the admin?
I've been trying to for about an hour and it's really confusing
Could you send me a link to one of them?

[Happy crappers 2]

_

[Ransium]

No need I can see all your issue choices backstage. In short it didn’t change because of an issue choice, but because we changed how the model works. Pick options that make drugs more free, and RDU will go up again. I know this is frustrating, but it was necessary to fix a long running model problem.

Also, please don’t triple post, it is spammy.

[Happy crappers 2]

No need I can see all your issue choices backstage. In short it didn’t change because of an issue choice, but because we changed how the model works. Pick options that make drugs more free, and RDU will go up again. I know this is frustrating, but it was necessary to fix a long running model problem.

Also, please don’t triple post, it is spammy.

Sorry about the spammy posts I suck at posting things. I do it in email's/texting too. this is the first time I used the "board Index" so ya.
And Does that mean it was actually reset or something? this is so confusing

[Candlewhisper Archive]

It's not that difficult to follow, and it is explained in the FAQ. Here, let me copy and paste it for you.

What's going on with doping the water supply and recreational drug use? (December 2017 changes)

Coding changes have moved doping of water out of drug-related freedoms, and instead made this a question of bodily autonomy. Net result is that civil rights drop a little, and the game tends to correlate falling civil rights with falling recreational drug use.

In narrative terms, forced ingestion of drugs is not recreational drug use, it's compulsory drug ingestion. The unit of recreational drug use is Pineapple Fondness Rating, indicating how much the citizenry seek recreational drug use. Indeed, the presence of all those drugs in the water make the population more docile and complaint, and less inclined to - say - have a good time by going out and getting high.

The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged. This also means that nations that thought they were as pro-drug as they could be (forcing everyone to take drugs) suddenly have a "No Drugs" policy flag, and a much lower recreational drug use than was previously registering.

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register. Likewise, look on the change in Recreational Drug Use as the measurement becoming more accurate than before, as it is no longer categorising forced ingestion of any and all chemicals as a tendency towards drugs for recreation.

[St Mary s Island]

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear.

This simply isn't true. I made a drug liberal decision, and did not recover the nearly 500 points I lost. I feel patronized. Just tell me you had to make an unfortunate change to balance the game mechanics, don't lie to me or send me on a syssiphean quest that can never, ever succeed in restoring what I lost.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

No attempt is being made to deceive or to soften blows in any way. Ask around here and you'll realise, neither of these are things that I do.

My approach is "this is the change, this is why it was needed." We offer explanations of the process, and conversation about future directions. What I don't offer is apologies for making the game better, or undue deference to the status quo.

This said please don't lie to the OP. There's no issue that will impact RDU to the same degree as drugs in the water supply, and there is no in-game way to recover RDU to the degree that it was destroyed in this change. We could be playing this game for a decade or more and we won't have undone the damage this change caused. I mean I get it if you wanted to fix the game, sucks to be us but I agree the stability of the game is more important, that's cool. Just at the very best what you said was borne of ignorance and a lack of research.

That's not true. The "compulsory use" stat would have been achieved by answering one option, once. That would have been enough. For example, 641.3 would have done it, deleting whatever drug freedom position a nation had before, and then setting them to maximally restrictive drug freedoms but in the "negative" direction. This in turn would have created an immediate one off spike in recreational drug usage. That's hardly a decade of work.
Previously, a nation could have spent a long time getting drug freedoms as maximal as they will go, but would still be screwed over in recreational drug use by a refusal to add chemicals to the water.

What was closed there is an exploit, where you can make a decision that has nothing to do with recreational drug use, and spike that stat, as well as directly over-riding the more subtle sliding scale of drug freedoms.

It is, however, still possible to achieve maximum drug freedom with single option presses, available in 4 different places through the issue base. I won't tell you directly which ones they are, but suffice to say that if the description or effect talks about legalising all drugs, it's probably one of those.

So yeah, it's not going to take a decade. Someone else can do the math, but knowing that there's less than a thousand issues in the game, and that most nations are eligible for about half to two-thirds of them, and that there is a sorting algorithm to swing you towards issues you haven't had recently... well, it's not going to take long at all to get to maximum drug freedom.

To reiterate: this is change, but it isn't damage. If anything, it is a fix. Sure, a whole bunch of folk have just dropped in rankings. You know what? An exactly equal number of other folk have just gone up in rankings. The Recreational Drug Use stat is more accurate now, that's all there is to it.

I understand that there's a load of folk out there who don't answer issues anymore, and who have their stats where they want them. Well, they're in for a shock, as we've got a whole stack of stat recalculations en route (https://www.nationstates.net/page=beta) that will make for a better simulation. This, like it or not, is part of how nationstates works and has always worked. As the simulation is refined, every nation in the game - active or not - will be simulated differently.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I note you edited down your response, while I was quoting and responding to you.

Fair enough. I understand your frustration, but as I said, we're improving and fixing the game. Change always upsets some folk. That's life, right?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Also, spelling - Sisyphean.

Good word though. Additional clarification as you've edited your post. The statement...

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear.

...is not a lie.

I didn't say that making a single decision would restore your ranking. I said it would remove that "no drugs" policy.

[St Mary s Island]

With that patient explanation I appreciate where you're coming from and agree this is a change for the better. I feel like you'd have fewer posts like my own and the OP's if you'd taken a less heavy handed and more consilatory approach, but of course if I ran the zoo I may have ultimately decided to do exactly the same, I'm not going to backseat tell someone else how to do their jobs, I'm just going to let you know that although this was very heavy handed and shocking I still deeply appreciate both your making this change and taking the time to explain it here.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

No probs.

I'm well aware that my main flaw is bluntness and rudeness, but never dishonesty or mincing of words. As long as you criticise me for the things I am worth criticising for, then that's cool by me. I consider the criticism and the inevitable backlash as a necessary and acceptable cost of instigating change. In other words, I'm happy to be unpopular so long as I am effective.

[Happy crappers 2]

It's not that difficult to follow, and it is explained in the FAQ. Here, let me copy and paste it for you.

What's going on with doping the water supply and recreational drug use? (December 2017 changes)

Coding changes have moved doping of water out of drug-related freedoms, and instead made this a question of bodily autonomy. Net result is that civil rights drop a little, and the game tends to correlate falling civil rights with falling recreational drug use.

In narrative terms, forced ingestion of drugs is not recreational drug use, it's compulsory drug ingestion. The unit of recreational drug use is Pineapple Fondness Rating, indicating how much the citizenry seek recreational drug use. Indeed, the presence of all those drugs in the water make the population more docile and complaint, and less inclined to - say - have a good time by going out and getting high.

The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged. This also means that nations that thought they were as pro-drug as they could be (forcing everyone to take drugs) suddenly have a "No Drugs" policy flag, and a much lower recreational drug use than was previously registering.

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register. Likewise, look on the change in Recreational Drug Use as the measurement becoming more accurate than before, as it is no longer categorising forced ingestion of any and all chemicals as a tendency towards drugs for recreation.

Thank you for showing me this, I was very confused and upset. At least I know what happened now.

[Happy crappers 2]

No probs.

I'm well aware that my main flaw is bluntness and rudeness, but never dishonesty or mincing of words. As long as you criticise me for the things I am worth criticising for, then that's cool by me. I consider the criticism and the inevitable backlash as a necessary and acceptable cost of instigating change. In other words, I'm happy to be unpopular so long as I am effective.

Well said.

[Happy crappers 2]

It's not that difficult to follow, and it is explained in the FAQ. Here, let me copy and paste it for you.

What's going on with doping the water supply and recreational drug use? (December 2017 changes)

Coding changes have moved doping of water out of drug-related freedoms, and instead made this a question of bodily autonomy. Net result is that civil rights drop a little, and the game tends to correlate falling civil rights with falling recreational drug use.

In narrative terms, forced ingestion of drugs is not recreational drug use, it's compulsory drug ingestion. The unit of recreational drug use is Pineapple Fondness Rating, indicating how much the citizenry seek recreational drug use. Indeed, the presence of all those drugs in the water make the population more docile and complaint, and less inclined to - say - have a good time by going out and getting high.

The last step of this process was for the technical team to migrate stats on nations that historically have squiffed stats from this. This has involved basically eliminating the compulsory drug use scale. One unfortunate side effect of this, because math, is that nations who were previously maximally compulsory drug users are now maximally anti-drug. This is the best solution in game stat terms, as it gives the exact same civil rights position as before, though it does mean of course that liberal drug moves will now improve your freedoms rather than leaving them unchanged. This also means that nations that thought they were as pro-drug as they could be (forcing everyone to take drugs) suddenly have a "No Drugs" policy flag, and a much lower recreational drug use than was previously registering.

Just make a single drug-liberal decision, and that policy will disappear. Look on it as previously you having been inappropriately gated from increasing your drug freedoms because of a bad editing/design decision, and now that barrier being removed, so you can show that your nation is pro-drugs, and actually have those choices register. Likewise, look on the change in Recreational Drug Use as the measurement becoming more accurate than before, as it is no longer categorising forced ingestion of any and all chemicals as a tendency towards drugs for recreation.

Quick question here, if you have a higher rating on anything (Pineapple Fondness Rating) and you complete an issue, would the effect of said Issue be changed. this is an example of what I'm asking:
John doe's Pineapple Fondness Rating was 75 and completed an issue that increased it by 35.
Mathew Ford's Pineapple Fondness Rating was 472 and completed the exact same issue that only increased it by 3
If this is how things are set up I would like to know if there is any way that it can be fixed as if my drug use was that low and I completed the issue. Considering the Drastic change that took place during the update of that one issue?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Not entirely sure what you're asking, but I think you're asking if diminishing returns are built into the game engine.

The answer to that is yes, in multiple places, but not in as direct a fashion as many expect. There's multiple calculations going on, and many of them use diminishing returns formulae.

[Happy crappers 2]

Not entirely sure what you're asking, but I think you're asking if diminishing returns are built into the game engine.
The answer to that is yes, in multiple places, but not in as direct a fashion as many expect. There's multiple calculations going on, and many of them use diminishing returns formulae.

Yes I was asking about that, I didn't really know the name for it so...
But anyway, how do diminishing returns work? Because I swear I had multiple Issue's in the past that would have Increased my drug use dramatically and it's still so low. Does it return Gradually, and should have returned by now, or will it return at all?

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Hard for me to say. Not because its hard to describe, but because I've already pushed the limits of what I'm meant to reveal.

[Happy crappers 2]

Hard for me to say. Not because its hard to describe, but because I've already pushed the limits of what I'm meant to reveal.

I understand, It's just frustrating that I was 0.0002% in the world, then immediately the lowest of everyone and then not have any more issue's that will even increase it anymore.