Subject: Request for Policy Reevaluation in NationStates

[Stopaz]

Dear Nation states forum

I hope this email finds you well. My name is King Conlin I, and I have been an active participant in NationStates for quite some time. I have thoroughly enjoyed the strategic and diplomatic aspects of the game, and I appreciate the effort that goes into maintaining a balanced and engaging environment for players.

Recently, I have noticed that some nations are winning challenges based on high rates of negative attributes such as crime, nudity, and youth rebelliousness. While I understand that these elements can add an interesting dynamic to the game, I believe that they are currently being overemphasized in the scoring system. Winning solely based on negative attributes seems to deviate from the broader goals of NationStates, which include fostering creativity, diplomacy, and nation-building.

I kindly request that you consider reevaluating the impact of these specific negative attributes on challenge outcomes. A more balanced approach, where both positive and negative attributes contribute to a nation's overall standing, would ensure a fair and diverse playing field. This adjustment could enhance the overall gaming experience for players and encourage a wider range of strategic choices.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to seeing NationStates continue to evolve into an even more captivating and enjoyable platform for its dedicated community.

Best regards,

King Conlin I
Kingdom of Stopaz

[Untecna]

Challenges work exactly as intended - they are designed to measure who has the higher stat value, not who has the most "positive" stat value.

As with, say, Issues, Challenges are not meant to be rewarding for reasonable, positive things. They are designed to be quirky and create challenges by pitting two people with different issue answers together. Ultimately, most things on the site are very strong parody, the stat values included.

Additionally, this is an out-of-character subforum. You should be posting as the user and not the nation.

[Notanam]

The homepage (while not logged in) of NationStates contains a small description of the game, and it ends with:

"...Or deliberately oppress them. It's up to you."

It's safe to say that running a crazy dictator nation with jacked up negative stats is completely one of the intended ways to play the game. Answering any issue any way is.

[Stalin as a DEAT]

/redact

[United Calanworie]

Stopaz: I have a feeling that you used chat gpt to write that

I have a feeling that this was a completely unnecessary statement that has nothing to do with the thread at large. Who gives a shit if they used ChatGPT? This isn’t a RP board. If somebody wants to post a goddamn essay of a post here using ChatGPT, they’re more than welcome to.

Don’t interject into conversations just to accuse somebody of something that has no relevance to the topic at hand.

[Tinhampton]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this - but I would argue that if a certain stat (such as Integrity) appears in a challenge, its mirror stat (such as Corruption) should not appear later in that challenge where possible. All this does is just cancel out the other round.

[Kreigsreich of Iron]

Disregarding the fact it sounds like an e-mail my dad wrote, there remains the point of who decides what’s a positive stat and what’s not. Your average hippie, for example, will argue that Recreational Drug Use is a positive stat, or at the very least a neutral one, whereas the average conservative would say it is negative. This can applied to almost any stat, and thus undermines your argument that this deviates from the, as you put it, « stated goals of NationStates ». On that topic, could you please elaborate as to where this goals have been formulated? To the best of my knowledge, NS was originally supposed to be an over glorified ad with elements of satire before turning into what it is today. Moving on, I fail to see how this contributes to « fair and diverse playing field ». This would arguably thin the field, as nations based on a player’s schadenfreude would be knocked out of competition, while weakening diversity by encouraging Issues choices that seem to support so-called « positive » stats. I fail to see how this would « enhance the overall gaming experience » for players who take delight in creating the most dystopian nation possible. As I see it, this proposal, if implemented, would only injure the mini-game. As an aside, as others have already noted, this is not an IC forum, and as such should be addressed from you, the user, not the sovereign or government of your nation.

[Haganham]

I wouldn't necessarily agree with this - but I would argue that if a certain stat (such as Integrity) appears in a challenge, its mirror stat (such as Corruption) should not appear later in that challenge where possible. All this does is just cancel out the other round.

That's a good idea. All that does is bias the mechanic further towards those who've leveled up the challenge game, rather then gotten lots of extreme stats.

[Merien]

interesting point. i don't think thats a good idea though as theres probably nations based off of crime