Feedback Invasions & War | An Open Discussion

[Darth Empyrean]

So we've had some historical issues with invasions and war on Chaos, and its been discussed a few times that invasions are high activity but not very good for long term growth of the site. Invasions get massive volume by comparison to other threads, but too many invasions causes burnout, and burnout leads to the death of factions. Infact, that has been the number one way to win wars on Chaos - burnout the other faction until they all quit Chaos, because that's the only way to make the invasions end.

See TSE during its >5 ACTIVE INVASIONS AT ONCE< era. Was it high activity? Sure, it was the most active chaos was in forever. How long did that last once half of TSE was burned out or gone, and everyone left was burned out too?

Now seems like the best time to have this discussion, since we have a new larger map and all, but I think we should start looking at ways to improve the 'War' Mechanics of Chaos. Right now, to start simply, invasions got nerfed by collateral with the Map doubling in size. It would take the Sith Order 4 months in a straight line to ever reach the Core for an invasion, for example, and that's assuming we 1, never lost, and 2, made a straight bee-line to the center of the map.

That is unreasonable, and makes OOC wars take longer than some actual real wars. Especially when we're playing nice and not doing salt wars like we used to.

So first, we should buff invasions. Simple as - we go from two hexes to four. Make invasions big again.

More than that, however, and this is why this is a feedback thread and not so much a suggestion thread - but we should look into the community for new war mechanics that make Chaos not suffer from its one-trick pony invasion mechanic. We have all the freedom in the world to make IC peace deals that have ramifications on the map, and we can make map changes actually take less time (especially since we don't have that many people on the board like we used to).

For example, we could make actual peace agreements that trade hexes without large scale diplomacy threads requiring some minimal post count for every single hex. Got curb stomped in a war? Lets have a peace deal that costs you half your hexes, but hey - at least you're still on the map, and your writers have a chance to chill out for a bit.

Still, that doesn't feel like enough. What other ideas do you guys have that might make war more interesting on Chaos? Maybe you want to turn the map game into a 4x style script game that plays out like Stellaris. That's not going to happen, I can't imagine the site staff would be chill with it (but they, that would be fun to program up for the site, hmu lets work something out), but what else might be interesting?

 

[Darth Empyrean]

I just saw another thread about Ucks. Why don't we just make those apart of this system somehow? We have resource hexes, so we're like half way there to having the Chaos MF version of mana from 4x games. Why not incorporate them somehow and make them useful? Post for your major, earn some big ucks for threads, buy things with those ucks for majors. MAybe minors get to buy stuff, idk. We have systems we could be using better.

 

[Aether Verd]

I can definitely see the appeal of those high-energy invasion seasons where most of the site is involved. There's a momentum to them that's hard to replicate in any other format, and it's fun while it's happening.

That said, like you mentioned, those seasons also tend to end with burnout. Historically, the way to beat a major faction on the map has been to gather support and hit them with wave after wave of invasions until folks just don't want to log in anymore. It's victory by volume, and it works, but it's also what kills factions and leaves writers feeling tapped out.

So I'm curious about the suggestion to buff invasions by increasing the number of hexes taken or lost. I get the intent to make them more impactful now that the map is bigger, but wouldn’t those changes just lead to the same kind of burnout cycle, maybe in fewer posts but with the same pressure? I’m not sure I follow how it would solve the issue rather than just accelerate the same outcome.

I don’t really have a dog in the fight either way. Being on the map pretty much guarantees a faction is going to go minor via invasion spam, drama, or stagnation at some point. That’s just kind of how major factions work. But I am curious if I’m missing something in the thinking here.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

So I'm curious about the suggestion to buff invasions by increasing the number of hexes taken or lost. I get the intent to make them more impactful now that the map is bigger, but wouldn’t those changes just lead to the same kind of burnout cycle, maybe in fewer posts but with the same pressure? I’m not sure I follow how it would solve the issue rather than just accelerate the same outcome.

I'm more of the mind that invasions have two issues, one they're not impactful atm, and two they're only going to cause burnout. The solution as I see it is make them more impactful, then offer alternative routes out of invasion seasons that doesn't involve another 10 invasions over the next year. If there were more hexes gained, that simply fits with the new map, but it also allows invasions to have enough weight to spur on these alternatives - while the alternatives exist to stop the inevitable 'lets kill the chaos community because i want to win a war' we've historically done. That's how I see it.

 

[Kaila Irons]

I used to have a love hate relationship with invasions, but I really like the current era of chaos invasions(but I wish they'd happen a little more often.)

I do agree that factions shouldn't be dogpiled, invasions—like any story—should be just as collaborative as any rp on chaos. I will say though that I'm with Aether Verd on this one, I don't see how making invasions gobble up more hexes will solve the issue. if anything I think having a bigger map with more hexes on it makes dogpiling a faction less appealing because it will take longer.

This doesn't make invasions more impactful, it makes them more stressful.

I'd also like to ask how invasions aren't impactful? especially if they are traditionally the death of factions as mentioned in this thread.

My opinion is that, as with any story, it's as impactful as you and your writing partner make it. Individual stories tend to shine and impact one another more in invasions than any other type of thread I've experienced(if done well) and that's why I love them. Most of my character's journey can be traced back to invasions. One shaped this character's entire philosophy through another PC's disappearance and arguably turned her into who she is today and she wasn't even there. Quinn and I made Woostri impactful by exploring a force bond and what happens when it's severed by force light(or appears to be). My first on this character allowed me to discover how she reacts when everything goes wrong and was the catalyst for a lot of the ppl that wanted to write with me in the first place, to say nothing of the character dev.

imo whether an invasion is impactful or not is up to the people writing in it, not game mechanics, and is very subjective

 

[Aether Verd]

Darth Empyrean

Okay I see where you're coming from. So here's a potential option (that can go alongside an invasion buff):

Conditional Surrender:

The idea is simple. After a faction suffers an invasion loss, they’d have the option to declare a Conditional Surrender. In doing so, they’d give up either 20 percent or 40 percent of their influence cloud in exchange for a period of invasion immunity. If they give up 20 percent, they get 90 days of protection. If they give up 40 percent, they get 180 days.

During that immunity period, the faction wouldn’t be able to expand their territory in any way. No doms, no junctions, nothing. It’s a true ceasefire.

The attacking faction would get half of the surrendered territory, in any shape they want. They’d pick the hexes they want from that pool, which makes the reward immediate and clean. The rest of the forfeited hexes would become neutral again.

There’d be a floor for how low a faction can go before they’re no longer allowed to surrender this way. If a group only has a handful of hexes left, they’d have to defend them the old-fashioned way.

This would do a few things:

• It gives factions a way out of invasion spam/burnout loop. They lose an invasion, they take the hit, but they don’t get dogpiled until they’re off the site.
• It gives the attacker a serious gain. Ten to twenty percent of a faction’s map for a single invasion win is a big deal. Way more than even a series of buffed invasions over a couple months.
• It makes invasions something to enjoy again. Instead of being something that triggers a full-on survival mode panic when the mcgangbang is looming. Instead, you lose one, but your community gets to breathe. That’s a much healthier loop. (And time would hopefully calm the OOC angst that causes invasion spam.

Just something to think about. Curious what you think, and if this could work in the current climate.

 

[Wedge Draav]

Perhaps I'm old, perhaps I'm competitive or aggressive etc. But I think there should be sort of a clash, a battle, a war. Yes, you want to write a story. I get that.

But you should also want to win. You should write desiring to win, to win the fight IC and write the better story. Have the better fight. Put your opponent on the ropes, force them in every which way but to take hits, or write a damn good way out of it.

I miss sometimes the invasion results and the write-ups for it. But I understand how nowadays that would cause problem after problem and gripe after gripe. But ultimately, I believe you should want to win, you should want to have the better outcome. Writing a story can happen in a private thread, in a public thread, in a first reply. But invasions are for competition, a part of the game that we play.

More chaos, more wars, less peace- if you want to be a major faction. The Republic in Star Wars has dozens and dozens of stories about wars, infighting, incursions, rebellions. The Empire literally trampled the galaxy. If you want to play the game, play the game. Burnout is on the writer, not the system. If you don't want to write, don't.

Like Hockey, I expect violence in my games now and again. It's part of it.

Edit:

TLDR: you want to be a major faction, expect to fight and hold your ground. Be strong or get whacked.

 

[Darth Malum of House Marr]

Quick thought that I had, that I just noticed when looking at the map, and that I feel increases the sense of things happening.

Superhexes, I look at the one that contains Woostri for example, whichever faction owns it, gains a chonky piece of space. Now, personally already see the issues with this, including that it may just become a slogging war over the superhexes, but undeniably, capturing one would feel like the front is moving rapidly, as a big chunk of space falls under your faction's control.

Just a thought.

 

[Razmir Tezhyn]

The two main arguments I took away were

1. we'd like more options than just burnout salt wars to conduct faction wars
2. we want new mechanics to spice up the uh, mapgame

In an attempt to keep it brief, my thoughts there are:

1. There are already alternatives to salt wars. You can coordinate with other factions to do exactly these types of stories of quick conflicts and partial territorial losses, right now. It's been done before it can be done again, on any scale. It involves a lot of effort and can lead to burnout, too, but that's because coordinating factions on that scale is a lot of work and exhausting. Yet, it's also immensely rewarding when you pull it off. All it takes is some negotiation and compromise.

2. That'd be dope. Invasions could for sure use some buffs on account of the map changes. The same logic extends to diplomacy threads, which should have a less stringent post requirement for more territory. Probably a fine balance to walk, but I ig we can only trust in our tyrannical overlords to do the right thing.

 

[Razmir Tezhyn]

Darth Empyrean

Okay I see where you're coming from. So here's a potential option (that can go alongside an invasion buff):

Conditional Surrender:

The idea is simple. After a faction suffers an invasion loss, they’d have the option to declare a Conditional Surrender. In doing so, they’d give up either 20 percent or 40 percent of their influence cloud in exchange for a period of invasion immunity. If they give up 20 percent, they get 90 days of protection. If they give up 40 percent, they get 180 days.

During that immunity period, the faction wouldn’t be able to expand their territory in any way. No doms, no junctions, nothing. It’s a true ceasefire.

The attacking faction would get half of the surrendered territory, in any shape they want. They’d pick the hexes they want from that pool, which makes the reward immediate and clean. The rest of the forfeited hexes would become neutral again.

There’d be a floor for how low a faction can go before they’re no longer allowed to surrender this way. If a group only has a handful of hexes left, they’d have to defend them the old-fashioned way.

This would do a few things:

• It gives factions a way out of invasion spam/burnout loop. They lose an invasion, they take the hit, but they don’t get dogpiled until they’re off the site.
• It gives the attacker a serious gain. Ten to twenty percent of a faction’s map for a single invasion win is a big deal. Way more than even a series of buffed invasions over a couple months.
• It makes invasions something to enjoy again. Instead of being something that triggers a full-on survival mode panic when the mcgangbang is looming. Instead, you lose one, but your community gets to breathe. That’s a much healthier loop. (And time would hopefully calm the OOC angst that causes invasion spam.

Just something to think about. Curious what you think, and if this could work in the current climate.

It's a solid idea but I'm getting a lot of the same points from the Self Destruct mandate, which gives precisely these options except the attackers don't gain a ton of hexes. No one can invade a faction for a time, but there's a timer there that forces them to get back in the fight (after having plenty of time to take a breather and refocus) or give up their territory.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

I used to have a love hate relationship with invasions, but I really like the current era of chaos invasions(but I wish they'd happen a little more often.)

I do agree that factions shouldn't be dogpiled, invasions—like any story—should be just as collaborative as any rp on chaos. I will say though that I'm with Aether Verd on this one, I don't see how making invasions gobble up more hexes will solve the issue. if anything I think having a bigger map with more hexes on it makes dogpiling a faction less appealing because it will take longer.

This doesn't make invasions more impactful, it makes them more stressful.

I'd also like to ask how invasions aren't impactful? especially if they are traditionally the death of factions as mentioned in this thread.

My opinion is that, as with any story, it's as impactful as you and your writing partner make it. Individual stories tend to shine and impact one another more in invasions than any other type of thread I've experienced(if done well) and that's why I love them. Most of my character's journey can be traced back to invasions. One shaped this character's entire philosophy through another PC's disappearance and arguably turned her into who she is today and she wasn't even there. Quinn and I made Woostri impactful by exploring a force bond and what happens when it's severed by force light(or appears to be). My first on this character allowed me to discover how she reacts when everything goes wrong and was the catalyst for a lot of the ppl that wanted to write with me in the first place, to say nothing of the character dev.

imo whether an invasion is impactful or not is up to the people writing in it, not game mechanics, and is very subjective

The issues is that invasions have minimal narrative weight, or actual weight atm. The GA has gotten their butts kicked in the last few invasions/junctions narratively, but it has almost no actual effect on real story - and map wise? Pretty much nothing. Unless there is a major willingness to create narrative weight from the mechanics, such as our invasion of the RTL that led to their collapse, invasions don't mean anything right now. Giving them bigger stakes makes them more impactful, because as much as Chaos likes to deny it -

Mechanics define the RP. If you need proof of that, just go see how Company RP went after tiers and mechanics got taken out of it. Gone. Even the new 'mechanics' for it are just a new coat of paint for nothing, to the point that company tiers aren't even in any conversations period because the mechanics of it aren't engaging or fun for people.

The death of factions thing is mostly because of salt wars, but my issue is that the war mechanics don't encourage any other type of war than salt wars atm, and for what wars do go on that aren't salt wars are extremely slow and minimally engaging.

TLDR: you want to be a major faction, expect to fight and hold your ground. Be strong or get whacked.

This thread has less to do with salt wars and more to do with invasions being boring. Besides that point, you missed the part where 'salt wars cause the slow death of the community by literally attritioning our writer base'. So while I agree majors should be willing to put up their dukes - putting up your dukes should be the last option. No salt wars is better for everyone, but we need alternatives to make things more engaging and impactful in the meantime.

The two main arguments I took away were

1. we'd like more options than just burnout salt wars to conduct faction wars
2. we want new mechanics to spice up the uh, mapgame

In an attempt to keep it brief, my thoughts there are:

1. There are already alternatives to salt wars. You can coordinate with other factions to do exactly these types of stories of quick conflicts and partial territorial losses, right now. It's been done before it can be done again, on any scale. It involves a lot of effort and can lead to burnout, too, but that's because coordinating factions on that scale is a lot of work and exhausting. Yet, it's also immensely rewarding when you pull it off. All it takes is some negotiation and compromise.

2. That'd be dope. Invasions could for sure use some buffs on account of the map changes. The same logic extends to diplomacy threads, which should have a less stringent post requirement for more territory. Probably a fine balance to walk, but I ig we can only trust in our tyrannical overlords to do the right thing.

Yes, there are alternatives to salt wars. Those alternatives are slow and grinding at best. Diplomacy threads to work out a peace deal like I mentioned? 30 posts a hex. Want a large scale war that has any pay off map wise? You better be expecting to put in at least 1 to 2 years of work OOC'ly otherwise you're not going to make a difference, and even then you might only trade back and forth a few times assuming other factions have prior engagements - SO vs GA for example.

 

[Boggo Flib]

Yes, there are alternatives to salt wars. Those alternatives are slow and grinding at best. Diplomacy threads to work out a peace deal like I mentioned? 30 posts a hex. Want a large scale war that has any pay off map wise? You better be expecting to put in at least 1 to 2 years of work OOC'ly otherwise you're not going to make a difference, and even then you might only trade back and forth a few times assuming other factions have prior engagements - SO vs GA for example.

So if im understanding this right, one or more peeps in here want to see faster progression in the map game and also without salt wars or out of character conflict to the degree it was or is now? I dont think that will come by simply changing around who gets X amount of hex's or pixelated territory with the new map design. I mean yeah its bigger and cooler than the last one but game like mechanics isnt enough to cut at the issue that your all bringing up about IC/OOC balance & communication.

The map game is a game and its not all there is on SWRP: Chaos, granted it is probly the most infamous and popular and its like that cuz its challenging. IC and OOC balanced out for it to work how best for all. Trying to collab is harder then it ought to be tho? Its gonna be hard to achieve any type of change in the map game and how it is approached by just tinkering with the rules imo.

That means confronting the human element behind it. Aether Verd - I like this suggestion cause it opens up the story potentials of "losing" I am using quotes cuz this is a writing forum and hobby, there isnt really any winning or losing unless others say "I agree or consent to this happening", but few on Chaos want that or allow their characters "lose" duels and anything else. Areas that dont even have any lasting consequence beyond ones own what? Pride? Ego? What faction would willingly "lose" and surrender what it took them time to "gain"? ( someone please show me I am wrong on this. )

The map game is an illusion that simulates the shifting of IC galactic powers. There is no winning or losing ultimately, its just collaboration like everything else but with added colored hexes. The map game needs a literal paradigm shift from what it was, presently is, and into how the community wants it to be now.

Is there a way we could approach it from this angle instead?

 

[Darth Empyrean]

Boggo Flib

My argument can mostly be summarized as 'The Map game is stale, and not impactful', and 'We should make more avenues for people to settle wars so the only solution isn't eternal war or a salt war of extermination'. You said the human element is the issue, but I'm saying that the human element follows the sites mechanics and they always have. For example, when the rules stated duels were how you won invasions, people naturally got better at CRP and not wanting to lose - conversely, when invasions were won with 'tension' and 'drama', people started losing duels specifically to win invasions.

What I'm saying here is that we aren't somehow disconnected from the mechanics of chaos, and arbitrarily do things without any sort of rhyme or reason. The reality is we write stories and engage on Chaos through the avenues our ruleset and mechanics allow for us, and there is no point to deny that. If we make a change to our ruleset, we would naturally see a change in how people interact with Chaos.

Am I claiming a new ruleset will somehow completely rid us of salt and we live in a paradise of roleplay? Of course not, but I am saying we need more options that don't default to 'have war forever', 'have ic peace deal with mostly just a cease fire', or 'war of extermination' because that is our only mechanical options at present. Name a war on Chaos that has had a peace deal that really mattered and I'll show you another 5 that never ended.

That's the issue I want addressed. Not because our current environment is salty, but because its the only option we have if we want a war with another faction.

 

[Soundwave]

I like how NIO's string of invasions is called the Braxant Campaign and it was literally just hitting every possible target on the Braxant Run towards Bastion. Perhaps consider reworking Campaigns as a potential alternative.

ie A Campaign can be declared, the attacking faction writes out an intended campaign path declaring which hexes they intend to strike (Up to a maximum, let's say 8-10). From there you can write out an invasion, set up chapters or whatever would be most convenient, or leave it to the writers to decide, who will they write with on which of those planets, etc. Run the invasion from that point and at the time of judgement, everything gets submitted to the RPJ's and then from there they decide based off of how the Campaign was written how many hexes the attacking faction gets/how many hexes the defending faction successfully defended. Perhaps bump up the minimum post count for the Campaign to be say an extra 100-200 posts to balance it out for the amount of potential hexes that could be gained.

It still gives something to the attacking faction if they're somewhat successful while not leaving the defending faction like they lost everything (unless they did in fact, lose the entire campaign). I think in the long term it helps with newer factions as well trying to invade larger factions because, let's be real, there are few factions that have popped up that last long in comparison to say the GA or SO. Saves everyone the burnout of writing five back to back invasions as opposed to one campaign.

 

[Valery Noble]

I used to have a love hate relationship with invasions, but I really like the current era of chaos invasions(but I wish they'd happen a little more often.)

I do agree that factions shouldn't be dogpiled, invasions—like any story—should be just as collaborative as any rp on chaos. I will say though that I'm with Aether Verd on this one, I don't see how making invasions gobble up more hexes will solve the issue. if anything I think having a bigger map with more hexes on it makes dogpiling a faction less appealing because it will take longer.

This doesn't make invasions more impactful, it makes them more stressful.

I'd also like to ask how invasions aren't impactful? especially if they are traditionally the death of factions as mentioned in this thread.

My opinion is that, as with any story, it's as impactful as you and your writing partner make it. Individual stories tend to shine and impact one another more in invasions than any other type of thread I've experienced(if done well) and that's why I love them. Most of my character's journey can be traced back to invasions. One shaped this character's entire philosophy through another PC's disappearance and arguably turned her into who she is today and she wasn't even there. Quinn and I made Woostri impactful by exploring a force bond and what happens when it's severed by force light(or appears to be). My first on this character allowed me to discover how she reacts when everything goes wrong and was the catalyst for a lot of the ppl that wanted to write with me in the first place, to say nothing of the character dev.

imo whether an invasion is impactful or not is up to the people writing in it, not game mechanics, and is very subjective

This is pretty much my opinion on this topic as well.

I do get that they're slower these days, but I've not seen any alternative option that I actually like and would encourage me to do more invasions with other Factions. And for the GA as Faction, even the minimal invasions have brought us more than enough amazing stories. We're still doing threads about the fact that we lost a chunk of the Core to the Dark Empire, and that was only a total of 3 invasions we did.

We also did plenty of aftermath stuff following our invasions with the SO, and they've built up some really enjoyable stories for us. Personally, I'm 100% fine with the way things are.

Though I do agree that we could do them a little more often. But as John's new dataset has shown, it's pretty normal for this time of year to be slower. Summer is coming, and I'm sure there will be new invasions.