Suggestion Random Shower Thought - Attrition Map Mechanic

[Tefka]

Problem: Major Faction A wants to invade Major Faction B until death.
Problem: Major Faction B feels its OOC and does not want to RP with Major Faction A.

We had a discussion with the MFO's not long ago how RPJs aren't coming back and we're finalizing that debate after the holidays. This kills the problem, but creates an entirely new one that harkens back to the origins of Chaos.

Problem: Major Faction B does not want to RP with Major Factions that want to kill it.
Problem: Staff supports not forcing RP, but this means Major Faction B can expand indefinitely, and Tef hates Majors that waste space without using the space.

There's three significant events in Chaos's history that support rulemaking decisions in these situations - GR vs TSE, GR vs One Sith, NIO vs TSE.

NIO vs TSE brought us back to how it was with GR vs TSE, so we've come full circle. There's no Staff element mediating Invasion talks, Faction Owners have been waiving RPJs off for a year straight so I'm waiving off the whole role entirely as the role is not needed and there's no confidence in the role. However, I already know (and it's already happened) that we're going to start our way through the circle again and they're going to get requested back.

So, the problem.

I won't force RP on a Faction. I know like, half of these wars like the three above have significant OOC elements to them, due to the lack of maturity among leadership. But again, this means a faction could expand indefinitely without consequence until they get body blocked by another faction. That's not immersive and really dumb.

So what do?

Well, the problem is OOC. RPJs were forged as the shield the combat the problem, and over the last ten years, they got wittled down until confidence in their decisions by the community was just overwhelmingly non-existent. I don't think it was a bad call, I just think we can create a new shield that's a bit more resilient while keeping OOC tension down. Basically, attrition.

Solution Elevator-Pitch: Continue to not force RP, but OOC punish the defending faction for declining to partake in an Invasion/PvP thread.

The specifics of which would likely include shrinking clouds or removing hexes at random by an Admin once we are informed they cannot cooperatively agree on an Invasion. This would include repetitive Invasions which conclude in draws due to Faction Owners being unable to agree on a victor, as that is what it would evolve to next to try to OOC undermine Staff.

Basically, send a Head Admin (myself or Valiens atm), but no mediation, just a decision based on what is observed OOC by all parties involved. The blowback involved would only be accusations of bias on that specific Head Admin, which I have no problem with. A Head Admin is usually involved in highly volatile Invasion Judgements/Annihilation Judgements anyways.

The second problem is, this is an OOC answer that will occasionally leave things feeling unimmersive. But, it's an OOC problem. It has to be an OOC solution.

Addendum: Don't respond if your reply is to just "let them fight", I have ten years of dealing with Faction Owners and either they're very good at convincing you they're not the problem in these situations, you're very bad at spotting bad faith arguments on the internet, or you're in on it too.

 

[Tefka]

Or we could just ban Sith factions entirely as they're historically present for every significant time this has been an issue.

Like this comment if you didn't read any of the above and just want to ban all Sith from the website.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

An easy way to do this that would be already attached to a rule is amend the 72 hour to field five unique writers. Not only does the faction lose the invasion, but they must forfeit a hex.

 

[Tefka]

imo forfeiting one hex is not enough if you can dom/junction 4 in a month, i think the punishment requires human oversight for handling context

if its first time, one hex

if it's time #5, five hexes.

Can't go under amount of x hexes, unless you invaded the invading faction in the last 60 days, or something. But I'd rather not codify numbers into this, I'd rather just slap up "HEAD ADMIN" as in if you're getting screwed you're getting the full weight of the Staff team so when you rage quit Chaos you can blame all of us instead of X or Y faction.

 

[Valery Noble]

Perhaps another idea very similar to this is that rather than removing hexes, the ability to gain new ones is stopped. It also prevents unopposed growth but it might address your point of breaking immersion because losing hexes randomly is what would feel odd, whereas not being able to gain new ones for X amount of time does not.

Or perhaps a combination of the above and losing a hex so the cloud reduction doesn't feel too big, and therefore too weird IC.

I'd only say that the lost hex should probably be somewhere the faction wanting to initiate an invasion can't reach. Or you'd still potentially reward a toxic mindset from the attacking faction by having them repeatedly launch an invasion when there's knowingly no desire to write together.

 

[Darth Empyrean]

I feel like this doesn't actually solve any problem besides an attempt at forcing people to decide on something. The problem is, they're already playing a game of chicken in all those big wars, and staff decisions or not don't fix it. Every single massive ooc war is settled by nothing but attrition.

That's it. It doesn't matter how many hexes you lose or gain, all that matters in all of those battles is attrition. Tire the other sides writers out, ruin their fun, and get them to leave the board or the faction. Interrupt the stories they want to tell, so they are forced into salt threads.

Couldn't tell you how to fix that, tbh, it's a really hard problem to deal with. But adding random hex losses to a territory game that worth nothing but bragging rights and comparing sizes doesn't feel like its going solve the core issue, and rather complicate the system in a way we won't see dividends from.

 

[Zark San Tekka]

I advocated for larger invasion consequences in part because major faction storylines get boring when nothing really changes until a group burns out OOC. It seemed like the best bad option for the community to just rip the band aid off with fewer, more decisive invasion threads. That...did not go super great. Mandates were removed and invasion mechanics were slightly reduced until we arrived at the current ruleset which respects writers' time a lot more than one hex per invasion but still requires some long-term planning to really slug it out.

No solution is perfect, but I support this idea or something like it because that problem of stagnancy still remains. Forcing people to write together wouldn't be cool but part of being a major faction means signing up for the consequences. If a group manipulates things OOC to avoid pvp or refuses to agree on a result that's avoiding those consequences.

 

[Mercy]

How about a map attrition mechanic that is active at all times. Outside of the Invasion stuff.

Bring back a variation of the status check factions used to have, but simplify it immensely. Each Major Faction has to provide a link to x amount of threads (can be as low or as high as necessary, can even shift depending on seasonal activity) every month or so. If they can't provide the x amount, they start losing hexes.

Perhaps you can even say that dominions don't count as the sort of activity necessary for this. That would encourage folks to actually do stuff with the hexes they already have, instead of constantly pushing for expansion.

I guess one of the issues would be determining WHICH hexes get neutralized. But that could be solved with a dice roll to make it random that only looks at their border hexes to minimize the amount of work involved for staff.

 

[Captain Jordan]

How about a map attrition mechanic that is active at all times. Outside of the Invasion stuff.

Bring back a variation of the status check factions used to have, but simplify it immensely. Each Major Faction has to provide a link to x amount of threads (can be as low or as high as necessary, can even shift depending on seasonal activity) every month or so. If they can't provide the x amount, they start losing hexes.

Perhaps you can even say that dominions don't count as the sort of activity necessary for this. That would encourage folks to actually do stuff with the hexes they already have, instead of constantly pushing for expansion.

I guess one of the issues would be determining WHICH hexes get neutralized. But that could be solved with a dice roll to make it random that only looks at their border hexes to minimize the amount of work involved for staff.

Pimping my previous (but still relevant) suggestion on how this could work: https://www.starwarsrp.net/threads/increase-faction-rigor-as-hex-ownership-increases.140691/

Getting factions to focus on worlds they have expanded to, instead of only ever writing on favorites or at their ever-growing borders, could be a better way to handle the issue of infinitely-spreading map growth. And this can pair hand-in-hand with invasions, a faction that is in danger of losing part (and perhaps a random part as per the above suggestion) of their territory anyway due to flagging story participation can use the invasion to canonize the loss while offering a way to reinvigorate the writers.

 

[Kahlil Noble]

How about a map attrition mechanic that is active at all times. Outside of the Invasion stuff.

Bring back a variation of the status check factions used to have, but simplify it immensely. Each Major Faction has to provide a link to x amount of threads (can be as low or as high as necessary, can even shift depending on seasonal activity) every month or so. If they can't provide the x amount, they start losing hexes.

Perhaps you can even say that dominions don't count as the sort of activity necessary for this. That would encourage folks to actually do stuff with the hexes they already have, instead of constantly pushing for expansion.

I guess one of the issues would be determining WHICH hexes get neutralized. But that could be solved with a dice roll to make it random that only looks at their border hexes to minimize the amount of work involved for staff.

I like this a lot, actually. Groups not active enough? Smaller cloud. Cloud gets smaller and people come back? Cool, now you have a story line about regaining control over things. I say just pick the hexes farthest from the capital, and roll between hexes that are the same distance away.

 

[Tefka]

I feel like this doesn't actually solve any problem besides an attempt at forcing people to decide on something. The problem is, they're already playing a game of chicken in all those big wars, and staff decisions or not don't fix it. Every single massive ooc war is settled by nothing but attrition.

That's it. It doesn't matter how many hexes you lose or gain, all that matters in all of those battles is attrition. Tire the other sides writers out, ruin their fun, and get them to leave the board or the faction. Interrupt the stories they want to tell, so they are forced into salt threads.

Couldn't tell you how to fix that, tbh, it's a really hard problem to deal with. But adding random hex losses to a territory game that worth nothing but bragging rights and comparing sizes doesn't feel like its going solve the core issue, and rather complicate the system in a way we won't see dividends from.

I think Staff very forcibly and vocally reminding both Invaders and Invadees that not pride posting your way through an OOC war does solve a problem.

These OOC wars, the salt wars, are real. Acknowledging that IS A PROBLEM for many leaders here throughout the history of Chaos. Paving a way to get out of it through a third option while still existing on the map is a solution.

Nobody wants to forfeit. Everyone wants the W and to feel powerful. I’m okay with forcing a faction to forfeit by way of OOC discussion, by acknowledging the very real feeling of “we just don’t want to write with that faction.”

I think it’s healthy. It’s either that or I forcibly fire MFOs outright next time I see it happening, because it’s not going to be allowed to happen again. Three times is far too many on such a large scale.

I would rather piss off entire factions by firing both MFOs and cause those writers to want to leave. Every time it’s been a problem between leaders, not writers. I’ll just Nixon the heads of the snake if we don’t find a more palatable solution.

 

[DECEASED Erskine Barran]

Looks good to me, though I really need to immerse into the concept to get a proper idea of the nuances it yields. But so far, larger ramifications reads to me like golden story-potential with weighted context - the likes that makes it all the more interesting from a reader's perspective and the likes.

the sooner people relax and settle into the map game in it's current form, and focus as part of the larger story, the more these concepts are going to make sense in the long run.

it gives each hex a story of triumph or tragedy that any of the factions can immerse into, regardless of their position on this matter. truth be told, things were already getting relaxed and hype again before this, but with more structure on the strategic level, it could very well make all this more comprehensive.

at least I hope it will anyways, definitely looks okay to me as I said before.

 

[Tefka]

i mean the past year has been a good representation of how cooperative roleplay and pvp was intended to work from the start.

It’s always been possible. Maw, NIO, GA, everyone has been on good behavior for a majority of the year.

I just know last time we achieved this chillness I didn’t do anything to prevent the salt from happening again, and it happened again, that’s on me. This time, I’m of the mind to just wipe out entire faction staff teams to root out these teenager mindsets. I think the attrition idea is a more like, digestable way to handle it though. Unless there’s better ideas out there.

Chain invading without consent, ego posting, wiping factions out while both sides cry about narratives and stuff and try to win moral wars or emotionally appeal to Admins. We’re just permabanning this stuff, we should’ve done it from the beginning. Maw blew up a wholeass planet with less Karens than some of these salt wars lmao, and I’m too old for dis shit.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

In part some of that was certainly the board self-regulating. Maybe the solution is really that simple... get involved sooner and when needed.

Honestly, those of us who were here for it all knew most of it was OOC. Certain MFO's behaved in a way that brought the chain invasions on themselves. I can think of a few examples. There were also other MFO's that got some kind of kick about tossing their weight around. In the three examples you mention... these two realities were present in all of them. All of those were people problems that no mechanic other than the ban-hammer would solve.

I love how chill things have been this past year... and in large part it has come because of the exit of certain personalities promoting an old way of thinking, or a culture that was antithetical to collaborative roleplay.

That being said... what about stipulating that a major faction must initiate or participate in at least one invasion in a calendar year... this way the onus is not on the defending faction, but rather... as a major you should be initiating roleplay with other major factions aside from expansion protocols.

 

[Tefka]

“MUST INITIATE”

“I DONT WANT TO FORCE ROLEPLAY”

I would rather forcibly defenestrate from Chaos rather than dictate how RP goes.

I’ve talked about foundational pillars of Chaos this year alot, one I don’t reference often is how accusations of bias fall flat IRT me, the site owner. They happen, yes, but the accusers have such a tough time BECAUSE we don’t dictate RP, among other reasons.

I can’t require factions perform invasions.

 

[Corbin Vasher]

How about a map attrition mechanic that is active at all times. Outside of the Invasion stuff.

Bring back a variation of the status check factions used to have, but simplify it immensely. Each Major Faction has to provide a link to x amount of threads (can be as low or as high as necessary, can even shift depending on seasonal activity) every month or so. If they can't provide the x amount, they start losing hexes.

Perhaps you can even say that dominions don't count as the sort of activity necessary for this. That would encourage folks to actually do stuff with the hexes they already have, instead of constantly pushing for expansion.

I guess one of the issues would be determining WHICH hexes get neutralized. But that could be solved with a dice roll to make it random that only looks at their border hexes to minimize the amount of work involved for staff.

I could probably get behind this. But maybe instead of saying Dominions don't count at all, maybe only a certain number count. Like maybe just one.

 

[Captain Jordan]

I could probably get behind this. But maybe instead of saying Dominions don't count at all, maybe only a certain number count. Like maybe just one.

Populates could count where Dominions don't.

Since two faction threads are required for a populate, it would encourage more internal growth than external, while rewarding external growth that builds on the story itself than just map mechanics.

Factions who want the sprawl are free to do so, as long as they can back it up with the story/faction engagement beyond that. We've seen factions that are capable of both, and factions that were better off sticking to a smaller area to match their stories.

 

[Sunfrog]

If you're a major faction, you need to be prepared to interact with other factions. It's called Star Wars.

I think it's equally a map mechanics issue and an attitude issue. If another faction is asking for an invasion and they are not being vindictive then it shouldn't feel forced. If you're rejecting cooperative, story-based roleplay on the basis of being afraid to lose hexes then yeah, I agree there should be OOC consequences to deter people from taking this kind of mindset.

 

[Tefka]

If you're a major faction, you need to be prepared to interact with other factions. It's called Star Wars.

I think it's equally a map mechanics issue and an attitude issue. If another faction is asking for an invasion and they are not being vindictive then it shouldn't feel forced. If you're rejecting cooperative, story-based roleplay on the basis of being afraid to lose hexes then yeah, I agree there should be OOC consequences to deter people from taking this kind of mindset.

This is unironically how bad faith negotiators pave the way towards justifying OOC driven salt wars. It’s a justifiable opinion on its own, and brings a valid point, but I’m not ignoring it’s the same exact argument a FO makes right before he talks to his buddy FOs to gangbang a faction into oblivion.

Should be a viable strat. We should all be mature enough to accept the immersiveness and consequences. We’re not. Not the invaders, who often turn on Staff with wild accusations when their OOC toxicity gets confronted. Not the defenders, who feel like the bullied unpopular kid and end up protesting for Stafftervention. It’s a long foregone conclusion, from my position as the middleman of ten years.

This community proved for the past year cooperative pvp works just fine. Anything posted on this forum like its Star Waaaaars not Star Wasssss is just posturing.

 

[The Quartermaster]

Don’t ask the MFOs we don’t know what we want

Source: is an MFO