[Cards] Puppet farms

[Galiantus III]

Puppet farming is way too overpowered, and it needs to be made completely obsolete.

On April 1st introduction of the cards last year, I started puppet farming along with lots of the other players - the players who have the most expensive decks and the most resources overall. When the cards resumed, we also resumed. Our growth is directly proportional to the amount of time we put in "answering issues" with our endless hoards of puppets. We will forever be on top, and there is nothing anyone else can do about it. We have such an extreme and unfair advantage over other players that it is ridiculous, and I argue it is on the same level as WA multiing.

From the FAQ's page, it is evident Admin recognizes this as a problem and intended the current system to significantly limit the ability to card farm:

The auction system is designed to force trading at true market prices, reducing the ability of puppet nations to feed valuable cards to their masters.

Despite the best efforts of Admin, we still manage to mine valuable cards and bank with our puppets, and funnel them to our main nations. Fees don't stop us from gifting cards, because a loss of funds for our puppet doesn't cause us to lose anything on our main. The auction system doesn't prevent us from transferring bank, because the chance of someone stopping us is low enough to not be a significant concern, and we can just piggyback off regular auctions if we want to do things securely (this card is an example of one I used for such a secure transfer). In summary, the expected limitations hardly affect us, and more is needed to address this problem.

Possible Solutions

Issue Throttle
The most valuable thing for a card farmer is time - it's what allows us to get ahead. We can generate more packs of cards than anyone else. But what if we made getting cards from puppets extremely annoying, such that nations answering issues very quickly have virtually no chance of yielding cards? Whenever an issue is answered, the server would check the time stamp of the previously answered issue to make sure at least X seconds (10, perhaps) had passed. Answering issues in less than X seconds would preclude the possibility of generating a card pack. There could also be some kind of animation or card revealing process that takes longer than the current one, that you are required to wait through in order to receive your cards. This kind of feature would hardly affect regular players, who tend to pay attention to the issues they answer, and should be averaging one, possibly two, card packs per day; but it would severely debilitate card farmers.

Edit: I just realized there is a way around throttling issue answering, depending on what X is chosen. If X is too short, that is problematic because card farmers will just count seconds between answering issues when going through their puppets. If X is too large, card farmers will instead rotate between puppets answering one issue at a time. In either scenario, this could be made even worse with a script that reduces issue answering to two buttons - one that the user clicks to answer an issue, one that signs them into the next puppet.

IP Throttle
This should be far less demanding on Admin resources than the Central Bank idea I originally proposed. I am aware of the feature that is in place to make it difficult to up or down vote dispatches by using puppets. My best guess is that up votes and down votes are all tied to IP addresses, so users cannot give multiple votes on one dispatch. I propose that a similar system be applied to how card packs are awarded, such that there is a strict limit to how many packs an IP address can open in a day. This means all players can possibly receive cards from any nation they have access to, but for the most part this should eliminate any advantage gained with puppets.

So far as the details of implementation go, here's what I have in mind. Every time an issue is answered, the system would check a counter associated with the IP address that answered the issue. This counter represents how many issues have been answered from that IP. If the counter is at less than 5, then the system increments the counter by one and proceeds to check if the user received cards. If the counter is at 5 (or more, for some reason), then the system does nothing, and does not give any chance of cards. At 6 hour intervals, the system would subtract 1 from the counter. IPs that reach 0 on their counter would simply be removed from the structure handling the IP throttle.

This system is intended to function such that if a user only uses one nation to answer issues, they will never be throttled. Compared to the WA multi system, this is extremely simple. Yes, this means that someone with a VPN could work around the system, but this should significantly cut down on the number of people using puppets, and this system could be upgraded later, or other systems working in concert with it could present enough of a hassle to anyone using a VPN to virtually eliminate the benefits gained by card farming.

Note: We could also check the IPs of nations gifting or bidding, and prevent them from exchanging cards if they match.

Tweaks to the Auction system
There are some various changes that could be made to the auction system to make bank transfers next to impossible. Some of these could be seen as general upgrades to the system:

1. Add a notification option that triggers when a card you own receives an offer more than twice its market value. By default this should be off.
2. Increase the run-time of auctions, perhaps as a function of how an auction's current match price compares to the market price. Time is the enemy of transfers because it increases the chances of someone with the card noticing the situation and stealing it.
3. Gifted cards may not be put up to auction until a week has passed from the original gifting, and gifting must be accepted on the receiver's end to complete. Most gifted cards are from puppets to mains for the purpose of bank transfers, and this at least forces card farmers to search the market for transfer cards, or risk drowning in cards they must hold on to for a week before using for transfers. This should hurt the largest card farmers the most.

The Strict (but random) Auction System
When an auction on a card starts, new or edited asks must be exactly equal to the ask that matched first in order to match. Higher asks made before the start of the auction can match with high bids. Meanwhile, the amount paid by the bidder will be whatever they actually bid, not the midway between their bid and the seller's ask. At the end of the auction all matching asks will be shuffled and given a random preference for the bids they would have matched to.

This is extremely bad for bank transfers because first, there is no sure way to protect your transfer, and second, you cannot piggy-back off existing auctions in order to shorten the time.

Team Heists
The concept here is essentially a way for teams of WA nations to combine and police bank transfers. WA membership is not required to play the game, but rather WA nations receive a special ability that severely threatens the security of heists.

While a card is up for auction, WA nations could put up one of their card packs on it. If enough WA nations put up their card packs, then three things happen: first, a new copy of the card is created. Second, this new copy of the card matches the highest bid on the card. Third, the auction immediately ends, and the money from the bid is distributed evenly among the nations that put up their card packs (which are consumed in the process). Auctions ending in this manner do not factor into the market price of the card.

The required number of WA nations/card packs should be a function of its market price, rarity, and/or the total number of copies in circulation. Rarer, more valuable cards, with lots of copies, should require action from more players - and the consumption of more card packs - to bring into existence as a means of fighting transfers. Cheap, common cards, with few copies, should be much easier to create in this way.

I suggest starting with the base assumption that one person can consume a card pack to block transfers on most common cards valued at or near junk value, and increase things from there. This is the most common scenario, and thus it shouldn't hardly be difficult to shoot down. However, we also don't want a situation where people start printing off the most expensive legendaries, so such acts should require the coordination of several dozen people. This certainly won't end transfers by itself, but it will make them an art that requires skill and careful planning, or perhaps negotiation with other players, to safely complete.

The Central Bank
The most complete way to eradicate puppet farms is to limit players to one nation that can obtain card packs. Therefore, I propose the creation of a Central Bank (name can be changed, of course) to certify the authenticity of players. The main feature of the Central Bank is that, while all nations will be able to buy and sell cards, only members of the Central Bank will gain cards from answering issues. Players caught with more than one nation in the CB will be subject to the same kind of moderator action that those caught multiing in the WA are subject to. Thus card farming should be rendered impossible, and in the long term it should be possible for newer players to catch up and make a name for themselves in the card economy.

Some notable mechanics:

• Nations need to be a CB member for 24 hours before they can start generating cards. Otherwise one might be able to generate excess cards by rapidly switching CB membership between puppets, defeating the whole purpose of the CB.
• Any nation can receive gifts, buy and sell. So one could technically play the card game entirely without joining the CB, but they would be at a significant disadvantage. This also means one could use puppets as storage for cards they don't have room for, but don't want to junk, or for some reason they might choose to divide their collections between puppets.
• Everything possible now remains possible with this system, but instead must happen between players. So two players could theoretically engage in a bank transfer for purposes outside cards; think bribes.

Pros:

• More Social Play - I believe this sort of a change would result in a more social atmosphere among card traders. Currently anyone serious about cards just spends time answering issues, opening packs, gifting cards to their main, and transferring bank. In an economy where the best way to get ahead is to invest time in generating card packs, there is no need to negotiate with other players. The exception to this is if you aren't puppet farming, but are interested in creating a specific kind of collection.
• Overall Balance - The goal of the proposal. By slowing the economy to a pace that is uniform to everyone, new players will have a fair shot at becoming wealthy as they gradually expand their collection. Inflation and the overall market should also be much more stable.
• More Future Possibilities - In general, future modifications to the cards game will be much safer. We could remove or reduce the fee associated with gifting cards, since that was meant to combat card farming. We could tweak the auction system, or give other special perks to CB members: for example, the junk value of cards depicting CB member nations could be more than the junk value of other cards.

Cons:

• Implementation - I imagine this is the most significant limiting factor here. This proposal is to add a second system of multi detection specifically for the cards, and I can't imagine that will be terribly easy.
• Could Add to Moderator Load - I don't know the intricacies of moderation, but I know for a fact this won't make the job of game moderators easier. This is another way to multi, and people are bound to try and evade the system. Best case scenario is that this makes absolutely no difference to multiing numbers. At its very worst, this kind of change could maybe double the number of people multiing, but I suspect it would only add maybe 25% to total multiing. If multiing is a serious issue that takes up an unreasonable amount of moderator time, then go ahead an shoot this down.
• Slower Market - In terms of gameplay, killing of the card farms directly translates to fewer card packs opened per day. This could be good or bad, depending on how players respond to the situation, but I put it here because a slower market means less participation, and likely a slower game. However, this could be combated by some combination of increasing the rate of card drops, reducing or removing gifting fees, or modifying the market system.

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Any discussion on the topic of ending card farms is welcome here. Please share your thoughts!

[Strike]

Linking it to the WA is a no go. Being a member of the WA should not be a pre-requisite to playing the card game. The card game is a fun side project and not something that users should be forced to abandon the very reason they play the actual game - to form their nation the way they want to - in order to have fun participating in.

The changes they made to the card game have greatly reduced the ability of puppet nations to feed valuable cards to their masters. In April, anyone with a puppet could get unlimited decks, hoarde unlimited cards and transfer unlimited cards to unlimited other nations they wanted to at any price (nothing or super high).

I think you grossly undervalue the impact that the re-start changes have had to the card trading system in reducing the ability of "Puppet farmers" to efficiently accumulate valuable cards and feed them directly to their master. I believe the changes have done exactly what the text you highlighted and bolded advertised. Lets go through the key concerns / questions:

Is it harder for any one user to 'farm' a specific card?

Yes. Previously a puppet farmer could just drop 10...15...20 nations in a specific region with a valuable card, farm it within a few hours and move on to the next region. Now this is virtually impossible.

Is it harder for any one user to accumulate cards in general?

Yes. There is more clicking required to get a card pack, there is a much longer duration between when you can get card packs (up from 30 minutes to anywhere between 6-36 hours per pack) so the return on investment is substantially lower, coupled with the above with no way to 'ensure' you are getting cards you want, and the fact you can't open decks if you are near capacity means that those with large farms of nations have to put in a lot of effort to manage them, which has increased the care and feeding and, almost certainly, vastly reduced the number of players who are doing it.

Is it harder for any one user to move cards from a farm nation to a master?

Yes. Now a user has to decide between spending an exponentially increasing percentage of their bank to increase their deck capacity so they can receive gifts AND paying a fee to transfer the card - which may take some time to accumulate on a puppet nation, or, take the risk of putting the card on the open market where anyone can either A) Steal the card from them by bidding higher or B) Steal their funds by offering the same card at a lower price. I believe this is working exactly as intended and has changed completely the dynamic of how the card game works in a much more social, interactive and positive way


Are there a handful of "Power Players" who, despite the challenges outlined above, are still putting in long hours and hard work to generate numerous packs of cards about our made up nations on a daily basis? Yes. There are. There is no denying that there are some players who despite the challenges that are meant to deter them - and are very much slowing them down - are still trying, and are doing what they can to find ways around it. Some can't gift cards because they have no capacity so they can't get the cards they want to their main without overpaying for them - which is a risk because someone can then snipe in. Do they always get sniped? No they don't, but the risk is still there - which it was not in April.

Is it a problem? I suspect if it was a problem then it would have been dealt with. But I reject the idea that there is only one solution to this problem, I reject the idea that a single user can only have one "Master Nation" that they care about and deserve to get a card every once in a while, and I reject the idea that you have to be a member of the WA just to draw a card pack.

The only thing that is currently feeding the "Card Farming" issue - if it is an issue or not - is the unlimited ability for a user to create new nations. Card Farmer 1, Card Farmer 2, Card Farmer 3. These default flagged nations are a stain on the game, an eyesore in the search, they don't serve the intent of the original game. I think you are approaching the problem from a very master-centric view but there are many users who maintain many properly RPd nations for various purposes - some have a Sports nation and an II nation and a nation that is the delegate of a region and another in the WA. Those nations may not be seeking the same card in a collection.

But that user doesn't probably need to be able to create 100 different nations just for the purpose of card farming, with the name of "Card Farmer 1" or "BobsFarm723" - so if you want to do something maybe limit the number of new nations that can be create by a user / IP address in a given month. Folks probably don't need to be creating 20 new nations per month to play the main game so thats the approach I would take. You could even make it more like the bad faith rule whereby you could decree that "The creation of nations without discernible intent other than for use as a card farming puppet is not permitted". If someone then finds such nation they can report it via GHR and the situation can be dealt with. Probably some sort of exchange of "What is the purpose of Card Farmer 123 in the game" and if the only response is "To generate cards" then that nation gets the "No Cards" setting enabled on it for 30 days as a punishment. If they actually have some secondary reason for existing which can tie back to the larger game and isn't 100% solely to be a flagless nameless card farm - then let them play. If people have nations that they have developed or sincerely wish to develop in game they should be able to participate in all aspects.

In short, I think you undervalue the impact that changes have had on deterring card superiority and overestimate the scale of the 'problem'. Is there a small group of users who have a lot of bank and a lot of cards and often beat up on each other fighting for the most highest of high value cards? Yes, there sure is. But just because that is the game you are playing doesn't mean that is the game that the other 99.9% of players are playing - they might not be searching for the Queen Yuno to complete their collection and in fact they are super relieved when a card farming nation finally draws their card, sees it has a standing bid on it and quickly puts it up on the market solving their long standing ask and completing their modest collection.



edit: I do like your card pack Throttling idea that you added at the end. That is a good one. Reducing the odds of getting a Card Pack from an issue if you just answered an issue within the previous 10 seconds I think is actually a good solution and so is making it longer for the cards to reveal themselves. I think these are the best ideas for reducing the benefit to the farms.

[Galiantus III]

Linking it to the WA is a no go. Being a member of the WA should not be a pre-requisite to playing the card game. The card game is a fun side project and not something that users should be forced to abandon the very reason they play the actual game - to form their nation the way they want to - in order to have fun participating in.

I know, and perhaps I worded that section poorly. The idea is to link it in such a way that you aren't in the WA aesthetically, but the multi system sees you as being in the WA. Nations in the WA would continue to receive cards. Nations outside the WA could join the CB so long as the player behind them doesn't already have a CB or WA nation, and they would have no WA functionality, only card functionality. So WA membership would in fact not be a prerequisite, because players would get to pick between the CB and the WA, WA nations receiving the same benefits as CB nations. It is by no means ideal, but it is a solution. In other words, although the system would include CB nations in the same pool as WA nations for multiing, CB nations would still be their own thing.

The changes they made to the card game have greatly reduced the ability of puppet nations to feed valuable cards to their masters. In April, anyone with a puppet could get unlimited decks, hoarde unlimited cards and transfer unlimited cards to unlimited other nations they wanted to at any price (nothing or super high).

I think you grossly undervalue the impact that the re-start changes have had to the card trading system in reducing the ability of "Puppet farmers" to efficiently accumulate valuable cards and feed them directly to their master. I believe the changes have done exactly what the text you highlighted and bolded advertised. Lets go through the key concerns / questions:

Is it harder for any one user to 'farm' a specific card?

Yes. Previously a puppet farmer could just drop 10...15...20 nations in a specific region with a valuable card, farm it within a few hours and move on to the next region. Now this is virtually impossible.

You are entirely correct on this point.

Is it harder for any one user to accumulate cards in general?

Yes. There is more clicking required to get a card pack, there is a much longer duration between when you can get card packs (up from 30 minutes to anywhere between 6-36 hours per pack) so the return on investment is substantially lower, coupled with the above with no way to 'ensure' you are getting cards you want, and the fact you can't open decks if you are near capacity means that those with large farms of nations have to put in a lot of effort to manage them, which has increased the care and feeding and, almost certainly, vastly reduced the number of players who are doing it.

What matters is comparative advantage, not absolute speed. The rate of card packs being received has indeed slowed, but no amount of slowing changes the fact that a card farmer with 100 puppets can get ~100x the card packs for every one that a regular player does. Every puppet a farmer has adds linearly to their advantage over regular players who have one nation and casually play the game.

Is it harder for any one user to move cards from a farm nation to a master?

Yes. Now a user has to decide between spending an exponentially increasing percentage of their bank to increase their deck capacity so they can receive gifts AND paying a fee to transfer the card - which may take some time to accumulate on a puppet nation, or, take the risk of putting the card on the open market where anyone can either A) Steal the card from them by bidding higher or B) Steal their funds by offering the same card at a lower price. I believe this is working exactly as intended and has changed completely the dynamic of how the card game works in a much more social, interactive and positive way

This is true, but not significant. It is worth paying the fee because, like I said, your main nation still benefits. It is also worth making transfers because the risk of being caught is so low, and even if we make transfers more dangerous there are ways to almost eliminate that risk - such as the auction piggy-backing I mentioned. Having a card farm also puts you in a place where you can increase your deck capacity about 100x easier than anyone else. It is also entirely possible to do bank transfers to a nation that is over deck capacity, if you regularly buy cheap commons.

Are there a handful of "Power Players" who, despite the challenges outlined above, are still putting in long hours and hard work to generate numerous packs of cards about our made up nations on a daily basis? Yes. There are. There is no denying that there are some players who despite the challenges that are meant to deter them - and are very much slowing them down - are still trying, and are doing what they can to find ways around it. Some can't gift cards because they have no capacity so they can't get the cards they want to their main without overpaying for them - which is a risk because someone can then snipe in. Do they always get sniped? No they don't, but the risk is still there - which it was not in April.

Is it a problem? I suspect if it was a problem then it would have been dealt with. But I reject the idea that there is only one solution to this problem, I reject the idea that a single user can only have one "Master Nation" that they care about and deserve to get a card every once in a while, and I reject the idea that you have to be a member of the WA just to draw a card pack.

This is clearly a problem. We aren't trying, we are succeeding. And it is clear admin intended to rid the card game of this strategy, but players are finding loopholes and exploiting them. Just because it is "more difficult" doesn't mean the problem is solved, and this is a fairly new feature, so saying "admin would have already fixed it if it wasn't a problem" isn't a valid argument. Admin is all volunteer, and they work on technical changes very slowly. Implementing a solution such as this one might take them longer than the cards have been out as a permanent feature, and thus even if they wanted to do this, and were working on it in the background, we likely wouldn't know for the next few months.

By the way, the original proposal is to create an organization separate from the WA. My idea to link it to the WA either temporarily or behind the scenes is an alternative suggestion (hence it is under the "Alternatives" heading) that I do not consider ideal.

The only thing that is currently feeding the "Card Farming" issue - if it is an issue or not - is the unlimited ability for a user to create new nations. Card Farmer 1, Card Farmer 2, Card Farmer 3. These default flagged nations are a stain on the game, an eyesore in the search, they don't serve the intent of the original game. I think you are approaching the problem from a very master-centric view but there are many users who maintain many properly RPd nations for various purposes - some have a Sports nation and an II nation and a nation that is the delegate of a region and another in the WA. Those nations may not be seeking the same card in a collection.

I am getting the feeling you didn't actually read my proposal. I said non-CB members could still exchange and collect cards, they just couldn't generate them. This means you could still use puppets to obtain different collections of cards. And sure - I am talking about players trying to concentrate all their cards in one nation, but currently there is nothing preventing a player from using puppets to funnel cards and bank to a collection of several "master" nations. The whole point of this is to make player access to resources more a function of skill than a function of time spent clicking.

But that user doesn't probably need to be able to create 100 different nations just for the purpose of card farming, with the name of "Card Farmer 1" or "BobsFarm723" - so if you want to do something (1) maybe limit the number of new nations that can be create by a user / IP address in a given month. Folks probably don't need to be creating 20 new nations per month to play the main game so thats the approach I would take. You could even make it more like the bad faith rule whereby you could (2) decree that "The creation of nations without discernible intent other than for use as a card farming puppet is not permitted". If someone then finds such nation they can report it via GHR and the situation can be dealt with. Probably some sort of exchange of "What is the purpose of Card Farmer 123 in the game" and if the only response is "To generate cards" then that nation gets the "No Cards" setting enabled on it for 30 days as a punishment. If they actually have some secondary reason for existing which can tie back to the larger game and isn't 100% solely to be a flagless nameless card farm - then let them play. If people have nations that they have developed or sincerely wish to develop in game they should be able to participate in all aspects.

1. Limiting new nation creation will only make the problem worse, because players who already have tons of puppets can still use them, but new players attempting to get card puppets will be severely limited in their ability to use the strategy. But since the strategy is still viable in the long term, it won't actually prevent anyone from using it. This would also have the added effect that it would be difficult for new players to join military gameplay.

2. That would be disastrous for game moderators. There used to be such rules for raiding, and the mods were so overwhelmed with it that Admin had to introduce the influence system. A technical solution is therefore much better than a rules solution, since in the long run a rules solution will just create problems for mods, leading to a technical solution we should have implemented in the first place.

In short, I think you undervalue the impact that changes have had on deterring card superiority and overestimate the scale of the 'problem'. Is there a small group of users who have a lot of bank and a lot of cards and often beat up on each other fighting for the most highest of high value cards? Yes, there sure is. But just because that is the game you are playing doesn't mean that is the game that the other 99.9% of players are playing - they might not be searching for the Queen Yuno to complete their collection and in fact they are super relieved when a card farming nation finally draws their card, sees it has a standing bid on it and quickly puts it up on the market solving their long standing ask and completing their modest collection.

I undervalue the changes that supposedly have deterred card farming because I card farm, and I can tell you firsthand they are next to meaningless. The issue is also not that there are players that have a lot of bank and compete for high value cards - that is just part of any market. The problem is that the players who have that position (including myself) absolutely cannot be challenged except by pouring hours of time into card farming. You are ignoring the long-term effect of this setup, which is that the cards game will become unplayable except by card farmers. At some point in the future, it should be next to impossible to collect the cards you want, by relying on other people to card farm for you, unless you want to pay significantly more for your card. Why? Because inflation will go through the roof, and it is usually not worth the time spent to go sell a common for a couple cents above its junk price when you can open other card packs with Ultra Rares and Epics that will bring in 10x that amount for their junk price.

edit: I do like your card pack Throttling idea that you added at the end. That is a good one. Reducing the odds of getting a Card Pack from an issue if you just answered an issue within the previous 10 seconds I think is actually a good solution and so is making it longer for the cards to reveal themselves. I think these are the best ideas for reducing the benefit to the farms.

Thanks! And thanks for your overall feedback, even if it was critical of my proposal.

[Frisbeeteria]

Sorry, Galiantus - this one's DOA too. In order for The Central Bank idea to work, we need to implement Master Accounts, which is a HUGE change in how nations operate. Even then, it's going to be possible to have multiple Master Accounts. It's impossible to build a system that can't be exploited. The card pack throttle isn't a bad idea. Maybe you can isolate that and concentrate on it.

Perhaps the best safeguard would be to charge for every Master Account, but you'd still have abuse from people with more money than sense. And if we made it a pay game, we'd instantly lose half our playerbase.

You keep writing your essays / tech proposals if you like. You've got a lot of ideas. One day, one of them might be doable.

[Galiantus III]

I suspected it might be the case that the CB is too much work, but I don't quite understand what you mean by master accounts, or how that relates, or why. All I'm asking is if we can apply multi checks to another field besides the WA. We've enforced one player / one WA nation just fine; why can't we enforce a one player / one CB nation? And what does accounts have to do with it? (I thought that was a different concept entirely)

BTW, thanks for your thoughts and encouragement.

[Frisbeeteria]

OPSEC prevents me from explaining to you why it would not work. You'll have to take my word on it.

[Galiantus III]

Well I certainly didn't expect that, but fair enough. I'll explore alternatives, then.

[Valentine Z]

I personally am against the idea and suggesting that puppet farming is OP. Don't get me wrong, some people indeed gets too much bank and can ask for any amount that they like.

But to be fair to a moderate user like me, I only have 14 puppets (excluding this main), which might still be a lot for some, but it's unlike anything excessive like 40+ or 80+ puppets that we see for zombie/N-day events, and they are one-time events. Even then, I don't have more than 10.00+ bank at any one time even if I funnel all of my puppet's banks into my main... though this might change soon, who knows. :P

Bottom line is, yeah, there are indeed people with tens or hundreds of puppets and they strike gold every time, BUT this will screw up people who mostly gets Commons or Uncommons, and Epics perhaps once every 8-10 packs, or has only a moderate amount of puppets to farm with.

If you're still adamant on the idea, you can enforce a 10-20 puppets / user rule, though of course, provided that the Admins want to do it.

[Galiantus III]

Edited the OP to include more ideas to combat card farming, relegated the Central Bank idea to a spoiler.

[Strike]

I mean, its all well and good but for me the critical assumption you are making that I'm not sure is true or not is the definition of "Gaining an Advantage"

Are users getting extra cards by using puppets? Yup. Is every user with more than one card-generating puppet doing so with the explicit intention of benefiting a single main nation? No. Are some? Yes. Are some users using puppets to generate small amounts of bank and transferring it to a central location? Yes, are all users with more than one card generating puppet doing this? No.

But for me the critical distinction is that there is no "Winning" which is one of the defining points for me of an advantage. This is a fun side project and people have found different ways to enjoy it. DGES is collecting Ex-Nation cards and Mentally Ill cards. Frisbeeteria is collecting and selling Epic cards. Koem Kalb is collecting Legendary Cards and cards of Real Locations. Other folks are just collecting whatever cards they like, nations they know or of their friends and regionmates. There aren't any winners or losers; just collectors. Yes on a micro level there can be a 'winner' of an auction but you can even debate that if the user paid too much.

I just don't think its as black and white as "Card Farms are bad and no one should be allowed to collect cards on more than one account". I do think card farms are bad, but what I hate most about them is the fact that next time around, 3 out of every 5 cards you pull in your deck are going to be from someones irrelevant farm nation. Thats the problem I want to solve - because thats the only problem here that (will) affect every single user who is playing the trading card game. Everything else will only affect a small amount of users in a small amount of auctions.

I think what you are looking for is a zero-tolerance policy and that is an extreme position to take considering the small percentage of the userbase effected by it. All the proposals you make may take steps at reducing the number of card-farm puppets (there aren't really a lot of them to begin with due to the plethora of changes already made to the card system to make such actions appealing only to a handful of users with presumably a lot of free time; but there is at least enough to be annoying), all these proposals do so at the expense of the game and its community. If you make it so no users can get more than a single card pack every 36 hours, for example, thats fine, but all you are doing is ensuring that the current big players remain the big players forever and there will be no future opportunity for someone to get 'hooked' on the card game themselves - and it will go the way of the nation comparison game. A mini-game feature that still exists but isn't really used because there is no 'drive' behind it - no community.

Now the Seasonal aspect of the car game should give it some staying power as it will get renewed interest each season so at least it has that going for it. But what you are proposing is a drastic re-coding of how the game works and you are asking for it a month after the game was already completely re-written - a process which took 8 months to do in itself. And I think that in order to implement many of the things you are asking for to address the card farming issue would require and equal amount of additional changes/development in order to generate other ways to keep the community aspect prevalent in the game. Thats why I thought perhaps the "Bad Faith" rule was a good place to start since it wouldn't require any coding or development whatsoever and there aren't enough card-farming users for it to grossly overburden GHR (Though it may require the addition of a cards moderator or something).

That said perhaps you could also just go in a completely different direction and make card farming 'acknowledged'.

Whenever you create a new nation there can be a check box where you declare that you are making the nation for the purpose of card farming. By doing this, you are allowed to farm cards with the nation but the nation will not receive its own card when the new season(s) are released and thereby won't affect the entire NS userbase by clogging up their card packs with farm puppetry potentially preventing them from getting a card from a regionmate or other that they might want.

Then the bad faith rule comes into affect if a user is creating nations to farm puppets with undeclared card farms.

I think you would also have to introduce card trading to revive the community aspect of the game depending on which of the above solutions was implemented

[Galiantus III]

Is every user with more than one card-generating puppet doing so with the explicit intention of benefiting a single main nation? No. Are some? Yes. Are some users using puppets to generate small amounts of bank and transferring it to a central location? Yes, are all users with more than one card generating puppet doing this? No.

But most are, and in so doing are gaining an extreme advantage.

This is a fun side project and people have found different ways to enjoy it. [...] There aren't any winners or losers; just collectors. Yes on a micro level there can be a 'winner' of an auction but you can even debate that if the user paid too much.

The fact that some users are obtaining more money than others - specifically, in an unfair way - means that paying "too much" isn't the same kind of hindrance to them that it is to everyone else, and thus the value of cards to casual players will eventually be inflated to the point that they cannot pay for what they want.

I think what you are looking for is a zero-tolerance policy

I think you don't know that I am looking for. Feel free to suggest whatever middle-of-the-road solution you have, so we can debate it.

All the proposals you make may take steps at reducing the number of card-farm puppets [...], all these proposals do so at the expense of the game and its community.

There are only a few of these proposals that could possibly do that. Which ones are you thinking of? And how would they damage the community?

But what you are proposing is a drastic re-coding of how the game works and you are asking for it a month after the game was already completely re-written - a process which took 8 months to do in itself.

That's what I was proposing, then removed, and I don't expect that all my various smaller proposals would be implemented - just a handful. If it does take a while for these changes to actually be implemented, then fine. I respect Admin's time and I am willing to wait and play the card farming game in the meantime.

That said perhaps you could also just go in a completely different direction and make card farming 'acknowledged'.

Whenever you create a new nation there can be a check box where you declare that you are making the nation for the purpose of card farming. By doing this, you are allowed to farm cards with the nation but the nation will not receive its own card when the new season(s) are released and thereby won't affect the entire NS userbase by clogging up their card packs with farm puppetry potentially preventing them from getting a card from a regionmate or other that they might want.

Then the bad faith rule comes into affect if a user is creating nations to farm puppets with undeclared card farms.

Thank you for proposing your own solution, although this does nothing to solve the problem of card farming, so I am against it. Second, it doesn't solve the problem it seeks to solve: most of the puppets you are trying to eliminate from the card lineup are people's raiding or defending puppets having nothing to do with card farming. Third, this is way too much work to give moderators for what it is worth. Most people aren't going to check the box, and if there isn't any system actively trying to fin multis (i.e. something like what I am suggesting) how are they going to find them? Again, moderation has had to do things like this in the past, and it is an unreasonable amount of work for them.

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Basically, if you are going to make assertions about how bad my proposals are, please address specifics and/or make counter-proposals.

[USS Monitor]

At some point, if people are willing to put stupid amounts of time into using puppets to build their deck, they've earned it.

[Zeritae]

Works but I am in the mood to puppet farm so as such, I am against it.

[Hystaria]

At some point, if people are willing to put stupid amounts of time into using puppets to build their deck, they've earned it.

So you are fine with nations making monopoly's in cards pushing away peoples interest in cards in general.
It isn't a ridiculous amount of effort. I have a few puppets and if I use them as farms I would have a direct edge over others.

[Frisbeeteria]

People putting in more effort have always gotten more rewards. Not just here, but everywhere. If you're looking for a perfectly level playing field, you're telling all the people who want to put in more effort that they won't get any benefit from that extra work. I'm absolutely NOT fine with that.

[Hystaria]

People putting in more effort have always gotten more rewards. Not just here, but everywhere. If you're looking for a perfectly level playing field, you're telling all the people who want to put in more effort that they won't get any benefit from that extra work. I'm absolutely NOT fine with that.

There is a difference from paying attention to the random card maker for one nation, from one person having 30 to 40 puppets and spamming through the quick cards.

[Galiantus III]

People putting in more effort have always gotten more rewards. Not just here, but everywhere. If you're looking for a perfectly level playing field, you're telling all the people who want to put in more effort that they won't get any benefit from that extra work. I'm absolutely NOT fine with that.

Oh I absolutely agree - a level playing field isn't necessarily desirable. The kind of effort I would like to see making a difference is the kind involving bid sniping, market manipulation, and other things; not constantly pushing buttons. To use WA politics as an analogy, it is better to have people writing proposals and negotiating on behalf of their region than amassing armies of puppets as a means of crushing opposition.

Edit: If we can get to a point where having 5-10 puppets is viable, but more than that has significantly diminishing returns, I wouldn't mind. I just don't like the current situation where one person can have 100+ puppets and spend hours and hours generating cards and bank for themselves. Part of the appeal of NS is the fact that you don't absolutely have to spend hours on end every day just to remain competitive, and I feel that ethos should be upheld in the card game.

[Altmoras]

This new system doesn't reduce the effectiveness of puppets much at all, it just makes it a tech war where people with issue answering scripts have a clear advantage.

[Nouveau Yathrib]

I'll openly admit to doing this with my puppets; it's pretty obvious if you look at who my 3 main accounts get gifted cards from. That being said, I'm not nearly invested enough in this game to try to get as many copies of ____ card as possible, or even to get _____ number of rare/valuable cards. I also don't have that many puppets I'm actively answering issues on- at most it's like 10.

The main reason I funnel cards from my Ideocube puppets (i.e. puppets that exist solely for the sake of being in the most extreme WA government categories) is because I don't care to keep the cards I get from answering issues on those puppets under their ownership.

[Galiantus III]

This new system doesn't reduce the effectiveness of puppets much at all, it just makes it a tech war where people with issue answering scripts have a clear advantage.

Per Admin, it is illegal to use scripts for issue answering in that way, and issue answering through the API doesn't generate cards.