Removing the necessity for Card Farms

[Luna Amore]

Not serious suggestion: Have card packs generated by solving captchas.

Only if it's those CAPTCHAS where you rotate small animals.

[Fauzjhia]

at this point we are just going to in round

you guys want to see the card farming puppets die.. DOWN with your cards puppets was the main point of Codger's solution and its the main argumentation here.

Like I argued before. the current rules exist to limit the production of cards, I know they are not working well. but its a lot better then having nothing to rule the production of card like you guys seem to want, because you believe easing the rule with address the card farms. But it won't it will just bring us more cards creating, without having more buyers. so cards will have problem maintaining their MV.

unlimited game farming is not good. and should not be encouraged in anyway.

and I highly doubt a faster pack generation will bring the end of puppets. it could just bring MORE farming.

[Play-Doh]

Not serious suggestion: Have card packs generated by solving captchas.

Other non serious suggestions:

1. give every player one copy of every card except their own
2. install one card moderator at auction 24/7/365
3. see what develops

[Galiantus III]

Maintaining issues as a primary way to get cards, with other methods available, seems quite dangerous. Someone with the right tools can fly through issues extremely quickly. Since the apparent intent is farmers would use a different method, and casual players answer issues, this implies the other method would have to be decidedly quicker than issue answering. This means the rate of new cards would have to be increased beyond what issues are capable of; and that presents other problems.

If we want to maintain the same card creation rate for card farmers, the rate allowed with issues would need to be throttled somewhat. But if we simply decrease the drop rate of issues, this harms casual players, and decreases the chances of new players finding the card game.

What if there was a short timer associated with issues answering, that could regulate the speed of card generation? Basically, if an issue is answered within 5 seconds of logging in, or of answering another issue, it would not generate a card pack. This is long enough to be extremely detrimental to card farmers, but short enough there are very few cases where this would hurt casual players. Importantly, this means whatever new method of card generation is introduced, it can have the same top speed as issue answering now, and be the preferred method for card farmers.

[Riemstagrad]

What if there was a short timer associated with issues answering, that could regulate the speed of card generation? Basically, if an issue is answered within 5 seconds of logging in, or of answering another issue, it would not generate a card pack. This is long enough to be extremely detrimental to card farmers, but short enough there are very few cases where this would hurt casual players. Importantly, this means whatever new method of card generation is introduced, it can have the same top speed as issue answering now, and be the preferred method for card farmers.

scripts and containers can easily circumvent this. And if you will lower the rate at wich issues generate packs, players will just create more puppets to generate the same amount of packs as before.

The way the big farmers farm at this point gives near endless pack generation, despite the site limits give even less then a pack per nation every day. Higher pack rate reduces the need for more puppets (and gives casual players more cards too...). One pack per issue seems reasonable.

[Flanderlion]

What if there was a short timer associated with issues answering, that could regulate the speed of card generation? Basically, if an issue is answered within 5 seconds of logging in, or of answering another issue, it would not generate a card pack. This is long enough to be extremely detrimental to card farmers, but short enough there are very few cases where this would hurt casual players. Importantly, this means whatever new method of card generation is introduced, it can have the same top speed as issue answering now, and be the preferred method for card farmers.

scripts and containers can easily circumvent this. And if you will lower the rate at wich issues generate packs, players will just create more puppets to generate the same amount of packs as before.

The way the big farmers farm at this point gives near endless pack generation, despite the site limits give even less then a pack per nation every day. Higher pack rate reduces the need for more puppets (and gives casual players more cards too...). One pack per issue seems reasonable.

I think that would change literally nothing. Farmers don't stop for a certain number of packs farmed, they stop when they get distracted/bored. So if they spend an hour, they could be paid 100 packs, 200 or 600, it wouldn't make a difference.

[Benevolent 1]

scripts and containers can easily circumvent this. And if you will lower the rate at wich issues generate packs, players will just create more puppets to generate the same amount of packs as before.

The way the big farmers farm at this point gives near endless pack generation, despite the site limits give even less then a pack per nation every day. Higher pack rate reduces the need for more puppets (and gives casual players more cards too...). One pack per issue seems reasonable.

I think that would change literally nothing. Farmers don't stop for a certain number of packs farmed, they stop when they get distracted/bored. So if they spend an hour, they could be paid 100 packs, 200 or 600, it wouldn't make a difference.

Technical really really needs to develop a method of linking the puppets to their puppet masters. It's the key to solving the problem.

Without that, maybe the only way is to have S3 more like the initial phase of S1. No auction.

Minus the auction, farmers have to gift over their cards. That would be extremely telling and time consuming. Many casual players avoid the auction anyway, but card farmers use it constantly for laundering cards and bank. Perhaps discontinue the auction in the initial phase of Season 3, lower the gifting costs, gather data linking puppet masters to their puppets. Heck, it might save the game by bringing back S1 players.

[Fauzjhia]

Technical really really needs to develop a method of linking the puppets to their puppet masters. It's the key to solving the problem.

Really ? you know there is a SCRIPT for that. and everyone I know of, has been reporting their most recent puppets.
in fact. you are one of the player who did not report his puppets. so why you don't follow my example and report all your puppets.

Without that, maybe the only way is to have S3 more like the initial phase of S1. No auction.

That's the April fool phase, and you have no idea how easy that phase was on big farmer, fact. you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Big farmer will be able to pass cards from their puppet to their main at only 0.01 bank. they were doing it back then and they will do it again.

[Benevolent 1]

Technical really really needs to develop a method of linking the puppets to their puppet masters. It's the key to solving the problem.

Really ? you know there is a SCRIPT for that. and everyone I know of, has been reporting their most recent puppets.
in fact. you are one of the player who did not report his puppets. so why you don't follow my example and report all your puppets.

Without that, maybe the only way is to have S3 more like the initial phase of S1. No auction.

That's the April fool phase, and you have no idea how easy that phase was on big farmer, fact. you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Big farmer will be able to pass cards from their puppet to their main at only 0.01 bank. they were doing it back then and they will do it again.

It's just too easy to yank your chain.

[Frisbeeteria]

3. Card farms are reduced in size and also in number - this for site stability and control of excessive card productions. TCALS is completely disabled, abolished. The practice of inflating cards is discouraged by a fee system at auction or some other system of discouragement. The above deck capacity conundrum is addressed. New bugs and flaws are dealt with better, in real time. To put it all into a super simple slogan - make the game fun again.

You also stated "S3 in particular already has great expectations and will needs to live up to them." All of these are reasonable things to desire, and should each have a topic devoted to them and linked in the Trading Card Development topic. None of them is tied in any specific manner to the release for Season 3.

The one S3-specific request I recall seeing was the ability to change your associated region, which is not unreasonable and will almost certainly be included. If you have other S3-specific concerns, you need to make that clearer.

[SherpDaWerp]

unlimited game farming is not good. and should not be encouraged in anyway.

and I highly doubt a faster pack generation will bring the end of puppets. it could just bring MORE farming.

The point here isn't to increase pack generation without reason, it's to increase pack generation, but for people who don't use puppets. Sure, it might bring more farming and more cards, at which point the drop rates can be tweaked. But the core of this change is to allow farmers to focus their farming in a way that isn't as harmful to the site as large-scale issue answering.

[Fauzjhia]

unlimited game farming is not good. and should not be encouraged in anyway.

and I highly doubt a faster pack generation will bring the end of puppets. it could just bring MORE farming.

The point here isn't to increase pack generation without reason, it's to increase pack generation, but for people who don't use puppets. Sure, it might bring more farming and more cards, at which point the drop rates can be tweaked. But the core of this change is to allow farmers to focus their farming in a way that isn't as harmful to the site as large-scale issue answering.

I doubt this is even possible.

so. you want single nations owner to be able to play by different rules then multi-nations. you know that could be abused...

[United Calanworie]

I know I might be entirely off the mark here, but… what about just putting a captcha on the issue answer page if (x) requests come from that IP address in (y) time?

X could be five, so that anyone logging into their main and answering the maximum number of issues possible wouldn’t get hit with a captcha, but then progressively ramp up the number of captchas displayed at say, x*2, where you’ll start getting 1 captcha every three or so issues, and bring that captcha frequency up until say, x*4, where you’re getting one on every issue answer. It doesn’t hurt small-time farmers, and it simply makes the process irritating for large scale farmers to maintain hundreds of puppets, as they’ll start getting captchas every issue once they get through 15-20 of their puppets.

Thoughts?

[Farnhamia]

Really ? you know there is a SCRIPT for that. and everyone I know of, has been reporting their most recent puppets.
in fact. you are one of the player who did not report his puppets. so why you don't follow my example and report all your puppets.




That's the April fool phase, and you have no idea how easy that phase was on big farmer, fact. you really have no idea what the hell you are talking about. Big farmer will be able to pass cards from their puppet to their main at only 0.01 bank. they were doing it back then and they will do it again.

It's just too easy to yank your chain.

Your glee just earned you an *Unofficial Warning* for flamebaiting. Only your hitherto unblemished record kept it from being an official warning.

Farnhamia, NationStates Game Moderator

[Benevolent 1]

I know I might be entirely off the mark here, but… what about just putting a captcha on the issue answer page if (x) requests come from that IP address in (y) time?

X could be five, so that anyone logging into their main and answering the maximum number of issues possible wouldn’t get hit with a captcha, but then progressively ramp up the number of captchas displayed at say, x*2, where you’ll start getting 1 captcha every three or so issues, and bring that captcha frequency up until say, x*4, where you’re getting one on every issue answer. It doesn’t hurt small-time farmers, and it simply makes the process irritating for large scale farmers to maintain hundreds of puppets, as they’ll start getting captchas every issue once they get through 15-20 of their puppets.

Thoughts?

Sounds relatively possible. Why not?

[Praeceps]

I'd be curious as to what the admins/mods see as the outstanding discussion points preventing this idea from being moved forward?

What discussion points?

• Reducing card farms? We're for it.
• Tying it to one or more of the mini-games? I'm not seeing anything resembling a consensus, or really a strong argument either way
• Something else? Be specific.

The main thing preventing us from going forward is that we don't have any great ideas either. Come up with a great idea, and we won't "prevent it from going forward".

Sorry, I'm not quite sure I understand. I was curious as to a status update like the one you provided earlier on what you thought of the idea. I think the OP sets out pretty convincingly on how card farms are going to be drastically reduced should this proposal be implemented. Is Flanderlion's OP still insufficient, and if so, how?

I think this is a pretty great idea and should be implemented; I was wondering what concerns you had about it being implemented.

[Galiantus III]

What if there was a short timer associated with issues answering, that could regulate the speed of card generation? Basically, if an issue is answered within 5 seconds of logging in, or of answering another issue, it would not generate a card pack. This is long enough to be extremely detrimental to card farmers, but short enough there are very few cases where this would hurt casual players. Importantly, this means whatever new method of card generation is introduced, it can have the same top speed as issue answering now, and be the preferred method for card farmers.

scripts and containers can easily circumvent this.

True, but I don't that will matter. If the available options are:

1. Get the current rate of cards by doing [insert activity other than issues here] with one nation
2. Get the current rate of cards by creating hundreds of puppets and using a script

I think the vast majority of card farmers will just go with option A.

[Fauzjhia]

scripts and containers can easily circumvent this.

True, but I don't that will matter. If the available options are:

1. Get the current rate of cards by doing [insert activity other than issues here] with one nation
2. Get the current rate of cards by creating hundreds of puppets and using a script

I think the vast majority of card farmers will just go with option A.

people are not limited to those style of play. not everyone puppets are (main) 1 then (main) 2 like gio 3, gio 4, gio 5.
you can farm multiple without using an (automatic script) like gotissues. although it will be slower. I can count. at night, I pass through 135 puppets in 1 hours. round, on the morning, same time, 331 puppets (with got issues)

[Frisbeeteria]

Is Flanderlion's OP still insufficient, and if so, how? I think this is a pretty great idea and should be implemented.

It's all over the place. It's not one proposal, it's half a dozen or more. Which one or ones are the "pretty great idea"?

I think the OP sets out pretty convincingly on how card farms are going to be drastically reduced should this proposal be implemented.

I remain unconvinced. Are we dumping issues and going to mini-games, or the WA, or something else? I'm not seeing a consensus here. Also, the timing is bad. Season 3 is going to come out before this idea firms up enough to consider implementation. It's just a bunch of scattershot ideas - none of them will work in isolation, and any of them will piss off multiple players. Will it balance better for the other players, the ones who haven't had their 3 years of card collecting effectively ended?? I remain unconvinced.

I know I might be entirely off the mark here, but… what about just putting a captcha on the issue answer page if (x) requests come from that IP address in (y) time?

We need to get away from this idea that IP addresses are one to a customer. We have a ton of student nations who all post from the same IP. One school uses us in about 20-30 different classrooms. We'd be penalizing all but the first player. Also consider that VPN players can easily switch IPs; and mobile players often share aggregator IPs even when posting from different cities or regions.

Sorry, you're correct that you're entirely off the mark here.

[Flanderlion]

Is Flanderlion's OP still insufficient, and if so, how? I think this is a pretty great idea and should be implemented.

It's all over the place. It's not one proposal, it's half a dozen or more. Which one or ones are the "pretty great idea"?

The OP is one proposal. Changing from one way of generating cards packs to three ways, and removing the 10 pack maximum cap.

The three ways are issues like current - just a lower rate, BN game (chance per comparison, meant to be far faster than farming by switching nations and doing issues), and at the end of each WA resolution, every valid vote receives a pack. The WA bit was A) to increase discoverability of the game, and B) to ensure the average nation isn't disadvantaged by the change.

The idea evolved from just Best Nation game only in response to valid concerns that having the BN game as the exclusive way to generate packs might reduce the number of new players finding and participating in the game.

[Fauzjhia]

It's all over the place. It's not one proposal, it's half a dozen or more. Which one or ones are the "pretty great idea"?

The OP is one proposal. Changing from one way of generating cards packs to three ways, and removing the 10 pack maximum cap.

The three ways are issues like current - just a lower rate, BN game (chance per comparison, meant to be far faster than farming by switching nations and doing issues), and at the end of each WA resolution, every valid vote receives a pack. The WA bit was A) to increase discoverability of the game, and B) to ensure the average nation isn't disadvantaged by the change.

The idea evolved from just Best Nation game only in response to valid concerns that having the BN game as the exclusive way to generate packs might reduce the number of new players finding and participating in the game.

1 the pack limit is 9 not 10

2 I disagree about the best nation, and don't see why but should be even easier to farm cards, then it currently. if anything we NEED to restrict. the Card players must find a way to restrict themselves on many puppets they have. Also, I hate this game and do not want to see it back.

3 we already talked about its not a good idea to force players to join the WA to gain something that has nothing to do with the WA.

4 We should not make it even easier to farm cards. it should be harder. if anything, the solution is probably limiting the speed at which people answer issues, or preventing someone from opening a pack directly after answering an issues, (you might think its not much, but cards will have to work for the same gains as before.

5 we should not totally eliminate card farmers, just try prevent those nations from having a cards, which is why I favor a limited break. (28 days maybe)

And We already talked about theses points more then enough. for me, the CONS are way too big.

[Flanderlion]

The OP is one proposal. Changing from one way of generating cards packs to three ways, and removing the 10 pack maximum cap.

The three ways are issues like current - just a lower rate, BN game (chance per comparison, meant to be far faster than farming by switching nations and doing issues), and at the end of each WA resolution, every valid vote receives a pack. The WA bit was A) to increase discoverability of the game, and B) to ensure the average nation isn't disadvantaged by the change.

The idea evolved from just Best Nation game only in response to valid concerns that having the BN game as the exclusive way to generate packs might reduce the number of new players finding and participating in the game.

1 the pack limit is 9 not 10

2 I disagree about the best nation, and don't see why but should be even easier to farm cards, then it currently. if anything we NEED to restrict. the Card players must find a way to restrict themselves on many puppets they have. Also, I hate this game and do not want to see it back.

3 we already talked about its not a good idea to force players to join the WA to gain something that has nothing to do with the WA.

4 We should not make it even easier to farm cards. it should be harder. if anything, the solution is probably limiting the speed at which people answer issues, or preventing someone from opening a pack directly after answering an issues, (you might think its not much, but cards will have to work for the same gains as before.

5 we should not totally eliminate card farmers, just try prevent those nations from having a cards, which is why I favor a limited break. (28 days maybe)

And We already talked about theses points more then enough. for me, the CONS are way too big.

Agreed, you have restated the same points over and over again. They're still as invalid as we first replied to them.

2. Cool that you disagree. How would you restrict? There hasn't really been a feasible (I don't think IP bans or stopping cards during certain times is feasible). This is a solution from card players trying to restrict themselves on how many puppets they have - so surely you should be for. This wasn't my idea, I'm just reposting it. Most - not all, would prefer to not need to have to maintain so many puppets to remain competitive, hence why making cards competitive without requiring puppets is the point of this change.

3. The WA part is immaterial. It is 2 packs every 4 days best case scenario. You would generate that in a heartbeat with the BN game. The point of it was for normal non farmers to not be disadvantaged by the change, and providing a new way for new players to find the game.

4. How do you limit the speed in how people answer issues without hurting the majority of players in NS, who don't care about anything more than issues? Preventing someone from opening a pack directly after answering an issue wouldn't mean anything either, because they farm the packs, then open the packs at a separate time during a pull event to increase their chances of getting good cards. So how would 'having to wait between answering an issue and opening a pack' hurt farmers, it would only hurt normal players. This change is not to change cards, it's to leave cards materially the same while removing the negative aspects that hurt the rest of the game.

5. This suggestion is not about stopping card farmers. It is purely about changing the most optimum way to farm, so that the rest of NS doesn't suffer like present. A limited break sounds terrible - it's just arbitrarily stopping players from playing cards, but I don't actually see how it'd help anything.

--

Yeah, we have talked about these points more than enough, and a large number of other points that range from related to not at all that should have been split out by mods long ago from the several threads (and offsite). I at least (not sure about others) will keep trying, but I am aware that there are some people that no matter what you say, there is no convincing.

[The Blazeland Administration]

Cooldown on an issue? no thanks. This will affect non-card farmers more

[Fauzjhia]

ho. so you just declare my points as invalid and directly ignore me. But be simple. your idea to reviving a boring to make cards farming is just wrong.

1 your argumentation is morally wrong, let me give you an image. There are candies on the table, and a barrier. but sadly. the barrier we put place does not prevent the kids to take as many candies as they want, because the kids do not stay on their chair, they switch chair, to be able to take as many candies as they want, and your solution is to this problem would be to remove the barrier. Will you really solve the problem, NO. That's same kind of solution you are proposing. The barrier do not stop big farmer, REMOVE it. Let us farm as MANY cards as we want. that was the April fool event, and its in the past.
can't stress enough about how wrong this kind of idea is.

You don't think about the effect, such a change will have to game. This would change everything about the game. Possible creation of card storage nations and card farms, both kind of nation that do not answer issues, so these are in contradiction with NS itself.

Why you need to be Competitive, this is not a competition you will win anything from, why are you worried about being competitive, at all ?
and if that suggestion does not change the balance between farmers and casual players, why even make it ?

because they farm the packs, then open the packs at a separate time during a pull event to increase their chances of getting good cards

you are uninformed here, TACLS changes make it that you cannot store packs to trigger it. only packs which are opened in 2 minutes after being generated can trigger cards. those who stores packs like me, do NOT trigger tacls.

Cooldown on an issue? no thanks. This will affect non-card farmers more

on opening packs, not issues
another idea would be to partial separation

I understand perfectly where Fris is coming from, and I also remain unconvinced. I may not have 10000 puppets but I am among the top 50 and have a large number of puppets which I would retain should this pass, cuz I realize I enjoy creating thematic puppet sets.

I understand this, because I have multiple set of thematic puppets, which I believe I would try to retain too. I would have no problem with the idea to remplace my farm with a single or two nations, but these thematic puppets, to be more precise, nations in Jeinnhezslhaunia, Lunaria, Green Hill and World of Beetles, I have no desire to let them go.

[Elegarth]

Preventing someone from opening a pack directly after answering an issue wouldn't mean anything either, because they farm the packs, then open the packs at a separate time during a pull event to increase their chances of getting good cards.

Pull events only work with fresh packages now... No?

I understand perfectly where Fris is coming from, and I also remain unconvinced. I may not have 10000 puppets but I am among the top 50 and have a large number of puppets which I would retain should this pass, cuz I realize I enjoy creating thematic puppet sets.

Regarding your actual proposal, you are basically actually trying to force cards into one of the less interesting, less appealing mini games in the history of NS. And no, it wasn't uninteresting because of the puppets, at least to me. It was uninteresting cuz voting between two nations based on what comparison? Why? What for? (Mods and Admins: I'm not trying to be harsh here, this is my PERSONAL opinion of that mini game, which I mostly reserved to myself up until now, I understand and appreciate your work, and I also accept that not all your ideas and mini games are tailored to please everyone).

Forcing this mini game into relevance just for it to become also pointless solves nothing, really, just moves it somewhere else, I guess. I am all for something that fixes some of the issues with the cards. What your proposal doesn't do, and I am thinking this is part of Fris hesitance, is to provide a convincing place to move package generation to. The comparison game... is not convincing at all.

Sadly, I don't have a solution. Not to it all. Perhaps if we could flag puppets as card farms and then remove them from consideration for certain things? I dunno. I don't have a solution, I said. I just don't like this one thoroughly either.

And don't get me wrong, I hate farming... Is too much work for me and I barely can dedicate about 30min to it per day... So anyway

*shrug*