Here are a few ideas on how a "Permanent" NS Card game might benefit being different from a week long mini game:
Card Rarity/Levels Updating over Time
Depending on the formula used to generate cards, a nations input and level would theoretically change over time - particularly over the course of years. There are many ways to handle this with varying levels of re-coding. Here are a few
- 1) When you buy a nations card, you buy its card. If a "Common" card nation meets the criteria to become "Uncommon" in the future at some defined point it simply updates the card to the benefit of the owner, and the update in its status is noted permanently with a date of 'upgrade' on the card page. Any sold/found history would also clearly mark the time which the value of the card changed. You can see this making Uncommon's more 'in demand' as folks might be investing that a cheap card becomes a high value one in the future
- 2) When a nation reaches the next tier, a new card is added to the deck that represents their new level. At this point, a nation would have multiple cards in the deck which would break the coding of the way the game currently works
- 3) A nation's level is locked and is only re-considered once a year (January 1). On Jan 1 2018 any nations that achieve (or demote) a level get a new card. Their old card gets "2018" printed in the corner of it and the new one gets "2019" printed on it. For nations created after April 1 that don't have a card, they would be generated as an uncommon card in the game only once they reach a certain level of population (Getting an in-game trading card would be an achievable in game milestone like unlocking the ability to change a nations pretitle)
- 4) Remove card 'rarity' altogether and let the market set the going rate for a card and re-color it based on the market (this would be most open to abuse) / modify the formula to include additional factors such as market when setting a card "level" (opposed to its rarity - unless these cards are actually more rare)
- 5) Keep rarity as a card feature but don't lock a single rarity to a card. No (few) cards would have a base rarity of legendary/top level but you could combine (2 epic testnation) cards to create (1 legendary testnation) card. Certain nations would still have a higher base level than others based on the formulas but rarity would not be locked to a card type which would require a new subset on each card - one for each rarity level possible
- "Common" Level cards actually the most rare mathematically in many cases due to the higher number of common cards in existence and the propensity to pull non-common cards from active founded regions. Could be addressed in part if nations <150 million do not get cards in game. Or, newer nations <X population <150 million could get a sub-common classification that is actually a higher mathematical rarity but perceived ICly as "Lower Quality" despite it being harder to acquire and as such has a lower junk value (0.00)
What type of cards exist in game? (Exclusive of rarity levels addressed above)
- Every nation with population level X or higher (IE: >100 Million) gets a card
- Newly created nations have a card generated for circulation either automatically after they reach population level X, or, at the next card deck update interval when they are skimmed and found to have population meeting the set criteria
- Ex-nation cards should not be able to be drawn new in decks but should continue to exist as ex-nations in the collections of players who pulled them while they were still active
- Future expandability: Non-Tradable Cards could be used like badges to commemorate events or accomplishments.
- Regions themselves can have cards which may or may not be pullable. A nation receives a (non-tradable?) card of their current region for free after achieving residency >X days
- Someone who participated in the 2018 April Fools Day event could be awarded an "NS: The Gathering Participant" Card
Destructive Government Economic System wrote:It was amazing but yet many players' deck values were inflated through puppets and the game overall was just a bit too addicting for me.Anexora wrote:•The event quickly stagnated due to how fast the card drops and trades were unlimited.
Future Suggestions:
•Limit possible future trade offers and drop times severely to encourage planned trade instead of quickly executed junk-or-sell strategies. - Regions themselves can have cards which may or may not be pullable. A nation receives a (non-tradable?) card of their current region for free after achieving residency >X days
Timing between Loot Crates / Who is eligible for a new Pack
- Timing between new decks should be considerably longer (As high as just one free pack per week) to permit the card system to retain any long term relevance as well as, more importantly, to maintain a more 'level playing field'. Keeping the deck drop rates the same as they currently are will quickly make the card trading game ignored by all but a handful of hyper-active puppet masters particularly as it will no longer be associated with a defined-ending point April Fools mini event.
- Two ways to earn/redeem loot boxes - 1) Timer based click and reset (current system, encourages puppeteering); 2) Achievement/Event based Redemption (Store up to X Redeemable packs and redeem at later date)
- If the default timing between free packs is one week, then there should be additional (but limited) ways to earn free packs through answering a certain number of issues during the week or achieving other milestones.
Examples:- Answering any issue during a Sun-Sat week earns you 1 additional free pack.
- Answering >5 issues during a single week earns you a second free pack.
- Casting a Vote on a WA Proposal also earns a free pack up to once per week enabling a bonus for WA members per the more extreme "WA Only" loot boxes solution
- Your nations creation date / birthdate
- A one-time reward for joining the WA
- Accomplishing a specific card-system related milestone (IE: Opened 100 packs, collected 10 of a single card, upgraded a card if that feature comes into play in the future, etc)
- You can earn pack credits which you can redeem for packs, opposed to simply making it time based
- Only WA members can receive FREE time-based loot boxes; non-WA members would have to purchase packs or earn them through achievements (likely controversial but there has to be some way to prevent some of the puppet armies)
- It's good to have the market be free but there could also be an argument against dumping or loading onto a card with low or grossly high sales. You could set a sale price floor of 50% of the 'junk' value or even the junk value itself.
- Give a user a pop-up warning when selling a card for less than junk value "You are about to sell a card for less than its junk value, are you sure you want to do this?"
- Restrict the number of transactions a nation can make in the same week. Say, a nation can buy up to 10 cards per week for free, and then they can buy additional cards at cost - either a fixed cost (ie: 1 bank for 10 more transactions) or a percentage (ie10%) of the sale prices. Or contrarily you could limit the number of transactions between same nations in a given period.
- Limit the number of 'buy offers' a nation has outstanding. Currently a nation can put unlimited buy offers so in theory, as long as you have 0.01 coin in the bank you can put a bid of 0.01 on every card in the game. Limiting buy offers to being able to only have the sum of outstanding buy offers equal to the total amount of bank you have, or, to a fixed number (20 outstanding offers) could help folks only put in offers for cards they are trying to buy, opposed to cards they are hoping someone misclicks and sells them cheap
- Permit Card Trading / Gifting between users to prevent the need to conduct 0.01 or 1427.xx transactions on the market
Probability of pulling region cards / 4th Card percentages
- While it is good that you have a chance of getting cards from your region, perhaps the percentage chance that you get a card from your region in the deck is proportional to the time you have spent in the region. IE: Spending 180 days in a region with >100 nations equates to a 99% chance of drawing a nation from that region in your deck. Spending 0 days in that region equates to a 1% chance of getting a card from that region. This will prevent many of the traveling puppet army effects seen during the mini game
- Its evident that there is a fairly high percentage chance that the 4th card will be from your current region, and the rest will be fairly random. Perhaps regions which your region has an embassy with would factor into this equation as well.
Usability
- being able to control your cards from the more streamlined 'value deck' page
- being able to 'gift' cards to other users - with limits/restrictions/some form of control
- being able to 'trade' cards - instead of a sale, a straight up swap. I have 2 Reploid and you have 2 NewTexas. We trade, now we have one of each. This avoids the need to artificially determine a price to trade cards - be it 0.01 or 1000 - thereby skewing the true market value of the cards. Further to this:
- Be able to use check boxes to junk multiple cards with one click. Be able to "Select all" in a category - such as all "Uncommon" cards then deselect a handful of check boxes and then junk all with confirmation (Are you sure you want to junk 37 uncommon cards? Y/N)
- being able to 'gift' cards to other users - with limits/restrictions/some form of control
- being able to 'trade' cards - instead of a sale, a straight up swap. I have 2 Reploid and you have 2 NewTexas. We trade, now we have one of each. This avoids the need to artificially determine a price to trade cards - be it 0.01 or 1000 - thereby skewing the true market value of the cards. Further to this:
Drawkland wrote:If there was a direct trade/gift/swap system, it would also be nice to have a bank swap option too.
Example: "You have a legendary I want, I have an epic you want. We can trade these cards and I'll throw in 1.00 bank so that it's more of a 'fair' trade."
Also for puppet bank consolidation purposes
- Be able to use check boxes to junk multiple cards with one click. Be able to "Select all" in a category - such as all "Uncommon" cards then deselect a handful of check boxes and then junk all with confirmation (Are you sure you want to junk 37 uncommon cards? Y/N)
His Excellence wrote:
It would also be nice to consolidate store functions to avoid loading so many webpages. To list cards for sale, I'll open each one's sell page in another tab, and if someone already has it listed for sale, I open the buy page to check what it's being offered for, then come back to finish listing my own sale.
For convenience sake, it'd be nice if the the sell page listed other current sale offers, to give a reference frame for more intuitive price deciding.
The options you get from clicking a card including a space to input a sale price (in addition to the sell page link), so you can make offers straight from the loot box or deck page, would also be great.
Maybe a badge on your card if you have it listed for sale? So you don't have to check the sell page if not sure whether or not you listed it, and so potential buyers browsing your collection can tell from a glance what you're trying to sell.
Junking, Inflation, and an Auction House
With junking, we currently have a very fast track for cash to enter the economy here, but no easy way for that money to leave. We currently have a very nice system for cards to enter and leave the market, but there are no major exit points for bank. This suggests that in the long run, inflation WILL be a problem. But at the same time, the more inflation there is, the less benefit is derived from junking cards, so the inflation can only go so far.
The auction house would serve two functions. First, players could put their cards up for auction in similar fashion to ebay, where they could set the length of the auction and the starting price.
The second, perhaps more vital function, is that the game would periodically reintroduce previously junked cards for auction. The key here is that the auction house would only sell these cards back into circulation after the card has sat in the junk heap for a few weeks, and the auction house would burn unsold cards for good. Bank spent on auctions of junked cards would essentially disappear from the economy. This would combat inflation by providing an outlet for cash to be changed into cards, as opposed to the current system where there is a one-way road from cards to cash. This would also ensure that the only way for a card to truly leave the system is if no one actually wants it.
No Worries wrote:2. Auctions: once a week or so, there could be public bidding for cards that haven't appeared yet or are rare in numbers; players could also add their own cards to the bidding system. Highest price wins.
The auction house would serve two functions. First, players could put their cards up for auction in similar fashion to ebay, where they could set the length of the auction and the starting price.
The second, perhaps more vital function, is that the game would periodically reintroduce previously junked cards for auction. The key here is that the auction house would only sell these cards back into circulation after the card has sat in the junk heap for a few weeks, and the auction house would burn unsold cards for good. Bank spent on auctions of junked cards would essentially disappear from the economy. This would combat inflation by providing an outlet for cash to be changed into cards, as opposed to the current system where there is a one-way road from cards to cash. This would also ensure that the only way for a card to truly leave the system is if no one actually wants it.
Global Marketplace
Basra wrote:Personally, I think that we need to have an auction house to facilitate buying and selling. Right now you need to look for a specific card, but if we can browse all cards for sale then it would really help increase sales and level prices.
Die Erworbenen Namen wrote:The second would be a global marketplace, with selective organization (alphabetical, price, rarity, etc) so you can see what the recent trades are, and get a good idea of what cards are popular.
Anexora wrote:•The NSTG forum was quick to overshadow all others due to advertising for card sales.
Future Suggestions:
•Change the NSTG forum to follow the same concept as Dimension : Forum posts do not count towards post total.
Deck Organization
Die Erworbenen Namen wrote: It would be a lot easier to see which cards you have of that region if there was a sub deck in your own deck labeled as the region its in, showing you x (amount of cards you have) out of y(cards in the region).
Memyselfani wrote:Better trading and information mechanics, the ability to sort my cards into subdecks (keep vs sell, for instance), the ability to sort my wanted/for sale offers and modify them from one page.
Bela1975 wrote:My two cents:
I was trying to get as many Pacific cards I could. There's +8.000 states in that region. I would like to have a place where I could filter the ones I own, the ones I made offers on and the ones that I still need to buy/make offers on.
Also I would enjoy some kind of way to enlist all cards for a region ordered by rarity. Let's say I'm only trying to buy all commons from a determinated region. Getting a list with the name and value asked for (by those whiling to sell them) would make my life so much easier.
Aeiouia wrote: some kind of "Folder" system for cards. Someone might want to collect different "Decks" or more accurately "Categories", and also probably do not want to accidentally scrap anything in them. So, some kind of system where you could arrange your cards via a drop down menu or something would be great. So, someone could have a specific deck of their forum friends, a region, some kind of odd set of cards like the "School Class" or "Ex-Nation" (If the latter remain in circulation) types, and so on.
•Set up a nation profile visible to others which will hold key information in an easily accessible forms and stats.
Incorporate the Card Mini-Game into other Mini-Games (IE: Nation Challenge)
Reserka wrote:I would like to see something along the lines of a minigame that could be played. Like not on the lines of Magic: The Gathering, but like some sort of iteration of the nation face off thing that we have already.
To build on this, you could have a version of the nation challenge game where instead of pulling stats from your own nation exclusively, you could pull them from a nation you have a card of instead. Perhaps you randomly get a hand of 5 nations from your card deck and those, plus yourself, are the nations you can use in your faceoff. When you use a card (nation) you then get one drawn to replace it.
Other
The Great Lord Fail wrote:I give it an 8. It was really good but could have been better. That every pack of 5 was guaranteed at least one non-common made rares common and commons rare. Also it was never specified how many (in total number or percentage of total cards) were of each category (legendary, epic, etc). Having numbers like that would have maybe put more perspective on what was going on.
What other things can you think of?