NS Cards: Permanent Feature Update

[Malestedo]

We should be able to use 'money' from the cards to buy issues.

[Improving Wordiness]

I really wanted to use my card as a flag on this nation.....I know it is not relevant to the NS Cards feature you are working on but I thought I would mention it. Would be nice if it was a simple option when setting up nation flag.

[Glacikaldr]

I'm not sure if someone has brought this up already - and I'll probably never come anywhere near this evil part of the forum again (eh, that's just hyperbole on my part) - but my issue is in regards to puppet farming. The latest news update (19/04/18 - dd/mm/yy) discussed protections against puppet farming such as greater 'snipability', however my concern is that these proposed safeguards to the 'sell' mechanic can be mitigated through the 'buy' mechanic. How will 'buy' be altered? Will it be removed entirely? For example, what about a system where you opt into wanting to buy a card (with a price range or something), rather than stating a price upfront that someone can sell to like in the initial release?

[Avalon]

I've got an idea to stamp out puppet farming. It might be silly or difficult to implement/enforce, but here it goes anyway:

I call it the "Deck Master Status"

Basically, I would create a new status for Nations, with a new badge, just like "WA member" status, and it would be a second multi-account check that doesn't involve any politics or possibly any use other than this mini game, but we would need to sign up just like we do to join the WA.

Only "Deck Masters" could get loot boxes, Nations that aren't DMs can only get cards by trading and/or they'd need to pay extra fees.

We should be able to switch DM status as we do with WA member status, but it might not be as quick as switching your WA.

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Also a big thank you to everyone working on this.

[Lastinburg]

I really excited for the next card updates, have to admit I did actually get addicted to that, and I did try very hard to get a legendary card, but people just put ridiculous prices on them.

I did also think some cards deserved to be a higher title for example Gynostan is an Epic but is 1st in the world for most
eco-friendly government and Foreign aid spending, they also have few in the top 1%, some in the top 5% and one in top 10%. There are others who should've had there title up higher but I guess it's what the generator chooses for us.

I wasn't a big fan of puppet farming as a lot of people got all the good cards I seemed to have wanted. Other than that I did really enjoy that, and I did a couple of trades with a friend of mine making it a fair trade. I like the new update and hopefully, the puppet farmers don't find a way around that update. (I don't know how they have the time and patience to do all that just for a legendary card...)

[Nationstates the Gathering]

I wasn't a big fan of puppet farming as a lot of people got all the good cards I seemed to have wanted.

Well and this is the counter to the argument against puppetry. All of the card drops were just maths and formulas. (Assumingly) everything was percentage based and things were generated new out of loot boxes. So the fact that puppets were out there getting the cards you wanted didn't actually prevent you from getting them - but contrarily - actually resulted in more of that card being available on the general market then would otherwise have been available without the puppets. This was also part of the arguments surrounding the fact that legendaries were sometimes more common than commons which were just being trashed. So there is that side of it to consider as well.

[Newmanistan]

Got feedback?

1) Do not ever tie participation into joining the WA. As you say, many of us have good reasons, as in we don't want a liberal nation. But that's another thread, and without going on a tangent, just do not tie it into the WA.

2) Common/uncommon/epic/legendary needs to reflect what the card actually is. Or else, I have no interest in the game, just like I how I ran out of interest after a couple days. Commons, really, were what were "legendary" based on the likelihood of being pulled from the deck. No arbitary rules that every loot box has four commons and one thats considered better. Five commons is fine. Yes, there are more nations that are commons, I get that, but that does not change my opinion.

3) Do not make this card game become too big and too involved to where it drains server resources from why people really come here.

But if all else fails, here's this....

4) Show a little love for your long-time nations. From what I saw, mods got to be legendary and/or epic, which is fine. But anyone who's been here since "antiquity" should be epic, minimum, as well. Nations who have been around for 10 years, and have regularly participated should have their loyalty appreciated a little bit.

4b) Use NS Sports as a resource. Nations that have won major titles should get a little love, too. Sure, some time will be needed to look over records, but it can be easily retrieved.

[Aramanchovia]

I like the idea of being able to gift cards directly to people, rather than having to trade them (I traded multiple cards to people during the event, mostly their own card, including a legendary card and a couple of epics). That is a great addition... if they have enough bank to accept the gift that is. I assume this will be the junk price - 1.00 for legendary, 0.5 for epic etc? Should be reasonable enough.

The change mentioned that I really do not like is sniping of trades. Seems unnecessary. I did like finding underpriced cards up for trade during the event, buying them cheaply and making a profit (by junking mainly, occasionally reselling) - doing this now, someone can just overbid you on a cheap card you find and you don't get the card? Takes a lot of the fun out of the game, and I'll be spending a lot less time with it. Are puppet traders really that big a deal? Anyone can create multiple nations if they want to - why try to make it worse for others by making it harder to trade? I'm sure those who want to take advantage of getting loot boxes with multiple nations will find ways around anything put in place anyway (you can make a fair bit just by junking lower value cards, especially with multiple nations doing it), so why try to fight it?

Anyway, it mostly all sounds promising (except for the trade sniping bit), keep up the good work.

[Pandect]

Surely most people access both their main and puppet nations from the same IP address; which this site will surely record else otherwise how would you prevent WA nations from breaching the single nation rule? Couldn't you just prevent/control puppet trading based on IP, and what-ever other measures you use to enforce WA one-nation rules?

[Eastfield Lodge]

From what I understand of the news post, the measures are designed to stop puppets putting these high-tier cards on sale for nothing. Which doesn't stop farming the other way around - what I did during the event was put in buy offers with my main for all the cards I wanted from my puppets, and then sold them directly to myself without risking a snipe - because what idiot would sell a legendary for 0.01?

[Little Tralfamadore]

Essentially: You should be able to offer a good card for cheap or even free to someone you know, because that's how communities work.

I would think it was obvious but there is another reason that cards would be traded at values different than the arbitrary baseless value given by the bank.

The cards are collectible. This means they have collectible value. If Nation A is collecting all cards from nations that are based on vampires and Nation B has a Lost Boys card Nation A could be willing to sell Nation B a card worth 1.00 for only .01 IF Nation B gives him the card he needs to make his collection complete

[North Curbstompia]

The loot boxes better be bigger if it's going to take longer. I don't want to wait 48 hours just to get 5 cards, most of which is garbage to junk. Also, I see nothing wrong with puppet farming, primarily because of 5 cards, mostly junk.
Why not allow for customizable loot box options, where you can put in particular regions or region tags to increase the odds of getting something from said regions?
Also, increase the amount of cards we get and the chances of getting some nice cards from it.
Also, what the hell is with limiting the deck size? What about nations that already have huge decks? Are they going to lose cards? How expensive are the deck upgrades here?

[Heropeas outer region]

IM READY I MUST HAVE CARDZ

[Zaolat]

From the News post:

Essentially: You should be able to offer a good card for cheap or even free to someone you know, because that's how communities work. But puppet farms should not easily stream their cards to a single owner.

I hate this. I have a decent deck, it has some by default valuable cards, but thr majority of it is only valuable depending on what group of players looks at it.I collected specific types of cards, ones that were valuable to me and major known political game players.

But, if you compare my deck to other nation's deck such as Tim, Altmoras, or even the mods I have a tiny deck with barely any value in comparison. I personally could care less at trying to get all legendaries and epics, etc but there are still cards I need to complete my goal. This is likely to take a very long time as it is without trading other people (Either building up Bank or gaining cards valuble to them I can part with). For me though and everyone who has a deck similar or lesser get punished by this and those with highly valuble decks do not.

I had to play at work all that week on my phone and whatever little bit of time I had at home before I went to sleep. Also, I do not work in an office with a lot of free time. I work in a labour intensive job dealing with water and fire damage to buildings.

I know the staff wants to prevent everyone in general from getting all the cards or the "most valuable" ones easily and put emphasis on trading with other nations, but please don't make it a bigger pain to trade to my main nation!

That's the only issue I have and I'm sure many people will disagree with me.

[Minoa]

Regarding gifts, I would like to see how the new system would play out without the “bank fee”. Instead, I was thinking of a limit of x cards to one nation per y days, where x and y is up to the developers’ consensus.

However, I feel that the problem of puppet farming will eventually resolve itself, by the changing of ambitions and goals on the player’s side.

After all, I made my point with the largest deck at the end of the April Fool’s day event, and now I moved on to other things.

[Hobbitat]

I was starting to collect ex-nations, is it the plan to keep the current crop in existence or to delete all of them?

[Minoa]

2) WA being a requirement.

I believe the announcement states that WA Membership will *NOT* be a requirement, and that other restrictions/features will be introduced to mitigate the effects that would be gained from this.

Deck Size will be expandable by spending bank. What will be interesting is where that limit is set and whether it will change over time (with folks adding 15-20 cards a week through their loot boxes thats still about 1,000 new cards a year for active users - which would double, triple, quadruple the size of most players decks in the first year. And what will happen with the excess cards of a nation such as minoa who presumably is already over the 'limit'

The other thing I believe that is unaddressed is regards to the cards themselves. Will there be a new card drop when the game is re-introduced with a re-assessment of the rarity level of cards of players who have gained population/influence/x-factors since the initial snapshot last month? Might we see some players who's cards were formerly common become uncommon? etc. And will that result in a new card being produced for that player - or will it update the old card (that could be dangerous in the case where a card loses a rarity level in the future)

What is the initial capacity and expansion plans that do you envisage? At this point I am wary about additional capacity being purchasable with real money, as it would result in NationStates having a pay-to-win element, a practice (in general) many gamers are getting tired of.

[NH School]

Personally, I feel that each nation should get a loot box every 24 hours, but that just me.

[Areulder]

From what I understand of the news post, the measures are designed to stop puppets putting these high-tier cards on sale for nothing. Which doesn't stop farming the other way around - what I did during the event was put in buy offers with my main for all the cards I wanted from my puppets, and then sold them directly to myself without risking a snipe - because what idiot would sell a legendary for 0.01?

You can also put the card up for well over it's value, and then transfer the bank back by selling a common from your main.

[Die Erworbenen Namen]

I'm upset violet didn't give me a card of her. Now I have to get cards the normie way.

Edit: also hey cool my ideas (and others as well) were included in the news post. I feel accomplished. Personally, I'm excited for the updates.

[Frisbeeteria]

I was starting to collect ex-nations, is it the plan to keep the current crop in existence or to delete all of them?

New nations are born every day. A similar number of nations die every day. I think the current plan is to allow you to keep the cards of ex-nations (who might just revive an hour later!) but not to issue them in lootboxes. People who don't collect ex-nations were disappointed to draw five cards that included 2-3 nations that had abandoned the game. I can't tell you what will happen to the existing cards.

Short answer long: you can still collect ex-nations, but you'll have to hold them until they CTE, or buy them. You can't draw them.

[The BRK]

Use option 1 for card upgrading

[Nationstates the Gathering]

The loot boxes better be bigger if it's going to take longer. I don't want to wait 48 hours just to get 5 cards, most of which is garbage to junk.

In the context of a permanent feature, 48 hours is more than plenty. There would be no reason to 'trade' cards with each other if everyone was just able to pull all the cards they want themselves in a short period of time

[North Curbstompia]

The loot boxes better be bigger if it's going to take longer. I don't want to wait 48 hours just to get 5 cards, most of which is garbage to junk.

In the context of a permanent feature, 48 hours is more than plenty. There would be no reason to 'trade' cards with each other if everyone was just able to pull all the cards they want themselves in a short period of time

The main issue I have is the amount of cards per time. If the amount of cards one got in the loot boxes increased, it'd be better, otherwise the loot boxes would feel really underwhelming. Most of the cards are probably going to be junked anyway.
Personally, I'd be fine with a booster pack size of 10 cards every 24 hours.

[Sassoon]

There is something I am wondering about; how does the game choose what is which rarity? Like its obvious that it's linked to age but which part- some nations that had an extremely high population but its rarity was not as high.
One other suggestion is that from my point of view if a card is a rare card and is the 10th most expensive in the game- could maybe be boosted up a level? I can understand the coding may be difficult (i don't really understand coding) but I'm like oh ye lets bid a ridiculous amount for that rare card less then I spend on an ultra-rare, or epic.