NationStates

Greetings,

Following a lengthy period where players have been able to voice their opinion on what they feel are the problems with the card game as is, and their directions for a solution, the time for implementing these solutions has arrived.

First up is a change which nerfs big farms while leaving casual players mostly unaffected. A variant of a suggestion marked (b) by The Northern Light in this post: viewtopic.php?p=37306614#p37306614

The change isn't literally what the suggestion says, after all the downside of that would be that people would be opening S2 packs well into the start of S3 (assuming there will be a third season).

Instead, if a pack is not opened within two minutes then after that opening it simply won't use TCALS for determination of the cards that are given. As a result, saving packs for a pull event is useless and anyone participating in it will have to answer issues. This slows it all down noticeably, and will yield far fewer packs per nation to open than the current 9 saved up.

This change is effective immediately per this post!

Note that 'part 1' in the title means more changes will be coming. Some will be announced, others will not and may or may not be easily noticeable.

Ballotonia

At first glance, I like this, of course I'll wait until part 2, 3 and the reboot (on a serious note: how many more changes will be implemented?, just curious) come out to decide if I do like it or not but this first change is a good thing in my opinion.

Thank you for taking into account the opinions posted in the TCALS thread!

I personally think this is a great change! Kudos Ballo!

At some point in the future, will the time limit be able to be increased (e.g. 10 minutes or even an hour)? Or is the 2 minute period set in stone.

well
there goes, the infamous pull event,

Good news, overall, so Big farmers will be unable to use their nation to (PRINT) their valued cards.
the damage cannot be undone right now, but its an improvement, until the big farmer find another way.

This is definitely an interesting change. It seems like it would still be mildly effective against transfers while making pull events significantly longer with lower success rates.

Currently, I'm in favor but definitely depends on part 2, 3, and so on...

A monumental and much needed change. Yay, thanks Ballo!

As an average card player, I welcome this change very much... thanks!

You're the best. Thanks .

Although I've benefitted from TCALS in the past, I feel like this is a good step. Great changes, and looking forward for more of them since this is named 'part 1'

I think this was probably the best change to make out of the ones suggested in the thread. It alters the strategy of the game without making it impossible to duplicate cards that are high in demand and without making transfers completely secure either.

Warning, I'm not as experienced a player as many of the others who have commented, so I may be misunderstanding things here.

That said, transfers are going to be a bit different with this change. Fewer pulls on transfer cards will occur overall, and as a result transfers will be easier to perform for existing players, while newer players may have difficulty duplicating their transfer cards. I can also see a scenario, however, in which this announcement alters the methods of major farmers in a way that nearly cancels out this decrease in pull rate. So that remains to be seen.

Also, I think it remains to be seen how this will affect pull events. Arguably, while making all pull events harder, the change most favors events that can be planned in advance such that participants have 5 issues on each puppet. In other words, large and well-organized events like TNP's, and then private pull events. So this won't completely stop Noah and Gio from doing what they did before and mass duplicating cards.

I await part 2 to see if these concerns are addressed or if mechanics are improved further.

Thank you for these changes Ballo! Much appreciated. I look forward to seeing scarcity in Season 3 (should it happen).

Noahs Second Country wrote:Currently, I'm in favor but definitely depends on part 2, 3, and so on...

What if there is no part 2, 3, etc.? Ballo is just fooling us and will be munching on popcorn as they observe us cards players run increasingly elaborate experiments in order to try discern what changes have been made.

The Cosmic Mainframe wrote: I can also see a scenario, however, in which this announcement alters the methods of major farmers in a way that nearly cancels out this decrease in pull rate. So that remains to be seen.

Well, yes, pull events are still a thing.

With that being said, a farm of 400 puppets previously had a capacity of 3600 packs to hopefully trigger TCALS.

In comparison, now with the same farm size you can only expect 400 packs that could trigger TCALS.

Not to mention working with the 2 minute cap, answering issues, etc..

Additionally, with a blocker mechanic still in place the time you have to run a pull event remains the same. Hence why I'm not sure if further changes may even be necessary, all things considered.