NS Cards: Permanent Feature Update

[Poggers]

From the other thread, Why not have a feature where cards you are selling are at the top of your deck

[His Excellence]

https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=439529

Throwing my vote in for this. The amount of cards you can amass, waiting for some to sell while hoarding others; in the long run, a way to divide them to easier keep track of or show off various collections would be phenomenal. Even just to easily link which cards you're taking offers on.

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.

[Nationstates the Gathering]

Another thing regarding card dropping,


It could/should be possibly only to draw a card of a nation in existence.

Ex-nation cards should still exist once the nation ceases, but it should not be drawn new once the nation is no longer in existence?

This only applies to a 'free flowing' system where cards are frequently added / changed opposed to a more fixed deck system where a new card deck is released each year

[Esterild]

I was thinking it could be a good idea to limit Loot Boxes to WA Members so that puppets won't be a factor in card collection. Non-members could still purchase cards in the trading market. One drawback is that this might lead people to become WA members JUST so they could get cards.

Loot boxes should not be guaranteed to have at least one card from the nation's region. This encourages people to move to a region just for card-collection purposes, and I suspect it also messes with a card's actual rarity.

If trading is a permanent feature then it will be important to be able to sort/filter trading lists.

[Aeiouia]

I was thinking it could be a good idea to limit Loot Boxes to WA Members so that puppets won't be a factor in card collection. Non-members could still purchase cards in the trading market. One drawback is that this might lead people to become WA members JUST so they could get cards.

I was just literally trying to find a suggestions thread to post exactly that idea about the WA. So, you beat me to the punch.

But, yeah. While it might lead to people joining the WA just so that they get cards, there are already plenty of WA nations that are members but do not really take the time to vote or really participate in that part of the site often one of those utterly neglectful individuals being myself, actually. So, I do not think that that would be much of a downside in the long run considering that there are already plenty of nations that fit that bill. This would definitely fix puppet spam for cards, while simultaneously not requiring any changes that disrupt the free market.

Another thing I would like to see personally is 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.

This would be a bit more in-depth than just pinning a card to the top of the deck, though there is nothing saying that you could not do that too.

[Abunenin]

I like alot of these suggestions but the best one was only WA nations getting loot boxes to cut down on spam/fake nations. You win the internet. Seriouly I saw someone with over 300 dollars and maybe 300 epic/legendaries.....Frisbea maybe? Anyways I opened loot boxes on one guy nonstop between the wife and i and there is just no way.

[Nationstates the Gathering]

There are a number of other suggestions that deal with the idea of puppets hording cards - in particular newly created puppet nations.

Of course, limiting the card decks to WA members only would cut to the chase but potentially leave a lot of non-puppet nations out of the game (Not everyone is a WA member).

So in this scenario there would have to be 2 ways to get loot boxes. WA Members might get a new loot box every 72 hours while non-WA Members get a new loot box at a longer interval. You could also make lootboxes appear as a counter not as timed event, and they can be awarded as achievements for reaching certain milestones, perhaps answering issues, forum posts, population milestones etc (folks could propose a list)

It would be fine for the default position to be WA Members only but non WA Members also need to have a way to open loot boxes at some interval

[Flanderlion]

Thing is the massive puppet masters will find the way around whatever restriction if non-WAs are allowed to collect (or even if WAs didn't have a time been in the WA thing as switching is a thing). My WA is usually mobile so I'll suffer from it, but even if WA nations could open them once every six hours vs non-WA once a week, people were operating hundreds of puppets each over the event.

Like the World Assembly voting, endorsements, delegacy, and other things where individual players mess it up for the rest of NS, I can't really see allowing puppets working without screwing up the game for everyone else who don't use them. At least it'd incentivise more players to join the WA (and getting the email attached to the account). If one year in the distant future accounts come out, that'd be ideal, as IC my nation is anti-WA and the bad stats it brings.

[Bela1975]

My two cents:
I would like to identify fast the cards I'm "hunting" for.
Personal example, 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.

[Nationstates the Gathering]

Updated the first post with more of the ideas from this and other threads on the forum. Will work more on the formatting of the post so its easier to read and condense a few of the similar ideas closer to the bottom tomorrow perhaps

[Memyselfani]

One thing that was a big issue was just finding cards I was interested in. I ended up looking for people with large decks and browsing them, not necessarily to buy from them in particular, just to identify cards I was interested in. It was pretty hit and miss. I was collecting only anarchy, so even someone's large deck would only have a few. It would be nice to be able to search a global database. I don't even know how many anarchy nations there are in total, though I estimate about 4000. I have ~250 of them. By the end, I was buying every one I saw that was for sale (other than the legendaries that I could not afford), and worried that even though I had cash, I would not find enough of them to spend it all.

Same would go for someone collecting a region. I found a region that was all anarchy, so i decided to get them all. I had to go to the region page and click through each nation to its main page, then to its deck, then to its card, just to see if anyone was selling it.Then back button through it all to get back to the list. I put buy offers on them after I had winnowed it down to about 20 I didn't have, but managing that was pretty much untenable. Would have been nice if I could change my offers from a single page (that did not refresh on each click), or checkbox each of them then make a bulk change. Another thing I did was put an offer at junk on some cards just as a way of bookmarking them until I had enough cash to make a real offer. A 'dossier' or wish list of target cards would be nice.

[Odinburgh]

Like to know what region cards are hot and not hot so if people want to buy cards from specific regions I'd know this infornation. Perhaps a overall average price for all rarity cards besides average price on single cards so I get more idea how to price a card. Like what is the current average price for an epic is typically selling for as an example.

[Galiantus III]

Another thing I'd like is if we could break up the Trade Deals page a bit. For some nations that have done a lot of trading, this page takes a minute to load, and honestly it would be nice to be able to view all the "Wanted" cards, separate from the "Bought" cards, separate from the "For Sale" cards, separate from the "Sold" cards. It would also be nice if we had some central place where we could see sales and offers happening worldwide, kind of like the "Happenings" page.

---

Additional comments edited in:

Timing between Loot Crates / Who is eligible for a new Pack

• 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.
  • [1] 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
  • [2] Your nations creation date / birthdate
  • [3] 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)

I see some issues with the items I've numbered and bolded, mostly related to puppeteering.

1. There are actually two problems with the idea of awarding loot boxes for voting in the WA. In the first place, it would not help WA politics in any way to give a reward simply for participating in voting. An even smaller portion of the people voting will actually give thought to their vote, and choosing to simply abstain will turn out to be a punishment. Then we also have to deal with the question of what to do if there is no WA activity for a week.
   
   The second problem is that people can switch their WA nation, which means depending on how this is organized, puppet armies could exploit it still, by switching. This cannot be done on a weekly basis, but must be done on a proposal-by-proposal basis, if it is going to have any chance of working. And loot boxes would have to be distributed at the end of voting, only.
2. The problem here is that someone with a whole lot of time on their hands could exploit the system by creating ten puppets every day for a year, then henceforth receive ten loot boxes every day via their massive puppet army. Considering how long Macedon has held on to some regions, this is not at all a far-fetched scenario.
3. Same problem as the above. I just create 10 nations every day, and join them to the WA for my free loot box. And (just guessing) I don't think Admin wants to add to the already complex task of dealing with WA multying.

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)

Same general problem as above. Puppet masters will take advantage of any mechanic which gives non-WA nations an ability to give them wealth.

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.

I actually think it would be better if we eliminate the whole mechanic that gives regional residents a higher chance of pulling cards of nations from their region. The alternative is you'll have people moving in nations to every region with a Legendary, with no intention of participating in the region. Also, the Deck game is all about trading, and there's less of a need to trade if you can just sit in a region and eventually "farm" whatever you want.

Junking, Inflation, and an Auction House
-snip-

Can you please put my words in qhotes? Thanks.

Also, I have a slight modification to my original auction idea I am going to put in its own thread, due to the nature of it.

[Kombinita Socialisma Demokratio]

Does anyone else think that NPC nation cards would be a nice addition as well?

[Bela1975]

One thing that was a big issue was just finding cards I was interested in. I ended up looking for people with large decks and browsing them, not necessarily to buy from them in particular, just to identify cards I was interested in. It was pretty hit and miss. I was collecting only anarchy, so even someone's large deck would only have a few. It would be nice to be able to search a global database. I don't even know how many anarchy nations there are in total, though I estimate about 4000. I have ~250 of them. By the end, I was buying every one I saw that was for sale (other than the legendaries that I could not afford), and worried that even though I had cash, I would not find enough of them to spend it all.

Same would go for someone collecting a region. I found a region that was all anarchy, so i decided to get them all. I had to go to the region page and click through each nation to its main page, then to its deck, then to its card, just to see if anyone was selling it.Then back button through it all to get back to the list. I put buy offers on them after I had winnowed it down to about 20 I didn't have, but managing that was pretty much untenable. Would have been nice if I could change my offers from a single page (that did not refresh on each click), or checkbox each of them then make a bulk change. Another thing I did was put an offer at junk on some cards just as a way of bookmarking them until I had enough cash to make a real offer. A 'dossier' or wish list of target cards would be nice.

I know the fealing all too well, I too was visiting large collectios as a "Catalog".

[Bela1975]

Another thing I'd like is if we could break up the Trade Deals page a bit. For some nations that have done a lot of trading, this page takes a minute to load, and honestly it would be nice to be able to view all the "Wanted" cards, separate from the "Bought" cards, separate from the "For Sale" cards, separate from the "Sold" cards. It would also be nice if we had some central place where we could see sales and offers happening worldwide, kind of like the "Happenings" page.

Having this sort of a break up would be great. By the end of the week I could barely find anything on my Trade Deals list, it was just insane.

[Aeiouia]

The second problem is that people can switch their WA nation, which means depending on how this is organized, puppet armies could exploit it still, by switching. This cannot be done on a weekly basis, but must be done on a proposal-by-proposal basis, if it is going to have any chance of working. And loot boxes would have to be distributed at the end of voting, only.

1. The problem here is that someone with a whole lot of time on their hands could exploit the system by creating ten puppets every day for a year, then henceforth receive ten loot boxes every day via their massive puppet army. Considering how long Macedon has held on to some regions, this is not at all a far-fetched scenario.
2. Same problem as the above. I just create 10 nations every day, and join them to the WA for my free loot box. And (just guessing) I don't think Admin wants to add to the already complex task of dealing with WA multying.

That is a good point about the switching, I did not think of that. Perhaps adding an initial delay to a WA nation getting loot boxes would solve the problem? Assuming that said delay is longer than the periodic loot box drops afterwards would make multi-puppeting useless. It might be a bit prohibitive, though.

And either way, the effect of tacking this onto the existing system of the WA would still be an issue. I also kind of overlooked people who had no idea what was going on voting anyway, and that would certainly screw up that part of the site to some degree. Not getting a card pack for voting I think is a given here, in my opinion.

The idea of having nations sign up to a "Card Registry" or something akin to the WA that allows them to get loot boxes comes to mind. However, I can imagine that that is a bad idea since it would be a huge addition to the site and another thing that the admins would have to watch over, essentially doubling the need to look for WA duplicates. So, yeah. Not that great of an idea, but I will throw it out there anyway.

Does anyone else think that NPC nation cards would be a nice addition as well?

I do not know. I really liked the charm of it essentially being a TCG, but with all people you know or at least know of. That is probably a matter of personal preference, though.

What would "NPC Cards" even be in this scenario? Real-life nations?

[Nationstates the Gathering]

I think the key is that we recognize there needs to be something done to 1) Limit the Frequency of Loot Boxes and B) Limit to some extent the ability of a user to simply create 100 'infantry' puppets to collect any card they want.

I think the idea of restricting loot boxes to WA members only would do this to some extent but I don't believe you can do that due to the number of users who would legitimately want to participate with just one or a hand ful of nations and do not have a WA Presence.

So there has to be some compromise - there won't be a perfect solution

[Galiantus III]

The idea of having nations sign up to a "Card Registry" or something akin to the WA that allows them to get loot boxes comes to mind. However, I can imagine that that is a bad idea since it would be a huge addition to the site and another thing that the admins would have to watch over, essentially doubling the need to look for WA duplicates. So, yeah. Not that great of an idea, but I will throw it out there anyway.

I think the idea of restricting loot boxes to WA members only would do this to some extent but I don't believe you can do that due to the number of users who would legitimately want to participate with just one or a hand ful of nations and do not have a WA Presence.

This kind of thing (unrelated to card collecting) has actually been debated for awhile. Persionally, I have wanted some separation between regional controls and WA voting or the benefit of both regional politics and the WA, and I can imagine people wanting a similar setup for the cards. Why should participation in things completely unrelated to the WA require WA membership?

[Sapnu puas]

Are you an official account or just for fun, nationstates the gathering?

[Frisbeeteria]

Are you an official account or just for fun, nationstates the gathering?

That's a player account.

[Pamat]

Like someone else said Pokemon card style is fun. We collect nation cards, and then battle nations. Like we could stats and stuff

[Pamat]

Also we should have a 2 types of market places. A regional auction house and a global one. And there should be a limit to cards like 100 before you need to sell to get more

[Frisbeeteria]

Seriouly I saw someone with over 300 dollars and maybe 300 epic/legendaries.....Frisbea maybe?

That was commerce, not puppetry. I had buy offers on every Epic and Legendary I could find, and I put higher sell offers on most of them. I bought and sold some cards 3-4 times during the week. Yes, I started with a few puppets feeding my main, but mostly it was aggressive buys and sales. I ended up with 42 Legendaries and 760 Epics; and have outstanding buy offers on probably over a thousand more.

[Odinburgh]

Sorry I hope this does not end up to being some version of the Pokemon game using them to war against each other. The NS Card Deck game needs to be its own thing and not a direct clone of the challenge game. Maybe an interesting idea but perhaps that could be used for some future idea for an April fool's event. I for one never been a Pokemon fan and never understood the craze.