Auctions are, by far, the least likable part of the cards game. I do appreciate that the current system tends to prevent the extreme cases of abuse that were rampant back for the original event, but the current system still has some significant issues. For one, I strongly dislike the current time-extension mechanic, coupled with the ability of players to bid in increments of 0.01 bank. This only serves to slow down the market and stir up animosity between players as they push auctions long past their original end times. At least one of several things should be done about this:
- Bidding matches should only be made if the new bid exceeds the previous bid by 5%.
- Stop with averaging the sale between the buyer and the seller. This is serving to reward bids that far exceed what players are actually willing to pay, and is creating a buyer's market that is screwing over sellers. I do understand that the current system creates the possibility for a seller to enter a bidding war last-minute and screw over the last bidder, but again, this is a pretty rare occurrence that only serves to hurt both sellers and buyers. If you bid it, that is the price you should be committed to paying.
- Biding matches should have an ultimate limit to how long they can be extended, so that a bidding war can only last so long after the initial finish time. I think 5 minutes is a perfect amount of time for buyers to work with. This overtime clock should display red text so that players can easily discern that further actions are final.
Selling mechanics also mess with the market, but not to the same extent. Above I suggested that bids made should translate directly to a cost to the buyer, rather than an average being made between buyer and seller. The same is true of any additional sellers that enter the mix: if there is an auction going on that I have a card I could sell in, I should be able to make a lower offer than the current agreed price. If there is someone that my offer can match to, who has a current bid higher than my ask price, their match price should drop to match my new offer. Essentially, if either a buyer makes a bid or a seller makes an ask, that should re-define the match prices for everyone.
Deck Capacity
The current mechanics of deck capacity are encouraging the rampant use of puppets. Since you can gift cards to players that are still beyond their deck capacity, you stand to benefit by having puppets tearing through card packs constantly. If you find a card that is relatively valuable, you can just gift it. Yes, the fact that you must pay a fee does slow this down slightly, but since it is risky to transfer funds between nations (due to the auction system) it is worth it. This is further encouraged by the fact that your deck capacity only limits whether you can open card packs. In other words, if I want more bank or more cards, the only way to do it is with puppets, and again my ability to do so is only limited linearly by the number of puppets I can manage.
The mechanics of deck capacity need to be reversed: if I am above deck capacity, I should not be able to receive gifted cards or bid on cards, but I should be able to open new decks. This will encourage players that possess lots of cards to seek funds to increase their deck capacity by either selling or junking their cards. While this will not entirely discourage puppet farming, it will place a limit on its usefulness.
I would also like to debate the possibility that commons and uncommons valued less than 10 bank not contribute to one's overall deck capacity. My reasoning for this is that these cards do not add much to the value of a deck, and typically end up getting junked pretty quick. However, they are often used to try and transfer funds from puppets to mains, and if players incurred no cost by holding onto them then it would be much more likely that someone watching the market can upset these attempts at money transfers. For any given transfer, it will be more likely that someone with the card chosen for the transfer is online and able to steal or significantly hamper the transfer of money in this way. An added benefit is that your average player should be able to collect the cards of their friends and region-mates much more easily, while anyone who is just interested in playing the market and increasing the value of their deck will still have an interest in paying to expand their deck capacity.
Puppets
As someone who uses puppets to try an get ahead in this game, I still find it annoying. I want a game that moves at a fair rate for everyone, and does not make me feel like I have to stay on for several hours every day just to stay competitive. I want to be able to treat this like issue-answering, and only need to get on for a half-hour at most. So we need a system that fights against egregious use of puppets.
I personally believe the best solution here is to require verification similar to WA membership for 24 hours before someone will start receiving card packs. This would utilize the same multi-finding system the WA does to find and punish anyone working outside the system. We are currently looking at an economic version of the WA if multiing was legal! This is just as bad as multiing, and the ideal solution is to do what was done for the WA. I am aware of the technical difficulties with such a proposition, so a good
Given the technical difficulties with the above solution, I have been brainstorming other solutions:
- Issues answered within X seconds after the previous answered issue will not generate a card pack. If I am signed into a nation I consider a main or I actually care about beyond being a puppet, I will spend some time considering the options of a given list of issues. Card farmers don't, and this will make it extremely annoying to go log in and have to wait between answering issues. And while a few seconds will make no difference to most players, this kind of limitation will severely limit the size of possible puppet farms.
- Good karma = better cards. Real players try to get bank and/or cards. Thus they will buy and spend reasonable amounts of money on cards if possible, try and hold on to at least some cards, and place bids on cards they want. At some point they will also want to expand their deck capacity. Implement a hidden karma system where certain actions earn nations positive points, while other actions earn them negative points, with a maximum and minimum, such that "smart" decisions tend to increase karma, while stupid decisions decrease karma. Karma would influence the chances of certain levels of cards appearing in your packs, hopefully resulting in nations of real players getting the higher end cards, and puppets tending towards getting more common cards.
- Transfer interception. Let us exchange card packs for one card currently at auction for a fee. The fee would be a function of the card tier, market value, and current number of owners, such that cards of lower tier, market value, and few owners are extremely easy to create at a moment's notice. This would make it extremely easy to challenge bank transfers, which are typically done with low tier cards of low market value with few owners.
- Answer 25 issues to start earning cards. New players are exactly that - new. The rest of us survived just fine without the cards, they are just getting used to the game, and there is no need to rush them into the cards game. In fact, we already restrict their ability to have a leader, capitol city, religion, etc. by population, so why not do the same for cards? Since new nations get a bunch of issues very quickly at the outset, we need to discourage puppet farmers from constantly creating new nations just for the bank. Seriously, anyone could do batches of 100 puppets every day, just to transfer bank and gift cards, then never log in to those nations again, since it is arguably more efficient.
