New Idea competition with free legendarys!

[Honeydewistania]

Main and Gift Nation Name: Honeydewistania

The Idea: Create an opt in checkbox during founding to say if you’re a card farmer, and then issues editors can simply discard issues choices from farmers.

Cons:
Hard to enforce
People probably too lazy to tick checkbox
People founding nations using NS++ would end up skipping this step unintentionally anyway

[Free Las Pinas]

Main Nation Name: Free Las Pinas
Gift Nation Name: Free Las Pinas

The Idea:

Un-link card pack generation from issues, and have a separate card pack generator mini-game sorta thing (figuring out details, but I'll edit this post when I have a more concrete idea of what it'd be). From what I understand, some people here mentioned having a 20% chance at a card pack per day/major update, which I'd agree with, but then TCALS could only be triggered from 12:00 AM EST - 12:02 AM EST. This would mean no more pull events, and transfers would be really safe, if I understand correctly.

[East Durthang]

Another option would be to do away with the clicking altogether, and be randomly assigned packs for manually logging in every day. It could be set so that you have the same odds - the equivalent of 4 chances at 20% probability.

The problem with tying card pack generation to logging in is that it's incredibly easy to script nation logins, meaning that while it would solve the issue answering issues, massive scale card farming becomes easier then ever.

Recently, there was a discussion on the cards discord that was sparked because N-Day requires Captchas. iirc, Virgolia said that they would cry if Captchas were added to cards. Of course, this wasn't to be taken literally, but it helps explain that adding Captchas to cards would make it so much more painful. I personally would not enjoy it, but I'm sure I would get used to it. Not that I'm not against it. It would be very, very, very painful though. But that's only me, others may have other opinions.

They should probably be infrequent enough that going through a few nations worth of issues doesn't necessarily result in many captchas. Like a ratio averaging around 30 issues per 1 captcha after which you are guaranteed to be required to "pick all the motorcycles" or something. Captchas could also be made more tolerable by using non Google ones or even a completely custom implementation which generates an image containing a random number that has to be entered or selected within a certain amount of tries, after which you get locked out of answering any issue on that nation for several minutes for attempting to brute force it. "Pick the number" is a lot less painful compared to something like "select all images with <insert something> in them".

This is also where introducing other methods for obtaining card packs could be useful to provide alternative options so card farming is distributed between multiple activities. It's highly unlikely that a single solution is going to solve all of the key points highlighted in the first post.

[Noahs Second Country]

I haven't really read through this thread and I'll add my own thoughts later but tying packs to the dismiss button defeats the purpose of cards being tied to issues in the first place. You might as well just put a button that unlocks every 6 hours on the cards page.

Mass dismissal probably isn't something that will be appreciated by the editors either.

[One Small Island]

Yikes.

I don't really have a suggestion, but I'm a decently large farmer and the only tool I use is NS++ to help me switch nations faster, everything else I do "by hand", though since everything is done by hand here I don't know if that's the right way to put it. Anything that makes this process more difficult is going to result in me just shutting down my farm and scuttling it off to the graveyard to CTE.

So I'm gonna be the a-hole in the suggestion thread that just says "Ban scripts relating to cards and make people do things the hard way", it's the closest you're going to get to [v]'s intentions with scripts and it makes the playing field more even overall. It's not something that I'd like to see happen, I have no problem with people using scripts, I just don't want my experience to get tougher just because they are.

[Giovanniland]

They should probably be infrequent enough that going through a few nations worth of issues doesn't necessarily result in many captchas. Like a ratio averaging around 30 issues per 1 captcha after which you are guaranteed to be required to "pick all the motorcycles" or something. Captchas could also be made more tolerable by using non Google ones or even a completely custom implementation which generates an image containing a random number that has to be entered or selected within a certain amount of tries, after which you get locked out of answering any issue on that nation for several minutes for attempting to brute force it. "Pick the number" is a lot less painful compared to something like "select all images with <insert something> in them".

Ah, that's better. I was worried you wanted something like N-Day where every nation I'd join had a captcha, and the lengthy ones at that. I often needed to select every image of a car, then a pedestrian crossing, then a bicycle, then whatever until it finally unlocked. If we need captchas, please use the ones that we need to type a string of numbers or letters, those often crossed out or distorted to make it harder for bots.

[Fhaengshia]

Main Nation Name: Fhaengshia
Gift Nation Name: Fhaengshia

The Idea: When loading an issue, have the "Accept" buttons not load for ~15 seconds or so. This probably won't be noticed by most users, and doesn't change how they play other than ensuring time for the issue to be read and for ads to load. For nations using scripts, have statistics be disabled (saving server load) for them as they don't seem to care about the statistics in the first place. Have an option in settings to turn statistics back on for people who change their mind.

[9003]

They should probably be infrequent enough that going through a few nations worth of issues doesn't necessarily result in many captchas. Like a ratio averaging around 30 issues per 1 captcha after which you are guaranteed to be required to "pick all the motorcycles" or something. Captchas could also be made more tolerable by using non Google ones or even a completely custom implementation which generates an image containing a random number that has to be entered or selected within a certain amount of tries, after which you get locked out of answering any issue on that nation for several minutes for attempting to brute force it. "Pick the number" is a lot less painful compared to something like "select all images with <insert something> in them".

Ah, that's better. I was worried you wanted something like N-Day where every nation I'd join had a captcha, and the lengthy ones at that. I often needed to select every image of a car, then a pedestrian crossing, then a bicycle, then whatever until it finally unlocked. If we need captchas, please use the ones that we need to type a string of numbers or letters, those often crossed out or distorted to make it harder for bots.

Building off this the NDay cpatchas where scaling based on how fast you spammed things so if you took a second or two between moving a puppet 90% of the time you didn't have to click anything special. Doing something similar to cards it would be important to link it to ip rather then nation as it would be easy to shuffle the URLs so that you do one issue per nation then come back and do the cycle again.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

Ah, that's better. I was worried you wanted something like N-Day where every nation I'd join had a captcha, and the lengthy ones at that. I often needed to select every image of a car, then a pedestrian crossing, then a bicycle, then whatever until it finally unlocked. If we need captchas, please use the ones that we need to type a string of numbers or letters, those often crossed out or distorted to make it harder for bots.

CAPTCHA is not ideal, it has a lot of accessibility issues for people that have impaired vision and people with dyslexia.
I like your idea however and this brings me to my proposal:

Main Nation Name: The Unified Missourtama States
Gift Nation Name: The Unified Missourtama States

The Idea: Honeypot Method
Honeypots are extra bits of code used to catch bots and prevent spam from them (ie: assisted issue answering scripts) without regular users knowing that they exist, they are often used in place of CAPTCHA, but are much more friendly in that if you use the site only by interacting with its vanilla interface you will never fall into the Honeypot. An extra field (issue option) is added and then hidden from human users, the field can only be seen in the site source (where issue answering assist scripts randomly select their data from to create the shortcut buttons for users). For this scenario to work there would need to be at least one (although the more the better) false hidden issue answers randomly placed, if it is selected, there is no stat change and no cards, essentially a dismissal. the goal is to make the scripts so likely to bring up a false answer for the user to click that is de-incentivizes script use.

[Japanese Beetles]

Main Nation Name: Fauzjhia
Gift Nation Name: Japanese Beetles,

give us something we don't have, or we will invade your yard and leave you with no plants. (no we aint in there yet. But we smell plenty of food and we are hungry.)

The Idea: Favorite stats idea


this is a bit like challenge's speciality, where you choose your best stats. In settings, you have nation select stats, they will find to the most important. And when the option you choose increase one o the stats you selected, you have a chance to gain pack (25%), but when the issues to do not raise the stat you selected, you cannot receive any pack. This way, the players will forced to read the issues, if they want to raise the stats they promise to rise. and we don't have to worry about players selecting stats like (international artwork) or residency, because those stats are not modified by issues, player who select those will never generate any packs at all.
the moderation could also make certain stats incompatibles. for example, health and death rate, or corruption and integrity, you can only choose one of these for obvious reason.

players who use script will find themselves generating less packs then those who carefully read issues.

[The Emirate of The Emirate]

Card Packs DLC!
You know those old baseball card packs you got from the dollar store? You can get them now in Nationstates! Just spend some bank, and then you can get what you want! Here is what I thought of:
Regular Pack: 0.50 Bank
Legendary Pack: 5.00 Bank
Rainbow Pack: 1.00 Bank

there's a lot of problems with this idea, first of all you get bank from cards, so I don't know how you'd get the bank in the first place if you don't have any packs to get bank from...
Second your prices are horrifically nonsensical.

We can change it so you can get bank from issues.

[HumanSanity]

Main Nation Name: HumanSanity
Gift Nation Name: UnicornSanity

The Idea:
Cards should be de-linked from issues and instead attached to lootboxes which generate at a rate of 4 per 24 hours*. Each lootbox should have a 20% chance of generating a pack and the pack should have to be opened immediately.

Problems this solves:

• Issues are being answered but not read --- by decoupling from issue answering, the Issue Editor stats are no longer skewed.
• Massive Server Load --- it seems like a lot of this issue is tied to the burden of issue stat calculations. By decoupling from issues, this proposal solves it
• All Solutions Must Be Long Term --- yep, this is long term.

Additional Components to Solve Additional Problems
1. A new script rule should be added that it is not permissible to use a script to block an ad loading on a page.
Ad revenue is obviously important for the site. Ultimately, there's no way to remove the incentive to eliminate ad loading, you just have to ban it. And obviously that's difficult to enforce, but this too seems inevitable.
Cons: it would be hard to enforce this (or any other ad-based rule given the prevalence of ad blockers); additionally, there's no way to limit it to just cards scripts so it would effect R/D scripts too, which would competitively hurt defenders who need fast page loads to respond to quick trigger chases

2. To solve the arms race, institute a rate throttle to one lootbox per 1.5-2 seconds. This would create an upper limit on where innovation can lead, eventually capping out the scripting arms race.
I will note, I philosophically don't necessarily agree with the critique of efficiency so I personally don't even like this solution, but I'm offering it because I think I'm in the minority in that viewpoint.

Other solutions I think are pretty good
Gio's Challenge solution. It accomplishes similar objectives to what I have outlined. I'd be pretty happy with this, although I have three critiques: 1) if we're worried about cards interfering with other parts of NS, this will still do that, even if Challenge is a relatively-neglected part of NS; 2) Challenge takes way more clicks to get through than Issues, so it will drive up the labor burden on card farming regardless of other factors (rate throttling, etc); 3) some day I'd like cards to be integrated with challenge (you stack your deck against someone else's deck to see who wins as an option in addition to just comparing two nations).

LD's just give a pack a day solution. My only critique is it may substantially lower the labor involved with card farming. I could see that becoming an issue.

TUMS' Honeypot method. I actually really like this one. It doesn't solve the issue calculation problem most people are raising, but if it was decided speed scripting was the issue, not Issue stat calculations, then I'm down with this. Edit: perhaps some way to combine this with one of the other solutions would then solve both problems without an artificial rate limit

Solutions I explicitly don't like (sorry to those who proposed these)
Please not East Durthang's CAPTCHA solution. 1) accessibility issues, 2) it will drive me insane. Just feels like we're driving the "pain" metric a bit too high.

Free Las Pinas's update tied packs system. I think R/D is too exclusive because of availability at update time already, but this problem is inevitable and irresolvable. Tying this problem into cards too seems like a bad idea.

* I think it should be capped at 4, personally as a card farmer I don't like that I can't have a daily rotation for card farming set based on my schedule because a nation is ideal to farm every 30 hours instead of 24. Obviously, in the status quo issues system, cards doesn't/shouldn't dictate how things work but if we're creating a new lootbox system just for cards there's no reason we can't customize it.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

First they limited auction time, then they nerfed TCALS, now it looks like we're heading back to lootboxes. Maybe they had it all correct in the original April Fools' event

[All Wild Things]

Another option would be to do away with the clicking altogether, and be randomly assigned packs for manually logging in every day. It could be set so that you have the same odds - the equivalent of 4 chances at 20% probability.

The problem with tying card pack generation to logging in is that it's incredibly easy to script nation logins, meaning that while it would solve the issue answering issues, massive scale card farming becomes easier then ever.

The existing system can tell the difference between answering issues via API and manually. I imagine it can do the same with logins via API vs manual. So as long as there's a rule saying that API login is the only legal way to login via script, there shouldn't be an issue. Card farmers would all go manual.

[Fauzjhia]

First they limited auction time, then they nerfed TCALS, now it looks like we're heading back to lootboxes. Maybe they had it all correct in the original April Fools' event

funny comment.

The problem with tying card pack generation to logging in is that it's incredibly easy to script nation logins, meaning that while it would solve the issue answering issues, massive scale card farming becomes easier then ever.

The existing system can tell the difference between answering issues via API and manually. I imagine it can do the same with logins via API vs manual. So as long as there's a rule saying that API login is the only legal way to login via script, there shouldn't be an issue. Card farmers would all go manual.

Well, other probably do it, way worst then me, i got manual with Lunaria, Green HIlls, Olympics, and jeinnhezslhaunia

but Automatic in the Dragon Pacific. Would probably go with a new cards farm and let the Dragon Pacific CTE if I had to go manual.

[Free Las Pinas]

Just to clear this up, I didn’t mean I wanted to tie card packs to update. I meant that I didn’t like the idea.

[Warzone Codger]

Main Nation Name: Warzone Codger
Gift Nation Name: Warzone Codger

The Idea:

Throw our hands in the air and free the scripts by allowing API issue answering to generate cards. I don't think this is as a crazy suggestion as it sounds. Big Farma will move to the API which will make farming more efficient while simultaneously not affecting the site load as much. Once Big Farma has moved to API, issue answering statistics won't be as skewed as the majority of real issue answerers are done on site and I'm assuming the editors can filter API vs site issue answering.

Issue answering on site can still continue to spawn cards, so it won't affect the experience of casual players. They won't be able to compete with 'Big Farma', but they are never able to anyway, and Card collecting has always been more a single player game you take at your own pace, compared to the adversarial nature of R/D.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

Throw our hands in the air and free the scripts by allowing API issue answering to generate cards. I don't think this is as a crazy suggestion as it sounds. Big Farma will move to the API which will make farming more efficient while simultaneously not affecting the site load as much. Once Big Farma has moved to API, issue answering statistics won't be as skewed as the majority of real issue answerers are done on site and I'm assuming the editors can filter API vs site issue answering.

Issue answering on site can still continue to spawn cards, so it won't affect the experience of casual players. They won't be able to compete with 'Big Farma', but they are never able to anyway, and Card collecting has always been more a single player game you take at your own pace, compared to the adversarial nature of R/D.

That's a horrific idea, you need realize there would be dozens of players each lodging API commands 24 hours a day, a single player would be able to pull every card within 2 days (and that's reallllly liberal on the amount of time)

[Sanghyeok]

Main Nation Name: Sanghyeok
Gift Nation Name: Sanghyeok

The Idea: I would argue a "confirmation button" for issue choices can be made mandatory if the system detects that ideas are being answered extremely quickly (example: more than 5 in under 30 seconds). The "confirmation button" would then remain for perhaps 10 issues after it begins.

Reasoning: This confirmation button is already an option, so less needs to be changed. Furthermore, the "penalty" is temporary, and disappears in a few days. It does not disadvantage people who answers quickly, but only people who are farming hard.

[The Unified Missourtama States]

Main Nation Name: Sanghyeok
Gift Nation Name: Sanghyeok

The Idea: I would argue a "confirmation button" for issue choices can be made mandatory if the system detects that ideas are being answered extremely quickly (example: more than 5 in under 30 seconds). The "confirmation button" would then remain for perhaps 10 issues after it begins.

Reasoning: This confirmation button is already an option, so less needs to be changed. Furthermore, the "penalty" is temporary, and disappears in a few days. It does not disadvantage people who answers quickly, but only people who are farming hard.

I actually like this, it's simple, and I think implementing it to every nation all the time wouldn't be that big an upset, however it is only one extra click, which isn't that much of a slowdown.

[Sanghyeok]

Main Nation Name: Sanghyeok
Gift Nation Name: Sanghyeok

The Idea: I would argue a "confirmation button" for issue choices can be made mandatory if the system detects that ideas are being answered extremely quickly (example: more than 5 in under 30 seconds). The "confirmation button" would then remain for perhaps 10 issues after it begins.

Reasoning: This confirmation button is already an option, so less needs to be changed. Furthermore, the "penalty" is temporary, and disappears in a few days. It does not disadvantage people who answers quickly, but only people who are farming hard.

I actually like this, it's simple, and I think implementing it to every nation all the time wouldn't be that big an upset, however it is only one extra click, which isn't that much of a slowdown.

You are correct in that it wouldn't really slow down that much, but I suppose for some large card farmers with 100+ nations, then it is at least a few more minutes required. Actually, I am thinking that this could be combined with the captcha system someone discussed earlier. Maybe captcha is activated if the confirmation button is also pressed very quickly? I don't know.

[Racoda]

First of all, I think that all of the "add a button or delay" proposals here are still easily streamlineable/circumvented, and only really push the problem back. A lot of these kinds of ideas are "detectable" from a UserScript. Examples: dismiss, answer consistently, answer ideologically consistently (I actually scraped Trotterdam's site to do that), packs on the deck page, honeypot choices, double confirmation (this one would also have 2x the burden on the site, making farming slower, but increasing server load). A murkier example is the delay on the answering button — whether a script streamlining that is then only a keybinding, like the current ones vs. a "synchronizing" tool is debatable.

I can't believe that I'm saying this, but the best option might really be to just ban all scripts (even keybinds) and CSS modifications from affecting the issues page. A similar solution is in place for telegrams, for different reasons. Sending telegrams is however also possible through the API. Alongside with banning scripts from issues, the issue answering API could include an opt-in option to generate packs, not as easily as Codger's proposal, but at a much lower rate (off the top of my head, 1% chance per issue answered). This solves the strain intensive farming places on the HTML site in two ways: first, by making vanilla issue answering the only way to interact with the normal site; secondly, by making sure that even those not discouraged by that would be spending their time more efficiently by just using the API. Even this kind of proposal breaks when pull events are considered, but I would imagine it lowers the overall burden on the site.

From a game-balance perspective, this levels the playing field between those using keybinding scripts and those answering issues normally. I don't think it's a good path from an economic perspective (rampant inflation), but it doesn't change the inflation meta whilst reducing server load.

Edit 13.10.2020: I was convinced any kind of scripts were outright banned from interacting with the telegrams page at all. I've re-read the OSRS and couldn't find that. Anyway, to clarify: yes, I propose that no scripts/keybindings/changes be legally allowed to run on issue pages.

I do like Gio's challenge proposal a lot, but [v] seems very reluctant to decouple cards from issues. An idea to consider is whether issues should be the only way to generate packs. This kind of solution doesn't remove cards from issues entirely, but will allow large-scale farms to use another way to generate packs, thus removing the need for all the stats recalculation from most of the farming traffic. Cards don't make much sense as a reward for issues, except recruiting new cards players.

Concerning ad revenue, the crypto nerd in me would like to propose that packs can be generated for some amount of crypto mining work done by the farmer's machine. That is however a very dumb idea, as it favours those with more powerful computers even more than the current system, and might be not that profitable for NS after all. Expanding on that and the captcha idea, a pack-rewarding minigame (idk, something as simple as sudoku for a human, but not as simple as sudoku for a computer), ideally as NS-focused as the challenge minigame, would be very interesting and heaps more engaging than mindless issue answering. Coming up with what that should be is hard and would require some changes to the game so as to make completing large collections not excruciatingly difficult. I guess a lot of the traffic generated by farming is due to people needing/wanting to complete those collections. If it's too hard, people will just give up; too easy, and it's no fun.


A much easier solution (that I personally dislike) is to just make cards a recurring, month-long annual event (like N/Z-Day). Each new edition would also be a new season. The downside is cards are, along with issues & (to a certain extent) R/D, a permanent, non-player-generated "fun thing to do on the site" and attract a different bunch of players than issues/R/D.

[Flanderlion]

Main Nation Name: Flanderlion
Gift Nation Name: Flanderloin
The Idea: Decoupling the primary way of getting card packs from issues - making it by folding proteins (http://fold.it/portal/info/about) or something else that helps the world. Either hosted by NS or amount solved polled by NS every so often.

Eventually having accounts, where normal players have a higher chance on the first nation they answer on, then less and less the more they answer across their nations until a near 0 chance.

[Noahs Second Country]

If this is really that big of an issue perhaps it's time to get rid of cards, people can obviously not be responsible users of this site.

If that's too extreme there is the option of a WA style cheatscanner for a one-player rule, then instead of a game of force cards becomes one of true investing risk and skill.

It would become a game of luck. Pull a Testlandia and all of a sudden you control half the market. Plus, such a major nerf will permanently cement a good portion of the rankings. There's no skill in getting lucky.

Plus, many players don't participate in the WA (nearly half of the top 100 in cards currently).

Add a parameter to nation creation which designates it as a card farming nation. Cards are generated directly in proportion to ads viewed, with a 20% chance of generating a pack per view and up to 4 ads per day.

Perhaps not during nation creation, but put a checkbox on the cards page/issues page/settings page. I don't think that Max intends to monetize the cards game either - I don't think it's very enjoyable to view ads to get items in games and card farming would quickly die out, which is not the intention of this thread.

This might not be the most elegant proposal, but perhaps a nation setting (enabled like vacation mode) that disables stat changes would help. (or rather, disables stat changes for issue-based stats, as DV/endorsements/influence aren't directly changed by issues). Of course, this idea completely relies upon the concept of cards always being inherently tied to issues.

I like this idea - opt out of stat calculations, massively reducing server load and cards are still tied to issues, which is a plus.

Ad revenue is a difficult one. Specifically, trying to encourage people to allow the ads to load. The concept of a no-stats mode, by itself, does not really address this, but it thankfully doesn't make the problem worse. I am not personally familiar with the tools used by more serious farmers, but I know from experience that manually farming one's puppets often still gives enough time for advertisements to load, especially when one is sorting through the puppets' decks. However, that's basically a non-answer. It's possible that a reduced load on the servers (from not forcing it to calculate stat changes) would improve load times, and thus make it more likely for the ad to be loaded in, but that's only a guess. As I'd prefer that the advertising on the site remains unobtrusive, I have little I can offer here.

Ad revenue primarily works off of people actually clicking on the ads - I don't know how ads on NS work but I assume that card farmers loading ads all the time doesn't really help site revenue at all, honestly. I wouldn't worry as much about the issue with ads.

Get [violet] Herself to take out some adverts on NationStates.net explicitly promoting trading cards in perpetuity... perhaps place dozens of them on each issue page as well so that they take an extremely long time to load, thereby preventing rapid issue answering too

installs an adblocker

You know those old baseball card packs you got from the dollar store? You can get them now in Nationstates! Just spend some bank, and then you can get what you want! Here is what I thought of:
Regular Pack: 0.50 Bank
Legendary Pack: 5.00 Bank
Rainbow Pack: 1.00 Bank

I don't see how this solves any of the problems at hand.

What if there were a 20% chance to get packs from dismissing an Issue? Then the most widely-used scripts could be coded to dismiss Issues instead without compromising the chance of packs. (Are analytics about Issue dismissals as big a deal as the option statistics?) This would help with server load (as far as changing stats) as well.

Tying packs to the dismiss button defeats the purpose of cards being tied to issues in the first place. You might as well just put a button that unlocks every 6 hours on the cards page. Mass dismissal probably isn't something that will be appreciated by the editors either.

Hang on — we aren't the entrées, right?

All part of 9003's plan to eat the rich

Introduce a random chance of captcha when answering issues

Seeing the way these were implemented on N-day, I don't think this is a good idea, nor a sustainable one. I would stop farming entirely if I had to deal with captchas all day, plus there are many accessibility issues.

Create a yearly card festival event which is designed to be a time where getting cards is both easier and encouraged.

I'm all for such an event as more people involved in cards = more fun, but I don't really see how that solves any of the problems presented.

My idea isn't the best one there is but it would be a simple solution: separate issues from cards and then tie cards to the challenge mini-game.

Challenges are protected by captchas(see above) and I think you'll run into the same issues with link generation and url manipulation.

Does anyone know why it was linked to issues in the first place?

Linking cards to issues enables new nations to be introduced to cards easily, it gets people answering issues, there's a set pack frequency, etc.. The big downside is that every issue results in world census recalculations all the time.

The problem with tying card pack generation to logging in is that it's incredibly easy to script nation logins, meaning that while it would solve the issue answering issues, massive scale card farming becomes easier then ever.

I think this can work if you add a couple of necessary button presses to actually generate the pack - the major server load comes from all the stat changes and world census changes.

Everyone's throttle solutions

Throttling doesn't work because containers exist. Answer one issue, switch nations, repeat as many times as needed. On each individual nations you end up with issues answered/whatever every few minutes, but in reality the farmer just answered 50 issues in a minute.[/box]

There are a few problems I see in the OP itself:

This messes with several metrics that the issue editing team uses. When cards became bound to issues there was a 1000 fold increase in the amount of issues being answered. Most of these resulted in the first option being chosen many many many times more then any other options. This prevents issues editors from being able to identify issues that are leading or poorly worded.

From my understanding, nearly every widely used issues script randomly generates an option to focus - this doesn't mean the problem isn't there but it isn't as bad as "everyone chooses option 1"

Nationstates is run on ads you see them in the banner on the side. They might annoy you but they make the game money that it needs to keep it alive. Any solution should drive traffic to the website in a manor that allows the ads to load.

Is this really a major issue? I understand that this site runs on ads, but it doesn't aggressively ask you to whitelist or anything. Additionally, most websites are monetized on a cost per click basis - card farmers will never click these ads so Max makes little to no money from them.

Currently the cards community coders are in an arms race to get as fast as possabile in a means to reach peak efficiency.

I don't see this as being true either - nearly everyone uses the same set of scripts. It's not an arms race when it's a collaborative effort. I don't see a problem with farmers trying to do things as efficiently as possible - that's part of the game.

Before proposing a solution, here is my list of "items to address":

• Server load is the biggest problem here and also the current justification for this thread - farmers make up 50% of the load.
• Cards should be easy to get started in. Tying them to issues enables new players to immediately see that giant "open pack" button when viewing their stats
• Massively limiting cards is detrimental to community growth as a whole. Unless there's a total restart(which is problematic for its own reasons), farmers should be able to work their way up the ladder to some extent. A massive nerf would lessen engagement.
• Card farmers should not consider farming as a tedious, boring, and slow process. Extra steps will discourage old players and make entry level farming boring.
• Changes to the rules may accidentally affect other communities.
• Enjoyment of the site is subjective and the issue of "card players aren't enjoying the site" is a cultural issue, not a tech issue.

It's probably also important to point out that [v] is reluctant to decouple issues and cards but that's not the purpose of this thread - I encourage everyone to contribute to the thread in technical because it is very different from the discussion here.

With these items in mind, here's my solution to the above points if one is truly necessary:

• Remove cards from issues entirely.
• Add a new "generate pack" button to the cards page - this button is only active once every 6 hours and pack generation has the same 20% chance.
• Explicitly ban the use of the link that automatically presses the button upon the page loading(like the /enact_dilemma page, for example).

Going back to the points above, here's how the solution addresses each of them

• Much of the server load (recalculating stats and so on) is notably reduced
• There are no complex mechanisms at play here, it's still technically one button press to generate a pack
• The pack spawn frequency is maintained
• The farming process is similar to what it is currently
• The only mechanic changed is one exclusive to cards without adding other restrictions to non-cards gameplay.

Potential disadvantages:

• People may be disappointed if a pack doesn't generate upon clicking the "generate pack" button. A large disclaimer could work, or the alternative would be only showing the "generate pack" button 20% of the time. Perhaps a notification could tell nations when the "generate pack" button is available.
• Nations have to click on the "cards" page to actually engage with the sub-game. This seems like a non-issue to me - if a nation never goes to the cards page I doubt they will be very interested anyway.

Seems like a pretty underwhelming solution considering the text wall above, but the simple addition of a generate packs button means that more than a login is still needed to generate a pack. I think everyone would prefer if mechanics stayed as simple and straightforward as possible. There are no major overhauls, arbitrary limits, external sources, or advanced security measures at play here. My secondary solution would be the no stats checkbox, but it's opt in and requires everyone with farms to do so, which may not happen.

Or just ban FF containers.

[Riemstagrad]

Main nation : Riemstagrad
Gift Nation: better keep your well deserved legendaries

Idea:

The biggest issue i see is that no matter what is implemented, people will always use scripts to seek the limits, and expand their puppet-farms to what those limits make possible. A final solution to those issues would be to ban or severly limit scripts and to place a limit on puppets. Especially a puppet-limit will direct NS into a direction that is not desirable and will be very complicated.

For a solution for this issue we will need to go towards making the game more comfortable and more enjoyable for normal human play while making it harder, more cumbersome, more annoying when going further then normal human play:

These concerns made me think of following raw ideas:

1) A Player can choose 1 "Card-Collector" main nation, enforced in the same way as WA-nations. With a 24 hour application time to remove the benefit of changing card-Collector to another puppet.
2) A Card-Collector main can assign a number of "Farms" or "Fields", again, with a 24 hour completion time after assignment.
3) Card Packs are generated on every nation at a rate of 1 pack/day, stackable upto 9 packs.
4) A Card-Collector main can open all packs on all assigned farms and do with those cards as they please.
5) Convert deckspace into Farm-size: you can add more puppets as "Farms" or "Fields". Every increase in deckspace converts to an increase in farm-size. Because of the exponential increase in costs, people will hesitate to create farms beyond the size that fits their type of play.
6) Severly throttle the pack-opening rate for nations who are not "Card-Collector" main nations. Because the described system will not render old-style puppet farming impossible, people will still do the same thing as today, unless a severe throttle is implemented.

What does it solve?

Issues are being answered but not read

Cards are moved away from issues.

Massive Server Load

No stat-recalculations required to play the card-game

Lost potential ad revenue

No button-hammering or mouse-button-burning action is needed to farm card-packs.
only the card-opening stays, wich is still done on the normal html-site

Cards Farming Arms Race

The throttle for non-Card-Collector nations will make play beyond normal human play very cumbersome and uninterresting
This will contrast heavily with the increased ease and comfort for normal human play.
Combined, this will reduce the need for better scripts and larger farms for the vast majority of players. Some might still consider the cumbersome play to get more cards, but I feel that it's possible to find a ballance that makes it simply not worth it, even for the vast majority of the current "Big Farma".
With this system, the normal vanilla site can compete with scipts for card-opening, rendering them useless. while scripts to go beyond normal human play, run into the throttle fast.
Large scale farming will not benefit anymore.

All Solutions Must Be Long Term

well, yes.

The Solution May Not be Implemented

This is of course, a very big issue. I think the idea i described will require a lot of work for the admin-team. I honestly don't know if this minigame is worth all this work. But this is only an idea-thread, so i'm adding my two cents.

FREE CARDS LIKE LEGENDARY ONES!

Yummy, but you're too good for this world, 9003.. I'll take your legendaries in the card-olympics instead.
On a side-note, this proposal will still make the olympics game possible, because that is small scale, human scale play that can exist perfectly i the system that i proposed.