Exceeding Deck Capacity via Auction Mechanism

[Benevolent 1]

Players well over their deck capacity have accomplished this feat strictly through auction buys. It is not possible to do so by drawing cards or having been gifted cards.

Does or should deck capacity only apply to those cards drawn from packs and gifting, omitting all cards sourced from auction? It would seem to be the rule by default since auction buys are added to decks at or over capacity. Are there any game rules concerning this?

Additionally, can a player exceed deck capacity with unlimited purchases at auction without incurring any future deck costs? Currently it seems to be that way. If so, how is this not a site destabilizing feature? Moreover, if some players can and others can't achieve this end, how is this remotely fair? This is an apparent conundrum. Are cards won at auction while at or over deck capacity exempt from Deck Capacity Costs? Should they be? Is this a fair policy?

[Frisbeeteria]

drawing cards or having been gifted cards.

Those are the capacity-limited items

Moreover, if some players can and others can't achieve this end, how is this remotely fair?

Every player can buy cards at auction regardless of deck capacity. It's been that way since Season 1. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it's only available to some.

[Benevolent 1]

drawing cards or having been gifted cards.

Those are the capacity-limited items

Moreover, if some players can and others can't achieve this end, how is this remotely fair?

Every player can buy cards at auction regardless of deck capacity. It's been that way since Season 1. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that it's only available to some.

So the idea was born from the strict adherence to deck capacity by the vast majority of card playing nations coupled with the site stability issue which Max mentioned in his 21 Dec 2018 news letter (last line of assorted changes). Simply that.

https://www.nationstates.net/page=news/2018/index.html

Thank you for the diffinitive answer.

EDIT: The site stability thing combined with this potential is still a giant conundrum.

[Frisbeeteria]

So the idea was born from the strict adherence to deck capacity by the vast majority of card playing nations

No, it was an unforeseen event from a technical change. Just like raiding was born from the WA election process. Just like GCR hegemony was born from the nation creation process. Just like the creation of mass card farms and stupidly-high transfer card prices from efforts to curb other abuses. It's happened with EVERY. CHANGE. EVER. I don't know why you think my answer proves that it was intentional.

The site stability thing combined with this potential is still a giant conundrum.

Yes it is. I don't have a solution that won't piss almost every card collector off. Do you?

[Benevolent 1]

So the idea was born from the strict adherence to deck capacity by the vast majority of card playing nations

No, it was an unforeseen event from a technical change. Just like raiding was born from the WA election process. Just like GCR hegemony was born from the nation creation process. Just like the creation of mass card farms and stupidly-high transfer card prices from efforts to curb other abuses. It's happened with EVERY. CHANGE. EVER. I don't know why you think my answer proves that it was intentional.

The site stability thing combined with this potential is still a giant conundrum.

Yes it is. I don't have a solution that won't piss almost every card collector off. Do you?

The conundrum exists. Let's even the playing field a bit by lowering the gifting fee, for those reasons stated in the Gifting Fee Reduction thread. We need to balance this better.

[Vylixan]

The only sort of solution I see is making deck space significantly cheaper and/or easier to get up to higher numbers of deck space.
But looking at my own collections, that would not be an incentive for me to extend deck space on the 19 nations of mine that are over capacity. At this point I'm so used to dealign with it that there is almost no upside to me in extending the deck space. The only upside would be that I could then gift a few legendaries that are destined for collection to the smaller collections instead of transferring them over the open market. But frankly, I have only once messed up a transfer of a legendary card to a collection, it's not bit of an upside for me.
This only leaves disallowing going over deck space, at which point I rather stop collecting then deal with the multitude of issues that would create for me.

[Benevolent 1]

The only sort of solution I see is making deck space significantly cheaper and/or easier to get up to higher numbers of deck space.
But looking at my own collections, that would not be an incentive for me to extend deck space on the 19 nations of mine that are over capacity. At this point I'm so used to dealign with it that there is almost no upside to me in extending the deck space. The only upside would be that I could then gift a few legendaries that are destined for collection to the smaller collections instead of transferring them over the open market. But frankly, I have only once messed up a transfer of a legendary card to a collection, it's not bit of an upside for me.
This only leaves disallowing going over deck space, at which point I rather stop collecting then deal with the multitude of issues that would create for me.

The deck capacity conundrum is:

The NS site stability issue vs. Unlimited card additions to any deck via the current auction

Lowering the gift fee would increase the number of cards entering decks under capacity as these cards can't enter decks which are at or overcapacity. As more cards are auctioned, itbecomes more likely too many decks become unwieldy which endangers the site. A better balance needs to be struck between gifting and the auction.

[Coffin-Breathe]

The site stability thing combined with this potential is still a giant conundrum.

Yes it is. I don't have a solution that won't piss almost every card collector off. Do you?

But I do : heavy restriction of the "card receiving nations" of every player and making "overstoring" impossible; imo, almost all problems are a direct result of the ability to create numerous "card farms" and "overstoring".
And if "almost every card collector" is "pissed of" by this (in fact, I really doubt), so be it; most of them gained their "advantages" by abusing the system/the rules, so what would be their point ?

[Riemstagrad]

The question is if there really is a problem at the moment. Site stability has never been questioned anymore, despite people going far over capacity. The number of nations with very large decks will probably always stay low: only some very active farmers ever collect large number of cards in 1 or a few storage nations. If that is a problem for site stability, then yes, a solution is needed. If the site can handle it, there is no problem.
The gift- and pack-restrictions allready limit the number of nations with very large decks.