JPryde Posted March 18, 2013 Share Posted March 18, 2013 (edited) Greetings, various threads on the general board imply, that there is at least a vocal group of people, who are not totally happy with the way cartel reputation is implemented. Let me first describe the current situation: - within the smugglers packages you get a chance to find an item giving cartel rep OR a cartel certificate. - cartel reputation can be used by all chars of your legacy, as reputation is shared. - once your cartel rep is at maximum, the use of cartel-reputation items drops to zero, as they cannot be traded. - the chance to get a certificate instead of a rep-item is low. - statistically over time, even players who buy tons of cartel packs will have excess reputation items and still need certificates. - cartel reputation AND certificates are required to buy an item from a vendor, that is also in some packages. So the system can be viewed as a kind of fallback system to eventually buy an item you most desire, but had bad luck in getting directly from the packages. The current system is simular to a popular german lottery system as seen on funfairs... Example: For the jackpot, you need to collect a red a blue and a violet heart. Each lot got a heart, there are no blanks. Every heart also got a point value. Now you would have an extremely rare red heart and all other hearts are common or uncommon. You are lured by the promise of always winning something, as there are no blanks. However, the point values of the hearts that you get are so low, that your win is worth less than what you pay, unless you are lucky and hit the jackpot with the red heart. Obviously this system is necessary that way, as obviously the sellers need to make money (just like EA does). However, in this lottery system, you know, that you eventually will get the price, that you want to get. You can even calculate the maximum ammount of money, you need to spend, as you know the value of the lowest heart. You can be lucky and get to the goal sooner (red heart or other more valuable hearts), but you always know the deadline. With the system, that Bioware implemented, this unfortunately is not the case. The system implies, that you are always winning something but sometimes all you get is really only a consolation gift (some "ultra rares" sell vor less than 5k on the market). My proposed change: - throw away the cartel reputation completely. - implement a "standard", "Double" and "jackpot" voucher, which are included in ALL kind of cartel packs (these would replace the current cartel certificates) - Keep the new black market vendors, but set a fixed exchange rate for all cartel items against credits and standard vouchers. Make this exchange rate about 10-20% higher than the mathematical chance to get the item when buying enough packs to get the necessary vouchers. - Allow the jackpot voucher to be exchanged for any kind of object the cartel market offers at no additional cost. - Make the double vouchers simply count as two standard vouchers. The result would be: - you remove all right of complaints for abonents. You remove all trash-talk about this cartel reputation being P2W or anything. - you can advertise, that you can have the worst of luck ever possible, and you will still eventually get exactly the one item you most desire... if you just buy enough packs (which naturally is the desire of EA). - You will nail all complaints about cartel pack system being a gamble with lures especially younglings into spending an unhealthy ammount of money...You can now advertise, that you laid out a safety net, as the cost of any item would be eventually capped (it would be still ridiculously high, but capped). - You will still get people to buy single packs and 24x packs in hope to get lucky to find the item they most want, AND - You will in addition get people to buy packs, who currently stand back, cause they know, that they will eventually hit a blank (like getting a javagram and a speeder, that looks terrible and an emote that you already got and sells for 1k)... you will incite the feeling, that every lot (package) will always be a little part that is used to eventually buy the coolest stuff. - last but not least, you will nail third party trading of extremely valuable items by capping its real value. (with a fixed ammount of standard vouchers, you would essentially be able to calculate a "worst case price" for any cartel item). Discuss.... Edited March 18, 2013 by JPryde Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toaztr Posted March 20, 2013 Share Posted March 20, 2013 What about the people who already spent 100 bucks trying to level up his rep???????????????????????? Like myself, that's the only reason I was spending money on those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPryde Posted March 20, 2013 Author Share Posted March 20, 2013 Apart from you using a gazillion of question marks, I will give you a normal answer... As your effort is completely traced, it would be easy to awward you all the vouchers according to the system, that I outlined. That way you would surely instantly be able to buy you 2-3 items, that you really want to have.... And even without, you were spending your money under the current system and you got exactly what you paid for. You did not however buy a guarantee, that the system will not change in the future and if the system changes, you still have exactly the same options as any other player, so it would still be fair for everyone. And it would encourage players to spend money, who currently believe, that spending 100$ on virtual items on top of a subscription is a waste of money, if you do not even get the item you really want at 100% chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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