That's nice and generous, but kinda makes the new reputation pointless. When everyone can spend an afternoon in a stronghold to max it out, you can just as well remove the reputation requirement from vendors and items, and keep the old reputations, including legacy titles.

Agreed, this seems like a strange decision. With like 200k credits and 30 minutes, you will easily be able to get Legendary, making the new faction (and purchasing the packs instead of direct sale items) pointless.

I guess the devs are counting on the fact that 90% of the players don't even know that the slot machines exist, which is true I suppose.

I do hope that the packs will have an acceptable rate of Cartel Certificates, like 5 per hypercrate or more. And I hope that you will add some new items to the vendors, now that the reputation was updated.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Jerba

Agreed, this seems like a strange decision. With like 100k credits and 30 minutes, you will easily be able to get Legendary, making the new faction (and purchasing the packs instead of direct sale items) pointless.

I am sure you are counting on the fact that 90% of the players don't even know that the slot machines exist, which is true I suppose. But for everyone else, this will mean that one slot in the cartel packs is now taken up by a pointless reputation trophy that they no longer need.

However, I do hope that the packs will have an acceptable rate of Cartel Certificates, like 5 per hypercrate or more. And I hope that you will add some new items to the vendors, now that the reputation was updated.

 

I don't know Eric? I mean, what if i have Legendary's on these "said factions", but not in the Gree so much. For some reason that is 1 place i lack the most for content, and i wonder where i might be after 5.9.2. As being just Newcomer, or above, i would like to know where my averages would be post 5.9.2 for the other factions?

I don't know Eric? I mean, what if i have Legendary's on these "said factions", but not in the Gree so much. For some reason that is 1 place i lack the most for content, and i wonder where i might be after 5.9.2. As being just Newcomer, or above, i would like to know where my averages would be post 5.9.2 for the other factions?

 

He's talking about the reputation that you get mostly from the old Cartel packs. It wouldn't affect the gameplay ones.

Why Combine the Reputations?

Having all of the older Reputations wasn’t really serving a purpose anymore. Since we are direct selling most CM items and with the implementation of the Ultimate Pack we haven’t been bringing back embargoed packs. This means there is no availability for players to get these Reputations. This also creates an issue for Cartel Market Certificates since they aren’t consistent in how you acquire them, this makes it challenging to provide updated ways to spend them.

 

In theory this makes sense and sounds all to the good. (Caveat below.)

 

What Will Happen to my Existing Reputations?

All Cartel Market Reputations will now be combined into a single CM Rep, the Underworld Exchange. All progress you have from existing CM reps will be added together. Ex: If you are Legend right now in any CM rep, you will be a Legend in Underworld Exchange. If you are Champion in two of the reps, those values will be combined and could even rank you up.

 

Well, I stand corrected on how hard it might be to do this, this is an option I hadn't thought of. It's very generous too, I think that's great. No reason to be stingy about old content, and gives your longer term players a nice boost.

 

What About the Legacy Titles / Rep Gear?

Any titles you have earned you will keep. Gear that you have will check against the new rep (which you will meet or exceed the requirement). Those titles will no longer be possible to earn. We may consider options for reintroducing those titles in the future, but there are no plans at this time.

 

Of all things in the game about which it seems most reasonable to say that you had to have met the requirements by a certain time, titles certainly seem like one of them. Just like people can't get the "Founder" title anymore, my two cents would be that this is the least of the things you guys should be worrying about. Provided no one who previously earned them actually loses them, doesn't seem like too big a deal.

 

How do I Earn Underworld Exchange Reputation?

Reputation tokens will be a guaranteed drop from Ultimate Cartel Packs unless you are at Legend status. Cartel Market Certificates are being added into the pack as a rare drop.

 

Here's the only part of this I have concerns about.

 

Other folks have talked about how "easy" it would be to get it through the slot machine deco, but honestly not that many people have access to the slot machine deco, and in order to get it you have to have spent money on packs to get the drop or spend an amount of credits for it on the GTN (on SS right now there's only one up for 273 million credits) that guarantees you're a subscriber - in either of those cases, the player is paying $$ to the game, and that's the whole point of CM reputations to begin with. So. Some people get a little lucky and have the slot machine "shortcut?" Good for them! That won't be the majority. So that's not my concern.

 

My concern is with this still being a very unreliable way to obtain Cartel Market Certificates as a currency. This is specifically in context of what I've said before about how horrible the Ultimate Pack is for older players. The fact that I can (as I tried for the last two CM releases) buy multiple hypercrates of the Ultimate Pack and get almost nothing new had decided me on not buying Ultimate Packs again. I know this is my choice, and if it ends up being the only place to get Certificates then... well... my choice. But it's a really bad model that doesn't allow me any options in which to spend my money where I'm happy... so I won't spend it as readily as I used to.

 

As I've said before, direct purchase option is great for players who don't want to gamble - keep it. The Ultimate Pack options is great for newer players - keep it. But older players who just want the new items are now worse off than they used to be, because while they might be able to direct purchase them for the same amount of money they used to spend, they are now recouping nothing through the GTN as they used to with the individual packs wherein new items were guaranteed to drop. And that also means fewer copies of the new items in GTN circulation.

 

Now! If the Ultimate Pack's drop chance table was adjusted with every CM update so that the new items had a much higher chance of dropping, I might actually go back to buying packs, and then I'd be getting Certificates too under this new change, and that would be awesome! (But as my linked to post proved, under the new model it's perfectly possible to open a whole hypercrate and not get one single new piece of armor or a new decoration, and that's just dumb.)

 

Heck, if it is possible to change the drop chance table with each CM update, then there's no reason not to make the Ultimate Packs guarantee to drop a new item each time just the like the old packs used to do. Make the updates happen entirely behind the scenes, but no need to name a new pack, create a new faction, blah blah blah. One combined CM faction would still work great, you could still put Certificates back into the rotation. Essentially they'd function the same as the pre-Ultimate packs, with the changes all being under the hood so to speak.

 

In fact, this might be an even better model when you combine it with the idea of Direct Purchase releasing things in a staggered/over-time manner like you have been, because then player impatience (and we absolutely know that's a thing, players want their shiny right friggin' now) might compel some folks to gamble on the pack first to get the new stuff (key part: NEW stuff), and then if they didn't get lucky they will plop down money a second time to grab the Direct Purchase when it comes around.

 

What about, in addition to putting Certificates back into circulation with the Ultimate Packs, you also consider adding a Certificate to each Direct Purchase of an armor set or weapon off the CM? Or basically to any direct sale purchase of like... 500 CC or more or something?

 

I would still a million times over prefer that the packs go back to guaranteeing you a new item each time, which would make me absolutely start buying them again... but at the very least an added Certificate bonus for a direct purchase couldn't hurt.

What Will Happen to my Existing Reputations?

All Cartel Market Reputations will now be combined into a single CM Rep, the Underworld Exchange. All progress you have from existing CM reps will be added together.

The maximum CM reputation a player has of any type translating into that players Underworld Exchange reputation is a good fix. Starting from where one is, rather than having a whole new CM reputation to level up from zero.

What About the Legacy Titles / Rep Gear?

Any titles you have earned you will keep. Gear that you have will check against the new rep (which you will meet or exceed the requirement). Those titles will no longer be possible to earn. We may consider options for reintroducing those titles in the future, but there are no plans at this time.

This is good.

How do I Earn Underworld Exchange Reputation?

Reputation tokens will be a guaranteed drop from Ultimate Cartel Packs unless you are at Legend status. Cartel Market Certificates are being added into the pack as a rare drop.

On re-read, I get that having a Legend UE rep means a player shouldn't get more UE rep from Ultimate packs. Still, leveling up (if necessary) ones UE rep level is meaningless if getting the currency to purchase some of the UE rep items (Cartel Market Certificates) is still so infrequent as to be well nigh unlikely to get. If the drop rate of Cartel Market Certificates in Ultimate packs is anything like their current drop rate from CSMs, that's going to be frustrating.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Nmyownworld

I agree with other posters that there must be a way to get CM Certificates other than buying hypercrates and hoping for the best! Even list them as a direct purchase item, if you like, or let them drop from the slot machines or whatever. I'm not fussy. I just want to have access to them.

I'm on the Cartel Certificate bandwagon. While it is an improvement to have them drop from the Ultimate Pack, it really doesn't solve the problem. It takes far too many Certs to get some items.

 

Do the math -- How many hypercrates of Ultimate Packs will it take, on average, to get the 20+ Certs required for some items? And now.... how much real money will that cost?

 

WAY TOO MUCH

 

If the Cert prices of the items are lowered to no higher than 5 for the most amazing items, maybe this will be a reasonable change.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Xina_LA

Interesting idea but I feel bad for all those that spend real cash to level up those reputations.

 

Gamers spent real money on each and every one of those reps. 6 in total. Having legend in even one makes you legend in the single new "the Underworld Exchange" reputation.

 

That means all the money you spent to level up the other 5 just vanishes. Those gamers that spent really money to level all 6 I feel sorry for. Thats a lot of money spent and just ...... gone.

I agree with other posters that there must be a way to get CM Certificates [...] or let them drop from the slot machines or whatever. I'm not fussy. I just want to have access to them.

You are aware that the CM certificates do drop from the slot machines, right? At a rate of roughly 1 certificate per 1 million credits spent, which is an acceptable rate IMO, given the amount of inflation we have at the moment.

The only issue is that it takes a couple hours to click the slot machines, but the CM certificates are not nearly as rare as people make it out to be. 1 million credits is nothing; if they were sold on a vendor or for direct sale they'd be much more expensive.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Jerba

Interesting idea but I feel bad for all those that spend real cash to level up those reputations.

 

Gamers spent real money on each and every one of those reps. 6 in total. Having legend in even one makes you legend in the single new "the Underworld Exchange" reputation.

 

That means all the money you spent to level up the other 5 just vanishes. Those gamers that spent really money to level all 6 I feel sorry for. Thats a lot of money spent and just ...... gone.

 

As someone who has purchased the occasional crate, I really don't feel sorry for them. They chose to spend money above and beyond a subscription cost for what they got. Besides that, they aren't losing anything or having anything taken away, they still have the items and titles.

PLEASE MAKE THE OLD PACKS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AGAIN. RIGHT NOW. Or put in a vendor where we can buy rep tokens from the different factions, for a large amount each. I have been slowly working to build these reps over years. I have 2 full, but what I really want is the "Magnate" title, and I'm only about 23k reputation points away from getting it. I've spent untold millions on old packs with crappy drops trying to get there, whenever they are available (since they don't sell on the cartel market very often.) I just bought the last hypercrate of stronghold packs ON ANOTHER SERVER and paid the CC to transfer it to mine, only to get SEVEN *********** cartel certificates, and hardly any rep items.

 

I swear to god, if I lose access to this title in 2 weeks, with so little rep left to complete it, I will never subscribe to the game again.

PLEASE MAKE THE OLD PACKS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AGAIN. RIGHT NOW.

Agreed, it would be nice to see the old Hypercrates brought back for next week's sale, shortly before the patch. I missed picking them up when they were on sale last summer as well. I'm sure there are a couple players interested in buying them.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Jerba

You are aware that the CM certificates do drop from the slot machines, right? At a rate of roughly 1 certificate per 1 million credits spent, which is an acceptable rate IMO, given the amount of inflation we have at the moment.

The only issue is that it takes a couple hours to click the slot machines, but the CM certificates are not nearly as rare as people make it out to be. 1 million credits is nothing; if they were sold on a vendor or for direct sale they'd be much more expensive.

 

yes but that assumes someone has access to a stronghold that has a slot machine. It's an economy that is totally at the mercy of other players.

Sorry if this has been addressed, but there's several pages and I'm on limited time at the moment and don't want to forget.. what about those of us who still have cartel market certificates.. will there be a use for them or should I hurry up and spend them?

So all the work I put into maxing those old reputations out is just washed away. At the time this rep was sold as a reason to get particular crates, now the point of that is what? Fewer and fewer reasons to keep up with this game...

All the money we spent and effort to maxing the rep all lazily lumped together. It seems those of us that worked on things in the past are continually slapped in the face. Why not put the various rep in command crates and certs in missions like HM FPs, Ops etc as rare drop or scarce drops?

Seems lazy like what they did before with Makeb achievement and staged weeklies.

All this is solely for the effort to make money off the new hypercrates, nothing else.

yes but that assumes someone has access to a stronghold that has a slot machine. It's an economy that is totally at the mercy of other players.

Not really, just check out the publicly listed guild flagships. For example, my guild (highest prestige on the server, so first spot on the list) has some slot machines placed right next to the entrance. In fact, knowing that the old titles will soon be unavailable, we set up additional slot machines there for this week.

I'm pretty sure the situation is similar on other servers; one of the flagships will surely have a slot machine somewhere, and the guilds rarely mind if you play on them, in fact they are happy to have players visiting the flagship.

Edited July 18, 2018 by Jerba

We need a better way to make old systems accessible to new players. But this trivializes past effort (new rep can be very quickly max'd via the slot machine) while at the same time cutting off legacy titles from new players. I would prefer if extra rewards were given to players based on total influence across all cartel reps (probably certificates) and if some other way to obtain the legacy titles could be added. Past effort would be rewarded and no content would be cut off from anyone. Edited July 18, 2018 by Estelindis

Not really, just check out the publicly listed guild flagships. For example, my guild (highest prestige on the server, so first spot on the list) has some slot machines placed right next to the entrance. In fact, knowing that the old titles will soon be unavailable, we set up additional slot machines there for this week.

I'm pretty sure the situation is similar on other servers; one of the flagships will surely have a slot machine somewhere, and the guilds rarely mind if you play on them, in fact they are happy to have players visiting the flagship.

 

But it's still at the mercy of players who decide to put them in publicly listed strongholds. They can remove them at any time. It's still something you can procure only through other players voluntarily providing them and if every stronghold decided to shut their doors suddenly they'd be gone.

Might I suggest that if you can't bring packs back before this ends, you at least bump everyone who had a reputation tier above champion in any factions (i.e. anyone who has made it close enough to be working on Legendary rank) up to Champion (and gets that faction's title) before the reputations are wiped and replaced? I'm finding myself incredibly pissed off about this short-sighted change, which rewrites literally years of expensive, progression-based, gameplay and seems like it was not even going to be announced until after it was rolled out - until someone noticed the stealth change on the PTS. This type of unannounced, retrograde degradation of progression trees that loyal subscribers have been paying extra to support for years is precisely why this game can't retain players. I have been buying stronghold packs in small lots whenever they are available and I can afford them, despite the fact that most of what they drop is crap, and they never cover their cost to buy, simply because I knew that I was building that reputation over time, and would eventually get that title once the packs were relisted on the CM again. Now you're telling me that I have been wasting literally millions of credits on a reputation stream that is being removed - without notice - because, well, why? Why not just remove the faction limits from the vendors? Just let anyone who has CM certs buy from any of the vendors. Or give anyone who has any rep in any of the factions both titles, and THEN remove them all together. The current plan is simply robbing anyone who has some rank in any faction other than Legendary. Edited July 18, 2018 by OWENF

But it's still at the mercy of players who decide to put them in publicly listed strongholds. They can remove them at any time. It's still something you can procure only through other players voluntarily providing them and if every stronghold decided to shut their doors suddenly they'd be gone.

Respectfully, I believe that there will always be enough of us who love showing off our strongholds that this will never happen.

 

I have been buying stronghold packs in small lots whenever they are available and I can afford them, despite the fact that most of what they drop is crap, and they never cover their cost to buy, simply because I knew that I was building that reputation over time, and would eventually get that title once the packs were relisted on the CM again. Now you're telling me that I have been wasting literally millions of credits on a reputation stream that is being removed - without notice - because, well, why? Why not just remove the faction limits from the vendors? Just let anyone who has CM certs buy from any of the vendors. Or give anyone who has any rep in any of the factions both titles, and THEN remove them all together. The current plan is simply robbing anyone who has some rank in any faction other than Legendary.

Yeah, I have been advancing progression on a bunch of reputations slowly, as I can afford them, and the idea of permanently losing progression towards titles without a future way of getting them is not very appealing. I hope they will reconsider the implementation of this.

Edited July 19, 2018 by Estelindis

You are aware that the CM certificates do drop from the slot machines, right? At a rate of roughly 1 certificate per 1 million credits spent, which is an acceptable rate IMO, given the amount of inflation we have at the moment.

The drop rate hasn't been that good in years. It's closer to 3.5 million credits, according to people who posted long and thorough threads on their experiments with the Contraband machine since the nerf. It's also not simply a matter of money but of time. It takes hours to plug 3.5 million credits worth of chips (or more if you're unlucky) into the deco.

 

Now multiply this by needing multiple Certificates for a single item. Sure, maybe you have 35 million credits to burn for a mount, but do you have that much free time?

 

If it was 1 million per Certificate, then the single Certificate-locked decorations on the GTN wouldn't cost 3.5 to 5 million.

Edited July 19, 2018 by Xina_LA

Respectfully, I believe that there will always be enough of us who love showing off our strongholds that this will never happen.

 

I hope so. I am still not comfortable with an economy that is entirely dependent on other players - and interacting with other players. I'm not particularly comfortable walking into strangers' SHs.

The drop rate hasn't been that good in years. It's closer to 3.5 million credits, according to people who posted long and thorough threads on their experiments with the Contraband machine since the nerf.

Did those people take into account that you can sell some reputation trophies back to the vendor? Because the actual chip cost will be higher than 1 million but you get back some credits from selling the trophies. But it's been years since I calculated it, so my memory might be off.

My experience with the CSM is anecdotal. When I sell the CSM reputation trophies to a vendor I get back the extremes of 35% to 60% of what I spent for the CSM tokens. Most often I get back approximately 45% of what I spent for CSM tokens. I'm fine with an average 55% loss of credits as a credit sink when using the CSM.

 

The last time I received a Cartel Market Certificate from the CSM, it was one CMC after using about 1400 CSM tokens (1,050,000 credits). And, the time it took to use the CSM (more than 2, less than 4 hours). I've also used 1400 CSM tokens and not received a CMC. The process is tedious. I'd be fine with a vendor selling Cartel Market Certificates for credits. I'd much rather spend hours ingame doing something interesting to earn the credits to purchase Cartel Market Certificates, than to spend hours at a CSM hoping for a CMC. Spending 2+ hours at the CSM hoping for one Cartel Market Certificate to get a Potted Plant: Green Bush, or 4 hours hoping to get 2 CMCs for a rug isn't fun. It's frustrating.

 

I think putting all the old Cartel packs that contain reputation up for sale before 5.9.2 is a good idea. Those players interested in maxing out particular CM reputation for the titles have a chance at them. I don't use titles (except Special Snowflake during the Life Day event), but I appreciate that titles are well liked by some players.

 

I think a change to one, universal CM reputation has been needed for some time. Putting all Cartel packs containing rep for sale before 5.9.2 is an excellent idea. The CSM is a tedious and inconsistent source for Cartel Market Certificates.