CD & EA - Ranking and Reputation Changes (Patreon)

Hi everyone! Recently I’ve had some comments, especially some very impassioned ones from Halfcrzy (thanks!) here on Patreon, that got me thinking about the longevity of this story. I want it to go the distance, and that means I have to be careful with power creep. Additionally, there were some logical problems with the old reputation ranking system.

That said, rather than spend my morning writing, I’ve been going through the old chapters (better now than when there are a hundred+, right??) and changing things a bit.

I didn’t have to change much text, mainly tables, but it’s possible I missed something. Rather than repost all the affected chapters here on Patreon, I’m just going to give you a summary and a few snippets of new text to show you what’s different.

For reputation:

When an operator does a job, their teammates and clients are able to give them a positive or negative rating - basically a thumbs up or down. In order to advance through the reputation ranks, you need the following:

F needs +5

E needs +10

D needs +20

C needs +40

B needs +60

A needs +80

S needs +100

So, an S+ operator needs 315 positive, in-the-field ratings.

If they received a negative, that would take them in the other direction, so a bad job can hurt.

Some text from Angel:

“I still have an F rating?”

“Yes, but you’ve gained four rep points toward E. Not to mention, you’re working your way toward the next rank with two of your skills. The number +1 next to each rating is the number of positive ratings you’ve received for that particular skill. With skill ratings, it’s rather easy to get out of the F rank—you only need five positive ratings. To get from E to D, you’ll need ten, and to get from D to C, you’ll need twenty. After that, it won’t double, but you’ll still need twenty more than each previous tier.”

“So no matter how good I am, I have to have successful jobs and reviews in order to improve my ranking? Couldn’t I take a test or something to prove I’m at a C level or whatever?”

“I’m afraid not, Juliet. SOA is very reputation oriented—you must prove yourself in the field on many occasions to gain real credit. There’s a bit more nuance to the system, though—operators with higher overall rank will count for more positive votes. For instance, if you did a job with an A-ranked operator and they gave you a positive review on data retrieval, you might see a jump of four or five on your card.

And later:

“Not at all,” Angel said, “The more you work with someone, the better you will perform, and your client ratings are more impactful, in any case. Clients have reputation levels also, and the higher-tier clients offering higher-tier jobs can impact your rep far more than an operator of your equivalent tier.”

Another area that needed some adjustment was gear scores. I want Juliet to have to work for and be very excited when she gets something higher than a C-rated piece of gear. C should be the limit of what a low-end chop-doc is going to carry in stock.

That said, I’ve adjusted the rankings of Juliet’s new gear to allow for more progression. By the way, I added E to the rankings. Strange that I left that out without noticing! I’m sure it has to do with too much time in the US educational system - most schools don’t give any E grades.

Juliet’s Current Stats and SOA card:

I hope this doesn’t upset anyone - look at it this way: I’m not really nerfing Juliet; I’m just increasing the room for growth.

Happy to hear your thoughts!

-Plum