Thoughts on (Rumored) Shard Exchange

"Relish_Yoda;3069" wrote:
I’m a fan of the game and enjoying the balance of gameplay/grind/gambling excitement/star wars characters.
Wanted to share some thoughts on the art of the possible on the rumored upcoming shard exchange. I think it could help paying users, non-paying users and, of course, the house.
The Stem Shard.
What if you could trade-in a certain number of character shards for a Stem Shard. A Stem Shard would be a blank shard where the owner (user) would have the choice for it to be any shard of any character desired.
The different values/rarities of character shards would dictate how many would be needed to exchange for a Stem Shard. So shards from a common character (i.e. Jedi Consular) would have a low trade-in value, let’s say 10-to-1 (i.e. give up 10 Jedi Consular shards in exchange for one Stem Shard). And shards from a rare character (i.e. Lando) will have closer to a 1-to-1 conversion to a Stem Shard.
How does the house profit? Create a transaction tax. Each Stem Shard converted would cost, call it, 10 crystals. There could be different terms if you’re converting shards from a 7-starred character.
Developers could adjust over time the conversion rates depending on rarity/commonality of characters.
A kicker for the house? Create a Stem Shard pack. How much would some users pay for 10 shards of their choice!
The above was in mind for shards of un-activated characters or residual shards of activated characters. But what about the stars of already activated characters? Either, (i) prohibit their conversion (i.e. you’re stuck with that character) or (ii) allow to exchange shards and ‘de-star’, perhaps at a more unfavorable exchange ratio.
A second proposal: full open market with a crystal transaction tax. Where users trade at their discretion with each transaction costing a fixed number of crystals per side. But let’s leave the details on that for another day.