Capital Games Team
What isn't being mentioned is that you can't even participate in the Character quests without buying shards. Yes, you can use crystals, but this is hardly F2P friendly if you need to spend 1300 crystals for a few shards to hit the 70 mark and be able to participate. If I have to spend almost all my crystals at every new marquee (which is becoming too frequent for my tastes)... You almost have to choose between progressing in the game as a whole, or going all in on yet another new toon that will then take months if not a year to develop.
The first half of what you wrote was mentioned and shown via a screenshot in the announcement: "However, claiming these quests requires the player to own a specific number of shards of the associated Marquee Character." And I agree about how (little) F2P it is. Not everyone is going to have 20k+ crystals and I can guarantee not everyone can or is going to want to spend who knows how much actual money every time a new marquee character is released, just so they can complete a few feats to get more or less the same rewards that they had been able to get for free. I'm hoarding crystals for Huyang (2k away from the 13k pack) and then for General Hera, but only because I'm hoping to unlock GLAT as soon as possible (fyi even if I'm not able to get all the reqs done by the time she arrives, she'll still be the fastest GL I've been able to get in relation to the release). Otherwise, I'm not about to spend all my crystals each time a new marquee shows up, especially since I already have so many other characters and teams to work on - Baylan reqs, TB teams (aside from MandaBo last month, I can't even remember the last time I've been able to work on RotE teams), Raids, what else.
It's still a bit too early to judge, so I'll try to be optimistic. If I can get the final crate of the Episode track without having to spend crystals on each new marquee, fine. Otherwise,...
