Character shard drop rates

Last 2 days in cantina-10% drop rate. They just want your money. Not getting any from me!

Just need patience and have lower expectations

Because the game isn't meant to be finished in two months. You play this for the long haul.

I've been playing the game on and off since its inception, so I understand it's a long haul game. However, there is very little chance this game will still exist in 5 years let alone 10 years. Simply reaching 7 stars isn't even the slowest part, upgrading gear is. My point is more that there should be a more consistent and direct way to unlock characters(even with money) otherwise most events are off limits. Basically, ea is shooting themselves in the foot with this model. Make characters more available and people are more likely to spend money to upgrade gear and speed up the process.

If you could farm the characters too quickly you would farm them all and have nothing left to do. There have to be bottlenecks to give the game longevity. That's it.

And they're not just catering to people who use 200 cantina energy in a day. The game has to be fun for people who are doing 5 cantina refreshes a day too.

At a 10% drop rate with 5 cantina refreshes, you're still earning at most 10 shards a day...so, spending 500 crystals a day for the 30 days it would take to get 7 stars, that would be $100/month. How is that fun? All it does is bore or over charge people into quitting. I am by no means saying that the game should make content completely free, it deserves to make money. I'm only saying it should have reasonable reward ratios to cost. There are several bottlenecks already....ability mats, zeta mats, raid gear, credits, etc...Farming characters is one aspect of the game, they could give everyone all the characters at 7 stars and you'd still spend several months(or longer if you're not in a powerful guild) upgrading a single full squad to max gear. This is not even considering new character releases and new features(like ships), which contribute to longevity.

"CuddlyTyrant;c-1406962" wrote:
At a 10% drop rate with 5 cantina refreshes, you're still earning at most 10 shards a day...so, spending 500 crystals a day for the 30 days it would take to get 7 stars, that would be $100/month. How is that fun? All it does is bore or over charge people into quitting. I am by no means saying that the game should make content completely free, it deserves to make money. I'm only saying it should have reasonable reward ratios to cost. There are several bottlenecks already....ability mats, zeta mats, raid gear, credits, etc...Farming characters is one aspect of the game, they could give everyone all the characters at 7 stars and you'd still spend several months(or longer if you're not in a powerful guild) upgrading a single full squad to max gear. This is not even considering new character releases and new features(like ships), which contribute to longevity.

Drop rates are not 10% for character shards, they are 33% across the board. 5 cantina refreshes isn't 500 crystals a day, it's 700 crystals a day. I have no idea where you are getting the $100/month - we get free crystals each day. The average amount varies depending on your arena finishes, TB stars, etc.

Yes, of course there are multiple bottlenecks. But you can pick out any one and say "well, why should gear be so hard to get, just make it easy since there are other bottlenecks like shards..." Why should shards specifically be the one that is loosened? This is, first and foremost, a collection game, and the thing that people enjoy collecting is the characters. Giving all characters 7* immediately would remove a lot of the collection aspect of the game that people enjoy.

Ok, 33% drop rates, its still about 1000 cantina runs to unlock a character. With them costing up to 16 energy a pop, that's 58 runs a day assuming you're refreshing 5 times. So, 17 days and spending nearly 12000 crystals. Lets assume you get an extremely generous 5000 crystals free in that 17 days. You would still have to spend about $50 to actually run that many cantinas. Most people are only going to refresh once a day, i would think. So, they'd get 20 runs a day taking 50 days of perfect energy usage and refreshing once to hit 7 stars. For one complete squad that's 250 days...I don't understand why you're defending the drop rates. Could you explain why you think the rates are fine? I think this is a great game and am only trying to make it better by giving players a better sense of...dare I say it...pride and accomplishment. Lets not forget how many characters are completely unattainable through farming. As you said characters are a major draw, so allowing people to unlock and get them to 7 stars more quickly would entice more players. However, I have no issues with them loosening one of the other bottlenecks. Characters just happens to be my preference.

crouchingrancor.com/cantina-farming-planner-tool/
^someone smarter than me made a visual tool.

"CuddlyTyrant;c-1407139" wrote:
Ok, 33% drop rates, its still about 1000 cantina runs to unlock a character. With them costing up to 16 energy a pop, that's 58 runs a day assuming you're refreshing 5 times. So, 17 days and spending nearly 12000 crystals. Lets assume you get an extremely generous 5000 crystals free in that 17 days. You would still have to spend about $50 to actually run that many cantinas. Most people are only going to refresh once a day, i would think. So, they'd get 20 runs a day taking 50 days of perfect energy usage and refreshing once to hit 7 stars. For one complete squad that's 250 days...I don't understand why you're defending the drop rates. Could you explain why you think the rates are fine? I think this is a great game and am only trying to make it better by giving players a better sense of...dare I say it...pride and accomplishment. Lets not forget how many characters are completely unattainable through farming. As you said characters are a major draw, so allowing people to unlock and get them to 7 stars more quickly would entice more players. However, I have no issues with them loosening one of the other bottlenecks. Characters just happens to be my preference.

I already explained why I think they are fine. If they were significantly higher, people would quickly run out of characters to farm and the game would get boring. This is a game that requires choices. You can't have everything and you have to pick which things to focus on. It has to be that way in order to remain interesting.

There are numerous places to get characters, so calculating how many days it takes to farm a team shouldn't assume they all come from cantina. Most teams don't require you to farm 5 cantina characters, because some of the characters can be obtained from the various shops as well. Many of the best characters come from legendary events and raids anyway.

Single hard node farms take an inordinately long time, as does the current Wicket/Talzin cadence. The only issue I have with cantina farms is the fact that they conflict with mod farming.