Event tickets are awful
Event tickets for galactic legends is awful mechanic. At least make it do tickets are consumed until you win. Blowing tickets on experiencing the event for the first time removes fun from the mechanic...
Forum Discussion
Additionally, given that you would need 70 sims of 20-cost nodes, which would be 14 hard nodes (at 5 sims per day) with 20-energy cost. There's only 12 light side nodes like that, so you would have to spend 25 crystals twice to refresh two of those nodes once.
Logic fault: you don't need to do 20-energy nodes, so there's no need to refresh any node. (Many people might, if they're farming something, but it's not part of the minimum cost calculation at all.)
Run out of sims on the 20-energy hard nodes you feel like doing? Just go sim some 16- or 12-energy nodes, or even some easy nodes, and you'll actually get MORE shards per point of energy.
Why? (Math...)
Spoiler
Because the drop rate is effectively 1-in-18 per point of energy (started off 1/3, then they scaled that up assuming by keeping 1/3 for cheapest easy nodes using a constant per-energy chance. Since the cheapest easy nodes were 6 energy, then the chance per point of energy was 1/3 divided by 6, or 1/18).
But get this: 20 energy means a chance of 20/18. That's not 100%, that's more than 100%. But do you get a chance at 2 tickets on a single sim? Not from what anyone can tell. So to the best that anyone can tell, 2/18ths or 1/9th (either of which equals 11.1%) of the ticket chance you purchased on a 20-energy node goes wasted.
On a 16-energy node, you have a 16/18 chance of a ticket (or 8/9 or 88.888888889%).
So you divide the number of tickets desired (which is 70) by the chance per sim (which is 8/9). Of course dividing by 8/9 is the same as multiplying by 9/8.
So to get your tickets you need roughly (9*70)/8 = 630/8 = 78.75
Then you multiple that number by 16 energy (the cost per sim) to find out how much total energy is needed. It's easier if we don't take the final reduced answer from above, but start with the fraction 630/8, because then we get
But get this: 20 energy means a chance of 20/18. That's not 100%, that's more than 100%. But do you get a chance at 2 tickets on a single sim? Not from what anyone can tell. So to the best that anyone can tell, 2/18ths or 1/9th (either of which equals 11.1%) of the ticket chance you purchased on a 20-energy node goes wasted.
On a 16-energy node, you have a 16/18 chance of a ticket (or 8/9 or 88.888888889%).
So you divide the number of tickets desired (which is 70) by the chance per sim (which is 8/9). Of course dividing by 8/9 is the same as multiplying by 9/8.
So to get your tickets you need roughly (9*70)/8 = 630/8 = 78.75
Then you multiple that number by 16 energy (the cost per sim) to find out how much total energy is needed. It's easier if we don't take the final reduced answer from above, but start with the fraction 630/8, because then we get
Total Energy = 16 * 630/8 = 16/8 * 630 (because of multiplicative transitivity) = 2 * 630 = 1260.
So that's the energy we should expect to spend per day to get 70 tickets.
Blah, blah:
Spoiler
You can do the math for yourself, but it will come out the same for all other nodes except 20-energy nodes, which wasted 11.1% of their ticket chance because of the rule you cannot get more than a single ticket from a single sim.
So as long as you spend your 1260 energy on any combination of nodes other than 20-energy nodes, you should still expect 70 tickets (i.e. lower energy nodes will have a lower chance of producing a ticket on a single sim, but you'll get more attempts).
So as long as you spend your 1260 energy on any combination of nodes other than 20-energy nodes, you should still expect 70 tickets (i.e. lower energy nodes will have a lower chance of producing a ticket on a single sim, but you'll get more attempts).
So how many energy refreshes will we need per day to get 70 tickets/day?
Spoiler
We get 375 energy free per day (240 accrued + 45 + 45 + 45 = 240 + 135 = 375)
1260 - 375 = 885 is left over that we have to purchase each day.
6 refreshes = 720 energy ... oops, not enough
720 + 1 more refresh = 840
The amount leftover is 45 or 9/24ths of a refresh, AKA 3/8ths
1260 - 375 = 885 is left over that we have to purchase each day.
6 refreshes = 720 energy ... oops, not enough
720 + 1 more refresh = 840
The amount leftover is 45 or 9/24ths of a refresh, AKA 3/8ths
So you'll need, on average, all your 50-energy refreshes, all your 100s, and 1x 200 energy refresh every day. (this is 650 crystals/day)
On top of that, you will need a further 200 energy refresh 3 times every 8 days.
And how many crystals per day will that be?
Spoiler
Well, there's the first 7 refreshes we need every day.
The cost of that 7 totals 3x50 + 3x100 + 200 = 150 + 300 + 200 = 150 + 500 = 650
Then there's the refresh we need 3 times every 8 days. Averaging the cost out over each day equally, you take (3/8) * 200 = (3*200)/8 = 600/8 = 75
650 (every day) + 75 (average) = 725
The cost of that 7 totals 3x50 + 3x100 + 200 = 150 + 300 + 200 = 150 + 500 = 650
Then there's the refresh we need 3 times every 8 days. Averaging the cost out over each day equally, you take (3/8) * 200 = (3*200)/8 = 600/8 = 75
650 (every day) + 75 (average) = 725
725 crystals (average) per day
Is this expensive? Sure. But it's a lot less than 1100 crystals per day that you were quoting before. Me personally I would never spend on the 200-crystal refreshes.
Of course that would mean that I'd have only 375 + 720 energy to spend each day, or 1095 total.
And thus it would take me more days to finish, by a factor of 1260/1095.
So what does that mean?
Spoiler
If we're just talking about the 12 days for t4, t5, and 10x t6 (those are the only ones that cost 70 and that seemed to be the center of the dispute), you'll save 275 * 12 days = 3300 crystals, but the time it takes you to finish = 13.81 days instead of 12.
Thinking logically, this means we wouldn't actually have had to spend 208 energy on that final day. If we've had good RNG, that means saving another 200 crystals. Average RNG means saving 100 crystals and finishing 8.8 hours early. Bad RNG means saving exactly 3300 crystals total, no extra.
Thinking logically, this means we wouldn't actually have had to spend 208 energy on that final day. If we've had good RNG, that means saving another 200 crystals. Average RNG means saving 100 crystals and finishing 8.8 hours early. Bad RNG means saving exactly 3300 crystals total, no extra.
To sum up, it means we save 3300-3500 crystals and finish approximately 2 days later than we would have otherwise. (14 days instead of 12)
Can you earn those 3300+ crystals over 2 days of improved Arena results? Nope.
Max payout = 500 and if you've already got a GL & are just playing for the ultimate, you're not finishing worse than 200th place, and you're almost certainly finishing in the top 100, so let's just use that.
Spoiler
Top 100 = 100 crystals. #1 = 500 crystals, so best possible improvement = 400 crystals per day.
So for worst (reasonable) case in current arena results with your non-ultimate GL, and best case after ultimate, you're still worse off by 2500 - 2700 crystals. If you lose and have to repeat a day, pouring the extra 275 crystals per day into your effort to net you 1 attempt per day actually slowly begins to look better as a strategy. You reduce your disadvantage by 125 crystals every 6 & 2/3rds attempts. So your breakeven point = (2500/125) * 6.667 = 20 * 6.667 = 133.334 failed attempts.
So for worst (reasonable) case in current arena results with your non-ultimate GL, and best case after ultimate, you're still worse off by 2500 - 2700 crystals. If you lose and have to repeat a day, pouring the extra 275 crystals per day into your effort to net you 1 attempt per day actually slowly begins to look better as a strategy. You reduce your disadvantage by 125 crystals every 6 & 2/3rds attempts. So your breakeven point = (2500/125) * 6.667 = 20 * 6.667 = 133.334 failed attempts.
So with no losses, you're worse off by 2500-2700 crystals (minimum, with maximum if your arena rank doesn't improve at all with ultimate = 3300 - 3500 crystals), and you have to fail at least 133 times before hitting 12 successes before maximizing ticket production to ensure 1 attempt per day becomes a break-even strategy.
Spoiler
That number, by the way gets higher & higher the lower the difference between your pre-ultimate Arena rank & post-ultimate Arena rank. If you're already getting top 50, you would need 222 failures for your 1 attempt-per-day strategy to break even. If you're already getting top 20 before ultimate, you would need 667 failures on the T6 Ultimate battle to break even ... and that's assuming that for all those extra days it takes to earn 679 attempts on only 1085 energy per day (the difference being 101 days) you take 1st every single time. No vacations, no off-days where you fail. And definitely no spending crystals on your Arena climb. For 101 days in a row.
Good luck!
I hated the event, and either had bad RNG or was a very poor player, and I only failed 6 times before hitting my 12 successes. If you think you're 22 times worse than me at this game, then maybe the 200 crystal refreshes make sense. But if you're not, you definitely shouldn't spend on those 200 crystal refreshes because you think it's going to pay off by getting you increased rewards sooner.
If you want to do it for reasons of fun, or because you lost a bet, or because the elves that live in your garden told you to, that's fine. It's a game, do whatever makes you happy. But if you're doing it because you think it's going to pay off for you in-game, the math says otherwise.
