I like this change. It doesn't make farming hard node characters effortless, but it does make a significant difference. A single hard node toon is an 11 month farm with average RNG starting from scratch. That's a bit of an unreasonable timeline especially for some toons that are hard node only, and aren't even that good. This cuts a single hard node toon down to a 6.5 month farm approximately. A bit more palatable.
It also makes refreshing the node a bit more of a deal. 3 shards for 150 crystals is the going price for established toons. Basically 1 for 50 in a three pack. With a 33% drop rate on shards refreshing a 3 battle hard node for 50 crystals should get you the same return on average of 1 shard for 50 crystals... on average.
But you're paying for a lottery ticket instead of a sure thing. Over time it might even out but you're going to get a lot of goose eggs mixed in. Refreshing 5 battles should average out to 1.67 shards for 50. It's a much better deal over time. You get a better deal over time if you have the stomach for some occasionally bad RNG.
I'm glad the devs did this, and I think it's a change that will be made permanent if lots of people start refreshing hard nodes on the regular. (I have NEVER refreshed hard nodes, but as soon as I finish Old Ben and have spare crystals I will every day.) It will put a huge crimp on gear farming by sucking up massive amounts of energy, but I'm hoping that the gear rewards for Territory Battles are intended to fill that void. We shall see.
