As a free to play gamer of 3+ years I have been earning roughly about 170ish Crystals a day. I dont manage well in fleet arena and I dont want to attempt to climb in squad arena knowing whatever I do I wont break even and am content with my earnings. When it comes to spending crystals however I'm a situational spender as in I spend on whatever I deem most important at the time i.e gear, shards, blueprints so long as I have the funds. I've been debating on how I should go about handling my crystals more effectively based on my income. I usually avoid spending on refreshes because I tend to think that due to the poor drop rate of shards I think buying shards from shipments is a better alternative since at least there's a guarantee that I'll actually get more than one or two shards after say 2 or 3 refreshes. Should I just go all out and spend all my crystals on refreshes based on my income or save up?

And some nodes have a ship and a hero in them

"Coolnessda;d-233335" wrote: I dont want to attempt to climb in squad arena knowing whatever I do I wont break even and am content with my earnings.I don't understand this part.

"Coolnessda;d-233335" wrote:I usually avoid spending on refreshes because I tend to think that due to the poor drop rate of shards I think buying shards from shipments is a better alternative since at least there's a guarantee that I'll actually get more than one or two shards after say 2 or 3 refreshes. Should I just go all out and spend all my crystals on refreshes based on my income or save up?Your math is off. Buying energy refreshes for 50 crystals to farm shards and gear is a far better investment than spending your crystals to buy shards and gear from shipments.Your statistics is off as well. You don't just get 1 or two shards every 2 or 3 refreshes. Drop rates are about 1/3.

I never buy shards from the shop, but I buy some gear with crystals especiallyMk 8 biotech implant component, mostly the 25 pieces for 375The full mk3 holo projector for 300And sometimes small packs of 10 items if I already on 100 crystal refresh and I need to finalize an item. I feel to have bad luck in moments I need the last items, so I buy them even if this is more expensive.

Buying a journey guide pack can be a good investment depending on where you are in a farm. If you're down to 1-2 toons in a specific journey it's not worth it, but saves a lot of time if you're early in the farm.

How best to utilize crystals | EA Forums

Anariodin
5 years ago
And some nodes have a ship and a hero in them
Vaderizer
Seasoned Newcomer
5 years ago
"Coolnessda;d-233335" wrote:
I dont want to attempt to climb in squad arena knowing whatever I do I wont break even and am content with my earnings.

I don't understand this part.
Waquira
5 years ago
"Coolnessda;d-233335" wrote:
I usually avoid spending on refreshes because I tend to think that due to the poor drop rate of shards I think buying shards from shipments is a better alternative since at least there's a guarantee that I'll actually get more than one or two shards after say 2 or 3 refreshes. Should I just go all out and spend all my crystals on refreshes based on my income or save up?

Your math is off. Buying energy refreshes for 50 crystals to farm shards and gear is a far better investment than spending your crystals to buy shards and gear from shipments.

Your statistics is off as well. You don't just get 1 or two shards every 2 or 3 refreshes. Drop rates are about 1/3.
Archonurm
5 years ago
I never buy shards from the shop, but I buy some gear with crystals especially
Mk 8 biotech implant component, mostly the 25 pieces for 375
The full mk3 holo projector for 300

And sometimes small packs of 10 items if I already on 100 crystal refresh and I need to finalize an item. I feel to have bad luck in moments I need the last items, so I buy them even if this is more expensive.
Whackingtrack29
5 years ago
Buying a journey guide pack can be a good investment depending on where you are in a farm. If you're down to 1-2 toons in a specific journey it's not worth it, but saves a lot of time if you're early in the farm.
Waquira
5 years ago
"DarjeloSalas;c-2145913" wrote:
"DarjeloSalas;c-2145901" wrote:
"Potato211;c-2145893" wrote:
I don't know what RNG you guys get but mine is always screwing me over with either 1 shard or none for His, Mando, B1 and Enfys. It's rare for me to see 2, alone 5 shards from a Hard node.

We get exactly the same RNG as you do.

Here’s the results of tracking drops:

Cara dune: 42shards/110attempts (38.2%)
Mando: 40/110 (36.4%)
Greef: 32/105 (32.4%)

That’s in 11 days, costing me 75 crystals a day to refresh and 100 crystals a day to refresh fleet energy twice.

So, for 1925 crystals I’ve obtained 114 shards, which is roughly 17 crystals per shard.

Saving to buy that many shards would have cost me 9120 crystals. Now, I’m taking around 850 a day from arenas on average, so it would take roughly 11 days to save that many crystals.

By farming, I’ve managed to keep 7000 ish crystals for other things like gear or cantina refreshes to get the last few relic mats for the SLKR requirements.

If this doesn’t convince you that you’re doing things the wrong way, I wish you the very best of luck @Potato211 .

The first 5 attempts every day were free, which means you got roughly half your shards without spending crystals. You only spent crystals on additional attempts. For those 1925 crystals you've obtain approximately 57 shards - the others were free.

But your point still stands of course. It much cheaper to farm shards with refreshes than to buy shards from shipments.
tvsfrink
5 years ago
"Potato211;c-2145893" wrote:
I don't know what RNG you guys get but mine is always screwing me over with either 1 shard or none for His, Mando, B1 and Enfys. It's rare for me to see 2, alone 5 shards from a Hard node.

Feels are a poor way to play the game.
Gifford_Alex
5 years ago
"Potato211;c-2145893" wrote:
I don't know what RNG you guys get but mine is always screwing me over with either 1 shard or none for His, Mando, B1 and Enfys. It's rare for me to see 2, alone 5 shards from a Hard node.

Honestly it's the same for everyone. Nobody always has good or bad RNG, or it wouldn't be RNG. Do yourself a favour and track your farms over a few months.

You'll spare yourself some tin foil that way.
tvsfrink
5 years ago
"Potato211;c-2145951" wrote:
"TVF;c-2145932" wrote:
"Potato211;c-2145893" wrote:
I don't know what RNG you guys get but mine is always screwing me over with either 1 shard or none for His, Mando, B1 and Enfys. It's rare for me to see 2, alone 5 shards from a Hard node.

Feels are a poor way to play the game.

Okay boomer

There's nothing more boomerish than using that wrong.
Player_170mte2j
5 years ago
If you do no refreshes a day (5 attempts total), on average there is about a 13% chance of getting 0 shards every day. So roughly once a week you should expect to not get any shards.

If you do one refresh a day (10 attempts total), on average the chance to get 0 shards drops to 1.7%. So roughly once every two months you should expect to not get any shards.

Don't do refreshes, and you may likely feel like you are 'always' getting 0 shards. Do refreshes, and getting 0 shards feels like a rare occurance. I personally enjoy feeling like I am getting shards everyday. Doing refreshes will help the feels.