Personally would have been happy (F2P BTW) if they had just made the events weekly and set the shards so it was a year or maybe even as low as a 9 month time investment. Admittedly for the first sets of toons released this way it would have been slow because we wouldn't get these toons for awhile, but if a new toon was released this way every couple of months, those that invested in the toons needed to farm would have a steady set of toons coming in bi-monthly. Part of the problem is the psychological downside, two years is far too far in the future for a game to consider investing, even if you have no plans to quit. It needs to be quick enough that it feels like making progress and slow enough that it feels like a reasonable farm.