Very thorough, nicely put.
I am not a free to play player, I have 70 7 star toons. The goal is to be able to use everyone, isn't it? To do that the amount of gear is startling.
Drops in battles are so low, sometimes 1 or 2 out of 24 sims, that's 200 crystals. If you need 50 salvage, your spending 1000's of crystals. An honest 1/3 drop rate and farming wouldn't be a lesson in futility. 8/24 and a user would get a feeling of progression. I can't just buy all the gear that's no fun. It's better to get rewards by gameplay.
Every level of the challenges has the same gear. Variety of gear on levels so we can choose what is useful. Lower amounts at high levels is fine. I'd rather get only 2 pieces of needed gear, than 12 pieces of gear I can't use.
Raid drops have no rhyme or reason. Players that register 0 damage get 2 full crafted gear and players in top 3 get the salvage gear(available in challenges) they do not need.
Between getting shard, credits to star, leveling up, mods, ships and more
It's a misconception that giving the players a few pieces of the gear they need will not help EA fiscally so they don't care. So much gear is needed it won't be game changing. One piece 50 salvage, needing many. That's hundreds, thousands of pieces. Just to see the totals going up with the new influx of characters.
I was really enjoying the game. Acquiring new toons and trying different combinations. Now I just spend all my time keeping up with the meta. Kinda sucked the fun out
