What the OP doesn't realize is that there is a bit of luck to all of this. I didn't start on launch date, but pretty close to it. I'm on shards of a bunch of whales. I have managed to crack top 20 in arena on rare occasions. Mainly I am somewhere in the range of 50-30. I am strictly ftp. I don't see the point in spending money on something that could be gone tomorrow. You say that way too many time with these type of games. Fleet arena has been worse. It seems like I have no chance of cracking top 50 unless I use refreshes for the past month or so. I used to be top 50, but there are times that I drop below 100 now.
Not everyone can get #1 in both arenas, so stating that 900 crystals a day is the norm is just silly. I have no clue what my shard chat is since I never gotten to a point to be consistently on their radar to get an invite. Most legendary style toons are strictly relegated for the second time through for me. I think I may have 7*'ed C-3PO the first time through. Before that, it was probably CLS that I got the first time through. With GAS, I couldn't even play it because of too many things to farm with the same energy. 189 left on Shaak and 172 on Anakin's ship. That is with one refresh a day on each.Yes, I fell for that you will need all five Sith ships rumor, so that is why Anakin never got finished. Every time I was getting back to farming him, they drop something else in ship energy. Like everyone, I need about a billion stun guns to make a dent in gear levels. Kyrotechs are need for gearing Shaak and Padme as well as g13 and the drop rates are horrible. The only way I can catch up is to either spend cash or hope a ton of people on my shard stop playing.