A Note on the F2P Revan Farm
There's been a lot of discussion lately about the farming of the Old Republic characters for Revan's Ancient Journey event. Many have claimed that players were completely unable to farm Revan without spending money. This is simply not true. It was entirely possible to farm the Old Republic characters for Revan without spending any money, without having a stockpile of crystals, and with nothing more than average RNG, for about 800 crystals a day.[/color And obviously, any amount of stockpiled crystals would lower the amount of required crystals per day.
Sound like a bold claim? Well, I didn't show up empty-handed, so read on to see why this claim is not as ridiculous as you might have thought.
Before we dive into the numbers, though, let's establish some ground rules: First, the drop rate of the various Hard Nodes and Cantina Nodes has been pretty well documented at around 33%, or 1/3. We'll consider that to be our average RNG on these farms. Second, I'm approaching this from the perspective of the F2P player, so the farming window starts only once the characters become F2P farmable, meaning each character will start at 50/330 shards (a.k.a. marquee level only); no shipment purchases prior to being released F2P.
With that in mind, I'll start by noting some important dates for the Old Republic farm:
So let's look at the crystal/shard costs for the Old Republic farming methods:
Also, these events tend to be timed, for obvious reasons, such that any halfway-efficient (ie, non-shipment) farming would get you close, but not all the way to your goal, barring extremely good RNG. Knowing that, the smart way to farm is to do all farming methods that are more efficient than the baseline, but not do any farming methods that are worse than the baseline, while attempting to keep the characters farmed as evenly as possible to allow for a more efficient use of Faction Packs, and making sure to purchase those Faction Packs as soon as possible, giving you time to adjust your subsequent farming to avoid overages.
Using this strategy, the most efficient farm is as follows:
From 9/12 to 9/26 (14 days):
In a perfectly average world, you'd have obtained the remaining shards via 15 Faction Packs at a cost of 10485 (699x15) crystals, bringing you to 31385 crystals total, which is 730 crystals a day. Because the farming methods for each character are uneven, however, it is extremely unlikley that 15 packs will be split perfectly to offset the imbalance. Increasing the Faction Pack purchases to 26 (which represents 380 shards, enough to average 76 shards per character) would cost 18174 (699x26) crystals. This would lead to a combined 163 shards of Bastila, Jolee, and Zaalbar not needing to be farmed from regular energy, which would save you 4890 (163x30) crystals and lead to a total crystal count of 34184 crystals, which is 795 crystals a day. 795 crystals a day also equates to 680 crystals a day with a 5k crystal stockpile, 565 crystals a day with a 10k stockpile, 445 crystals a day with a 15k stockpile, etc.
But what if you didn't know about or plan to use Faction Packs? In that case, you'd use 8 tier 1 Fleet Energy Refreshes at a cost of 800 (100x8) crystals at any point in your farm to finish off the last 16 shards of Bastila and Jolee. Then you'd use 20 tier 2 Energy Refreshes costing 2000 (100x20) crystals between 9/26 and 10/24 along with 19 2nd Node Refreshes costing 950 (50x19) crystals on Zaalbar to farm his remaining 49 shards. You'd also completely finish T3 before starting Mission using Cantina energy, which means you'd end up needing to buy 133 shards of Mission from shipments at a cost of 10880 (136x80) crystals. That would put your total at 35530 crystals, which is 830 crystals a day. 830 crystals a day also equates to 710 crystals a day with a 5k crystal stockpile, 595 crystals a day with a 10k stockpile, 480 crystals a day with a 15k stockpile, etc.
As you can see, it is quite possible to have farmed Revan without any spending, preparation, or even good luck. Of course, not everyone earns 800 crystals or more a day, but even those who earn less could have laid in a stockpile in order to do so. And from the moment the marquees hit, we've had a fairly standard countdown to this event. All five characters were shuffled first to shipments and then to farming locations in the expected amount of time per the release cadence. So the timing of the event really shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise.
Ultimately, the success of an FTP player comes down to resource management, smart decisions, and focus. One of the things I've heard a lot from other players is that they weren't farming the Old Republic characters because they were still farming for Chewie, or JTR, or 'x' other player, and they were caught off-guard by the Revan announcement, not having time to switch farms and still get the Old Republic characters in time. That's fine, but that's a choice. Even without a definitive announcement at the time, I think the prevailing opinion was that the release of five Old Republic characters heralded Revan. The mistake people made was believing that they'd have a chance to F2P farm those characters completely after an official Revan announcement was made. And that will pretty much never be the case.
Sound like a bold claim? Well, I didn't show up empty-handed, so read on to see why this claim is not as ridiculous as you might have thought.
Before we dive into the numbers, though, let's establish some ground rules: First, the drop rate of the various Hard Nodes and Cantina Nodes has been pretty well documented at around 33%, or 1/3. We'll consider that to be our average RNG on these farms. Second, I'm approaching this from the perspective of the F2P player, so the farming window starts only once the characters become F2P farmable, meaning each character will start at 50/330 shards (a.k.a. marquee level only); no shipment purchases prior to being released F2P.
With that in mind, I'll start by noting some important dates for the Old Republic farm:
- 9/12:
- Bastila Shan farmable on DS Hard Node 5-B (16 energy)
- Bastila Shan farmable on Fleet Hard Node 2-D (20 energy)
- Jolee Bindo farmable on DS Hard Node 6-D (16 energy)
- Jolee Bindo farmable on Fleet Hard Node 4-E (20 energy)
- 9/26:
- Zaalbar farmable on LS Hard Node 5-D (16 energy)
- Zaalbar farmable on Fleet Hard Node 3-C (20 energy)
- T3-M4 farmable on Cantina Node 6-B (12 energy)
- Mission Vao farmable on Cantina Node 7-A (16 energy)
- Three Cantina Energy Packs announced
- 10/10:
- Event dates set
- Faction Pack becomes available
- 10/18: Event starts
- 10/24: Event ends
So let's look at the crystal/shard costs for the Old Republic farming methods:
- LS/DS Hard Nodes:
- 30 c/s – 1st Node Refresh (25) + 1st tier Energy Refresh (50) for 7.5 pulls
- 40 c/s – 2nd Node Refresh (50) + 1st tier Energy Refresh (50) for 7.5 pulls
- 48 c/s – Faction Pack (699)
- 60 c/s – 2nd Node Refresh (50) + 2nd tier Energy Refresh (100) for 7.5 pulls
- 60 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with one character already maxed
- 80 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with two characters already maxed
- 80 c/s – Shipments
- Fleet Hard Nodes:
- 48 c/s – Faction Pack (699)
- 50 c/s – 1st tier Energy Refresh (100) for 6 pulls
- 60 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with one character already maxed
- 63 c/s – 1st Node Refresh (25) + 1st tier Energy Refresh (100) for 6 pulls
- 75 c/s – 2nd Node Refresh (50) + 1st tier Energy Refresh (100) for 6 pulls
- 80 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with two characters already maxed
- 80 c/s – Shipments
- Cantina Nodes:
- 30 c/s – 1st tier Energy Refresh (100) for 12 Energy Nodes
- 34 c/s – Cantina Energy pack (600) for 12 Energy Nodes
- 40 c/s – 1st tier Energy Refresh (100) for 16 Energy Nodes
- 45 c/s – Cantina Energy pack (600) for 16 Energy Nodes
- 48 c/s – Faction Pack (699)
- 60 c/s – 2nd tier Energy Refresh (200) for 12 Energy Nodes
- 60 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with one character already maxed
- 80 c/s – Faction Pack (699) with two characters already maxed
- 80 c/s – Shipments
Also, these events tend to be timed, for obvious reasons, such that any halfway-efficient (ie, non-shipment) farming would get you close, but not all the way to your goal, barring extremely good RNG. Knowing that, the smart way to farm is to do all farming methods that are more efficient than the baseline, but not do any farming methods that are worse than the baseline, while attempting to keep the characters farmed as evenly as possible to allow for a more efficient use of Faction Packs, and making sure to purchase those Faction Packs as soon as possible, giving you time to adjust your subsequent farming to avoid overages.
Using this strategy, the most efficient farm is as follows:
From 9/12 to 9/26 (14 days):
- Using free Energy and three 1st tier Energy Refreshes each day split evenly between Bastila and Jolee yields 214 (735 energy x 14 days / 48 energy per shard [16 energy per pull x 0.33 drop rate]) shards (+107 Bastila, +107 Jolee) at a cost of 4050 (50 crystals for tier 1 refresh x 3 per day x 14 days + 150 crystals for 4 node refreshes [25 + 25 + 50 + 50] x 11 days + 100 crystals for 3 node refreshes [25 + 25 + 50] x 3 days) crystals.
- Using free Fleet energy each day split evenly between Bastila and Jolee yields 38 (165x14/60) shards (+19 Bastila, +19 Jolee) at a cost of 0 crystals.
- Using free Energy and three 1st tier Energy Refreshes each day with a bias towards Zaalbar yields 444 (735x29/48) shards (+145 Bastila, +145 Jolee, +154 Zaalbar) at a cost of 6350 (50x3x29 + 75x22 + 50x7) crystals.
- Using free Fleet energy each day with a bias towards Zaalbar yields 79 (165x29/60) shards (+1 Bastila, +1 Jolee, +77 Zaalbar) at a cost of 0 crystals.
- Using free Cantina Energy and three 1st tier Cantina Energy Refreshes each day as well as the three Cantina Energy Packs split evenly between T3 and Mission yields 408 (525x29/42 + 640x3/42) shards (+204 T3, +204 Mission) at a cost of 10500 (300x29 + 600x3) crystals.
In a perfectly average world, you'd have obtained the remaining shards via 15 Faction Packs at a cost of 10485 (699x15) crystals, bringing you to 31385 crystals total, which is 730 crystals a day. Because the farming methods for each character are uneven, however, it is extremely unlikley that 15 packs will be split perfectly to offset the imbalance. Increasing the Faction Pack purchases to 26 (which represents 380 shards, enough to average 76 shards per character) would cost 18174 (699x26) crystals. This would lead to a combined 163 shards of Bastila, Jolee, and Zaalbar not needing to be farmed from regular energy, which would save you 4890 (163x30) crystals and lead to a total crystal count of 34184 crystals, which is 795 crystals a day. 795 crystals a day also equates to 680 crystals a day with a 5k crystal stockpile, 565 crystals a day with a 10k stockpile, 445 crystals a day with a 15k stockpile, etc.
But what if you didn't know about or plan to use Faction Packs? In that case, you'd use 8 tier 1 Fleet Energy Refreshes at a cost of 800 (100x8) crystals at any point in your farm to finish off the last 16 shards of Bastila and Jolee. Then you'd use 20 tier 2 Energy Refreshes costing 2000 (100x20) crystals between 9/26 and 10/24 along with 19 2nd Node Refreshes costing 950 (50x19) crystals on Zaalbar to farm his remaining 49 shards. You'd also completely finish T3 before starting Mission using Cantina energy, which means you'd end up needing to buy 133 shards of Mission from shipments at a cost of 10880 (136x80) crystals. That would put your total at 35530 crystals, which is 830 crystals a day. 830 crystals a day also equates to 710 crystals a day with a 5k crystal stockpile, 595 crystals a day with a 10k stockpile, 480 crystals a day with a 15k stockpile, etc.
As you can see, it is quite possible to have farmed Revan without any spending, preparation, or even good luck. Of course, not everyone earns 800 crystals or more a day, but even those who earn less could have laid in a stockpile in order to do so. And from the moment the marquees hit, we've had a fairly standard countdown to this event. All five characters were shuffled first to shipments and then to farming locations in the expected amount of time per the release cadence. So the timing of the event really shouldn't have come as too much of a surprise.
Ultimately, the success of an FTP player comes down to resource management, smart decisions, and focus. One of the things I've heard a lot from other players is that they weren't farming the Old Republic characters because they were still farming for Chewie, or JTR, or 'x' other player, and they were caught off-guard by the Revan announcement, not having time to switch farms and still get the Old Republic characters in time. That's fine, but that's a choice. Even without a definitive announcement at the time, I think the prevailing opinion was that the release of five Old Republic characters heralded Revan. The mistake people made was believing that they'd have a chance to F2P farm those characters completely after an official Revan announcement was made. And that will pretty much never be the case.
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Replies
Cantina i'm still going hard for vet Han.
Not sure what cloud you’re living in, but ‘usually’ those that pay earn the big crystal payouts in ranked systems. Ie: rich get richer system.
Cute and colorful wall though.
I dedicated all my farming, all my crystals, and a lot of time to farming the old republic toons. I have 3 at 6* and 2 halfway to 6*. So unless you were in the top tiers of your shards which isn't always possible, he was unavailable this first time around for f2p people. Don't say it was lack of management, when I did the best I could with my available resources. The event was released too soon for us, and ultimately this was CG's decision. I will have to unlock him in 4-6 months.
So your post was not only an attempt to convince us that this wasn’t a whale exclusive event first time around, but at least the top 2% of FTP could have had him too...
Maybe that response needed more colors too. Adds to the convincing factor.
Obviously his point was to show us how to paint with all the colors of the forums.
But yeah, the point about only 2% of FTP players getting it is frustrating. Obviously these 2% of FTP players are either stockpilers for almost a year, or have whale friends that got them into a good guild, or they are retired whales that have made it to the top arenas and make a huge income. Not for the true and standard FTP players.
- Assuming that average players get 800 crystals a day and if not they likely have a stockpile of crystals saved up. Most F2P players that arent ranking in large amounts of daily crystals are far more likely to spend them as they get them to farm and level, not to save for rainy days.
- You are assuming everyone knew that the KOTOR toons would be needed for some sort of unlock, when in reality it was all conjecture at best.
- You are assuming people started farming these toons as soon as they became available in lieu of other farms they already had going.
- Most of the other toons pretty much suck aside from Bastilla, so I dont see why anyone would have changed what they were doing just in case they were necessary for some type of event or unlock.
The problem is the shrouded secrecy they have around these type of events that tends to make everyone mad. If they had said once the KOTOR toons were released they would be needed for Revan or some other unlock so people knew they werent wasting their time, then it becomes a more worthy farm but until they change this thought process theres always going to be ragers.
With all this being said, not getting him on the first go around really isnt that big a deal and people tend to whine if they cant get them the first time around (Never understood that but whatever) but again not knowing when his event will come around again (3 months? 6? a year?) is another compounded issue that is making people upset.
Long story short the communication needs to be better but that will tend to only hurt their bottom line as less people will plop down cash for panic farms then if they keep with the status quo.
The problem is very few F2P players CAN make 800 crystals per day. I am in an old shard where the top 50 players are whales. I am lucky if I pull top 50, and I am a dolphin.
You miss read what he was saying. Top fifty isn't even close you have to pull first in both everyday. Utter nonsense.
However this topic isn’t in support or lack there of for the toons themselves. This is about some nonsensical notion that anything below a whale or extremely small percentile of F2P’s had a shot at Revan. Which they didn’t.
I don’t know about your shard but I have 6, and they’re all whales at top ... 6. Imagine that.
I'll farm them on my schedule. I don't need anyone to tell me how it's possible.
I honestly didn't even check to see how high you have to rank to pull in 800 per day. But good point.
When a new faction tag is created and five characters are quickly released for that faction tag, I think anyone who is honest with themselves will admit that it's not really conjecture at that point, merely timing. It might have been different if those characters all had super-synergy and were released as a standalone squad, but about the only thing these 5 characters had in common was Revan, whom most people assumed would come to the game at some point. The writing was on the wall from the very first Old Republic announcement.
As I said, Revan was available with focus. Focus means making a choice to not spread your attention too thin.
And yet, the beauty of this farming speculation was that it didn't require a big investment until the announcement was made. All it required was that you stop farming other things, and save your excess crystal income for a while. If, for some reason, you were wrong and the event wasn't coming, you'd still have all those crystals available for whatever else you wanted. The big spending came about for Faction Packs of Shipments, but only after the announcement on 10/10, let alone the teaser on 10/5.
The goal isn't to make it too easy to get a legendary character. It actually diminishes the quality of the reward, if it's too widely available. But it's important that it also be available to those with the foresight and dedication to focus on it without a definitive statement.
Most players who aren't P2P or high-end F2P won't feel the effects of not having Revan the first time too keenly, true. And not knowing the precise date goes back to the last point. People should just be prepared when they want to be prepared.
-Not have believed CG saying that there would not be an event early requiring these characters
Stop farming every other character we were farming, and powerfarm 4 useless characters to us (Zaalbar, MV, Jolee and T3) as soon as they got out
-Still be competiting in arena to get 800 crystals a day
Don't say it was possible for F2P. It was WAY TOO MUCH OF A GAMBLE to be acceptable by f2p.
It was not.
EDIT :
Don't forget that those who had savings used it all to farm BH gear to get chewy done 3 weeks earlier.
You're behind purely on bad luck. But you can do that cool smuggling event...
800 crystals a day. I started laughing at that point. If you're F2P and earning 200 or less on top of daily activities I highly doubt you'd be stockpiling them "just in case". Very high probability you'd be using them to try to improve or switch squads to earn more crystals in either arena.
Oh, you mean you don't have 7 stun guns stockpiled? Amateur.
If this is so, then where's the Legendary event for the Rogue One faction tag or the legendary event for the Smuggler faction tag? Shall I go on? Just because a new faction tag is released with new characters doesn't always mean that we'll be getting a legendary for it.