Why are shards so worthless???

[JoeKester]

I've pulled 7 "000" identifies 2 of which were duplicates. For the duplicates, I got 50 shards for the character I already have a "000" with... What am I supposed to do with that???
Just save up and hopefully get around 7 more duplicate "000" on that same character, then spend it all on a "000" for that character that already has a "000"???

With the 3 shards you get from 80% of pulls, you can save up till you've opened 133 duds to buy 1 "000" identity? At $1.40 a pull(at full price) that's $184 for 1 "000". Which is funny because for that to work all of those 133 pulls would need to give you shards for the same character(1/12 chance per shard)
Realistically if you want to spend shards on any 1 character you'll need to spend $2208 at, which point if the shards are distributed equally you'll have enough for one "000" for each character.
I see people saying shards are the pity system. I disagree, I don't think there's much pity in a system that only really starts to kick in after you spend well over 1 grand!
Unless you're gonna whale for more than thousands of dollars, it doesn't seem like shards have any use outside of being turned into threads, which is its own nightmarishly scarce resource.

I know that Limbus Corporation can be beaten without microtransactions, I've nearly beaten Canto III with only one roadblock, and only 5$ spent on worthless shards. But Project Moon's games aren't just about beating them. They're also about exploring content, finding lore, and new builds. In this game, all of that is of course locked behind the Gacha and Shards system.

Library of Ruina and Lobotomy Corporation are worth more than $30 easily, but the jump to expecting people to spend over $1000 is something else. I've only spent 5 dollars on this game and I think I already regret it. I think something needs to be changed.

[JoeKester]

Originally posted by DoT:

"Only thing wrong here is i think OP didn't buy battle pass
he probaly only get 1/3 box after lv60"

I literally said the free version of the battle pass, and mentioned how i have extra because i bought the battle pass.

the bare minimum of effort you put into the game will net you around 200 chests from the free version and doing the weeklies, which is worth 200 ~ 600 ego shards.

you also get an extra 70 chests from the free version of red crates. which is 70 ~ 210 extra ego shards dumped on all characters.

without any extra levels past 60 on the BP, you can easily get at least 1 000 identity or E.G.O, with the bare minimum of effort put into the game by the end of a season. You can even get 2 if you get lucky with the shards.

With the BP alone, and some grinding, i have enough to buy 2 000 identities or E.G.O, spending only 10$,

That compared to the crazy math op was posting about needing to spend hundreds of dollars to even get 1 000 identity is what bothers me about this because its going off of the worst way possible to get shards, which is relying on you not getting lucky in pulling the character you want but simultaneously getting lucky enough to get shards for the character you want to buy them with. It's just so dumb

I know you don't like math but gonna point out "70 ~ 210 extra ego shards dumped on all characters" means about 6-18 shards for each character... That's 2.75% closer to a 000 or ego on average. Not something i would call particularly helpful

If you were to just use random chests to get shards to craft with, you'd need 2520 of them on average to start to be able to craft 400 shard items. Personally, I don't think that's good. I understand some people's opinions differ though.

I do think the season pass is a relatively good deal compared to everything else!

I will also say the nominable chests are sort of okay, since they do what I mentioned earlier. They allow the shards to be used wherever you want. I don't think its fair to count "nominable chests" as "shards" though, since they avoid the biggest problem with the shards design. The actually random shards you get from the other chests and duplicates are still gonna do little to nothing for you unless you grind a lot. As seen in the statement above.

The reason why I go by math and not by "feel" is because feelings can be manipulated. Manipulating how you feel about microtransactions is what gacha games are actually about. The game will try to trick you.

For example:
The game tells you get 70 ~ 210 random shards and need 400 for legendary items.
Math tells you that's only 2.75% of the way to a legendary item.

[JoeKester]

Update I have bought and maxed out the season pass. Opened all the random shard chests, and spent all free luncay, did 5$ worth of 90% off extractions, spent all extraction tickets. (Opening 150 random shard chest got me at most 40 shards for one character)

Of the 000's and egos I'm missing the closet one is 173/400 shards... Yeah not really seeing random shards helping much outside of being converted into thread. Will keep trying though

On the other hand. I do somehow have 362 shards for a character that I can't craft anything for... So that sucks too

[SummonerPrime]

Originally posted by JoeKester:

Update I have bought and maxed out the season pass. Opened all the random shard chests, and spent all free luncay, did 5$ worth of 90% off extractions, spent all extraction tickets. (Opening 150 random shard chest got me at most 40 shards for one character)

Of the 000's and egos I'm missing the closet one is 173/400 shards... Yeah not really seeing random shards helping much outside of being converted into thread. Will keep trying though

On the other hand. I do somehow have 362 shards for a character that I can't craft anything for... So that sucks too

you need to get the yellow ones, the red ones are trash. The yellow boxes can get you 1-3 per box for a single character, os if you have 200 yellow boxes you have a high chance of getting more than half of the shards you need

[SmallGespenst]

Originally posted by SummonerPrime:

Originally posted by JoeKester:

Update I have bought and maxed out the season pass. Opened all the random shard chests, and spent all free luncay, did 5$ worth of 90% off extractions, spent all extraction tickets. (Opening 150 random shard chest got me at most 40 shards for one character)

Of the 000's and egos I'm missing the closet one is 173/400 shards... Yeah not really seeing random shards helping much outside of being converted into thread. Will keep trying though

On the other hand. I do somehow have 362 shards for a character that I can't craft anything for... So that sucks too

you need to get the yellow ones, the red ones are trash. The yellow boxes can get you 1-3 per box for a single character, os if you have 200 yellow boxes you have a high chance of getting more than half of the shards you need

200 Yellow crates is the point where on average you'll get the 400 you need for anything you want since each crate is 1-3 shards. 100 is the "round 'bout half way" that's really nice if you have someone at 200 already

[bleh]

dont think ill spend any more on this game tbh just going to wait for new story>play>quit repeat, gacha games are just vile to play. my sanity can only handle so many consecutive dupes.

[DocBockNstein]

Originally posted by bleh:

dont think ill spend any more on this game tbh just going to wait for new story>play>quit repeat, gacha games are just vile to play. my sanity can only handle so many consecutive dupes.

I agree I'm not wasting over 100 hours in MD for a single ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ person that might not even be useful for the next chapter of the game. They need to stop being greedy ♥♥♥♥♥ and put in a pity draw. I don't have a penny spent on this game and I'm never going to if the math does not work out in my favor. If they let us convert thread into character shards at a 3-1 rate then we might have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ video game on our hands.

[DoT]

Originally posted by JoeKester:

I know you don't like math but gonna point out "70 ~ 210 extra ego shards dumped on all characters" means about 6-18 shards for each character... That's 2.75% closer to a 000 or ego on average. Not something i would call particularly helpful

If you were to just use random chests to get shards to craft with, you'd need 2520 of them on average to start to be able to craft 400 shard items. Personally, I don't think that's good. I understand some people's opinions differ though.

I do think the season pass is a relatively good deal compared to everything else!

I will also say the nominable chests are sort of okay, since they do what I mentioned earlier. They allow the shards to be used wherever you want. I don't think its fair to count "nominable chests" as "shards" though, since they avoid the biggest problem with the shards design. The actually random shards you get from the other chests and duplicates are still gonna do little to nothing for you unless you grind a lot. As seen in the statement above.

The reason why I go by math and not by "feel" is because feelings can be manipulated. Manipulating how you feel about microtransactions is what gacha games are actually about. The game will try to trick you.

For example:
The game tells you get 70 ~ 210 random shards and need 400 for legendary items.
Math tells you that's only 2.75% of the way to a legendary item.

Selective reading at it's finest, i was going to re explain it all again, but i know you will somehow find one sentence to latch on to, and argue about it out of context.

Just like how many times people explained that yellow crates = 3*'s / E.G.O. and Red Crates = Thread. Yet you keep ignoring even your own intuition, and proceed to "keep trying" with the red crates.

When i mentioned the extra shards from the red crates btw, that was an example of a few shards to top you off, not to magically get you all your resources, 11 shards on average for all your characters is still nice to have on top of everything else. Imagine someone turning away your $3.00 tip, solely because it's only x% of his paycheck. That's pretty much what you said in a way. 11 shards is the average of 5 ~ 6 nominable yellow crates,

I personally already have about 400 nominable chests through grinding / battle pass / weekly mirror dungeon rewards / new hire event. I already have enough to buy several 3*'s / E.G.O that i choose, I was going to use them on n-corp faust, but i got lucky on a 10 pull when i was going for n corp heathcliff, i figured if i got lucky i could get her, if not after i got n corp cliff, i'd buy her, got lucky and now i still have my yellow crates locked up, and ready to buy anything i want down the line, and more. I Used them up on getting ting tang Hong lu instead, and i still have about 250 nominable chests that i will save for when i really want something. Your mistakes are your own, but you want to somehow shift blame so hard, that you are hindering your progress by using red crates, just so you can blame them by "keep trying" and use them as the sole reason as to why "shards are a problem and suck".

good luck with that, your going to need it.

[JoeKester]

Originally posted by DoT:

Just like how many times people explained that yellow crates = 3*'s / E.G.O. and Red Crates = Thread. Yet you keep ignoring even your own intuition, and proceed to "keep trying" with the red crates.

I do not ignore this point. It is most of my point. Shards from the gacha and red crates are only good for thread, and I think its kinda scummy and disingenuous that the game pretends other wise.

I got a couple of other points where things like the conversion of Money > Lunacy > Gacha Pull > Shards is also crazy shady. There is alot of effort in hiding how little you get from your dollar. But mostly that goes back to the point Red Crates and Gacha shards are as good as thread.

I get that if you just don't pay for gacha(which I'm definitely not past my first $5) and avoid red chests they're not a problem. But I think the fact there's a secret trap to get you to waste resources and money is a problem.

I'm not "trying" because I think its gonna work. I'm trying cause I'm calling the game on it's bs.

[Coin]

Originally posted by SummonerPrime:

To be fair, most 00 identities are almost as or even better (in some cases) than the 000 identities.

Honestly there seems to be a decent balance between rarities, to the point that using base ones isn't even bad (currently, also takes no threads). But the very best ones are mostly 000, like r corp Heathcliff and tingtang Hong Lu.

[bleh]

in theory the dupe system is good if there were tons of ID's but rn its just worthless. combined with the fact that at the end of the season 50% of the shards get thanos snapped its just a bigggg middle finger.

like imagine paying for a guaranteed 000 ticket and getting a dupe that gets nuked at the end of the season id be really mad.

[NgekNgok]

and here i am thinking that LC is the "cheapest" gacha game i've ever played. reroll were easy. and when your luck is good, getting/collecting the rest of identities or EGOs you don't have is pretty much easy and straightforward. and the game were only comes for about a month or so. for many gacha games, they only getting generous after the player retention getting so bad, and mostly were around after 1++ years.

i have 220++ hrs in game, spent $20 on pass and the cheapest lunacy pack, got lucky enough to get almost all current identities and EGOs available (around 90% of them), have enough nominable shard boxes and shards to pity 1 identity or EGO, and by the end of the season im pretty confident i can pity another 1 or maybe 2. if i compared all the time and money i've spent on this game with other gacha game i used to play, by "progress" alone (like how many waifus/husbandos i get, overall account progression like story, gears, etc) nothing can compared to what i get on LC. (i have a few hundred hours and spent $250+ on Genshin Impact back when it launched, the most recent ones are NIKKE with few hundred hours and $50+ and Epic Seven with few hundred hours and few bucks).

yeah, LC is a generous one by gacha game standard. and on top of it, it being generous from the start, still be up until this point, and hopefully stay being so.

[Capid]

Originally posted by bleh:

in theory the dupe system is good if there were tons of ID's but rn its just worthless. combined with the fact that at the end of the season 50% of the shards get thanos snapped its just a bigggg middle finger.

like imagine paying for a guaranteed 000 ticket and getting a dupe that gets nuked at the end of the season id be really mad.

your average spark system would delete all your shards, give you either nothing or something worthless in exchange (certainly not something as valuable as thread), and said process would last a single rate up, maybe even a single day.

Personally I can't complain about the system, I just got reindeer Ishmael and rabbit Heathcliff, and I still have enough saved up to either get more 000, or get a lot of thread when season 2 begins.

[DoT]

Originally posted by JoeKester:

I'm not "trying" because I think its gonna work. I'm trying cause I'm calling the game on it's bs.

Desc of Red crate = 1~3 shards for a random sinner
Desc of yellow crate = 1 ~ 3 shards for a specific sinner
Game has 12 sinners

I don't understand where this "trap" to waste your resources is coming from, when you don't need a guide to say that, going for the 1 in 12 chance to get shards for a character identity you want to save up for, is not the best course of action.

Not to mention that you are now changing stances. Your initial point was that shards were useless and impossible to get 400 of unless you spend a thousand dollars.
"Unless you're gonna whale for more than thousands of dollars, it doesn't seem like shards have any use outside of being turned into threads, which is its own nightmarishly scarce resource."

Your going from " shards are trash and pointless / impossible to collect "
to
The game has traps set up to get you to waste your resources and money!

You eventually agreed that the yellow crates are superior when collecting more E.G.O's and 3*Identities, but you are purposefully taking the red crates to prove the point that they are only good for getting more thread, otherwise they are a waste and that PM is scummy that they provided a way for people who play the game once or twice a week, to be able to get more resources, for the ego's and identities they have unlocked.

If this isn't enough to convince you that your argument is just plain wrong, then idk what to say.

[JoeKester]

Originally posted by DoT:

Originally posted by JoeKester:

I'm not "trying" because I think its gonna work. I'm trying cause I'm calling the game on it's bs.

Desc of Red crate = 1~3 shards for a random sinner
Desc of yellow crate = 1 ~ 3 shards for a specific sinner
Game has 12 sinners

I don't understand where this "trap" to waste your resources is coming from, when you don't need a guide to say that, going for the 1 in 12 chance to get shards for a character identity you want to save up for, is not the best course of action.

Not to mention that you are now changing stances. Your initial point was that shards were useless and impossible to get 400 of unless you spend a thousand dollars.
"Unless you're gonna whale for more than thousands of dollars, it doesn't seem like shards have any use outside of being turned into threads, which is its own nightmarishly scarce resource."

Your going from " shards are trash and pointless / impossible to collect "
to
The game has traps set up to get you to waste your resources and money!

You eventually agreed that the yellow crates are superior when collecting more E.G.O's and 3*Identities, but you are purposefully taking the red crates to prove the point that they are only good for getting more thread, otherwise they are a waste and that PM is scummy that they provided a way for people who play the game once or twice a week, to be able to get more resources, for the ego's and identities they have unlocked.

If this isn't enough to convince you that your argument is just plain wrong, then idk what to say.

I say red crates and duplicate gachas are worthless outside of thread. I have acknowledged Yellow crates are good but I count them as their own resources, since they functionally break the designed weak point of shards. (the 1 in 12 chance) I think Shards would be good if they didn't get divided 12 ways.
You yell yellow crates are good, so I'm wrong, completely ignoring what I'm saying.
I reply, reiterating my point.
You yell yellow crates are good, so I'm wrong, completely ignoring what I'm saying.
etc...

[JoeKester]

Originally posted by DoT:

I don't understand where this "trap" to waste your resources is coming from, when you don't need a guide to say that, going for the 1 in 12 chance to get shards for a character identity you want to save up for, is not the best course of action.

The "Trap" is by having gacha dups, and red crates give shards, it eludes to the idea that you can use them to craft things, but the reality is yellow crates are 12 times better and are realistically the only effective way to craft.
If red crates and gacha dups are to be used for thread, they should give thread, not add to the obfuscation of the game shuffling dozens of types of currencies.


But yeah I'm sure it's straight forward... let's see

The game has 31 currencies. You got (1)IRL currency, (2)free lunacy, (3) paid lunacy, (4)red crates, (5)yellow crates, (6-17)shards(split among 12 types), (18)thread, (19)those thread light bulbs, (20-23)exp tickets(bronze, silver, gold), (24-26)those other exp tickets(bronze, silver, gold), (27)000 tickets, (28)extraction tickets, (29)enkephalin, (30)enkephalin boxes, and (31)enkephalin module.

Shards are the only items you use to craft. But of those currencies 31 currencies 10 of them can be converted into shards. Those being IRL currency, free lunacy, paid lunacy, red crates, yellow crates, 000 tickets, extraction tickets, enkephalin, enkephalin boxes, and enkephalin modules. Though enkephalin-based currency can only give a limited about of shards a week.

Mainly you can get shards from red crates, yellow crates, and duplicate gacha pulls. Gacha pulls can be done by extraction tickets, 000 tickets, lunacy, and free lunacy. You get better gacha odds when you pull 10 at once, but extraction tickets cannot be used to extract 10 at once. Also, there's targeted extractions where you can get more pulls for a specific character, and more shards for that character. Note that red crates are very bad for the purpose of crafting despite giving crafting materials. Extractions can circumvent the need for crafting, but give very random shards, not very good for crafting. Target extractions give fewer random shards, but can give you what you want to craft, turning the shards they do give from useful crafting materials into useless crafting materials. So target extractions are good for crafting, unless you get lucky then the're bad for crafting. Yellow chests are the best for crafting but give fewer shards. In theory, in the long run, you'll get more crafting materials to form red crates, but if you want to craft you should always get yellow crates when given the choice in the weekly mirror dungeons, which give crates 3 times a week, using enkephalin modules.
It should be noted shards can also turn into threads, which can boost characters, and egos. So shards that aren't good for crafting can be good for boosting characters. This means there's times when you will want to get shards in ways that make it less likely for you to be able to craft things, so you have more to convert into thread instead.
So of the 10 methods of getting shards 4 of them are 12 times better at letting you craft, give or take target extractions which are the best and worst way of acquiring shards. But also you might not want to get shards to craft, and instead, get shards to convert to thread.
Also all shards will be halved at the end of the season. So if you need like 30 more shards to craft something, and you're out of crates you'll have to use IRL currency > pay Lunacy > Gacha pulls > shards. Or you'll lose over a hundred shards, or all shards will be turned into thread(I've been actively searching for info on this and can't find anything official) So you'll need to math out if those shards are worth more than the money you'd spend on gacha pulls, and then decide if its worth spending that money to use those shards before you lose them. I'm not going to go through that conversion again. This is long enough without me even touching currency conversion rates.


I think this might be more complicated then necessary. And I might be crazy, but I think there's a chance its complicated on purpose.