Shards are ridiculous

[System.NullReferenceException]

I bought a couple of packs of c4 shards with defender medals(?) and got two packs full of shards for pay to get characters that I do not even have. This is ridiculous how am I meant to progress when 60% of the shards I get are for characters I don't own. After 20hrs of grinding (might not be much for some) i've managed to get one defense kitted with shards, but it gets countered by cyborks, so I'm now trying to get my squire some shards. Except i've only ever had one defense shard for the squire in the entire time i have been grinding, granted it was a good one for the cannon ball.

I can't get past c5, so instead I'm afk farming the previous chaos levels, is this what the game is? I'm incredibly disappointed, not that it matters of course.

[Gummy Bread]

yep, shards is probably the biggest and most time consuming grind for a large portion of the game. it does sound though like you might be grinding for less important ones, making it take even longer though.
Most of all your damage is coming from towers and being placed right, which means their shards are much more important than the hero ones, and on that front Destruction, Deadly strikes, and some sort of defense rate (mod or shard) are usually the generic most important things to get, which also means you need 2-4+ of each before guilding.
Since hero ones are less important, you really only need 1 set on your boss killer character (or whichever you like to play as most), and a large amount of the ones they need are the generic ones, but that really just depends on which you're playing.

[System.NullReferenceException]

Yes i have done this. Currently flame aura on monk has: defense rate, deadly strikes, destruction. These took me 20 hrs to farm and some shard packs to get. Of course I then reached chaos 5 where cyborks hard counter my monk, so I now have to do all the same again on my squire to counter the cyborks. Farming levels which I do not even need to be at keyboard for 20hrs to get some shards is not enjoyable. Thank you for the response, but after the sheer amount of shards I get are for characters I can not even afford to buy I have decided to uninstall.

[Gummy Bread]

it makes sense, and it even seems like you were on the right track, but you're absolutely right. at that point is is just more of some sort of grinding. those are the shards you need ~3 of "minimum" to handle things, and even at c5, it becomes afk farming (other than bosses) to properly progress for actual gear upgrades as well. a large amount of the game is repetition grinding, and it honestly probably scared a lot of people away. even this week they "lowered" the grind needed for gear, but that was never the biggest problem in the first place. I'd also add you could save those shards for the characters you cant afford, but the way to afford them? grinding daily/weekly missions.

[System.NullReferenceException]

It's good they seem to be working on it, but as of now it's simply to much for me, but I understand others may enjoy it. In the case of saving shards I simply am unable to, when I say the majority (50%) of my shards were for other characters I was not exaggerating, I do not have the space. Unless surprise surprise I use money for more space. I enjoy the core game, but dislike this kind of grind.

[CovfefeMastr]

If you AP the grind is a whole lot worse since you have to start from scratch everytime you want to progress to next AP level and upgrade everything from scratch. :-(

[Asphe]

The maximum amount of Defender Medals that you can have at any one time is 12000. So get close to this figure before doing things like opening Defender packs/etc.

If you want a particular C4 shard, just keep replaying (and winning) the map until you get a bonus C4 shard for every map.

If you don't want / need a shard... sell it. It breaks down into dust which you can use to reroll a few things. So it's not totally useless.

Each Chaos tier has a new 'special' mob [also known as Chaos mobs]. i.e. it's best not to get over-dependant on a particular type of defence [i.e. tower vs traps vs AOE/etc].

Otherwise... I've the max number of bank vaults / inventory bags and about 60~75% of them are filled with shards. The remainder are filled with gear that have decent / good servos ^_^. It might help you out a bit if you create more heroes [i.e. have more cards]. Aside from being able to use Ascension Points to more specialise them [i.e. have 4 Squires, spend points so that each specializes in one type of defence], they act as extra 'storage space' too.

[Fuzen]

Originally posted by mrtyu:

is this what the game is? I'm incredibly disappointed, not that it matters of course.

Actually, it gets worse. You're just getting a taste of the endgame here.

Except for Onslaught and Masteries, the endgame is literally about grinding things far below your difficulty level ad nauseam in hopes to get enough shards to gear your towers. And then do that again to gild the shards for your main ones.

Have fun with that.

[Asphe]

It's a good thing you only need to do it once. Unfortunately, ungilded shards are also reset when you do an Ancient Power reset. But at least they stick around so you don't need to re-farm all those shards...

Some times, this feels a bit like EVE ^_^

[Tyr]

Farming shards isnt that bad. till the most recent patch trying to get 10/10 mods was the worst. I gotta admit it is a little annoying but even facing cyborks its easy. I only use FA, LsA's and Nodes and i can beat camp-c7 very easily. C7 is not end game, farming shards isn't end game, it can be a little boring, but getting 1 of each shard you need to get to c7 shouldn't take long at all. gilding can be a pain but totally worth it if you ap reset. I would give the game a fair go, i haven't checked how many hours you have been playing but it took me on my first play thru a week to gear to c7 and being able to fully solo it. Now when i reset it takes me 10min and im back at C7. I gotta say the game is a grind, but mainly for mods which is a whole nother story not to mention they have now DOUBLED the chance of getting higher mods. on average i seem to be getting 6/10 rather than 1-3/10. Give the game a go, you will enjoy it, especially if you have friends to play with. I pretty much only play solo, but if you have friends the game is much easier and much more enjoyable! If you are stuck you can feel free to add me i can get you to C7 and geared very easily. Happy Dungeoning