Dev Note #88: About Shard Farming After 3.7 Update

MEME

Greetings Heirs, Many Heirs have been discussing about Shard Farming after the Update. Today, I want to go over some comments regarding Shard Farming. We went over feedbacks from the community to summarize the most popular feedbacks. 🔴Question: If I purchase Double Shard Pack or All in One Pack, will the guaranteed Shard Reward also double? 🔵Answer: Yes, it will. If you purchase Double Shard Pack or All in One Pack, the [Shard Reward] count will be doubled. For example, with Double Shard Pack or All in One Pack, Heirs will receive 200 Shard Reward count instead of 100 Shard Reward count when Heirs clear 100 stages. Therefore, Heirs will receive 10 servant shards for stages that give shard reward for every 20 stages(Early stages of Fire/Water/Forest Sanctuary). Those who didn't purchase Double Shard Pack or All in One Pack will receive 100 Shard Reward count for 100 stages cleared, receiving 5 servant shards. 🔴Question: It seems like the Shard drop for Light/Dark stages decreased significantly given that I play 550 stages. Sometimes, I end up obtaining 0 shards. Isn't this an error considering that I normally used to obtain 5 ~ 10 shards? 🔵Answer: No it is not an error. When we released the shard drop rate on August 2018, we stated that the shard drop rate of Light/Dark ★5 servants are 1.4%. The very last stages of Light / Dark Sanctuary give one shard reward for every 100 stages played. Therefore, the 1% of the servant shards are obtained through guaranteed shard reward while the remaining 0.4% of shards are obtained through drops.

MEME

Even before the 3.7 Update, we imagine that some days Heirs woke to see 2 ~ 4 shards even with the packages because 1.4% rate is indeed a very low rate. However, there must have been other days that Heirs wake up to see 26 ~ 28 shards obtained. (Our point is that the difference can be quite significant.) What we did in 3.7 Update is to guarantee 11 shards if Heirs go through 550 stages. While Heirs will be guaranteed to receive 11 shards, Heirs now have lower chance of 0.4% to receive shard from drops. While this means that Heirs will obtain average of 4.4 shards (2.2 shards without Double Shard or All in One Package) every 550 stages, there can be cases where Heirs obtain no shard at all from drop because the drop rate is in fact very low. Of course, there can be opposite cases where Heirs obtain 8 shards (4 shards without Double Shard or All in One Package) because drop is purely based on percentage. Ultimately, while the number of servant shard drop used to range from 4 ~ 26 servant shards before the update, it now ranges from 11 ~ 19 servant shards. 🔴Question: I thought we get guaranteed Shard Reward while maintaining the previous shard drop rate. 🔵Answer: In the previous Dev Note, we mentioned that "One shard per 25 stages means that Heirs would receive 4 shards per 100 stages. The new drop rate from stage clear will become rate excluding the 4%(4 shard per 100 stages) from original shard drop rate." "The total drop rate of shards will not be changed after the update. Based on the stages, Heirs will obtain 60~80% of the shards from the guaranteed reward while obtaining the rest from reward based on drop rate." Long story short, the new drop rate excludes the guaranteed shard reward rate from original drop rate. When we stated that "the total drop rate of shards will not be changed after the update," what we meant is that: Number of Shard obtained from drop before Update = Number of shard from guaranteed shard reward + number of shard from drop after update. We apologize about any confusion the statement caused, 🔴Feedback: Because of lower drop rate due to guaranteed reward, there are many cases where Heirs don't obtain any shard at all from the drop after 550 stages. Current status of Heir of Light feels very boring since it minimizes the "luck" aspect of gameplay. 🔵Answer: We understand the happiness and excitement on days that Heirs obtain good number of shards. On the other hand, the drop rate could often work against Heirs, which often annoys Heirs to the point that makes Heirs want to quit the game. We believe that if Heirs fail to obtain even a single shard after 100 stages, the valuable time spent running 100 stages can easily feel wasted. We thought that we could give more value to each round that Heirs play if we add a system that guarantees servant shard. Since "Rate" is involved in various aspects of Heir of Light, we could have involved more "Rate" to servant shard farming also. However, considering the characteristics of shard farming, we decided to put more weight toward guaranteed reward. Unlike Summoning that completely relies on rate, shard farming is more about consistently putting effort 5 ~ 10 days to collect all 500 shards. We concluded that servant shard farming should focus more on rewarding constant effort rather than rewarding Heirs based on luck. While the shard farming could feel very boring at the moment because the 8 shards drop now turned into 0 shard drop, we hope that Heirs recognize the long term convenience from the change as it will become easier to plan ahead for shard farming with more consistent shard rewards. Summarizing what we went over today: 1. Double Shard & All in One Package still double the number of shard obtained. 2. The total number of shard obtainable per stages has not changed. However, as we decreased the impact of drop rate, the minimum number of shards increased while the maximum number of shards decreased. 3. Since the drop rate became lower, Heirs could receive 0 Light/Dark shards by running 550 stages through drop. We ran into various feedbacks regarding balance between guaranteed reward and drop reward. While we thought guaranteed reward should have greater presence based on characteristics of shard farming, we would like to listen to the community's opinion.

Poll Closed 32 Voted About Guaranteed & Drop Reward Guaranteed Reward should have greater presence 14

Guaranteed & Drop reward should be similar 3

Drop Reward should have greater presence 15

Please note that balance between guaranteed reward and drop reward is subject to change based on the result of the poll. We hope that Heirs think about the direction shard farming should take in the long run since the result of the poll can make a very important choice for Heir of Light. It would also help us greatly if Heirs could leave explanation of their choice in the comment below. We promise to listen to the community as we move onward with Heir of Light. Thank you.