As you most likely know, MCCI has a complex crafting system where the player can refine a multitude of resources to eventually craft them into cosmetics you can wear and/or collect for trophies. However, I've noticed a few glaring issues with this system that mess the entire thing up. I will be mentioning two of the most profound issues I have noted in this thread.
When a player completes a quest, they are rewarded with coins, XP, and a small amount of raw or refined quest spirits. These spirits can be fused together at a cost of coins to be eventually sold to the Spirit Shop in exchange for currency pouches, crate tokens, crates, treasure chests, and quest refreshers. This is all well and good, until you pull out a calculator and run some numbers. For reference, this is what it costs to refine quest spirits together:
This chart displays how many Raw Spirits are required to obtain each level, how many coins refining that specific level costs, and how many coins it would cost to refine to that level from raw spirits (for example, refining to a Strong Spirit costs 1,000 coins, but forging the 5 Refined Spirits to craft it also costs 750 coins (150 each), and 1,000 + 750 = 1,750).
With this in mind, let's look at some of the items you can buy in the Spirit Shop.
If you'll recall the earlier chart, crafting a single Pure Quest Spirit costs 15,250 coins. However, the Overflowing Currency Pouch you buy with it only gives 15,000 coins on average, meaning more often than not, you will LOSE coins by buying it (not to mention farming 125 Raw Quest Spirits and waiting multiple hours or days for them to refine). If this seems ridiculous to you, then we are on the same page. And it doesn't end there...
As you can see here, a Quest Refresher costs 4 Strong Quest Spirits. However, when you think about it, this doesn't make much sense... you spend 100 Raw Spirits and 8,750 coins on an item that, assuming you have not purchased a rank, will at most give you 10 Raw Spirits, 5,800 coins, and 800 Faction XP, assuming you had cleared all of your Daily Quests, and did all the new ones too. In other words, you spend hours forging and do 4 extra quests for a net loss of 90 Raw Quest Spirits and 2950 coins, with 800 Faction XP being the only gain (and I'm sure most would agree that 800 Faction XP is not worth so many hours of questing).
There are many other weird things about the Spirit Shop, but these 2 are some of the worst examples. To fix this issue, I would suggest making refining Quest Spirits significantly cheaper, and giving more currency pouches per purchase (maybe each pure quest spirit gives 3 pouches instead of 1). Also, maybe just remove the Quest Refresher from this shop altogether? It doesn't really make a lot of sense to spend quest spirits on a device whose sole purpose is to let you complete more quests.
Time some more charts! These will be a lot more complicated, so buckle up...
The first column is the type of gel, the second column is how many Common Binding Gels it would take to craft that tier, the third column is how much that exact tier costs, and the fourth column is the total cost of refining from commons all the way to that tier.
The first column is the level of Key Shard, the second column is how many Common Key Shards are required to craft into that tier, the third column is how many Common Binding Gels are required to craft to that tier, the fourth column is how much that specific tier costs, and the fourth column is how much the entire crafting recipe costs in total, not including the Binding Gels, and the fifth column is the total crafting cost, INCLUDING the cost of refining the Binding Gels.
The chart of the keys themselves. First column is the key's name, second column is the amount of Common Shards it would take to refine to that key, third is the amount of Common Binding Gels it would take for the entire process, fourth is the flat cost of that specific crafting, and fifth is the total cost of refining the shards, the gels, and the crafting itself.
Oh, why must keys have such pointlessly complicated recipes... by the way, I didn't cover Legacy Keys and Mastery Keys because then I have to factor in Material Clusters, and I really don't want to be doing this for another hour.
And finally, multiply all those by 3, and we get the cost of actually purchasing that treasure chest. This graph shows the name of the chest, the amount of Common Key Shards required, the amount of Common Binding Gels required, and the total coins required for the whole process.
WHEW! As you can see, refining key shards into keys into chests, while also having binding gels occasionally used, all the while having ridiculously weird and complicated recipes and taking days or weeks and hundreds of thousands of coins... is a very complicated process. You'll notice that on that very final row, we realize that a mega treasure chest would cost 108 Common Key Shards, 84 Common Binding Gels, and nearly a quarter of a million coins.
Also, why does crafting silver and golden keys each cost the same amount of key shards, doubling down on the gel and coin cost instead? It's something to think about.
The main issue I have with these recipes is that they're SO COMPLICATED!!! Why can't each key cost 2-3 of it's respective shards, instead of needing multiple different rarities? Also, please just remove the use of binding gel in refining key shards, and save it for a 1-time gel cost when you're crafting the shards into actual keys. Otherwise, as you can see above, the numbers get rather ridiculous! (84 Common Binding Gels for a single chest!!!)
If you did, thanks for reading! I believe all my math is correct, but if you spot a mistake, please let me know. This took quite a while to write so I hope you learned something about MCCI's crafting system! Again, thanks for reading, and see you later!
TLDR: Never use the Spirit Shop except maybe for Crates and Treasure Chests, and don't even bother trying to comprehend the key refining system.
1 - The Spirit Shop, and why it's useless
When a player completes a quest, they are rewarded with coins, XP, and a small amount of raw or refined quest spirits. These spirits can be fused together at a cost of coins to be eventually sold to the Spirit Shop in exchange for currency pouches, crate tokens, crates, treasure chests, and quest refreshers. This is all well and good, until you pull out a calculator and run some numbers. For reference, this is what it costs to refine quest spirits together:
| RAW QUEST SPIRIT | 1 Raw Spirit | Free | Free |
| REFINED QUEST SPIRIT | 5 Raw Spirit | 150 Coins | 150 Coins |
| STRONG QUEST SPIRIT | 25 Raw Spirit | 1,000 Coins | 1,750 Coins |
| PURE QUEST SPIRIT | 125 Raw Spirit | 6,500 Coins | 15,250 Coins |
| ABSOLUTE QUEST SPIRIT | 625 Raw Spirit | 35,000 Coins | 111,250 Coins |
This chart displays how many Raw Spirits are required to obtain each level, how many coins refining that specific level costs, and how many coins it would cost to refine to that level from raw spirits (for example, refining to a Strong Spirit costs 1,000 coins, but forging the 5 Refined Spirits to craft it also costs 750 coins (150 each), and 1,000 + 750 = 1,750).
With this in mind, let's look at some of the items you can buy in the Spirit Shop.
If you'll recall the earlier chart, crafting a single Pure Quest Spirit costs 15,250 coins. However, the Overflowing Currency Pouch you buy with it only gives 15,000 coins on average, meaning more often than not, you will LOSE coins by buying it (not to mention farming 125 Raw Quest Spirits and waiting multiple hours or days for them to refine). If this seems ridiculous to you, then we are on the same page. And it doesn't end there...
As you can see here, a Quest Refresher costs 4 Strong Quest Spirits. However, when you think about it, this doesn't make much sense... you spend 100 Raw Spirits and 8,750 coins on an item that, assuming you have not purchased a rank, will at most give you 10 Raw Spirits, 5,800 coins, and 800 Faction XP, assuming you had cleared all of your Daily Quests, and did all the new ones too. In other words, you spend hours forging and do 4 extra quests for a net loss of 90 Raw Quest Spirits and 2950 coins, with 800 Faction XP being the only gain (and I'm sure most would agree that 800 Faction XP is not worth so many hours of questing).
There are many other weird things about the Spirit Shop, but these 2 are some of the worst examples. To fix this issue, I would suggest making refining Quest Spirits significantly cheaper, and giving more currency pouches per purchase (maybe each pure quest spirit gives 3 pouches instead of 1). Also, maybe just remove the Quest Refresher from this shop altogether? It doesn't really make a lot of sense to spend quest spirits on a device whose sole purpose is to let you complete more quests.
2 - Binding Gel, Key Shards, and Keys
Time some more charts! These will be a lot more complicated, so buckle up...
The first column is the type of gel, the second column is how many Common Binding Gels it would take to craft that tier, the third column is how much that exact tier costs, and the fourth column is the total cost of refining from commons all the way to that tier.
| COMMON BINDING GEL | 1 Common Gel | Free | Free |
| UNCOMMON BINDING GEL | 2 Common Gels | 400 coins | 400 coins |
| RARE BINDING GEL | 4 Common Gels | 1,000 coins | 1,800 coins |
| EPIC BINDING GEL | 8 Common Gels | 2,500 coins | 6,100 coins |
| LEGENDARY BINDING GEL | 16 Common Gels | 5,000 coins | 17,200 coins |
The first column is the level of Key Shard, the second column is how many Common Key Shards are required to craft into that tier, the third column is how many Common Binding Gels are required to craft to that tier, the fourth column is how much that specific tier costs, and the fourth column is how much the entire crafting recipe costs in total, not including the Binding Gels, and the fifth column is the total crafting cost, INCLUDING the cost of refining the Binding Gels.
| COMMON KEY SHARD | 1 Common Shard | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| UNCOMMON KEY SHARD | 3 Common Shards | Free | 150 coins | 150 coins | 150 coins |
| RARE KEY SHARD | 6 Common Shards | 2 Common Gels | 800 coins | 1,100 coins | 1,500 coins |
| EPIC KEY SHARD | 12 Common Shards | 8 Common Gels | 3,000 coins | 5,200 coins | 8,800 coins |
| LEGENDARY KEY SHARD | 24 Common Shards | 16 Common Gels | 10,000 coins | 20,400 coins | 32,600 coins |
The chart of the keys themselves. First column is the key's name, second column is the amount of Common Shards it would take to refine to that key, third is the amount of Common Binding Gels it would take for the entire process, fourth is the flat cost of that specific crafting, and fifth is the total cost of refining the shards, the gels, and the crafting itself.
| BRONZE TREASURE KEY | 6 Common Shards | 2 Common Gels | 1,000 coins | 1,550 coins |
| SILVER TREASURE KEY | 18 Common Shards | 8 Common Gels | 3,000 coins | 8,100 coins |
| GOLDEN TREASURE KEY | 18 Common Shards | 14 Common Gels | 6,000 coins | 18,100 coins |
| MEGA TREASURE KEY | 36 Common Shards | 28 Common Gels | 45,000 coins | 77,800 coins |
Oh, why must keys have such pointlessly complicated recipes... by the way, I didn't cover Legacy Keys and Mastery Keys because then I have to factor in Material Clusters, and I really don't want to be doing this for another hour.
And finally, multiply all those by 3, and we get the cost of actually purchasing that treasure chest. This graph shows the name of the chest, the amount of Common Key Shards required, the amount of Common Binding Gels required, and the total coins required for the whole process.
| BRONZE TREASURE CHEST | 18 Common Shards | 6 Common Gels | 4,650 coins |
| SILVER TREASURE CHEST | 54 Common Shards | 24 Common Gels | 24,300 coins |
| GOLDEN TREASURE CHEST | 54 Common Shards | 42 Common Gels | 54,300 coins |
| MEGA TREASURE CHEST | 108 Common Shards | 84 Common Gels | 233,400 coins |
WHEW! As you can see, refining key shards into keys into chests, while also having binding gels occasionally used, all the while having ridiculously weird and complicated recipes and taking days or weeks and hundreds of thousands of coins... is a very complicated process. You'll notice that on that very final row, we realize that a mega treasure chest would cost 108 Common Key Shards, 84 Common Binding Gels, and nearly a quarter of a million coins.
Also, why does crafting silver and golden keys each cost the same amount of key shards, doubling down on the gel and coin cost instead? It's something to think about.
The main issue I have with these recipes is that they're SO COMPLICATED!!! Why can't each key cost 2-3 of it's respective shards, instead of needing multiple different rarities? Also, please just remove the use of binding gel in refining key shards, and save it for a 1-time gel cost when you're crafting the shards into actual keys. Otherwise, as you can see above, the numbers get rather ridiculous! (84 Common Binding Gels for a single chest!!!)
Conclusion
If you did, thanks for reading! I believe all my math is correct, but if you spot a mistake, please let me know. This took quite a while to write so I hope you learned something about MCCI's crafting system! Again, thanks for reading, and see you later!
TLDR: Never use the Spirit Shop except maybe for Crates and Treasure Chests, and don't even bother trying to comprehend the key refining system.
Last edited:
