Crea Calculation

Ever since Crea Craft was implemented with the update to Ver.2.0.0 on 28 February 2020, the player could gather Crea. This Crea is specific to each and every series (although not every series have their Crea unlocked yet, for details, see here). To obtain Crea, you must "form a party with characters from that series and clear quests. You will then receive Crea just like you receive Experience and Friendship Points. In addition, using 5* characters and characters with Awakening levels will increase the amount of Crea that you receive", or this is what the developpers stated when they originally announced the Crea Craft feature.

But the actual formula for Crea Calculation includes more parameters than solely the rarity of the used characters and the number of awakening levels. Some diligent players tested out several different party formations and postulated the exact formula behind the Crea Calculation.

The Formula for Crea Calculation
So, if X is the amount of Crea a series gains after clearing a quest, X can be calculated according to the following formula:



Let's take a closer look at this formula:
 * The red expression is some kind of basic points or starting value.
 * The yellow expression only becomes relevant if 4* characters are included in the party.
 * The green expression only becomes relevant if 5* characters are included in the party.
 * The blue expression also includes a starting value, which can only increase by including characters with Awakening levels in the party.
 * The purple expression takes into account the stamina cost of the quest you cleared. This expression can turn the value X into a non-integer, in which case X is always rounded up.
 * Min is the minimum function, which will return the minimum of the 2 numbers.

Additional Notes:
 * You might notice that the parameters A and B are split into two parameters, one for 4* characters and one for 5* characters, but that there is no third version for 3* characters. That is correct, 3* characters themselves do not add anything towards above calculations. But if you include 3* characters with Awakening levels, like all other characters their awakening stars will be included in the parameter D. So the worst case possible is a party that uses only one 3* character without any awakenings. All parameters (except E) would be 0, thus the amount of Crea will be ( 40 * (25+0+0) ) * (E/100) = 10 * E.
 * If a 5* character has Awakening level 5, it will increase both the parameter C for having Awakening stars and the parameter D for having Awakening level 5.
 * As 3* characters and 4* characters can't reach Awakening level 5, they have no influence on the parameter D.
 * As the parameter D is multiplied by the factor 10, characters with Awakening level 5 will have the biggest influence on the outcome X.
 * Some quests don't use stamina as costs but Keys or Tickets, what happens to the parameter E in these cases? All costs can be converted into an equivalent amount of stamina, according to the following table:

Some Calculation Examples
So, when you want to actually form a party to gather Crea, you will start to ponder about what party will be the most efficient. So here are some basic calculation examples which display direct comparisons of several cases. As the goal is to give advice for forming a party, the purple expression can be ignored, as it is irrelevant to the party setup and only scales X in accordance to the costs of the quest.

Case 1: One-Series Party vs. Multi-Series Party - the extreme case
One of the most interesting questions is: What is better, to use a party that consists of 5 characters of the same series, or to use a party of 5 characters which all come from different series?

To present an ultimate answer, I want to display two different cases, this one and the next one.

In this Case 1, I assume the very best possible party for both party setups: All characters used have Awakening level 5. Even in the case of using 5 different series, the parameter A5 is always 5, meaning that for each of the 5 series, the player has at least 5 different 5* characters despite only including one in the party.

The Crea for the single-series setup will turn out like this: ( 40 + (14 + 2*5)*5 )* (25+25+10*5) = 16000

And the Crea for each of the 5 series in the multi-series setup will be like this: ( 40 + (14 + 2*5)*1 )* (25+5+10*1) = 2560

As all of the 5 series get this amount, we need to multiply this by 5, resulting in 12800.

This means that in the best case possible, it's better to form a party that consists of only one series.

Case 2: One-Series Party vs. Multi-Series Party - the semi-extreme case
We just found out that in the very best case possible, using only one series is to be recommended. But people don't have that many 5* characters with Awakening level 5, even if they are paying users. This is why I want to compare two party setups which don't include fully awakened characters at all (meaning the parameter D is always 0). But this comparison will still only include 5* characters.

To make this comparison easy to understand, I will compare the best case of the single-series setup with the worst case of the multi-series setup, meaning: Is it better to use five 5* characters with Awakening level 4 of one series, or is it better to use five 5* characters of different series, if all these characters are not awakened at all and you don't have other 5* characters within these series, meaning that A5 is always 1?

The Crea for the single-series setup will be like this: ( 40 + (14 + 2*5)*5 ) * (25+20+0) = 7200

And the Crea for each of the 5 series in the multi-series setup will be like this: ( 40 + (14 + 2*1)*1 ) * (25+0+0) = 1400

As all of the 5 series get this amount, we need to multiply this by 5, resulting in 7000.

This means that even though the single-series setup is by far harder to get, as you need to have a total of 25 5* chars, 20 out of them being copies of specific characters you already have, it's only slightly better than the multi-party setup.

If the single-series setup only has a total of 18 Awakening stars instead of 20, or if the multi-series setup has another four 5* characters within the 5 selected series (these four 5* characters can be either copies of characters you already have OR other characters), the multi-series setup becomes more efficient than the single-series setup.

By this we can conclude that unless you have at least one character with Awakening level 5, it's more efficient to use a party that consists of 5 different series than a party that only consists of one series.

Case 3: Best-Case 4* vs. Worst-Case 5*
If I want to include only one character in a party to gain Crea for that specific series, is it better to choose a 4* character with Awakening level 4 or a 5* character without any awakenings? To compare these, let's assume the best case of a 4* character possible and the worst case for a 5* character, meaning:

A4 = 5; A5 = 1; C = 4 in case of the 4* character, while C = D = 0 in case of the 5* character.

If you select the fully awakened 4* character, the calculation will be ( 40 + (2 + 0.8*5)*1 ) * (25+4+0) = 1334

If you select the non-awakened 5* character instead, it's ( 40 + (14 + 2*1)*1 ) * (25+0+0) = 1400

Meaning that a 5* character is always better than a 4* character.

Some Sidenotes regarding Efficiency

 * As quests which cost 3 Quest Keys - Silver are equivalent to 100 stamina, while quests which only cost 1 Quest Key - Silver is only equivalent to 30 stamina, it's more efficient to do the former than to do the latter.
 * Similarly, it's not wise to exchange 3 Quest Keys - Silver for 1 Quest Keys - Gold in the Trade Shop, as the former is euivalent to 90 stamina while the latter is only equivalent to 40.
 * Because X is always round up, it's more efficient in terms of amount of Crea to do lots of quests that costs little stamina to gain the 1 extra Crea instead of doing few quests that cost lots of stamina. As some people level some skills of their characters and/or of their exclusive weapons by repeating the prologue, you could now gather lots of Crea while you are at it.
 * But on the other hand, lots of small quests can be quite exhausting and time-consuming, so in terms of time efficiency, doing few quests that cost lots of stamina is recommendable.