Quote Originally Posted by Unregistered View Post
The assumption that I have regarding the levels below ultimate is that they will drop a fair amount of R enhancement mats for you, because the designers want players to simultaneously be able to farm mats (to a degree) and actually strengthen in order to move up to the next level.
So I think that you're getting R enhancement stuff instead of silver mats from the silver chests, right? Use them. After a while, take another shot at standard. Once you can handle standard, farm that until you can handle expert. Repeat again until you hit ultimate. R enhancement stuff stop replacing silver mats at ult (though SR enhancement stuff still show up).
Each difficulty gives more and more chests. However Beginner, Standard, and Expert all have chances to drop Enhance Mat weapons and Eidos in the Bronze and Silver Chests. In Ultimate Bronze and Silver are guaranteed to always drop the Event Exchangeable Materials, while the Gold Chest has a chance to drop SR Enhance Materials for weapons and Eidos. So Ultimate is always the best place to farm for materials. Also it drops between 21-29 chests in total (I personally have not seen above and below that number, so if someone else has feel free to correct that number)