Can we just remove shards from the game?

One idea I had that would at least reduce the need for massive amounts of shards is to make every 40-durability recipe--the ones that make the basic materials that are used in practically every other recipe in the game--only require a single shard.

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Originally Posted by seorin

Shards are mainly just a reliable source of income for RMT bots.

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With Shards removed, they would find another market to charge exorbitant prices for or kill entirely. Whilst I agree entirely that Shard consumption is much faster than a typical player can replace (I liked your post) I don't think them being an RMT market is the problem. Actually, it's probably good. The Shard market is small but stable profits. Better they try and control a constantly fluctuating and highly stocked market like Shards than move into something they could quite easily control and screw for the general player base. Their presence in this market is relatively harmless as your average player can still easily make money from Shards.

The problem, as you said, is that as more and more recipes are added we're expected to use an increasing curve of Shards, yet Shard acquisition rates haven't increased. It's kind of like the cost of living issues in the real world nowadays. Prices for everything is going up but wages aren't.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

Obviously it's been awhile, but as I recall it was along the lines of 'make 5 canvas shirts' or whatever. You hit 'Initiate' and made the shirts, but they weren't 'real' shirts and didn't involve 'real' materials. You then turned them in to the final point.
Now, it's 'make five spun-gold threnody whimsical wallets' and you have to have all the crystals and fourteen different materials, the made items take up your limited inventory, and it's all money out of pocket. Up to three times.

That, at least, is how I recall it being and how it has become.

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Yeah that's right, the old leve npc would send you to a customer who wanted things making, they would give you the mats to craft the item and you would return the finished products to them. I would love this to come back!

I find it slightly amusing that people are complaining about shards of all things.... I farm shards and crystals daily while looking for my maps on nodes and I tend to get around 100-500 or so shards and around the same for Crystals and I stop after I get my map. I don't sell shards/crystals/clusters and have never bought except maybe once. I don't spam crafting 24/7 like some people nor do I spend my entire day online gathering, I do a bit of all of it every day and wind up doing 6-12 maps every couple of days with some people in my coil group as well. Granted every once in awhile I do have to go out and farm some crystals or clusters since they are even more limited on where you can get them (shards are on nearly every single Miner/Botanist node, vs only lv30s and 50s for Crystals and they're only on 2 of the sets of 4 and Clusters are only on 3 lv50 unspoiled nodes.)

Yea sure, I'm Legacy and came from 1.0 and did a ton of leveling/killing stuff and actually bought shards and some crystals in 1.0 and took advantage of the Alchemist recipes, but I've not seen as many people complain about not having enough shards for synths they need to do. And before anyone asks, yea, I craft 95% of the stuff I need because the current market boards annoy me to no end. If anything I'd love to see the old breaking down of Clusters and Crystals come back into the game but I gave up on that idea after I heard the devs completely shoot down the idea and refuse to ever do it again.

Though speaking of the Alchemist recipes, there were multiple versions of it, the simple ones were 1 Crystal + 1 Fine Sand = 12/16/24/32 Shards depending on NQ-HQ1/2/3. But the good ones used the Elemental Moraine/Radiant Moraine + Crystal/Cluster to get upwards of 64 Shards/Crystals, and they were roughly lv 15 and 37 synths if memory serves correctly. This may have been a bit much, but I would gladly welcome those synths back into the game if the devs ever change their minds on it. Why they were done away with doesn't really matter to me, all I hear most of the time is "blah blah blah RMT."

Basically at the end of the day, don't spam concentrate on one single thing and you won't have this problem where you absolutely need to buy shards, this game was balanced and designed well enough that you can get your own materials to craft what you need for yourself without relying on the Market Boards, just do the dailies they gave you when you can... people in my coil group do them every day they're able to log in and I never hear them complain about it and half of my group works retail. The only thing they complain about is not being able to down t6 and that the mechanics "aren't very fun" (their words, not mine).

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Originally Posted by seorin

...Would crafting somehow be unbalanced without them?...

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For example crafting a minon require 100shards which is the actual cost (the mat too cheap) that balancing its value.
I think shards balance the value of crafting. If a item is too cheap, no one want to craft as it doesn't worth for the shards.
Without shards, everybody may just craft 3000 useless item without any plan? ^^;
Therefore I think shards do balance the crafting system.

Shards were in FFXI as well. I think the system is fine as is.

I'd be surprised if the vast majority of shards on the market didn't come from Timeworn maps. RMT? Not so much.

if you mine crystals you'll get roughly the same amount of shards to if you only hit 3 nodes, the two crystal and one shard node. using skills to increase crystal farming at every opportunity. I use to get 300 of each in 25-30mins depending on which type I was farming,. now I wont spend the time on it. I have better things to do.

I grab clusters though when I need them.

Item De-Sythesis (Salvaging) Update!

Does anyone else think that this is SE's way of re-introducing the Cluster/Crystal/Shard Breakdown system from 1.0? While allowing each DOH class to have a specific breakdown skill for their craft (which this skill needs to be lvled).

It has a chance at salvaging most of the matts used to create the piece of gear/item. This could include the shards as well.

It was also mentioned that you can break down Fish!! Personally i think this is what we have all been waiting for.

What do you guys think?

I'm hoping we get to master more than one skill, because I don't see how anything else will be able to compare with the ability to produce your own shards.

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Originally Posted by Myrhn

In 1.0 Alchemist did that. They break cluster into shards or crystals. Also they break down fish into shards too. The problem was that the Wards were so overflow with shards that they cost nothing even comparing to ARR prices.

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Back in 1.x, ACL was able to craft fish into shards, what was how I leveled my FSH and ACL together.

The cheapest I can recall was 10 gils per shard in 1.x, and when you factor in the 10x currency reduction that is 1 gil per shard, or pretty much worthless.

No, it will not resolve any BOT issues, as BOTs can just go fish and now ACL them into shards. RMTs will just find something else to farm and make profit off of those items.

jc

I think the system with shards is fine. The biggest problem is the marketboard itself. I couldn't count how many times I had to buy 1k shards at a time. They need to change the whole idea of an open market where you can actually see what people are selling to a closed. Have the buyer be able request how much of an item they want at a preset price(determined by the demand of the product). This would solve 3 issues: Undercutting asshats, give a clear picture on what is in demand to avoid flooding of the market, and make it easier overall on the buyer to obtain the items instead of buying stacks of 1000 when you only need 100 lol. I might of gone a little of topic, but I think the root cause is this.

In 1.0 crafters used to make shards and crystals, lvl 16 alchemy recipes if i recall correctly. made botting of them obsolete. I think alchemists (or some other crafting class) could break clusters into crystals and shards too. The should be an ability given to lvl 50 crafters to break clusters, DoL won't be completely screwed.

I am always hurting for shards and gathering them takes far, far too long as it is now. Two potential fixes:

1. Give Disciple of the Land the ability to break down crystals/clusters, as suggested prior.
2. Reduce the "Ward" multiplier abilities CP Cost to 50 or something smaller.

Both of these would not be a good idea... I'd rather just see number 2 happen as it is easier to implement.

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Originally Posted by JohnMccain

I think the system with shards is fine. The biggest problem is the marketboard itself. I couldn't count how many times I had to buy 1k shards at a time.

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If you need so few shards that buying 1000 is unrealistic for you, you don't craft enough for the shard imbalance to really affect you. It's not unrealistic for me to go through 3,000 shards in one day. That kind of volume in such a short time frame requires that either your entire static help you with shard farming or you buy from obvious RMT bots like "Rghltnwlket" who only sells in stacks of 2500.

Shards help regulate the value of crafting items. ex: 3 ores to make an ingot; 2 ingots to make a plate; one plate to make... whatever. However, each step takes at least one shard, which means that no matter how prices fluctuate or material costs shift, the ingots will always be inherently more valuable than the ore, and the plate will always be more valuable than the ingots. The shards act as a "lowest common denominator" to insert value into material.s

Actually I would love to see the ability to break higher grade crystals into lower... say a Cluster -> 10 crystals; 1 crystal -> 10 shards (or whatever exchange rate). Same with Darkmatter and carbonized matter. The prices are similar enough, I should be able to buy a few of the highest grade to save inventory space and use what I need, when I need it. Alternatively, just have repairing cost 5 basic darkmatter instead of a single G5 darkmatter.

Indeed. I get almost all my shards/crystals from my retainers (and from treasure hunts) these days.

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Originally Posted by Spyrit

In 1.0 crafters used to make shards and crystals, lvl 16 alchemy recipes if i recall correctly. made botting of them obsolete. I think alchemists (or some other crafting class) could break clusters into crystals and shards too. The should be an ability given to lvl 50 crafters to break clusters, DoL won't be completely screwed.

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So you can bot-gather, but you can't bot-craft? Make sense...

Honestly, if you're that concerned about RMT at the Market Board then you can always shout on public channels to offer your going prices for shards at a rate you think is reasonable and support your fellow Non-RMT Gathering players. I'm sure they'll appreciate that and you'll have "stepped one up" on those vile vermin gilselling RMTers.

But where you evade them in one market, they are bountiful elsewhere.

Sometimes I wonder if you guys really think about what you ask before you post things; It's like you're asking the world to get rid of its spare food and water reserves because cockroaches wanna hoard around that supply. And you and I both know that that's not reasonable....

Low on shards? Nope..... t Luminary tools.... getting those forces you to gather a ton of shards so...

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Originally Posted by kaynide

Actually I would love to see the ability to break higher grade crystals into lower... say a Cluster -> 10 crystals; 1 crystal -> 10 shards (or whatever exchange rate). Same with Darkmatter and carbonized matter. The prices are similar enough, I should be able to buy a few of the highest grade to save inventory space and use what I need, when I need it. Alternatively, just have repairing cost 5 basic darkmatter instead of a single G5 darkmatter.

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You can use higher level dark and carbon than is needed. I just buy grade 5 dark from the NPC, and use it for any gear I repair. When I'm low on carbon matter, I send my minebot retainers out for 30 grade 3 each. There's no reason to take up inventory space for grade 1/2 when it costs the same as grade 3.

In my opinion, a good way to deal with the problem is to create some node who drop more shards and cristals but with a two star difficulty.
Something reasonable, like all node nodes droping 4 or 5 shards and cristals. Enought to ease the pain of collecting this stuff, but not enought to make rtm use fully melded crafting gear.

I used to think gathering shards was such a chore until a friend in the FC suggested I use the wards while doing it. Prior to that, I thought the gathering rate on retainers didn't justify them collecting shards. Retainers gathering crystals on the other hand is leaving me with a plentiful supply... :)

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Originally Posted by Xavier_Fanesthre

I used to think gathering shards was such a chore until a friend in the FC suggested I use the wards while doing it. Prior to that, I thought the gathering rate on retainers didn't justify them collecting shards. Retainers gathering crystals on the other hand is leaving me with a plentiful supply... :)

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What wards? I don't have a gathering retainer leveled up yet, so I'm not sure what you mean.

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Originally Posted by EvianEverdeen

What wards? I don't have a gathering retainer leveled up yet, so I'm not sure what you mean.

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Between leveling Botanist and Miner, not a retainer, you get six Wards that increase their specific aetheric attribute shard collection (and eventually crystal and clusters) by 2 for 400 GP. So it increases the amount of shards you can get from a single node to between 12 and 15 as you get 3 shards per gathering action.

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Originally Posted by gornotck

Between leveling Botanist and Miner, not a retainer, you get six Wards that increase their specific aetheric attribute shard collection (and eventually crystal and clusters) by 2 for 400 GP. So it increases the amount of shards you can get from a single node to between 12 and 15 as you get 3 shards per gathering action.

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or if you're like me, when i gather shards, i use the elemental gathering bonus that some nodes give so i can get 16 as you get x4 shards from 1 node, and i believe you can do that with crystals but cannot confirm that, but what i would love is a way to get x4 of the clusters since they are a timed node and i hate having to wait for them when i have dailies to do which can take upto 3-4 hours if i do all my beast tribe quest, DR bonuses, and then trying to do my coil / ex primal farms / win.

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Originally Posted by Kimura410

Shards seem too expensive. A level 1 item should not be 40-50 per shard.

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Whaat! D: On my server im not selling any shards less than 120gil each and that is usually the normal price for high-demand shards(like wind and lightning). But anyway have you tryed to use DoL specced retainers to go for some shard ventures? they should bring approx 200 shards in hour or so.

What gornotck said! Just add the second set of wards as cross-class skills to the class you're using!

I'm working my armourer at the minute (with blacksmith left to go). I should look into this elemental gathering bonus as I am desperately short of ice shards (and a little cash at the minute, trying to finish overmelding my GSM).

if they add the ability to break down clusters I personally would never do it... there expensive per to buy and a timed node to mine / harvest, they would have to give me 100 crystals or something for me to think it was worth it.

shards pretty much become worthless, and the best way I know of to collect them is at the crystal node groups. with high enough levels one of the shards nodes will be double yield. that's 8 per node. running a triangle with the 2 crystal nodes gives 8 crystals and 8 shards every cycle. then when ready I would use my 500gp yield boost on a crystal node to get 12 crystals from it. basically after 1hr or so you'll have roughly 600 of each type.

now if your an extremely active crafter then that time harvesting is time wasted unless you have crazy buy costs on these things. in my experience even the most expensive crystal cost synths (like darksteel scutum) are extremely profitable buying the crystals.

to mirror the original post I say get rid of them though even if they aint to bad to gather if your willing.

Just go back to the old shard system. Every time you kill something? Shards! Every time you gather something? Shards!

Problem solved. Never had a shard problem in the old game.