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.