Petition: Increase Shard/Crystal/Cluster yield while gathering.

I apologize if this idea has been presented before, but...

My FC is getting low on catalysts and as I'm out gathering, I've been thinking -- I would like to see an easier way to gather these materials. I can understand that gathering clusters is meant to be limited, and I usually can't be bothered to watch the in-game clock for the node to become active, especially when I'm in queue for an instance. Though, for shards and crystals (at least), I would like to see a method to gather them in abundance. I think it's a little ridiculous that, at Lv.50, I'm only able to obtain one per swing, and occasionally make use of the proper elemental ward to obtain just a few more at a time.

(Sorry, double-post for character limitations.)

My suggestion is to make use of the HQ Rate. I know we can't gather "HQ crystals" or what-have-you, but instead, maybe we can strike a "sweet spot" and obtain maybe 5 to 8 crystals, 12 to 15 shards? Something to make this a little less of an excruciating process.

I get that there are guildleves and beast tribe quests that reward shards, but if we're after a specific element, I can't think of a better way to stock up. So I'm open to ideas, suggestions, or if nothing else, a Like to get this idea taken into consideration. Thanks!

Hi,
Beast tribes don't give shards anymore (2.2 notes)
Treasures map do give shards but random type.

You can have your retainer go after specific shards if they are miner or botanist.

I like your idea, but they could at each trait increase for the wards increase the number of shard you can gather.
- When wards work on Crystal you could have +3 for shards
- When wards work on Clusters you could have +4 for shards

As side note you can Edit your post to bypass the limit ;)

If they just lowered the cost of the elemental wards from 400 to 100 or 150, that'd be good for me.

I also like the idea of critical yielding extra NQ items for the stuff that can't be HQ (like shards/crystals/soil/seeds)

Something really needs to be done about this. I agree, why should a level 1 miner/botanist yield the same amount of shards as a level 50? I don't even count the elemental ward abilities, or the kings yield/blessed harvest II, because they are too few and far between to really make an appropriate difference that leveling a class to 50 should give.

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Originally Posted by Thaliss

Beast tribes don't give shards anymore (2.2 notes)
Treasures map do give shards but random type.

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I see, I haven't done any beast tribe quests since the update. Highest tier treasure maps do reward a large volume of shards, but true, the type is random and isn't always reliable.

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Originally Posted by Thaliss

You can have your retainer go after specific shards if they are miner or botanist.

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Is this method worth the trouble of leveling your retainer though?

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Originally Posted by Thaliss

As side note you can Edit your post to bypass the limit ;)

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Thanks for the tip!

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Originally Posted by aerolol

If they just lowered the cost of the elemental wards from 400 to 100 or 150, that'd be good for me.

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That would also work out nicely. As it seems currently, we're only getting that increase every 3-5 minutes if gathering is continuous.

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Originally Posted by Kimura410

Something really needs to be done about this. I agree, why should a level 1 miner/botanist yield the same amount of shards as a level 50? I don't even count the elemental ward abilities, or the kings yield/blessed harvest II, because they are too few and far between to really make an appropriate difference that leveling a class to 50 should give.

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Exactly. Shards are the most used catalyst, I understand how they are mostly obtained as a reward from quests, but it just seems like gathering shards at Lv.50 is a joke. Why even make it an option if the gain is so miniscule? What I'm more concerned with are crystals and clusters. A lot of the endgame crafters use these types of catalysts, but gathering them takes a couple hours or more to get a decent haul.

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Originally Posted by SevariaClarenille

Is this method worth the trouble of leveling your retainer though?

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Lvl 1-5 ventures retainers gather shards at first it takes 1 hour but now that my retainers are lvl 25 (or was it equipment) they take 40mn. Have yet to see if they can gather crystal at higher level and if the time can be reduced further.

I think it's 30 shards per venture will have to check again.

Not the most efficient method but retainers not 50 yet :)

used in the region of 10000 fire shards in the last week and 8 thousand ice shards. so definatly bump this thread

Clusters should stay limited (You can get 90 / cycle if you have both Miner and Botanist, and shorter supply benefits gatherers which encourages more gathering)

Shards need the help more than crystals, as crystals have very limited use at the moment.

Personally, I'd say use the Carbonized Matter in a recipe that lets you break down clusters into crystals, and crystals into shards.

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Originally Posted by SevariaClarenille

Though, for shards and crystals (at least), I would like to see a method to gather them in abundance. I think it's a little ridiculous that, at Lv.50, I'm only able to obtain one per swing, and occasionally make use of the proper elemental ward to obtain just a few more at a time.

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It's even worse than this for crystals. While harvestable resources typically have a cluster of four harvesting nodes for a "tier", crystals are only available from two of the four nodes. So if you've decided that you want to harvest a bunch of one particular crystal, every third node that you use up needs to be a node that doesn't even have crystals.

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Originally Posted by Thaliss

Not the most efficient method but retainers not 50 yet :)

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I see. Somehow I doubt that, even at Lv.50, retainer ventures will be worth the time. Especially when there might be better items to obtain at that point.

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Originally Posted by Tanthalas

used in the region of 10000 fire shards in the last week and 8 thousand ice shards. so definatly bump this thread

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I'm not sure how you blew through that many shards in a week by yourself. I'm actually impressed, exaggeration or not. I get your point though. An FC can definitely go through that many given the right circumstances.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Clusters should stay limited (You can get 90 / cycle if you have both Miner and Botanist, and shorter supply benefits gatherers which encourages more gathering). Shards need the help more than crystals, as crystals have very limited use at the moment.

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I won't argue that clusters should stay the way they are. At the moment, they aren't as intensive as shards, but I will say however, that crystals are used more often than you think. Not as frequently as shards, but supplying an FC with crystals that mainly focuses on Lv.45-50 recipes seems to be a problem with the limitations that are currently in place.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Personally, I'd say use the Carbonized Matter in a recipe that lets you break down clusters into crystals, and crystals into shards.

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This is something I miss about 1.0. Alchemy had a method of breaking down catalysts into lesser tiers. I was shocked to find that it was removed, especially for how common it was to utilize.

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Originally Posted by Melinia

It's even worse than this for crystals. While harvestable resources typically have a cluster of four harvesting nodes for a "tier", crystals are only available from two of the four nodes. So if you've decided that you want to harvest a bunch of one particular crystal, every third node that you use up needs to be a node that doesn't even have crystals.

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This is also very true. We can't even harvest crystals continually from node to node, making them that much more limited and problematic.

spiritbinding gets you through a lot of crystals

Something definitely needs done about this, yes it know they are dirt cheap on the market board but I loathe to buy them since most are from obvious bots
Either a blanket all across the board reduction in amount needed to craft, or a major hike in the amount you can gather that increases as you level

I've pretty much been saying this since the beta. It's just mind boggling how something that's needed for EVERY synth is so hard to obtain.

Hell if they made shards easier to gather, it would destroy RMT. It's definitely not players out there putting thousands upon thousands of shards for sale.

Prices on Leviathan went from about 30-40 gil per shard to 13-17 gil when patch 2.1 hit and then rocketed back up to the old prices now 2.2 is out so I don't really believe that RMT Bots were doing anything to keep the prices down because it's not like anything's changed with them. What was probably keeping the prices down was the influx of shards people were getting from their Beast Tribe Dailies since that provided everyone with a few hundred shards a week that weren't of interest to anyone but crafters and so got off-loaded cheaply and when you multiply that by several thousand players it adds up. We really need another small but steady trickle like that to lower prices again.

I'm thinking at least one of the reasons for the price increase for shards is that 2.2 introduced a bunch of new crafting options (vanity, for one), which increased demand. If anything, RMT is making more off of shards, now that people are buying more of them.

It takes 1100 shards to make a stack of deviled eggs, which takes me about an hour, so I don't doubt for a minute that you could go through 20,000 shards in a week. The reason for the recent jump in price is because to make any of the new recipes, never the less HQ them, you have to have a fully melded AF set for each class, materia prices have gone way up, so spiritbonding has increased, it takes, for example, about 2000 wind shards to SB a crafter gear set.