Clusters, Crystals, and Shard conversions.

So, new patch with new recipes. The issue on my mind is where are the new recipes for cluster > crystal and crystal > shard recipes? Fine sand and moraines no longer exist in game, so I'd like to see some new recipes to reflect that change. That or give me back my moraines and sands.

Do any of the new recipes use crystals or clusters? They might be getting rid of them.

Wondering the same myself. I really hope they are planning to release those recipes with the patch...

Yeah I leveled up alchemist due to it's ability to break crystals. It's really upsetting to see that I can't convert my crystals into shards, because as of now, I really don't have any use for all my crystals.

I am still collecting clusters. Getting rid of them upsets me :(

I'm wondering about this too. I tried one of the old reciepts but coudn't even select crystals as ingriedients. I don't know of any use right now for crystals or clusters...

They did not change the fish -> shard/crystal recipes, nor did they change the recipe for production of fine sand to break crystals back down to shards. And no mention of clusters. I know the devs won't read this, but wouldn't it be nice if Yoshi P could just hint a little at why they chose to remove fine sand from vendors and make it overly costly to produce? I've also noticed a vast majority of recipes use shards, not crystals. I'd have been happy if they changed the recipes for fish -> 1 crystal to instead yield more shards (a lot more...), and lower the crystal outputs of the higher tier recipes accordingly. Again, it's anybody's guess since the devs won't respond to us.

Well the Fine Shard recipe to transform 1 crystal to 16 shards is dated and there is no new recipe similar...

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Originally Posted by Masamune1004

Do any of the new recipes use crystals or clusters? They might be getting rid of them.

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tons of new recipes use crystals. mostly high lvl ones.

Still nothing from the devs? This after Camate posted...

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Originally Posted by Camate

(...) Just wanted to let you know ahead of time that in patch 1.21 it will be possible to exchange guild marks for items such as different varieties of materia, shards, crystals, and clusters. We will be listing the exchange rates in the patch notes, so please check them out. (...)

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That's all nice and wonderful Camate, because clusters are used in... what??? And I just checked the revised recipe changes; it's still not addressing any of this.

I just made a post highlighting both this thread and the other thread "Revamped recipes don't follow the design plan" in the same thread Camate posted with his quote
My Post

Let's hope if they don't see our posts here, they will see my post over there and we get a response :/

Bumping... Still no response from the dev team (not surprised there...) Does anyone speak Japanese well enough to get Yoshi-P and the real dev team's attention on the JP forum side? I think that's the only way we'll ever get through to them about this issue.

I'm not sure but I really want the shard and crystal conversions. I leveled up alch for this reason and sadly am not seeing my hard work paying off

I think their intent was to convince people to adopt the fish as the new way to convert crystals into shards. What they undermined/failed to address is what goes into crafting the base ingredient (lightning shards) needed for all those fish. If fine sand either could be sold again by vendors OR didn't take 7 synths of legwork just to convert 1 crystal into shards, this issue would probably not exist.

Bayohne, Malboro of doom, I summon thee to feed our backs!

err.. help with feedback, please. lol

Just implement recipes that require entire clusters and crystals to synth.

Yea, I was really hoping to see new Crystal -> Shard recipes in this update, but didn't happen. Another week, another request for even a "we're looking into it" response from the devs. Surely the Japanese players have expressed similar frustration.

I am likewise concerned about this issue and hope it is addressed soon.

I don't mind it so much, it makes it all the harder for the alchemy bots to get our money, i am sorry for the real players that suffer because of this, but i suffer from anti-rmt stuff when i gather. where's the line (that has been addressed in so many posts) that seperates screwin rmt and screwin legitimate players. cuz i know lots of regular players are gettin shafted more and more.

Well as the situation currently stands crystals and clusters have so few functions that they should be eliminated. Also, there needs to be a practical use for things like Bone Crayfish, and other higher level fish that are currently used for crystals.

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Originally Posted by Bocajo

Well as the situation currently stands crystals and clusters have so few functions that they should be eliminated. Also, there needs to be a practical use for things like Bone Crayfish, and other higher level fish that are currently used for crystals.

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There is no need for elimination when the solution lies in implementation of new recipes that conume entire crystals or clusters.

Matsume, I'm not completely opposed to the idea. However, in the long run what is gained from having a recipe costing 1 crystal vs. costing 16 shards?

I worry that new players may find the shards,crystals,clusters concept unnecessarily complicated and cumbersome.

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Originally Posted by Matsume

There is no need for elimination when the solution lies in implementation of new recipes that conume entire crystals or clusters.

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The trend has been moving in the opposite direction from this. Look at ore, it used to require crystals to turn into nuggets, then shards to create ingots. Now it's even less shards. Maybe after level cap is raised, crystals and clusters will be relevant, but that's not an excuse for ignoring the constant pleas for answers from the player-base. C'mon community reps! Do you even read this thread?

Still nothing? Camate? Bayohne? Rukkirii? (did I miss any?) Yoshi-P? w! Any chance they will address this in Monday's 1.21a patch? 1.21b? 1.22? 2.0? Sorry for the constant bumps, but some players care more about what's in the game than writing culinary recipes or when SE's going to release a new fan-site kit.

I want to know also! Please at least tell us that issue is at least on your minds.

SE just continues to ignore us! Obviously, posting nonsense is all the reps are good for lately:

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

♪ And I was like Bayohne, Bayohne, Bayohne, oooooh, like Bayohne, Bayohne, Bayohne, oooooh ♪

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(Yes, I know they post other things, but how about responding to questions that have been ignored for months!!!)

I still think the fish synths are sufficient.

The overall cost of converting crystals to shards via fish:

6 fish + 6 fire shards => 6 sea/river sand (figure ~15 seconds per synth?)
Change jobs (+30 seconds)
6 sea/river sand + 2 wind and lightning shards => 1 fine sand (~15 sec)
Change jobs again (+30 sec)
Finally, break 1 crystal into 16 shards (via dated recipe) (~15 sec)

Overall, you took ~3 minutes to produce 16 shards... no wait, subtract the shards you wasted in the process (10 shards overall). So in ~3 minutes, you've effectively crafted... 6 shards.

I'm not trying to mass produce them, but why should I have to buy shards from RMT? And more importantly, why haven't they revised the crystal -> shard recipe since it's been marked as dated since 1.19.

Hi Yukikoneko,

Thanks for your patience while we worked to get a response on this topic for you. We have discussed this with the Item Team and they let us know that currently there aren't plans to introduce more ways to break down crystals into shards (partly due to the fact that shards are so easy to obtain that they've become much cheaper as a result). Another reason being that new recipes utilize crystals instead of shards, so it's not as though their entire purpose is to be broken down into shards.

Bayohne dont let people get to you, disregard anything people that dont seem to understand the whole thing that you guys do since, you guys send the petition/info to the devs, then the devs must answer not only NA posts but also EU, and JP post so its like a whole pile of info that must go according to how they get it and then, after the whole time, you get the answers. So really people, I would have already quit if I were a rep cause damm this community loves scapegoats it seems.

I'm a bit curious and maybe I missed this but what are clusters used for? Can these be broken down into crystals or shards?

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

Hi Yukikoneko,

Thanks for your patience while we worked to get a response on this topic for you. We have discussed this with the Item Team and they let us know that currently there aren't plans to introduce more ways to break down crystals into shards (partly due to the fact that shards are so easy to obtain that they've become much cheaper as a result). Another reason being that new recipes utilize crystals instead of shards, so it's not as though their entire purpose is to be broken down into shards.

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Thanks so much. Sorry I had to go to such great lengths to grab attention.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YukiKoneko

The overall cost of converting crystals to shards via fish:

6 fish + 6 fire shards => 6 sea/river sand (figure ~15 seconds per synth?)
Change jobs (+30 seconds)
6 sea/river sand + 2 wind and lightning shards => 1 fine sand (~15 sec)
Change jobs again (+30 sec)
Finally, break 1 crystal into 16 shards (via dated recipe) (~15 sec)

Overall, you took ~3 minutes to produce 16 shards... no wait, subtract the shards you wasted in the process (10 shards overall). So in ~3 minutes, you've effectively crafted... 6 shards.

I'm not trying to mass produce them, but why should I have to buy shards from RMT? And more importantly, why haven't they revised the crystal -> shard recipe since it's been marked as dated since 1.19.

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Yes, going the sand route is stupid. What I meant was the direct lightening > other shard/crystal synths. Yes, there's no cluster>crystal or crystal>shard conversions, but I think the direct fish>crystal stuff is sufficient.

Ah yes, though you gotta keep a healthy supply of lightning shards. Bayohne's correct in that shards are much easier to come by now. I still think they ought to convert the fish + 10 lightning shards -> 1 crystal recipes into higher shard output.

What Raldo said, there are fish/kelp that triple your shard investment without even HQ'ing.... It sucks to have lost cluster > crystal > shard, but the other recipes should be more than sufficient. I'm hoping that the clusters will be useful again someday though as they still drop. I still use plenty of crystals.

I'm really hoping they do make a use for clusters again. That's what I did with all my guild marks.