Crafting shards, crystals and clusters...

I was looking at these the other day and wondered why these even still exists? I do a TON of crafting and still I gain them faster than I use them. I personally feel they should just be done away with OR greatly increase the amount needed to craft higher end gear. Like maybe 4 star crafts should take 10 or 12 of each cluster or something. Right now it's just 4 clusters (2 of two different kind). Big whoop..

I donno, I just feel they are pointless. They don't even sell for much either. I just give them away to whoever in my FC needs them, which is only shards for new people leveling crafting.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

I was looking at these the other day and wondered why these even still exists? I do a TON of crafting and still I gain them faster than I use them.

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You may be correct in that the efficiency has changed, but the reason hasn't changed since the concept was introduced - to make things more difficult for you. No, really.

I've only ever had issues with my stock of shards as the amount of those you gain passively from activities like aetherial reduction is significantly lower.

The main people I regularly see mining for clusters specifically are bot farmers, which is understandable because only players who are spending the vast majority of their time crafting are likely to ever run into issues with their stocks of those.

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Originally Posted by DumdogsWorld

to make things more difficult for you. No, really.

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But it doesn't make crafting more difficult. I completely forget they exist. It's only more difficult for new people leveling crafting. I got some friends that started playing several months ago and just started trying to craft. I just give them shards but now I gave them access to my garden and showing them how to plant shards when they need them. I just supply them the seeds from my retainers.

I need to buy from mb for my need...

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Originally Posted by Krojack

But it doesn't make crafting more difficult.

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Hence the efficiency part of my statement. Just because Square Enix tried to make it harder for you doesn't mean it worked.

There must be a demand for them, because it's what funds botters and gil sellers.
Perhaps youre just not crafting enough.

I ran out of Lightning and Wind shards...

When I was doing literally hundreds of Ixal dailies as Weaver to level up other classes (Since it's far quicker to just craft all the stuff in 2 actions as level 70 fully geared, than to sit around faffing about with level 10 classes... Especially when the craft itself doesn't really give any experience, it's all the quest turn in...)

But yeah, for the most part, they're pretty redundant.

How did I even end up with 8000 of each crystal and 1000 of each cluster? I haven't a clue. I know I didn't farm for them or reduction for them. They just appeared in my inventory at some point while I wasn't looking.

At the very least, I can use them to get the "Gather a bajillion things" DoL achievements without filling up my inventory full of crapola.

During intense leveling or low crafting (for FC airships and things like that) I tend to run out of shards. Crystals sit around 6 000 each and clusters are quite high to.
I wish we could break crystals into shards.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

During intense leveling or low crafting (for FC airships and things like that) I tend to run out of shards. Crystals sit around 6 000 each and clusters are quite high to.
I wish we could break crystals into shards.

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Or smoosh shards into crystals.

I don't see a problem with shards and cristal, and I often need to buy some. I guess it depend how much you craft. Or the recipe just doesn't take enough of those. If you find those useless, we could tell the same about the materia, since melding is not really needed anymore.

Removing stuff from crafting is a bad idea. They should come back to what crafting was in ARR and HW, in SB crafting became way too easy and boring. There is no need to pentameld anymore. You can HQ anything with a simple macro (about 26-28 actions, so 2 macros) since there is no RNG anymore in the craft. They wanted to simplify the crafting so everyone could craft 4 stars items, but by doing so, they made the crafting boring af and it's kinda useless to want to sell 4 stars items now, you make way more money by just selling the raw mats now, because anyone can make it and undercut you... Even collecting the mats is easy now, I miss the time in early 3.x where you had to uses bluescrip to get a special item that will give random chance to spawn a special node, to get the items needed for crafting the end game gear. It was a true challenge back then. Not something easy...

It depends on how much you craft. If you are crafting tons of items especially before the raids release you can run pretty low on them.

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I do a TON of crafting and still I gain them faster than I use them.

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How?

To put it in perspective, I've used (at least) ~4k shards, 2k crystals and 600 clusters in the last 2 days of crafting. And thats only been ~300 items plus subcombines.

I buy them multiple thousands at a time when I get low.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

I wish we could break crystals into shards.

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That was actually the purpose of all of our now completely useless sand that was removed in 2.0.

I always run out

Maybe in 5.0 when we can do "gardening/farming" we can finally have 100 slots to plant seeds. And maybe have the vendors sell the seeds too xD.

Or maybe mobs will drop shards/crystals/clusters just like in FFXI on defeat.

Maybe trade 5 GC seals for 1 shard, 10 GC seals for 1 crystal, 20 GC seals for 1 cluster. Apply the same with Poetic tomes.

Mobs do drop shards and crystals. Not sure about clusters. They are the sprites running around. Even with just a fc house room and an apartment you can get a decent about of shards daily for very little effort. I'm normally sitting on a caps worth of each shard and 8k of each crystal.

I've run out of Shards, Crystals and Clusters all the time. Particularly right now Fire and Water clusters, I've gone through well over 10000 of each.

You're probably not crafting very much. Even at my peak I was only doing a round of crafting for 2 retainers every 2-3 days.

I wish it was easier to gather them in a meaningful quantity, I can go get some but it is just so time consuming along with everything else. I'd rather not give gil to RMT sellers on the marketboard either :|

If you gain them faster than you use them, and they also don't take up any inventory I have zero clue why you're even griping about them. Are you just looking for something to complain about?

If you don't need those shards/crystals/clusters send them over to me. I go to the MB 2-3 times a week to buy crystals by the thousands. My gardens are used for shards when they are needed, when I could be growing more valuable crops. Clusters are the only ones I have in abundance because gathering mats for masterbook recipes is very time consuming.

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Originally Posted by AlliciaCapulet

Even collecting the mats is easy now, I miss the time in early 3.x where you had to uses bluescrip to get a special item that will give random chance to spawn a special node, to get the items needed for crafting the end game gear. It was a true challenge back then. Not something easy...

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So you translate Challange with rng X rng x rng ...? ok. But that sucked. The gathering should be possible for everyone as you can just get some stuff and sell it and everyone has the same chance in crafting, the limited scripts back then were annoying... >_>

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Originally Posted by Gemina

If you gain them faster than you use them, and they also don't take up any inventory I have zero clue why you're even griping about them. Are you just looking for something to complain about?

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I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

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Then help me understand what the problem is. They sell consistently on the MB because they are in demand. As far as their value towards crafting, you can look at them as just another mat that needs to be gathered to perform the synthesis, and the way they work is what a lot of crafters are asking for from the devs: mats that exist outside of normal inventory so they don't take up those slots.

It's understandable if you want to have a conversation, and the best way to do that is when you bring up a problem or something you have an issue with, you also bring suggestions and possible solutions. That's what turns a gripe into a conversation rather than a complaint.

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So you translate Challange with rng X rng x rng ...? ok. But that sucked.

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Stacking layers and layers of RNG seems to be the only way people think there can be challenge in crafting.

In reality, its just a constant headache. Oh, failed a 90% skill 5 times in a row, thats certainly a reflection on my time investment or ability!

with regards to impact of shards and the like in the current era, its a forgettable annoyance and one of the few things I'm thankful gets botted to almost free on a lot of servers.

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Originally Posted by Krojack

I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

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They're dirt cheap mostly because of the bots. Without the bots, the prices would be far higher because most players don't have that sort of patience to keep hitting up the ephemeral nodes for hours on end.

They are a constraint for crafting just like any other crafting material. There have been times I've run out in the middle of crafting items and had to run to the MB to buy more. If it weren't for the bots flooding the MB, I'd have to get off my butt to run out and go hit up the ephemeral nodes myself to get more.

They also tie into the game's lore about aspected aether for those who enjoy having RP aspects incorporated into the crafting system.

The bonus to you is that you can sell your excess for gil. They won't go to waste even though you don't want them. Putting up 5000 shards on the MB for 75 gil each is still 375k gil. It might not be that big amount by itself but little amounts add up to big amounts over time. And there are crafters like me that will be happy to buy them from you.

As for how players can end up getting so many passively without botting: class quests, levequests, Moogle/Namazu beast tribe quests, and treasure maps. Uznair can drop insane amounts if the right mobs spawn while you're part of a group that's map farming.

Are shard bots really that common? The vast majority of bots I see mining for such are omni-crafters who do it to fuel their crafting, not to sell off to others, and the bots themselves oft tend to be the main ones who need those in mass quantities due to spending most of their time crafting.

I almost never have any issues with my crystal/cluster count due to how much I accumulate from aetherial reduction and desynthing.

I'm currently working through completing the crafting log for shiny tools, compiled the requirements for weaver for level55-59 items that I hadn't crafted before. There are 31 of them and I require 1932 clusters/shards/crystals, 1142 of which are lightning crystals. This also includes needing to craft pre-requisite items such as Ramie Thread/Cloth, Hallowed Water etc. This works out an average of 62 per finished craft.

I currently sit at 5k of every crystal/shard/cluster but even I feel that a dent of 1142 just to fill in 5 levels of log is hefty. Hefty enough to be sending my retainers out to get me more crystals so I don't have such a discrepancy between these and the others.

My guess is you're probably not crafting all that much, or you're buying half the stuff from the marketboard and skipping a lot of pre-requisite crafting which seems to take up most of the shards/crystals/clusters.
Or you're simply going through a lot of passive ways (ie not gathering from a node) of getting yours, such as desynthesis or aetherial reduction.

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Are shard bots really that common?

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I'm honestly not sure who else but bots is selling 20+ stacks of 9,999 a day for 30 gil each. Its not a market flipping thing.

-I- cant even fathom doing that, and I have "what are you doing with your life" titles/achievements/ect across multiple games, ha.

Craft more. I have to purchase them not infrequently.