Suggestion about shards, gathering them and their yield

The thing I find really frustrating is that shard farming gives no real benefit besides gaining them, which is longwinded and simply a big bottleneck for crafters at some point, since I need to spend another few hours lvling the DoL's to get access to the higher lvl nodes and be able to collect materials to progress.

Atm I must 1: Gather shards, 2: lvl DoL's to have access to the new materials 3: craft.

I would like to suggest to combine point 1 and 2, by making gathering shards more beneficial on the XP gain part. Make shards give xp equal to any material that is 3-4-5 lvl's below you. Right on the border of beneficial, you still need to gather quite a lot of them to actually lvl up. But now it would atleast give an earlier respite of the immense grindfest that I (and probably other crafters) have to go through to independantly craft through lvl's. I don't mind spending time gathering, but atm gathering shards feels more tedious and frustrating then it should be.

I would like other people their take on this.

~Kayne

I think that creates a demand for crystals. Short answer: Stop being self sufficient. This causes players to rely on one another and drive the market. I'm more inclined to side with things that drive the market, especially given how crafting isn't as important as it once was, rather than siding with convenience of the player.

I do agree with you concerning the market. But at the moment there is no market for shards at all, so I'm forced to go collect them myself. Mainly cause no miner will mine shards simply because materials give xp, and shards barely do. Everybody is at the stage where they need to level their classes and I would like shards to be a more viable option to do so.

Theres no market for very many crafted items at all right now. SE killed it dead by making drops better in the long run. People are going to gather and craft things for themselves. If anything gets sold, it will something that isn't HQ and/or be for dirt cheap.

Also about shards, I came here to make my own thread about this, but this place is appropriate. The ward skills during beta increased yield by +4 on shards, crystals, and clusters, but they ninja reduced it to 2 for launch. Millions of complaints about the gathering speed of shards made them put these skills in in the first place, and +4 was perfect specifically for those items, but now they reduce it again, and they only cost 100gp less than kings yield II.... This also goes along with reduced gathering attempts to 4. They are not using their brains right now.

Just another thing they failed to mention. I don't know why they think they are saving anything, when they already killed the end-game crafter with that bs mat adjustment.

And then there is this shit where the area that a certain type of crystal is supposed, there is only 2 of the 4 nodes has freakin crystals, the rest have just shards.

My server has a lot of shard listings and when I have put shard/crystals up they sell quick.

You have a choice. If you are leveling up crafting, you can buy them, or if they aren't available, farm just what you need. For lower levels, you can also farm them for money, as they sell better than a lot of the low items since many can be bought from vendors.

You say there is no market for shards right now on your server, I'm assuming you mean there are none on the market. That sounds like a perfect opportunity for you to make a lot of money. If on the other hand you mean there is not much profit to be made because there are so many people listing them, then cheap shards for you and you don't have to gather. Either way, I only see a win for you.

Shards should not be a separate item you need to swing for. They should be a peripheral item that drops alongside whatever other item we're aiming for as we harvest.

Well I'm a decent lvl crafter and gatherer atm i think it was 29 mobbing and 31 goldshmith and I have no problems with my materials true I run out of shards every now and then but then I farm up for a hour or so and I can lvl up futher no issues there I also have like 90 allowence left and enough materials for my crafter to get 5 lvlin no time so my plan is to get my minner to 30ish gather some mats that I dullness at a later stage and then boost him to 40ish with leavequests. At that point I suspect there will be nodes with triple quadruple item gain what will result in me getting around 20 shards or other materials from one node (i already got plenty locations with rubble held with some skils making it tripple)

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Originally Posted by Dreamer

Shards should not be a separate item you need to swing for. They should be a peripheral item that drops alongside whatever other item we're aiming for as we harvest.

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Agreed, although personally I think it should be 90/10 (just the item/receiving a random shard bonus) when you harvest, while if you choose to harvest shards it should be 50/25/15/7/3 (1 shard/2 shards/3 shards/4 shards/5 shards) just to make it a little easier/ more fun to get shards.

what about making the level 20 skills you get to increase shard gained by +2 (so you get 3 when you mine) make it a toggle? instead of costing so much GP. So when a crafter is forced to go gather shards it won't be so boring for hours. Maybe make it 5 per swing..since you need tons of them to level anything.

I think it's fine the way it is, I run out and then go farm for about an hour to collect more. It makes the craft worth something when not everyone has the patience and commitment to level one, hell I remember it taking "months" to level say tailor to max in a game like EQ in that there were only like 3 max level dark elf tailors on my server me included.SO, this might take a month "may be".

I really feel like gathering just needs to be re-evaluated after the changes they made. Nothing is more brainless than shard gathering and you get nothing but shards for the same effort as any other item. It's really silly with how nodes work now where its one or other. It implies shards have the same value as anything else on the list. Deep Vigor/Brunt Force have been made extremely situational due to the attempt changes, probably to the point of not even being worth the GP cost. I can't even admire the environment anymore because all of the nodes are in tight little bunches.

If you want to know how sloppy I find these changes, just look at Ward of the Twelve II.

Mmm, i'd quite like an increase in xp per shard.
I may be bad at the game for running out compared to my friend but 1 shard for 8 xp.. in the time i gathered enough, i could have gained 2 normal levels ;(
If it must be low xp then please more than 1....

I certainly would welcoem some changes regarding gathering shards. Not only you dont progress while gathering but yields are incredibly small compared to how many you actually have to go through while crafting. Especially once in higher level when you need 2 kinds of shards.
Either they should increase the yield of lower ward costs at least by half.

I said it before and I'll say it again: let clusters be broken down to a few crystals and crystals into a few clusters. The gatherer can use a new ability to do this and get similar exp to what a crafter gets for the similar level craft. More exp for gatherers, shards/crystals farmed faster.

For the people upset about exp gain they could fix that by putting the shards on higher level harvesting points and make them the level of that point. As far as increasing the yield I'll agree I'd like to get more when I'm harvesting for my craft but at the same time I fully understand that any change they do make to the drop rate will effect everything I try to sell on the market. better yield will end up equiling more work for me down the road because I'll have to make more things on my craft.

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Originally Posted by Drako

For the people upset about exp gain they could since that by putting the shards on higher level harvesting points and make them the level of that point. As far as increasing the yield I'll agree I'd like to get more when I'm harvesting for my craft but at the same time I fully understand that any change they do make to the drop rate will effect everything I try to sell on the market. better yield will end up equiling more work for me down the road because I'll have to make more things on my craft.

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I'd be more than happy if shards were always = to your level, or at the very least = to the level of the node.

You should get XP depending on the lvl of the node you are farming from and not depending on the lvl of the item you are farming.