So is there a GOOD point to crafting Shards/Crystals?

[Obreck]

So here I am in Central Shroud, gathering ice shards to resume leveling my Armorsmith. Gaining all of 10 exp per unit for my lvl 26 Botanist. Getting whispers from RMTs trying to sell me shards. Watching a bot teleport around in the floor farming shards by the 1000s....

So aside from adding a redundant step into crafting and being the perfect cash cow for RMTs/Botters I find my self asking: is there any point to this? It doesn't even add much to the timesink effect.

If there a valid reason why shards/crystals exist I'd love to hear it, no sarcasm intended. Otherwise maybe its time for Square to begin talks of dismantling it as a waste of time too easily exploited.

[Zozorozo]

I see the value in having them as an item that gathers can sell. I personally can make 50,000 - 96,000 an hour gathering shards.

I do agree, however, that for people just interested in getting their shards for crafting, this can be a drain. If they were to lower the GP for the Wards, it would help drastically.

[xbiggixx]

I would stop leveling armorer if I were you..nothing good is obtained from it an its just a waste of time,shards,and money. Shards an crystals take a huge amount of time to gather an it's extremely boring especially since you need a huge amount for crafting especially when you're on levels 35-50. They should implement a way to break down clusters an crystals down to make the time to gather them less tedious. Other than using shards/crystals for crafts you can sell then for Gil but..the time it took to get the shards an for you to just sell them is not worth it at least IMO. SE needs to take more action against these teleporting players/bot quickly or else this game will lose a lot of players.

[Polaritie]

I see the value in having them as an item that gathers can sell. I personally can make 50,000 - 96,000 an hour gathering shards.

I do agree, however, that for people just interested in getting their shards for crafting, this can be a drain. If they were to lower the GP for the Wards, it would help drastically.

Yeah, the wards need their cost lowered - why would I bother to level miner when I can just spend 100 GP more for the same effect anyways?

[gigi_frana]

I personally can make 50,000 - 96,000 an hour gathering shards.

how do you manage that?

[Derrick]

If they added recipes to alchemist where they use fish to convert into shards maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Wait....they did that in 1.0, I wonder why they took it out.

[Velev]

I am a lvl42 GSM and some point after lvl30 i had to stop and farm shards to continue. Normally you would need either tools or shards/crystals but in this case both are needed for crafting which is a bit too much. If they would increase the amount of shards/crystals you can farm as you get higher in level that would be great. At level 40+ nodes could give you 3 shards for example per swing while mining/bot, this would make things a bit better but the way it is now it's a bit too much imo.

Just a thought i discussed with a friend of mine the other day.

[Shiyo]

There needs to be more efficient ways to gain shards in this game, the price of most items that aren't 1 or 2 star have cheaper material costs than shard costs. Yes, the shard costs are actually higher than the actual materials to make almost every 1 and 2 star item.

That is completely insane and needs adjusted, asap.

[SeleneVenizelos]

If they added recipes to alchemist where they use fish to convert into shards maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Wait....they did that in 1.0, I wonder why they took it out.

Curiously, River Sand is still in the game but I have not found any Alchemy recipes that use it.

[Wulfies]

If there a valid reason why shards/crystals exist I'd love to hear it, no sarcasm intended. Otherwise maybe its time for Square to begin talks of dismantling it as a waste of time too easily exploited.

Shards/Crystals/Clusters exist as a "currency" or "energy source"to create the item. In FFXI you would put the reagents in the crystal, and "face north-west" at 3am Van'Adeel time in sunny conditions and preay that you suceeded.

Crystals have been a huge part of the FF franchise, so I do not think they would change this. Personally, I like this, you need a consumable to create the item and crystals are the consumables.

If they added recipes to alchemist where they use fish to convert into shards maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

Wait....they did that in 1.0, I wonder why they took it out.

See my post asking the exact same thing Shard/Crystal/Cluster Conversion