Crystal farming and gatherers

[Sibyll]

This is probably ignorance on my part, but are the bots low level characters or are they high level characters?

My impression was people would roll up a level 1 and farm shards in low level zones, so I'd think that increasing shard yields for the 400 GP skills from the traits would make sense as the OP states. For example:

Ward I: Wards can now be used on Crystals. Increases shard yield by 2 (Shard +4; Crystals +2)
Ward II: Wards can now be used on Clusters. Increased shard/crystal yield by 1 (Shards +5; Crystals +3; Clusters +2)

Another option too could be to add node characteristics on the higher level nodes that increase crystal yield (I know I've seen this buff in Nophica for Shard yield). This would at least add a reason for farming Shards in higher level zones. As of now, there really is no incentive to farm shards in a level 40 node over a level 5 node.