Can we just remove shards from the game?

[Myrhn]

I think this has been mentioned already, but in FFXI(And maybe XIV 1.0?) you were able to break Clusters down into a random amount of Crystals(No Shards in XI though).

So for example: I go mine a single Cluster and break it down into 5 Crystals and those 5 Crystals can be broken down into a total of 25 Shards.

All the above example needs is a little randomization with the amount you would receive per break.

It's really that simple of a solution to make shard gathering less of a mind-numbing chore. We don't need a new Crafting Class for this or a new crafting recipe or new gathering abilities.

Keep it simple, as it should be!

In 1.0 Alchemist did that. They break cluster into shards or crystals. Also they break down fish into shards too. The problem was that the Wards were so overflow with shards that they cost nothing even comparing to ARR prices.