[Rant] Shards, Crystals, and Clusters...

[aesteval]

Crafting has a bunch of annoyances included as part of sourcing supplies to help encourage players to rely on others and not just themselves for materials sourcing.

[RyuujinZERO]

If you buy shards off the market board you are supporting RMT. RMT botters get gil to sell by gathering shards.

That they do, but if they didn't make them so mind numbingly difficult to obtain via any method but bot-like grind I'd be harvesting my own like I do crystals and clusters. Until then I'll be buying shards on the marketboard from whoever can supply them cheapest.

[Mysticdraggon]

im not sure if everyone gets the scenario im in. thus they place their perspective on such high-levels such as including housing, FC, and social benefits.

i just want to say that im a casual gamer. i dont want housing or to be in a FC anytime soon unless i do have time to spend. my standard shard, crystal, and cluster income is as basic as gathering, retainers, maps, and marketboard, but that is just about it. so again i'll say that i would find it less annoying if these resources were more convenient than they are now with THIS perspective in mind. not a perspective on a much higher level.

[Jeibird]

it sounds to me like you just want the stuff that let's you craft to magically fall into your purse in large amounts for no gil and almost no effort and I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen. if you don't want to put the work in to level a gatherer to 56 and unlock aetherial reduction then you're stuck gathering them the old fashion way or buying them or planting elementlight seeds in a garden

[bass9020]

im not sure if everyone gets the scenario im in. thus they place their perspective on such high-levels such as including housing, FC, and social benefits.

i just want to say that im a casual gamer. i dont want housing or to be in a FC anytime soon unless i do have time to spend. my standard shard, crystal, and cluster income is as basic as gathering, retainers, maps, and marketboard, but that is just about it. so again i'll say that i would find it less annoying if these resources were more convenient than they are now with THIS perspective in mind. not a perspective on a much higher level.

They do become much more convenient, but you are choosing to ignore that. Ephemeral Nodes solve this issue once you get to it. It seems more like a first world problem. You don't need a FC or housing to do them so get to the correct level for them and you are good to go. Not really sure why this is such an issue?

[Niwashi]

If you buy shards off the market board you are supporting RMT. RMT botters get gil to sell by gathering shards.

Most of the time you're not. Many RMT bots do indeed sell shards, but so do lots of legitimate players. It's not even that hard to tell the difference when looking at the MB listings.
Random keyboard mash name with 15 - 20 listings of thousands of shards each: that one's likely to be a bot.
Pronounceable name with one or two listings of a few hundred to 1000 shards: that one's more likely to be a real player.

The last few times I've checked the MB shard market, the first page or so of listings on each of them appeared to be from real players. You had to scroll down a ways to get to the ones that looked like RMT bots.

[Mysticdraggon]

They do become much more convenient, but you are choosing to ignore that. Ephemeral Nodes solve this issue once you get to it. It seems more like a first world problem. You don't need a FC or housing to do them so get to the correct level for them and you are good to go. Not really sure why this is such an issue?

i tried it and ive already found the issue. i absolutely hate notes that only appear for a certain period of time and have a certain amount of items. i hate waiting for them to appear only to gather them the one time and wait for the next one to appear. im looking up more popular methods of shard farming and this was never brought up. it boils down to markets and retainers because apparently nobody likes to waste time farming these resources.

im sorry, but this is not helping. i'm still wasting time i could be spending actually progressing in the game.

in the end, i will bring up my original point. farming for shards is a waste of my time and my retainer's progression. im not looking for other options or tips since most of them are either from a try-hard perspective or are simply a waste of time. im looking for concepts to make the system better for casual players.

[bass9020]

i tried it and ive already found the issue. i absolutely hate notes that only appear for a certain period of time and have a certain amount of items. i hate waiting for them to appear only to gather them the one time and wait for the next one to appear. im looking up more popular methods of shard farming and this was never brought up. it boils down to markets and retainers because apparently nobody likes to waste time farming these resources.

im sorry, but this is not helping. i'm still wasting time i could be spending actually progressing in the game.

in the end, i will bring up my original point. farming for shards is a waste of my time and my retainer's progression. im not looking for other options or tips since most of them are either from a try-hard perspective or are simply a waste of time. im looking for concepts to make the system better for casual players.

Ephemeral Nodes are up constantly and only require you to touch two adjacent regular nodes. They are up pretty much around the clock just different elements at a time. Gathering isn't wasting time its a part of the game for some people and rather not get into this with you on that subject. And lastly you only use shards for ARR crafts and pre anything 1-50, after that everything is crystals which yet again is by far the easiest to obtain.

The ephemeral nodes are casual, they were made to get quick crystals because of all the complaining pre HW and for a way to make gathering a bit more involved other than just clicking a node. So either do them or don't.

[odintius]

They can keep the ephemeral nodes ect in place, but I don't think its game breaking if you can also gather clusters as well like with shards/crystals. We already have enough mats to gather under a timer as is clusters imo shouldn't be one of those tbh have retainers be able to gather them as well. /Shrug that my two cents take it as you will.

[MistakeNot]

in the end, i will bring up my original point. farming for shards is a waste of my time and my retainer's progression. im not looking for other options or tips since most of them are either from a try-hard perspective or are simply a waste of time. im looking for concepts to make the system better for casual players.

And I will repeat my point: Getting enough shards and crystals is EASY even for super-casual players. Any easier and they may as well scrap them altogether. Yes, it takes a bit of time - but that is no more a waste of time than gathering any other resources is.