Gathering shards takes to long.

[Codek]

A claim as preposterous as that demands video evidence.

I'm sorry but I absolutely fail to see how that is even humanly possible. Considering that even mashing the button gives you about three seconds between hits, you only get four shards per node, and the nodes are often more than ten seconds apart.

Sounds about right to me.

10Sec mining a node, 5 seconds sprinting between nodes = 15 seconds per node. 4 Shards for each node

60seconds/minute x 6 minutes = 360 seconds
360 seconds/15(seconds/node)=24 nodes
24nodes x 4 shards/node = 96 shards

If your smart, you will also be farming at the locations that have 1 node that gives +1 yield so that's an added 24 shards in 6 minutes. (Actually 32 shards if you rotate between only 3 nodes for max efficiency)
If your smart you will also add one to your yield with the blessings (I'm guessing every 3 minutes) so that is another 8 for 6 minutes.

Total in 6 minutes =~ 96+24+8 = 128 shards.
If for some reason it takes you 10 seconds to move between nodes (if adds are around) then it drops to 72+18+8 which is still 98 shards in 6 minutes.

[MurakumoMillennium]

If it's so fast, would you mind telling us how long it took you to gather 240k+ shards (9999 x 6 elements x 4 retainers)?

Easy: I gathered things that are worth more money, sold them, and then bought the shards instead. Why gather thousands of shards when I can grab a few dozen ore/logs/whatever, sell it, and then just buy said thousands of shards? So to answer the question, a couple weeks at best? And that's without constantly grinding to do it.

In 1.0 I'm almost positive that as an ALC you COULD convert crystals down into shards. I dont remember the amount though.

Fish. In 1.0 ALC could turn the now staggeringly vast amount of completely useless fish into shards.

[seorin]

Easy: I gathered things that are worth more money, sold them, and then bought the shards instead. Why gather thousands of shards when I can grab a few dozen ore/logs/whatever, sell it, and then just buy said thousands of shards? So to answer the question, a couple weeks at best? And that's without constantly grinding to do it.

I do this, too, but somebody still has to gather all those shards, and that somebody is usually a bot.

Shard gathering just doesn't add anything of value to the game. Removing or fixing the system would have little to no negative effects and a wealth of positive ones - most importantly, the huge blow to RMT.

[TomTom1968]

I use my retainers for shards. 30 shards in 40 minutes, 2 retainers. So in 2 hours I have 3x60 = 180 shards. While I can do other stuff. Ain't that bad imo.