Shards and crystals need to be more accessible

[Lemuria]

I've said before and I'll say it again, there's a real problem with the way shards are obtained at the moment. First off, it favours the gil farmers who can endlessly bot away at this resource for hours on end, and secondly the sheer number of them required for crafting is excessive at present.

Right now there's only a few options for getting shards. There's desynthesis, which gets you maybe one or two per item and there's gathering which is an incredibly slow process.

Gatherers have limited GP, which regenerates REALLY slowly. Using this resource is the only way to get a decent yield, otherwise each swing gives only 1 shard, with only a few nodes being exceptions. Cordials allow us to restore GP, but these are on a 4 minute timer.

A good crafter can get through THOUSANDS of shards very easily. Especially given that some crafts can use up 99 of a shard type. Sadly, there just aren't enough shards to go around as shown by the insane price hiking done on shard prices. (Seriously, even the smallest stacks are now selling for over 100k!)

This has long been a thorn in players side since the game opened and NOTHING has been done to address the issue or even pay it lip-service. There needs to be a GAME left after all the grinding, and right now spending hours upon hours wacking a rock is not a fun way to spend that subscription time. Small wonder most turn to buying it from botters.

Make this game fun to play again, not just a grind on top of another grind. There's no reason for this vital resource to be so darned scarce, so it's high time that SE fixed the problem instead of ignoring it.

[Exstal]

I personally think there should be a buff for being a L50 gatherer that increases your basic shard yield by 3~6 excluding the gathering skills. So low level gathering bots will lose out to real players (sometimes) and high level gathering bots may slip under the radar. But then get lolbanned when SE catches them. Everyone wins!

[Havenchild]

I do feel it takes alil too long to get shards. If not increasing the direct yield then make Cordial craftable from Alchemist (completely makes no sense why this isn't), so we can manually increase the yield more often.

[UlricCraft]

Completely agree!
I've always wondered why L50 didn't get a bonus...
For the simplest and most basic component in every recipe, it seems absurd they're so tiresome to gather.

I do however like the fact that it provides a way for new/low-skilled players to generate at least a certain level of guaranteed income.
Reminds me of Rune Essence in Runescape.
Except you didn't need 500 RE for 1 Rune. ¬_¬

[Vetaro]

They should either give us some buffs or they should bring it back that the alchemist can break clusters into crystals and crystals into shards. If we want to avoid that gil sellers still farm them to much make the success depending on what level the alchemist is.

[Alukah]

Gatherer retainers help a lot for shards and crystals, you get 60 shards every 40 minutes, depending on your playtime that means you would hardly run out of shards as long as you keep sending them off, if you have more than one gatherer retainer you can make some good money off shards and crystals.

[Lemuria]

I personally think there should be a buff for being a L50 gatherer that increases your basic shard yield by 3~6 excluding the gathering skills. So low level gathering bots will lose out to real players (sometimes) and high level gathering bots may slip under the radar. But then get lolbanned when SE catches them. Everyone wins!

This is pretty much my solution too. The "Ward of the Twelve" trait could be enhanced to also give an increased basic yield of shards. Ward of the Twelve II could be enhanced to extend that yield boost to crystals.

When I say increase, In don't mean a measly +1 either. I think it should be +3 as a minimum for 4 shard yield per item. Also, expand the ward skills to boost yield by 4 instead of +2.

[Lemuria]

Gatherer retainers help a lot for shards and crystals, you get 60 shards every 40 minutes, depending on your playtime that means you would hardly run out of shards as long as you keep sending them off, if you have more than one gatherer retainer you can make some good money off shards and crystals.

This is all fine and dandy, but later crafts require 10 shards PER ITEM. You only need craft 6 of them to deplete those 60 shards and have to wait another 40 minutes.

[Warlyx]

ahhh lovely FFXI/FFXIV crystals...always a way to gain some gil :3

[Alukah]

This is all fine and dandy, but later crafts require 10 shards PER ITEM. You only need craft 6 of them to deplete those 60 shards and have to wait another 40 minutes.

But you wont be crafting 24/7, shards will accumulate over the time while you're doing other things.

Just to be clear I'm all in for more shard/crystal accessibility, and I also support Exstal's proposal, I'm only informing people in case they don't know.