They've made a lot of oversights with the changes to crafting this update. I don't understand why they would remove the synth that allowed you to produce shards with crystals, it's nice having that option rather then having to use lightning shards to make them. While I guess Fine Sand can still come off mobs, why remove the synth to produce Fine sand?

The other oversights that I'd also like to bring up are pretty much the inability to complete Blacksmith/Armorer and Leatherworker Class Quest unless you're lucky enough to have a retainer who's selling the items needed. I was severely dissapointed that I had to pay a lot of gil for an item that I could make for 1/100 of the price. The items in question are Bronze nugget, the buffalo leather spetch and buffalo leather strap. To me that just seems like sloppy work that they didn't look into each item to see if it was connected to a quest or not, where they could have prolly easily found it out if they looked. I looked around to see if I could buy it from somewhere but no place was selling it. Unlike the clothcraft quest where you could actually buy the red cloth I found myself unable to buy the 3 items in question unless I was lucky enough to find it off a retainer.

But ya, o_O hopefully they reintroduce sea sand and river sand in a future update, I really don't understand why they would remove those unless they plan on making a "simpler" synth for making shards out of crystals lol.