Please increase crystal sand amounts

[Stitches1974]

Snip

Well Said!

[Rongway]

Interesting how all the people saying Crystal Sand farming is easy are people with maxed out crafting/gathering professions, while all the people who are having trouble with this stage are those who don't. Also interesting how the only ones in opposition to getting Crystal Sand addressed are also those who have crafting/gathering professions maxed out.

The fact of the matter is that Crystal Sand is obnoxiously tedious to farm for the majority of players, as the majority don't bother with crafting/gathering (it's why crafter/gatherers are able to make so much currency from their professions). The devs really need to address the issue, especially considering it's the end of the content cycle and there's no reason to gate the Anima progression anymore.

That being said though, they haven't nerfed Relics and old content loot rates, so it's highly doubtful that they're going to do anything about this issue either.

That's a poor correlation. And again, it's only "obnoxiously tedious" because you're doing it wrong.

The most efficient means of acquisition has nothing to do with crafting or gathering. You can take a party of five people and farm levequests for two hours. If everyone has 100 allowances, you can get about 55 crystal sands each. That's 275 sands in two hours. If you happen to have a full party of eight people, that's 440 sands (!!!) in two hours with less work per person. Against this, there is no reasonable argument that crystal sands need to be more accessible. Don't have leves? Save them up.

All those relic steps that you're complaining haven't been modified to be more accessible? It's because they're already absurdly easy.

[ManuelBravo]

That's a poor correlation. And again, it's only "obnoxiously tedious" because you're doing it wrong.

Thank you that is a nice example of an alternative way to get sand. Well Said.

[Misutoraru]

That being said though, they haven't nerfed Relics and old content loot rates, so it's highly doubtful that they're going to do anything about this issue either.

I still remember when the very first relic, it is very easy to obtain with minimum grinding needed
buy or ask a friend to craft the base weapon, ask a crafter to meld a materia
kill hydra, kill chimera
do a 50 dungeon run, kill 3 primal in HM
kill some beastmen
the only grinding is quenching Oil, and it wont take too long
the upgrade only require some item can be obtain with tomestone, and it wont take long either

it is when zodiac release, this painful long grind begin

long isnt an issue, repeating the same thing over and over is the problem
I do not understand why can't we have something like, do all 60 dungeon, all 50-60 HM primal etc
when i finish my first anima, i dont feel like want to touch the game for a week because the same repeated grind

I mean i understand, it is a relic, it is powerful mainhand, when it first introduce, but now when Bloodstorm that isnt far away, when A12S weekly cap being remove, there isnt really a reason to keep player grinding so long for an obsolete mainhand

[Mayoyama]

The fact of the matter is that Crystal Sand is obnoxiously tedious to farm for the majority of players, as the majority don't bother with crafting/gathering. The devs really need to address the issue, especially considering it's the end of the content cycle and there's no reason to gate the Anima progression anymore.

This is why I made this thread.. people fail to realise I am not just asking for myself, but I also have several friends who have neither any DoL/DoH leveled nor gil to burn on IV materias. I made this thread because it should be logical that if you effectively "double" the rate of umbrite acquisition that you do the same for sands to make both easier to obtain

Anyway... all those people objecting... have you considered what will happen when 4.0 hits and people are still trying to finish their relics? Tey might want those leves for battle clases, and it removes yet another method of getting sands for them.

[Vaer]

Anyway... all those people objecting... have you considered what will happen when 4.0 hits and people are still trying to finish their relics? Tey might want those leves for battle clases, and it removes yet another method of getting sands for them.

It'll probably get nerfed again by then because it would become a glamour item just like what happened to the severely nerfed 2.0 zodiac when it was no longer relevant. Either that or they can just keep the vilekin in the chests for the new leves in the expansion (if they add any) or add a similar item and make it available as a turn-in for sand as well. Since Scripture is probably going to become the new version of poetics, they could also add a new turn-in for that as well.

It's just not that nerfed now because it is still relevant, and Diadem drops elemental materia and some of the crafted items that can be used for sand turn-in as well.

Who knows the next nerf coming down might still hit the sands.

[Mayoyama]

It'll probably get nerfed again by then because it would become a glamour item just like what happened to the severely nerfed 2.0 zodiac when it was no longer relevant... It's just not that nerfed now because it is still relevant, and Diadem drops elemental materia and some of the crafted items that can be used for sand turn-in as well.

There are still some elements of the ARR relics that werent nerfed, particularly the zodiac braves stage (115->125), where it still costs 400k (4x 100k items), 80k GC seals, 1600 poetics (easy part) and 8 HQ crafted items, that have ingredients that come only from desynth (they never changed these like they did the unidentifiables stage) and if you are on a server where people live to jack prices up, and you dont know anyone with desyth you can be paying up to 150k extra PER ITEM (on my server anyway)

This is why I have concern about the feasibility of completing 3.x relics in stormblood, thus my making this thread

[Alestorm]

I wouldn't mind seeing an increase in the sand after the first 120 (I know there is an RNG based chance) I've been sort of working on it and nearly 3 weeks into it I just got the half way mark today. It's not difficult, just time consuming if your really wanting to get it done.

[Mycow8me]

Id rather see an increase to the light gathering stage similar to the relic light numbers. The crystal sands and umbrite stage feels like the long annoying part from relic where you have to do books so it will probably be what keeps animas rare. The light stage is seriously taking forever though, need higher light gains per run.

[enthauptet]

Not sure how people are legitimately arguing that leveling crafters and gatherers from 0 is a viable way to gather crystal sands. You would spend your time doing that instead of other things to progress you in the step in other ways. Having them leveled is a pretty good thing to do, but it should not need to be a focus of a casual player (i.e. don't complete 100% everything to max level) in order to complete something which is supposed to be casual.

Ixals are so unbelievably annoying I loathed doing them. There are a lot of quite tedious quests that require you to gather and craft mats. This isn't something you can do in "very little time in a day" along with your other typical daily roulettes, etc. Not to mention if you are using the levequest amber method as well you can't use leves for leveling them up. Either way it isn't a valid solution for a typical player.

A better one would be like be able to trade-in potsherds for sands or something since running 1-50 or 51-100 potd is actually something that is fairly casual and takes only a little bit of time.

Also before you argue against me, I leveled my crafters via leves and ixals (for my cul) and it was arduous and time consuming. Originally for my GSM I leveled up a bit via crafting logs and doing desynth and I would wish that upon no one. Moogles are very fast but until you get there it can take quite a bit of effort and gil especially if you are doing other ARR tribes for unidentified tokens. Gathering is even worse if you don't have levequests since there is no gatherer beast tribe. I used all my levequests to get ambers so I Just get my 6 quests per day and am currently leveling my btn and miner and even I am questioning the meaning of life after gathering like 2,000 logs lol. ( I got my lucis and forager hat too lol )