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

[Zhao]

I enjoy the shard market personally. Buying and selling, not to mention the slaves we call retainers. _xD

[Mysticdraggon]

so while im here, i would like to suggest a few things. either one of these options would be fair IMO.

1. add a level 50 or 51 trait to each crafter that allows them to not use shards.

2. decrease the GP required for each Ward. players should not have to spend enormous amounts of GP when it comes to the quantity of such a simple yet required resource.

3. create more crystal and shard gathering ventures past level 26-30. if my retainer is going to spend a lot of time gathering these much needed resources, he/she might as well be getting a decent amount of EXP while doing so.

[Niqote]

Excellent gathering gear is extremely easy to get from Illdy (Scripts) now its been nerfed.
This should help you with gathering shards from Aether Reduction, and of course having the basic 600GP.

And please tell me you are lvling your crafts with Moogles and cheap leves rather then wasting crystals by grinding.

[savageink]

Excellent gathering gear is extremely easy to get from Illdy (Scripts) now its been nerfed.
This should help you with gathering shards from Aether Reduction, and of course having the basic 600GP.

And please tell me you are lvling your crafts with Moogles and cheap leves rather then wasting crystals by grinding.

ixal quests work too

[bass9020]

Crystals and clusters are beyond easy to get now compared to 2.0 days. I gathered 9999 of almost every crystal waiting for SB. Shards kinda suck still but only 2.0 recipes really only use them anyway. I would LOVE it if they brought back the 1.0 days of turning fish into shards (but turn them into crystals now) and being able to turn other shards/crystals into other shards/crystals.

[Big_Panda]

Why can't crystals and clusters be equivalent to a certain amount of shards?

In fact, if it is just a matter of extracting certain amount of aether stored in these things, why can't we have a universal container for each elemental aether?

[vio_p]

overall, im still obtaining one shard, crystal, or cluster per gathering swing, and the quantity can only be increased with an expensive 400 GP or plain luck.

fishing will help elevate that issue

[Ksenia]

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

I used to think so too and like the OP I loathed the shard and crystal farming but in truth the methodical process of becoming a shard and crystal juggernaut can all be done above board with no need to exploit, bot or cheat.

You can have 8 retainer slots and that's per character. You can have 8 character slots so 64 retainer slots. By leveling 8 characters to 30 in either mining or Botany and taking them through MSQ to where they have a Grand Company and get all 64 retainers to level 30 in mining or Botany, you have a shard production potential of 64x60 every 40 minutes. Once you have all 8 characters in a grand company they can obtain ventures with some leg work, more than enough to sustain shard gathering for a few days. With crystals the numbers are halved at 64x30 every 40 minutes.

That's 3840 fire shards every 40 minutes as long as you have ventures in inventory to support it. In my case I have 32 retainers, not 64 and not all of them are botany or mining because I have 3 characters in Heavensward so I want hunting stuff as well. 20x60 and 20x30 per 40 minutes are my output potentials and it's all done using legit methods. It is unfortunate that they have reduced the game to this level of min maxing but when in Rome.

[Aerowaffle]

I used to think so too and like the OP I loathed the shard and crystal farming but in truth the methodical process of becoming a shard and crystal juggernaut can all be done above board with no need to exploit, bot or cheat.

You can have 8 retainer slots and that's per character. You can have 8 character slots so 64 retainer slots. By leveling 8 characters to 30 in either mining or Botany and taking them through MSQ to where they have a Grand Company and get all 64 retainers to level 30 in mining or Botany, you have a shard production potential of 64x60 every 40 minutes. Once you have all 8 characters in a grand company they can obtain ventures with some leg work, more than enough to sustain shard gathering for a few days. With crystals the numbers are halved at 64x30 every 40 minutes.

That's 3840 fire shards every 40 minutes as long as you have ventures in inventory to support it. In my case I have 32 retainers, not 64 and not all of them are botany or mining because I have 3 characters in Heavensward so I want hunting stuff as well. 20x60 and 20x30 per 40 minutes are my output potentials and it's all done using legit methods. It is unfortunate that they have reduced the game to this level of min maxing but when in Rome.

It's unreasonable to expect people to casually have 32 retainers much less have 64. It might surprise you, but some people only have 1 character and 2 retainers.

[Ksenia]

It's unreasonable to expect people to casually have 32 retainers much less have 64. It might surprise you, but some people only have 1 character and 2 retainers.

It's completely unreasonable to to use me as the base standard for obtaining crystals and shards but don't point to me for that, point to the company that made the game. To be truthful I saw my worker empire as an adventure and setting it up was just content I created. I didn't do it with malice or intent and never took it close to what I could in size but most of it is passive. I put more effort in to keeping market orders up to date than I do in sending out retainers.

I don't know if Square measure difficulty on getting shards and crystals based on this level of output but the point is, that's the high side of what we are capable of.