Crafting shards, crystals and clusters...

[Kuroka]

Even collecting the mats is easy now, I miss the time in early 3.x where you had to uses bluescrip to get a special item that will give random chance to spawn a special node, to get the items needed for crafting the end game gear. It was a true challenge back then. Not something easy...

So you translate Challange with rng X rng x rng ...? ok. But that sucked. The gathering should be possible for everyone as you can just get some stuff and sell it and everyone has the same chance in crafting, the limited scripts back then were annoying... >_>

[Krojack]

If you gain them faster than you use them, and they also don't take up any inventory I have zero clue why you're even griping about them. Are you just looking for something to complain about?

I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

[Gemina]

I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

Then help me understand what the problem is. They sell consistently on the MB because they are in demand. As far as their value towards crafting, you can look at them as just another mat that needs to be gathered to perform the synthesis, and the way they work is what a lot of crafters are asking for from the devs: mats that exist outside of normal inventory so they don't take up those slots.

It's understandable if you want to have a conversation, and the best way to do that is when you bring up a problem or something you have an issue with, you also bring suggestions and possible solutions. That's what turns a gripe into a conversation rather than a complaint.

[Barraind]

So you translate Challange with rng X rng x rng ...? ok. But that sucked.

Stacking layers and layers of RNG seems to be the only way people think there can be challenge in crafting.

In reality, its just a constant headache. Oh, failed a 90% skill 5 times in a row, thats certainly a reflection on my time investment or ability!

with regards to impact of shards and the like in the current era, its a forgettable annoyance and one of the few things I'm thankful gets botted to almost free on a lot of servers.

[Jojoya]

I knew SOMEONE would say i'm complaining. It was just a matter of time.

I'm just wondering why they exists if they sell for dirt cheep and seem to not really matter for anything.

Can't even have a conversation without someone saying your complaining anymore. This is exactly why I even hesitated to even bring this up.

They're dirt cheap mostly because of the bots. Without the bots, the prices would be far higher because most players don't have that sort of patience to keep hitting up the ephemeral nodes for hours on end.

They are a constraint for crafting just like any other crafting material. There have been times I've run out in the middle of crafting items and had to run to the MB to buy more. If it weren't for the bots flooding the MB, I'd have to get off my butt to run out and go hit up the ephemeral nodes myself to get more.

They also tie into the game's lore about aspected aether for those who enjoy having RP aspects incorporated into the crafting system.

The bonus to you is that you can sell your excess for gil. They won't go to waste even though you don't want them. Putting up 5000 shards on the MB for 75 gil each is still 375k gil. It might not be that big amount by itself but little amounts add up to big amounts over time. And there are crafters like me that will be happy to buy them from you.

As for how players can end up getting so many passively without botting: class quests, levequests, Moogle/Namazu beast tribe quests, and treasure maps. Uznair can drop insane amounts if the right mobs spawn while you're part of a group that's map farming.

[KageTokage]

Are shard bots really that common? The vast majority of bots I see mining for such are omni-crafters who do it to fuel their crafting, not to sell off to others, and the bots themselves oft tend to be the main ones who need those in mass quantities due to spending most of their time crafting.

I almost never have any issues with my crystal/cluster count due to how much I accumulate from aetherial reduction and desynthing.

[JowyAtreides]

I'm currently working through completing the crafting log for shiny tools, compiled the requirements for weaver for level55-59 items that I hadn't crafted before. There are 31 of them and I require 1932 clusters/shards/crystals, 1142 of which are lightning crystals. This also includes needing to craft pre-requisite items such as Ramie Thread/Cloth, Hallowed Water etc. This works out an average of 62 per finished craft.

I currently sit at 5k of every crystal/shard/cluster but even I feel that a dent of 1142 just to fill in 5 levels of log is hefty. Hefty enough to be sending my retainers out to get me more crystals so I don't have such a discrepancy between these and the others.

My guess is you're probably not crafting all that much, or you're buying half the stuff from the marketboard and skipping a lot of pre-requisite crafting which seems to take up most of the shards/crystals/clusters.
Or you're simply going through a lot of passive ways (ie not gathering from a node) of getting yours, such as desynthesis or aetherial reduction.

[Barraind]

Are shard bots really that common?

I'm honestly not sure who else but bots is selling 20+ stacks of 9,999 a day for 30 gil each. Its not a market flipping thing.

-I- cant even fathom doing that, and I have "what are you doing with your life" titles/achievements/ect across multiple games, ha.

[Aramina]

Craft more. I have to purchase them not infrequently.