Crystals & Shards No more

[Angellos]

I know this is a crazy idea - to get rid of crystals, shards and clusters completely but hear me out here:

1. Most of the gil bots spam ephemeral nodes to gather crystals in order to sell them on the marketboard. Since they're bots, they can do this all day every day. This is their chosen method of making gil. If you get rid of crystals and shards - they have one less venue for making gil to sell in RMT transactions.

2. Honestly it just makes no sense. I realize that it's a time sink - but, IRL we can make the same items and we don't need crystals to...craft...furniture?

3. The amount of crystals we get per swing just isn't worth it for people that aren't botters and don't have all day to go AFK auto farming shards and crystals.

In order to just get enough Sublimes for a gathering and crafting set, I have to gather over 1200 lignum vitae logs, 400 dimythrite ore and 100 mythrite sand. (OH BUT THAT'S NOT ALL) Even after I do that (Which even with auto gathering has taken over a full hour to gather.) Now i have to gather 3500 wind crystals and 700 ice crystals. That's going to take me another 2-3 hours of mindless farming to get since no one will be on to do Diadem with. And that's just for the sublimes you need to craft the set. That's not including the THOUSANDS of crystals to make the sets themselves.

I think crafting is plenty a time sink as it is, without having the crystals and shards involved IMHO. It wouldn't be so bad if each item only took 1 or 2 crystals but when making one piece of lumber takes 7 crystals it gets a bit insane.

Seriously though: It'd stick it to the gathering bots.

[Brightamethyst]

Agreed. Shards/crystals/clusters are outdated as a concept and need to go.

[AbelArchaniEA]

Disagree because it fits with the plot of the game. You craft magical items with crystals made from Aether. GG

[Brightamethyst]

Just because it can be explained by the lore doesn't make it a good idea.

[Tiraelina]

Just because it can be explained by the lore doesn't make it a good idea.

It only became a bad idea because they neutered the ways to obtain them with 2.0. They used to be secondary items you got every gather instead of a dedicated target and you got 1-3+. Alch could also convert them between shards, crystals and clusters.

[Niwashi]

It wouldn't be so bad if each item only took 1 or 2 crystals but when making one piece of lumber takes 7 crystals it gets a bit insane.

I think this is the real issue. Only the very low levels have shard usage in reasonable numbers. But then it starts ramping up the number you need without a corresponding ramping up of the number you can collect in a reasonable timeframe. (I suppose the idea is that people who are buying their shards can afford more at high levels, but it kind of screws over people trying to be at least mostly self sufficient.)

[RyuSaarva]

let's remove materia too since bots sell those too, just stop being lazy and go gather shards with aetherical reduction, even the new 5.1 skill give lots of crystals now.

[xJimmehx]

Are you aware that you can now get as much as 30 shards/clusters per GATHER ATTEMPT? The skill has a cool down, but it lets you get as much as 30x5 from a single node with 5 successful gather attemps, if you are lucky. Thats as much as 150 shards my dude. People shouldnt need to worry about them anymore.

Just go out to one of the nodes with a +1 on it and use 'The Giving Land' - https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/T...ng_Land_(Miner) -
and then 'The Twelves Bounty' for up to 3 more per gather attempt. Youll get random amounts but sometimes itll say more than 30.

I am allowed to post links right? If not I can remove it.

[deadman1204]

doing a daily map is a great way to stay in crystals as well.

[Jimmymagic]

umm..hmmhrrmm ah retainers?