Since returning to GD my only pain point so far is Aether Crystal Farming. Warden’s Lab is the most efficient route, and it is super un-engaging. I’ve spoken to other people playing ssf, people who craft a lot, searched this topic. It seems nobody thinks aether crystals as a bottleneck is ideal.
The amount of aether crystals in crafting recipes is fine!
I understand that by reducing aether crystal costs you create the same effect as improving drop rate, but I don’t think the costs are egregious. Rather, I think we need more diversity in how to farm the costs so that players have more choices. I understand players optimize the fun out of things, but you can counteract this a bit by making alternatives to the unfun optimized farming method a bit more competitive.
Context
Ideas
Cronley should have 5+ aether clusters in his boss area instead 2. It would just create a nice organic way to get more aether crystals while farming devil’s crossing rep, or any of the MI’s in his area. I also think this would just make the Cronley area cooler for new players. A murderous madman surrounded by aether crystals.
Aether Crystal Cluster enemies should have a chance to drop 2 crystals instead of 1 in elite, and guaranteed 2 in ultimate… or something like this. More crystal drops in greater difficulties, please. I am indeed arguing that the base amount of crystal drops is not enough. The time we spend farming aether crystals is time we’d probably like to spend farming ANYTHING ELSE.
Vendors that sell aether crystals should always sell 5-8 at a time. I don’t care if you make them more expensive to balance this; having an iron bits sink into aether crystals as an alternative would be fine by me.
SOME aether monster types, or at least their hero versions, should have an uncommon chance to drop aether crystals as a means of organically increasing the amount of aether crystals players get. Reanimator/Dominator types, which have crystals literally growing out of them, and aether colossi, who just seem big enough to warrant the chance, seem like good contenders. Whereas something like gazers should not drop them. I’m not saying this needs to be a significant source at all, but just some more organic aether crystal drops from applicable aether heroes would be awesome.
There should be a recipe that converts the aether cluster consumable into ~5 aether crystals. Would be nice to stock up and then just convert excess into aether crystals when I’m running low.
Shattered Realm and Crucible should absolutely drop a generous amount of aether crystals. I just timed some runs and on a non optimized lazy not fully geared sentinel I can get 12 aether crystals in under a minute at Warden’s lab. So theoretically you could make Shattered realm drop nearly 48 aether crystals and it wouldn’t compete with the Lab route. I would MUCH rather farm SR at 50% the efficiency of farming Lab. Heck, I’d rather farm SR even if it only dropped 12 aether crystals ~every 4 minutes when optimized and at higher shards instead of farming lab. I feel the most strongly about this point as enabling SR and Crucible as a suboptimal way to farm crystals but “generous enough” allows us to farm our gear and stock up on some crystals at the same time.
Adding Maska’s idea of monster totems dropping additional mats based on their type. I think this is a great idea.
Zantai, I beg, as my first request returning to GD, improve the QoL and player agency in farming aether crystals. It will make both the SSF and general crafting experience for players way better.
I thought exactly the same a few days ago as i was running short on crytals again but had hundreds of shards in stock.
Although slight disagreement with OP in regards to the most efficient farming method, id argue Valbury Outskirts gives a lot more crystals per time spent with a proper route which involves skipping some formations.
Ugh, no. SR is very uninspiring imho. Just random stuff with random enemies (including duplicate bosses) in random order for random drops. I don’t want it to be more important for farming things.
If you like to run something different than the lab, you can go to immolation and conflagration & port valbury outskirts. Both are dangerous (or forbidden?) domains and will thus drop more stuff, including crystals. You can easily get 50+ of them without returning to the main menu.
I don’t mind the other suggestions. I’m also not a of farming the crystals.
I’m actually okay with it and sort of see the logic. Don’t need competing pressure between those 2 resources when it’s only for 3 crystals. It being one-directional is ok with me, and shards are important too.
Note, though, that I’m not advocating for SR to become the new best farm for aether crystals. I’m specifically advocating for just allowing the other content that exists to be more viable for farming aether crystals without replacing the current best methods. I see this as a win-win for everyone. I do like SR but I don’t want it to become something I HAVE to do to farm basic mats either.
I’m returning after 5 years so shaking a lot of rust off and re-learning plenty. Thank you for the advice on the better route.
I didnt precisely measure how much crystals i got, but from a “feeling” standpoint i had quite a lot more crystals gathered per time spent when i took a route comparable to this one, depending on where the blocks are placed:
You got to take into account that you also already gather about 10 crystals on your way to the outskirts.
If i remember correctly, as i spent quite some time doing this run 2 characters ago out of a necessity, i had about 60-80 crystals per run.
For wardens lab you lose a lot of time spending in loading screens and teleporting back to wardens lab wp.
And for 90% of my characters i also used wardens lab route, but if your build can handle standing on aether ground without having to take a potion every few seconds and press healing cooldowns, i think this route is more comfy/rewarding as you can also add herald of the stars at the end
ye that’s def way different than mine
just did a full clear (incl nooks) and only got 43
tho funny enough i think i just got Valde to spawn with my lowest kill amount yet
that can definitely be a worthy factor, as soon as additional acquisition considerations gets added in then stuff like Immolation or quarry also becomes decent, since Lab you just purely gain crystals
This is well written but wrong. The actual optimal way to farm aether crystals is grimtools and not wasting your life farming what should be a crafting recipe in a single player game.
I think this factor should apply to all your farming routes in one way or another if you dont want to lose your sanity
Example:
You basically know that for every character you start you got to farm some Ugdenblooms. Farming exclusively for a single crafting mat is super annoying in my oppinion, so i combine the ancient grove runs with shopping for some medals which might be useful for other characters , especially double rares.
And i just stash everything which is in my opinion well rolled / useful for something else. So my mindset wont be " nah, only 8 blooms dropped, got to to another run" but rather “hey at least i got this nice trinket for a future char im going to do”
I must not craft enough, as Warden’s Lab, Hallowed Hill, Arkovian Foothills, Conflagration, Port Valbury, Immolation, Quarry, Necropolis, and Malmouth (Lighthouse?) always seem to dump quite a haul for me.
I haven’t counted, but also by feeling I would say I come away from running through the Conflagration and Port Valbury Outskirts with the most “whoa that’s a lot of crystals” when I look at the inventory after.
I approve ! Aether crystal are probably the only material that you need alot for crafting (compared to other materials)
The best way right now is probably Port Valbury because It allows you to also get some MIs
but I wouldn’t mind having more by other means/ways/from other locations.
When the post for improving seals drop rates hit this forum I sited the same thing for crystals. Don’t know if that post is still around. Funny how things change.
I am all for adding blowing up the big crystal for 3 small ones.
Alternatively lower the crafting reqs on stuff might be better…or
Maybe ascended mode has some configuration for more mat drops??
This is the price you pay for speed levelling/GDStash levelling.
While I do agree that you can never have enough Aether Crystals, actually running through the campaign means I never have to farm for more than a handful of runs to be done with my crystal farm.
Agree, that Aether Crystals are pretty annoying to farm.
Even more so than the limited locations, it’s how boring the task is. It’s like breaking furniture in a game about slaying monsters.
I also moved part of my farming route to Port Valbury Outskirts for that reason, not because it’s faster, but at least you can pick up a few manticore eyes and encounter Valdaran there.
And no, it’s not a “speed leveling issue”. If I have 180 Crystals in my inventory at the end of Ultimate and I realize that I am still not done farming Crystals, that’s an issue.
If I want to swap equipment for testing and need to farm another 200 Crystals, that’s an issue.
SR is very uninspiring imho. Just random stuff with random enemies (including duplicate bosses) in random order for random drops. I don’t want it to be more important for farming things.
