There is nothing more irritating to the player base than your crystals being destroyed.

Currently, it's based on an RNG system - If you get lucky, you may never lose your crystals.
Whereas, some people can buy a Rebellious or Girin's, just to have it destroyed the next time they die.
(Imagine your game is lagging on you, or you get stuck on something, and *wham* instant death)

At high AP zones, you almost need crystals, anymore; If you don't have them equipped it sets you back so much grinding there.

Current Crystal System:
    Right now you can re-obtain crystals 3 times of your choice, after dying.
Pros: Hey, it's free crystals you can get back.
Cons: The issue with this, is you could get unlucky enough to have to use all 3 of these within the first week of the year.

Proposed Change 1:
    Remove crystals breaking, but instead "Deactivate"
    If you check the crystal page, the crystals instead of breaking, would be grayed out and unusable.
    This would require you to go to a blacksmith or somewhere to repair it.
    The price of the repair could be based on a percentage of market value. So if a Rebellious was currently 1.8bil, if it's a 10% repair fee, then it'd cost 180mil to fix
Pros: It'd save you money, and lessen the irritation of losing your crystals permanently.
Cons: It'd lessen the need for buying new crystals, so it would drastically fluctuate market value.

Proposed Change 2:
    Treat crystals like armor, and have them potentially lose Durability on death. 
    More expensive gear could have higher durability.
    If it reaches 0, it just becomes unusable, but you still keep the crystal.
    To keep the crystal market still viable, this repair would be a little more expensive.
Repair type 1:
    We could have Crystals require a previous tier to repair durability, like:
      - Girin's Tear requires a Girin's Crystal, and a Girin's Crystal requires a Girin's Fragment, etc
      - If there's no previous tier, you can use the same crystal for multiple repairs.
Repair type 2:
    We could have Crystal groups ground into a group powder, that's used for repair (More expensive should yield more powder):
      - Red spirit could be ground into powder, and since it's part of the Spirit group could be used for Rebellious.
      - Note, using a Rebellious for grinding should give enough repair material, to repair it multiple times.
      - It needs to be set up to where there's not a net loss, otherwise repairing would be pointless.
Pros: Can add usages to lower crystals again (For repair material), and negates instant destruction, since it's durability-based.
Cons: Still can be expensive, and may still affect higher-tier crystals slightly on the market

Proposed Change 3:
    Keep crystal break, but have a strike system. 
    Similar to having durability, but once it hits 0 it breaks.

    Every time you die, there's a chance the durability goes down.
    Different tiers might have different durabilities.
Pros: Keeps crystal market still a full necessity. It allows you to grind areas to make up for crystal loss without as much worry.
Cons: Still a chance of crystal breakage.

Proposed Change 4:
    A mix between Change 3 with the other two
    Allows you to repair, but if durability hits 0 before you do, then it still breaks.
Pros: Still adds a potential chance for repairs.
Cons: Requires you to pay attention more to durability loss. Partial chance of crystal breakage.

---
Note: For the above repairs, we have to keep in mind about Red Players, as well.

Some suggestions could be:
- Durability loss is twice as quick.
- The repair cost is double.
- Instead of affecting cost/durability, repairs could be location-based.
    - Positive Karma repairs at Jeweler or a new Crystal Vendor
    - Negative Karma repairs at Southern Ulikita or Muiquinn at similar vendors. 
---
Give me your thoughts below. Any variation would be nice. The main thing for me is the crystal destruction, itself.

Yet, for the market, the repair is the crux. You don't want to halt people buying more crystals,
but the idea of needing to buy one every other time you die is what makes me think there needs to be a change.

 - Elite c:

Crystal breaking and gear downgrades is just flat out stupid.  

These are some very interesting ideas that I think should be seriously considered! I'm surprised this post has not gotten more attention. I would think more people would be interested in getting this seen by the developers!

I agree that the crystal breakage system should be overhauled. I understand there is a need to keep the crystal market thriving, but 3 restores a year is not nearly enough. Not when connections are still unstable and not centralized, yet. Not when there are certain things that happen in the game that Pearl Abyss' side refuses to take accountability for, and continue to insist they are not at fault. Not when new, higher end grind zones are released that haven't been well balanced. Not when players are constantly trying out different classes. Not when several crystals cost over 1bil+. Not when there are still SO many different crystals with a highly limited crystal presets and crystal inventory space unless you spend money on the game. Etc., etc. 

Proposal 2 option 1.

Problem with crystals like rebellious is that you could be waiting ages for a PO to get filled.  It criples you for ages.

Gear downgrade is dumb as someone said.  Not even a red player deserves their V BS or Debo to downgrade.  That's just a disaster.

I do think though that red player's crystals should instantly break though as they do now.  We cant be that nice to them.  At least they arent losing 100b+ from their MH downgrading. 

Good news is Accessories at this time can not downgrade due to being red, same with your riding crop and life skill tools.  Only Chest, Helm, Gloves, Boots, Main Hand, Awakening, and Offhand can downgrade.

There is a post talking about this with almost 5k interactions pinned to the adventurer feedback board. They just won't fully realize the games PvE experience by removing the outdated crystal break.

That's the option I'm leaning towards.

I'd love to just pay a percentage fee, but feel that'd make crystal market fluctuate too much. 

I mean... Unless people are okay with that :p 

We've reached a new milestone on the adventure board page. Over 10k views now.

The biggest negative feedback I've seen are people losing out on profitability from selling crystals, if crystal loss was prevented.

However, the suggestions here should help alleviate both fronts.

---

We need to try to spread awareness, so one of our pages gets seen.

Simple thing, remove system break crystal and make crystals worth nothing, its a rare income if you sell them and having Valuepack ON but more expensive when you really need them because you died few times and break like 3 rebellious, you have 0 recover crystal, or two consecutive girin, now buy them again if you still have silver left.

I found this more anti-player, example: imagine you just spent all your money for a girin tear to grind at higher spot, no silver left then in 10 min you encounter a server lag/ disconnect and ofcourse you are dead, broke girin tear -5b but you are poor now, then go back to your lower spot and grind again and so on. Its not a fair play honestly, mistakes happen but this punishment its too much.

If I'm wrong tell me, but my suggestion is to remove crystal breaking or double the silver per hour on most spots, instead of 1b spot to 2b and so on.

You are my hero! In gerneral surprised people thinking actively about red players out side of the usual guy saying "Ohh, the losers that killed me afk riding outside safezone".

I think most actual reds would be fine with the current system, as they are very willing to take penalties for their actions, but more availability to use more expansive crystals woudl be nice. Like If a red is on hard capped gear but their oponnent is running BiS crystals we just do not stand a chance unless we tripple combo.

There has been a long going talk about how they could upgrade Muiquuns daily quests to offer an item that has priority over crystals breaking.

You take the risk of going red to do those dailys and have to farm your karma back afterwards. But in exchange you obtain items that give you a penaltie free death but will instantly break when you die.

Its a rough Idea I wanted to do an individual post about but I am sure the high risk high reward basis on this is defiently worth it and can be used by reds and blue players alike, especially after the new karma recovery change when the cap will be set to -10 million karma.