I'm shocked that crafting is enjoyable

I did not expect myself to enjoy crafting. When I first started the game, it seemed like a hassle and waste of item storage. I started mining and it became more and more entertaining. I moved on to crafting, and holy smokes, I'm having fun. I've never had fun crafting in a game. Loved Skyrim, hated crafting. God of War was great, but crafting sucked.

The reason why it has such incredible appeal is its use of percentages. It is like gambling for free. "Oh, you busted trying to go all in? Try again buddy!" That's what I'm feeling. And I can type forum posts while I do quick synthesis. I'm a poker player, and I can see a ton of similarities between the two games that make both incredibly fun.

Crafting/gathering essentially boils down to a lot of resource management, critical thinking, and planning. I find it more enjoyable than the main game, honestly.

In 1.0 you could start as anything. I started as an ALC. I still have the glasses that were part of ALC starter gear.

I too am starting to enjoy crafting more so than the main game.

It just uses a different part of your brain in a non-timed environment. I also really like creating macros specific to the recipes I'm using a lot and monitoring them as they execute, constantly thinking about what could make the little system loop work better or faster or more efficient with my resources.

I don't know of any other game that has this in-depth kind of crafting.