Wedding 2.45!!!!

[HakuroDK]

snip

There's been a required gate on crafting since crafting was a thing, though. It's not sudden, you probably just suddenly realized its existence. In 2.0, you had to have a minimum amount of craftsmanship to craft 1-star items like the crafter's AF gear. That's just how crafting is. Content -> Gate -> More Content -> Another Gate -> Even More Content. That's how MMOs work. So there is absolutely a precedent for this. I'm sorry it took you this long to realize that crafting isn't as casual a thing as it is in other MMOs. It requires a lot of hard work.