As I was reading the dev post about the changes, I thought everything stated was insanely obvious. The current system is so counter-intuitive, I can't believe anyone put it in the game to begin with. Now they're proposing to fix that, and people are complaining. I really shouldn't be surprised after the same complaints about repair materials, but here we go again.

Firstly, can changes like this go overboard, and simplify the game to the point of absurdity? Absolutely. We should be very watchful of simplifications, because they can easily take the fun out of the game.

What we shouldn't do is automatically go into an uproar at the proposal of any simplification without regard to its merits. That's great if you enjoy hoarding hundreds of different materials and switching between 5 different classes to make each material to finally make the weapon you wanted.. but realize you're on the extreme end of the spectrum - it's a completely inaccessible system for someone who only wants to focus on one or two crafts, which is most players. And that's not personal bias; I'm leveling every craft save culinarian. But even with that, I can see how unnecessary crafting requirements currently are.

Players should have options. Simplifying recipes does nothing to limit your ability to choose to craft a million different items across as many classes as you want. The current system, on the other hand, severely limits a player's ability to craft the majority of the items in their discipline simply by the materials required to make them. Can you really not step back from your own play style for a minute and see that?

You should be rewarded for going beyond a particular crafting class to improve and diversify your skill set. It should not be require of you.

/speech