The Current Ecnomical State of ARR

[Sollux]

Not really. A player is combat endgame ready within a week of reaching level 60. Not so with crafting.

And to say it's something that happens in every MMO isn't quite true since it did not happen on this one until red scrips were added.

3* Recipes are the Crafting equivalent of Midas Savage, and I guarantee you a new player would not have the skills or gear to clear Savage levels of content in a week. An experienced player starting a new character/class could probably clear A5S in the first week, but definitely not A6S+, and it's the same way for Crafting. An experienced Crafter making a new character/class could be Crafting 2* recipes in their first week of reaching 60, but definitely not 3* as it would require massive amounts of gil for i170 gear, something I don't assume everyone has.

And it IS something that happens in every MMO INCLUDING this one, the only difference is players are used to this kind of system for Combat, not Crafting/Gathering, and that's what is throwing people off. Before 3.0 you could be Crafting Endgame ready within a day depending on how much gil you spent on it, which was a shame because the Crafting system FFXIV has is complex enough that it deserves it's own Endgame and that's what we got with 3.0.