Crafting needs to be fun or needs to be automated.

[Denmo]

@Topic
Did you read the interviews? There's a detail in there that Yoshi would like 2 modes of synthing: one for standard, and one for more in depth. The standard one would be instantaneous, you may not even kneel for it, and there'd be a small chance of HQ. The second one would probably be the same as it is now, using abilities and choosing the best course of action to attempt to create an HQ, or succeed in what would otherwise be a difficult synth.

Me? I would kinda like the idea of synthing being more like battles. Progress would occur automatically like with Auto-Attack, but you can step in with abilities to ensure success. Bonus exp for HQing, bonus for combos. And as with normal Levequests, let us be able to either incur less anima for teleporting to the delivery spot, or pay extra gil for an NPC to deliver the goods for us, or after achieving a certain quest/level in the craft's respective guild, you get your own Delivery Chocobo.

Stuff like that. That'd be nice.

[Answa]

@Topic
Did you read the interviews? There's a detail in there that Yoshi would like 2 modes of synthing: one for standard, and one for more in depth. The standard one would be instantaneous, you may not even kneel for it, and there'd be a small chance of HQ. The second one would probably be the same as it is now, using abilities and choosing the best course of action to attempt to create an HQ, or succeed in what would otherwise be a difficult synth.

I linked that before, but let me just explicitly plug it in:

Sonomaa (BG): What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft? I hate to keep going back to World of Warcraft, but they're winning.

Square-Enix: It's a matter of priority so far. For the past 10 months, we prioritized all of the things we thought we needed to get fixed first. On the top of that list: UI, Battle System. Also, Content, where the content was based on Guildleves. So, over the past 10 months, it has been fixing the things that needed fixes and adding more content. With the Crafting System, again, we prioritized what needed to be fixed first. The first thing that needed to be fixed was that the Recipe System was way too complex - way too many ingredients, way too many steps to get to your final product. Something that was way too difficult for the novice player to get into. You would have to be hardcore if you wanted to make something. So getting those things fixed first was our priority.

[Yoshida speaks more]

And he's going on more; it's the amount of materials you needed. It wasn't just pressing Enter, it was having to get ALL of these materials before pressing Enter. And so the next step, which we hope to do really soon, is now shorten the number of steps to actually do the crafting. Instead of, you know, sitting down, doing the thing, standing up, getting your stuff, etc. Consolidate all of it and cut down on the steps is the next step being taken.

And one of the things we're planning is two different crafting systems. One that's very simplified and that you're going just for the item you need without having to worry about High Quality, with a small chance of High Quality. Then there's the other system, where it will take more time and effort, but the chance of getting that High Quality item will become higher. So the people who want to spend more time and do it carefully will have the higher chance of a High Quality, and then the people who want to get it done, they have the consolidated system.
BG: Will you be abolishing breaks? Like FFXI had breaks, where you could lose everything and it was heartbreaking.

SE: Yes, we've already begun discussing removing that loss probability. If it's below, at, or just a bit above your crafting level, then the loss probability would be removed. But if it's something far above your crafting level - if you succeed, then you get the experience bonus, but if it is far above your level, having those item lost are a good way...

BG: Agreed. Good.

SE: That's the standard, and we hope to get to that. That's what we're thinking.

BG: I just hated making arrows with my Ranger in FFXI that were 30 points below and blowing up the whole thing. Why am I blowing up my arrows?

SE: [Discussion and laughs among the SE staff] We'll take that into consideration.

From source.