The Devs have no idea what they are doing with FFXIV’s crafting and economics..

[Nandrolone]

But a lot of other veteran crafters hate this and it's mostly because they now have significantly more competition in the markets, and I suspect that's where a lot of these complaints ultimately stem from.

I’m personally getting kind of fed up with this same response. For starters, I like competition, it makes the marketboard more interesting and fun, and I know plenty of other vet crafters that enjoy competition. Here’s the problem though. We enjoy competition that knows what they are doing and knows how to play the market well, people that work hard at cranking out gear, not spamming a googled rotation macro with gear that cost less than 100k Gil. That’s like competing against a player that you hope eventually gets more skilled, but doesn’t.

That is why making too many things accessible, easy, and borderline mindless is an issue for us. (At least for me, anyway) I like competition, and I like a good fight. I can’t get that with hoards of new players spamming macros, using the same techniques, same strategies...day in and day out. It’s boring. FFXIV’s crafting endgame is boring.