If crafting was still inaccessible and difficult like Heavensward Patches, you’d quit

[Driavna]

Crafting was inaccessible?

Inaccessible is a strong word but during HW we had to deal with:

- Specialization was a thing, you could only had access to all recipes if you level multiple characters.

- Capped red scrips needed for important recipes.

- Basic materials, like leather, got a jump in the number needed to produce 1. At that time any material coming from a monster was harder to obtain.

- Desyn was way harder to level and the amount of points you could spread around were also limited.

- RNG materials like titanium ore.

- Basic recipes to level up required materials from timed nodes.

- Way less XP sources.

- First ILvL170 set was class specific, fun times getting all and melding all if you wanted to be an omnicrafter.

- A very obnoxious system to obtain certain materials I don't even remember now.

Probably more stuff I just forgot. Anyway, back then YoshiP mentioned not being happy with current crafting/gathering participation and since then has slowly become more and more accesible till today situation.

[icrot]

I don't even craft now, so I guess I would still play normally as I do now.

[Doragan]

Getting my first crafter to 60 back in HW sure was an adventure yeah. I remember getting my specialist actions and counting multiples of 3 to try to HQ gear.. I was terrible at it, but I managed to get HQ gear despite only getting to 50%. I'm not sure that's possible anymore, so maybe it's not too bad after all haha.
Leveling is a breeze now. I think that's a good thing.

[Adeacia]

I got all my crafters to 60 via beast tribes. Went past that largely with custom deliveries. I don't actually care about crafting. I just level them for gear repairs. Nothing would change in my case.

[sharknado]

If HW would be today then there would be calculated best solutions, guides, farming optimization and so on. The popularity would depend on profitability though - game on younger stage would have less developed markets and player wealth.

[Floortank]

Been crafting since ARR. I'd still craft. The accessibility of crafting increased with the Ixal in ARR, and then again with the Moogles in HW.

It's just that in and around the beginning of SHB, a number of things happened to crafting and gathering to make it too easy.

-Exp got massively increased for everything. Leves, gathering, etc.
-The Firmament was added.
-On top of that, there was a gathering and crafting specific beast tribe.
-Crafting rotations were simplified for like the third time in a row.
-The horrible gathering collectible system was simplified.

I find the last two points to be fairly justified at any point in time, but maybe don't add the Firmament, buff exp, and give two freebie beasttribes all in the same expansion.

EDIT: Oh yeah, the Crystalline Mean quests represented another fairly easy avenue for big exp and scrips before 80. Not to mention that they keep adding Custom Deliveries NPCs. I like these NPCs, mind you, but there's no doubt that they've taken the massive struggle out of omnicrafting and made it fairly easy. To the point that I've got multiple omnicrafters on different servers.

[Ronduwil]

I actually liked crafting the way it was up until then. It didn't seem any more inaccessible or grindy than it is now. Yes, leveling to 90 is much faster now, but once you hit 90, you still have to gather a bunch of scrips to buy the materia you need to pentameld your gear. On top of that, you have to farm for legendary mats unless you want to be out an arm and a leg. If you think it's not grindy now, then you're not actually trying to craft any high end items from the current expansion.

[Floortank]

I actually liked crafting the way it was up until then. It didn't seem any more inaccessible or grindy than it is now. Yes, leveling to 90 is much faster now, but once you hit 90, you still have to gather a bunch of scrips to buy the materia you need to pentameld your gear. On top of that, you have to farm for legendary mats unless you want to be out an arm and a leg. If you think it's not grindy now, then you're not actually trying to craft any high end items from the current expansion.

Grindy isn't hard to most MMO players.

[Zsolen]

If I omni-crafted during Heavensward, why would I quit if crafting was like Heavensward? That makes no sense.

[Krotoan]

Inaccessible is a strong word but during HW we had to deal with:

- Specialization was a thing, you could only had access to all recipes if you level multiple characters.

- Capped red scrips needed for important recipes.

- Basic materials, like leather, got a jump in the number needed to produce 1. At that time any material coming from a monster was harder to obtain.

- Desyn was way harder to level and the amount of points you could spread around were also limited.

- RNG materials like titanium ore.

- Basic recipes to level up required materials from timed nodes.

- Way less XP sources.

- First ILvL170 set was class specific, fun times getting all and melding all if you wanted to be an omnicrafter.

- A very obnoxious system to obtain certain materials I don't even remember now.

Probably more stuff I just forgot. Anyway, back then YoshiP mentioned not being happy with current crafting/gathering participation and since then has slowly become more and more accesible till today situation.

I know, I was there =]

I'm just a little confused at that word. It wasn't crazy easy like it is now.. but it wasn't inaccessible or any more complex than any other skilltree or rotation at the time. It was a little more luck based, but .. mneh