I don't think Crafting now is vastly better than it was, at least not until I try it, but I agree it has some improvements. I don't dislike the new CP system, and I don't think it has been dumbed down as gathering has. Synthesis in general has been dumbed down in the past, more than once, but that isn't relevant anymore. I was speaking about the overall over simplification of systems in order to cater to a broader audience as opposed to making that system more complex and interesting to people who really want to do it. Did you take up Alchemy because you really enjoy crafting, because you were really into being an Alchemist, because you identified with its craft? Or did you do because it could become useful in the future? Was it a hassle you managed to get through with persistence and will power, or was it fun?

I'm not arguing 1.0 was a lot of fun or ideal, I'm arguing it can be made to be. And it doesn't have to be easy to be fun. At all. How can I make crafting and gathering more fun than the game allows it to be? Interested crafters will only be annoyed at how easy anyone can be a high lv crafter. In XI it was a time consuming ordeal, but it still kept the amateurs apart from the professionals. Unless you were really persistent or you thought you could make a lot of money out of it, you wouldn't take it past 30 if you didn't enjoy it.

I'll give you a different perspective: I never enjoyed crafting in past games. I did a bit of crafting in every game I played, but it never felt fun. It was boring, repetitive, sometimes necessary, but over all another grind I wasn't interested in.

I started XIV with Byregot as my protector god thing, and took Armorer up to 10 before any other job. Crafting in XIV was very unique, unique enough for me to really feel I was accomplishing something rather than doing some dull work for gear. Of course, with all of its shortcomings it was almost impossible to bear lvling it up past 20, for a long time. Mainly because the market was stupid and recipes were much harder than they should be, requiring higher lv materials from other crafts. But the minigames, to me, were fantastic, and creating weapons and armors out of complicated recipes, when I had the possibility to acquire them, was way more rewarding than in any other game. I genuinely think I could have become, in this game, a high lv crafter, possibly my main focus due to the prospective future of me not being able to play as much.

I had not realized gathering had the same CP mechanism, though, so it might in the future become a somewhat more engaging activity.

PS: perhaps what I meant was engaging instead of fun, as has been pointed out in this forum by someone before.