So right now crafting is a big problem in my eyes, inasfar as levelling it up goes. Reason being is that the process is not all that exciting, and even at mid levels the exp needed is a very high amount which makes it such a crazy and boring grind to 50.

My suggestion is to re-implement the sp-proc system on crafting and gathering only, and to severely reduce the amount of sp required to level up crafting and gathering jobs.
Local leves have a proc chance of 100%.

Regular crafting and gathering has a % chance proc chance, maybe starting around 50%, and then going down based on the frequency of your attempts over the past week. If the frequency is too frequent over a certain period of time (craft bots), then the proc chance goes down to zero until they start doing something else.

A properly implemented system should allow casuals to level their crafts at a decent rate by doing leves, hardcores to level at a decent rate by doing leves and moderate crafting in their extra time, and bots should eventually get to the point where their sp gains are at zero. The frequency tracker should be long enough so that bots cannot just switch between gathering botting, combat botting and crafting botting to wait out the timer.

I'm not sure I've thought of all of the downsides to such a system, so I'd like to make a request to the community to be constructive about your replies, and not just shoot stuff down because you think of something you don't like. I'm requesting that the discussion be centred around improving what I've outlined, or suggesting a different system in it's place that could improve the crafting experience and combat botting at the same time.

Cheers all!

Gicker