New interview from JP 4gamer site

[Amsai]

Originally Posted by _C-a-e-r-i-t-h_
Battle missions as a crafter, waiting for NPCs to kill off the enemy while you throw stones, are a really bad idea.

This has been one of my biggest problems with them trying to flesh out the roles of crafters and gatherers. It seems like if they continue in this direction, all content would have to be dumbed down to make sure to be inclusive to DoH/DoL. Aside from that it seems to me that DoH/DoL would have more fun and more consistency to thier chosen path, if they did have seperate storyline missions for them that worked in parallel with DoM/DoW storyline missions. And that those be things like special missions with a lot of story content about the war effort behind the scenes. Like say a rare gem or ore is needed for the completion of a powerful artifact, or say Cid contracts a crafter to make an important part for an airship, etc etc.

[_C-a-e-r-i-t-h_]

This has been one of my biggest problems with them trying to flesh out the roles of crafters and gatherers. It seems like if they continue in this direction, all content would have to be dumbed down to make sure to be inclusive to DoH/DoL. Aside from that it seems to me that DoH/DoL would have more fun and more consistency to thier chosen path, if they did have seperate storyline missions for them that worked in parallel with DoM/DoW storyline missions. And that those be things like special missions with a lot of story content about the war effort behind the scenes. Like say a rare gem or ore is needed for the completion of a powerful artifact, or say Cid contracts a crafter to make an important part for an airship, etc etc.

I agree. They should have separate storyline missions. I think it would even be a good thing for them to have entirely separate stories. Like, not just connected to the war effort, but connected more with the politics of the realm. While a DoW/M is off fighting this or that, a DoH/L is working his way up through the ranks of the guild(s) and working on a more political/diplomatic role. Instead of "throw stones at the monster" their quests will be like, "The ambassador from the beastmen tribes is furious, but we think a gift would help to win him over. You're a skilled <class>, can you make <crafted good X> or perhaps find <resource Y>?"

Might be a bit monotonous (like the crafting/gathering leves all are), but it's a vast improvement over throwing stones, and gives players two different storylines to follow and a sort of incentive to play as both DoW/M and DoH/L.