I'm at the point where I'd gladly take auto-crafting if they absolutely can't figure out how to make current crafting system more enjoyable. I'm not a hard-core crafter; I did want to get deep into it though, but I was completely put off by the enter/confirm button spam, which is, dare I say, as ridiculous as the afk-crafting.
The crafting in XIV really is more interesting than in other MMOs, with a disclaimer that it works for casual crafters, and that statement I'm willing to defend. Watching a film while you grind it is not how you should ""play"" the game (double quotations intentional). That's why the afk-crafting, as in other MMOs was invented, to make it more user-friendly on your own time, and that's why people are asking for it. Cause they don't want to be forcefully sitting infront of their screens doing something really boring while doing yet something else they really don't want to do either, like watch a film.

Frankly, right now it seems like the battle between people who worked hard through a tedious crafting grind to get their crafts to R50, that don't want their hard work be devalued by an easy-mode and the ones not willing to put up with it (who seem to be in majority).

I'd like to see improvements to the existing system. Not a completely dumbed down version (complete auto-craft) but not as slow and sleep invoking as it is. I'd dare to say the crafting system is ok as we have it now if the damn animations weren't so slow (and so many), and if we could continue crafting, while grinding, like we can during our local leves (just select 'yes' to continue if we have enough mats). The recipes (number of mats needed) and their ranks are not bothering me at all. It's the slow slow ZZZ-worthy grind which I compare to grinding levels in some god-awful f2p Korean MMOs I've played (as in, past tense).

I'd like to get more input from the serious crafters out there, who have multiple crafts at R50. Just curious if they grinded those while semi-afk (watching the TV, reading a book or something) or did they actually watch the game screen through all the grind. If the latter option's the case, I'd like to know if they can really claim they've genuinely enjoyed it. And I don't mean do they enjoy it now when they have them all at R50, not that kind of satisfaction. I want to know about the process of getting there. And, if they themselves, having experienced it all, would like to see improvements and what kind of improvements, if any.