Leveling a Crafting Class: Is it simpler now?

[MattReaver]

From what I can think of right now its the same except you have the grand company hand ins. So that'll yield some extra XP. If you made a new guy does it start with 0 leves? That could be an issue for you. Make a new guy and see how many (i would but i'm at work). Also you may not have as many seals to buy field manuals. I personally would just pay transfer.

[muwa]

Or you can farm the materias and the materials to lvl up and then it's free and you can even make some gils by selling some items.

It's only "free" if you don't have anything else to do of your ingame time and don't care about the opportunity cost...

[Welsper59]

No, the real problem with crafting is, there's nothing to work towards.

As someone who has spent tons of time dedicated to crafting in every single MMORPG that I've played, I mostly agree with what you said except the quoted part.

Crafting is something that always has the same generic result in mind, for those who correctly aim to use it. It's a long-term commitment for beneficial use (more accurately, it's an investment). That's what you work for. Crafting will always have some part of the game, and depending on what your immediate goal is, your hard work will nearly always pay off in huge ways IF you're dedicated enough for it. If you're looking for immediate satisfaction, you're setting yourself up for failure (as you've pointed out in the example situations you provided).