Regarding the 'auto HQ finish item when all HQ ingredients are used'

I agree with Arcell that completing the synthesis when all HQ ingredients are used should be more difficult. Not impossibly difficult, but enough so that a simple "spam standard synth" isn't going to be enough. Make the players sweat and work a little to make sure that the synth is successful.

For those of you around in closed beta, the increased quality from ingredients USED to make the synthesis steps more likely to fail. It was to the point where HQ mats were worth LESS then NQ mats, because starting with 300Q pretty much doomed the synth if you were an equal rank crafter. So, SE changed the system so that Quality from mats didn't increase difficulty, but earned quality still did. Going forward, quality increase will be irrelevant for finished items, so please re-instate the increased difficulty of the synth!

Another aspect of this change is that it is not as severe as people are making it out to be. The ability to 'touch up' for finished item already makes getting an HQ result from a finished item far far easier then getting an HQ result from a material/part synthesis.

On the one hand, the process of HQing a finish item is easier, because there is no luck-factor involved in the final step.

On the other hand, the process of HQing a finish item will be harder, because EVERY ingredient must be HQ now. Ponder this for a moment. How many crafters use a +3 Oak Composite Bow when making trying for an HQ Crab Bow? Not many. Instead, they pick out those ingredients that are easier to get HQ, leave the others NQ, and let repetition and random chance result in the desired +3 item. This system does away with that and requires an HQ ingredient at every slot.

By pushing more of the challenge to making HQ ingredients, it also increases the impact of HQ gathered materials, thus letting gatherers play in the economy, too (as I mentioned in my previous post).