Crafting seems to be a hot topic, and this is something I've had sitting in the back of my head for a while.

What if crafting were actually hard? I don't mean a higher chance of failure, I mean replacing the synthesis minigame entirely with something in which success or failure depends (almost) entirely on the skill of the player and the stats of the character, rather than a series of random numbers?

Randomness undermines skill. If, for a given synthesis, I have a 40% chance of success if I just spam enter, but a 50% chance if I play carefully, (by using Wait, Preserve, etc), then the difference in output between me (a player) and your average "wobblybird on the keyboard" is only 25%.

Compare that to combat. A wobblybird on the keyboard even if presented with an endless supply of one-on-one encounters, will not be able to even compare to a human player in a grind party.

Every singleplayer FF title has had a host of minigames to go with it. I would like to see a puzzle-based minigame for crafting.