Difficulty of ALC potions

[Sollux]

Crafted 180 raid gear was not viable without an extremely large wallet, compared to the Eikon sets. That's not really an arguable point; they moved away from requiring mats that ate into crafting progression because it was a stupid idea.

Once they moved back to the system where people bought mats with tomes, raiders suddenly had an old income source back, and were able to lessen the costs of crafting after a period of time.

You're absolutely right, but this didn't have a huge effect on Crafting progression itself (gear-wise anyways) because even though Crafting the Combat gear would set you back a couple Red Scrip Tokens it was generally understood that it was a waste of time and gil. Don't get me wrong, I agree things were generally abysmal for Crafting from 3.0-3.2, but those who stuck with it and focused on progression were eventually rewarded in 3.2 while those who didn't were left behind.

No offense, but if you weren't around when X-pots were introduced then how can you say 2.x crafting offered no challenge? The only time it was ever "easy" was before 2.2, when everybody was still learning how to play, and rotations were being theorycrafted, and required at least fully-melded pats to craft guaranteed 100% from NQ. By the time 2.2 hit with 3-stars, the "ease" disappeared, especially when dealing with mainhand tool upgrades in future patches.

Again you're absolutely right. I can't effectively judge how difficult most 2.x recipes were on release, I can only speak on my experiences and your own explanations. I returned to the game in late 2.x, and within a single week and a 2m gil investment I had a pentamelded Crafting set and I was Crafting 3&4-Star recipes. I may have come back at a time when prices were cheap, but it doesn't change the fact that I was gone for a year and a half and was back to Crafting Endgame recipes within a week.

Compare that to HW, where someone entering late would need even a bigger wallet relative to the economy than back then.

I'll likely catch flak for this, but this is a good thing. A player should not be able to come back after a long hiatus and immediately be able to compete with players who have spent months gearing their classes. Sure, it's still possible to gear up 3 classes in a week, but like you said it's going to take a much larger investment of time and/or gil. Having a higher barrier to entry means those willing to put in the work/gil will reap the benefits for longer and the market in general will be healthier because of the reduced rate of saturation.

That being said, it's not impossible to complete a full i170 set in a week by spending little to no gil, but those who are willing to put in the effort will find a less competitive, more profitable market. Being passionate about Crafting, either through love of the system or potential profit, should be rewarded and while it took WAY longer than it should have we finally saw the fruits of our labor when 3-Star recipes were released and we already had the stats required to make them. Plain and simple, Crafting Endgame is more challenging to enter now than it was in 2.x, and that's not a bad thing.