Crafting feels arbitrary

[Atoli]

We HAVE an auto-craft system already though o.O
As soon as you have made an item once, you can automatically let the game craft up to 99 of the same item for you (if you have the materials for that many). You get less exp and the HQ chance is fairly low, but I think that's just fair, to have some kind of drawback if you want to be lazy/timeefficient vs actually making everything yourself.

[Blitzgon]

@Atoli You are very correct, we do have a system already in place for completing crafts quickly. the only thing is though is for 50 and beyond you may need to HQ otherwise is almost completely worthless. what I'm suggesting is some sort of way to complete crafts quickly that are still extremely simple HQ. Even in higher crafts it is very boring doing the same rotations over and over, so some sort of automatic system would be very nice. Perhaps expanding the macros to beyond 16 lines or being able to chain macros would be nice as well. Either way I would want to see a way to relive the arbitrary middle man of actually wasting time to craft mats and then the craft itself.

[Niwashi]

the only thing is though is for 50 and beyond you may need to HQ otherwise is almost completely worthless

Well, then you should be doing it manually. Quick synth is for when you don't care about quality. Even the finest craftsmen in the world aren't going to produce exceptionally fine products by just running on auto pilot and not paying attention to what they're doing. They might still be able to produce passable products that way, but that's what our normal quality results are. They're perfectly usable. They just don't represent having put real effort into making them. (I'm actually surprised that there's any chance of a HQ result from Quick Synth.)

Low-level stuff: By the time you're way above their level, you don't need simple materials to be HQ any more. Go ahead and Quick Synth. A couple clicks and wait a bit can get you however many you want. They'll be Normal Quality, as they should be when you really haven't earned anything better.

Intermediate stuff: If you want it HQ, and it's simple enough to do so, you can macro it. A couple clicks per item, one to start the craft, and another to start the macro, and you can get High Quality items really simply. But that HQ is going to cost you doing them one at a time. (This is actually how I've been making most of my gil lately.)

High Level stuff: If a simple macro-able pattern can't reliably HQ something, and you need to watch conditions and adjust your skills to suit, then doing that fully manually is the whole point of our crafting system. Show your skill in knowing how best to adapt to circumstances or look for a gambler's thrill by trying until RNG favors you. Either way, this is the part where there's the most real gameplay involved in being a Disciple of the Hand.

(Of course, what constitutes low, intermediate, or high level is relative to your own level and stats at the time.)

It seems like the full range is fairly well covered, between not having to do anything or having a complete game involved in making something.