Why is crafting/gathering so difficult/grindy?

[raela]

In HW, I found it took me roughly 30 minutes to complete GC dailies for all DoH and DoL. HQ crafts, NQ DoL (saving HQ items for a ”bonus” turnin every few days). I visited a friend in that time, and offered to do his dailies while he was at work one day.. 2.5 hours later, I was frazzled and grumpy that I made the wrong type of one item (nin instead of brd/mch or something).

The huge time gap mostly came down to organization - I stockpile mats that I know I'll need, gathering more than what I need that day. That way, often times I can just pull from my retainer instead of running all around Eorzea. I also have a spreadsheet with the turn ins ans recipes handy as a quick reference, to avoid constantly checking the crafting log. I had to gather almost everything that day on my friend's account.

If you have a 56 DoL, daily maps can help with mats. The biggest time sink for me in SB are the FSH turn ins.. I swear all of those stupid GC fish are rare catches (I've bought them off the MB several times now, after coming up short after 30-45 mins of fishing).

[Nixxe]

Crafting and gathering are much less grindy than they were in the past. Thanks, collectibles.

[Dement]

Crafting and gathering are much less grindy than they were in the past. Thanks, collectibles.

Exactly this. If you aren't doing collectibles at all, then you really should look into it.

Keep an eye out for single synth collectables, mass gather the materials and go for broke on making the collectibles. I don't think I used leves for 50-60 on a single class save for CUL.

[Sylvaneste]

It is very very simple. The longer it takes you to do stuff, the more subscription money they get out of us.

[MelficeAlmasy]

Why do you craft and gather? Because you like it or is it because you want money for mansions and glamour? Well, if its because you like it, you wouldnt complain so i guess it is the latter.

[Maeka]

Why do you craft and gather? Because you like it or is it because you want money for mansions and glamour? Well, if its because you like it, you wouldnt complain so i guess it is the latter.

I like crafting and gathering, but yet there's a limit to how much grind I think is "fun".

I like the minigame, but I don't enjoy how highly tuned they made it so that you need ridiculous gear just to be able to make stuff.

I enjoy gathering, but yet I don't want to gather 12+ items to craft one single item.

See, I enjoyed <Lv40 crafting. It was very reasonable, very straightforward, but yet it wasn't tuned so high that you couldn't take it on with Lv35-40 gear.

As for what I would DO with said crafts? I would make gear for my own use, maybe occasional sell on MB, but really I'm not a huge market person. I'll sell whatever I come across that might be worth something that I don't need, but I'm not some baron with hundreds of millions of gil, nor do I feel the need to be. I would like to be able to meld my own gear, I want to make gear for classes I am leveling so my retainers aren't full of junk that I was offered while doing quests but had no use for at the time, but knew I would someday later down the line want to level some of those jobs and I hate leveling jobs with outdated gear, nor do I feel like paying hundreds of K at the MB for gear.

I'm a DIY person. I enjoy crafting my own stuff. And I once was able to do this, but not these days sadly. I just don't have the time to dump nearly an hour on single pieces of equipment, nor do I really want to be spending $4 per month for extra retainers to hold mountains of crafting materials just so I don't have to go out and farm them anytime I want to make something.

EDIT: I also don't enjoy that stupid 1,000 character limit that everybody gets past with the Edit button anyways. What IS the point in that, anyways?!

[atlings]

I like crafting and gathering, but yet there's a limit to how much grind I think is "fun".

I like the minigame, but I don't enjoy how highly tuned they made it so that you need ridiculous gear just to be able to make stuff.

I enjoy gathering, but yet I don't want to gather 12+ items to craft one single item.

Not really an issue anymore. In Stormblood you can hq everything with macros and white gear with minimal melds. No ridiculous gear needed or even available yet. There's a bit of a learning curve, but crafting has never been easier imo. Gathering is easy too. Use retainers for hides and the most annoying mats, like what's needed for dawn serge. Do a run once a week or so to pick up some stacks of the mats you use the most, like zelkova logs and molybdenum ore.

[Elladie]

I understand your frustration if you don't have a lot of time. But if you don't enjoy the time you do spend on gathering mats and then crafting them, then I'd suggest this aspect of the game isn't for you? Personally, it's my favourite part of gameplay, and I am far from being the well-geared and expert gatherer/crafter that you think is necessary. I took a break of almost 12 months once I finished HW MSQ and only really got into this stuff when I returned. Still levelling my crafters via moogles & gearing them via the Zhloe turn-ins. My gatherers level much faster because I farm all my own materials (and no, I don't play full-time, I play 2-3 hours a day) or use my retainers to help out with the basics.
I think SE has the balance pretty much right. Currently the system is sufficiently challenging to make it require some effort but not so challenging that it's frustrating (it's not frustrating for me because I actually enjoy spending my time gathering & crafting)

[tymora]

Buy cheap HQ items for leves turn ins, if you have those available. Same thing for GC turn ins.
Without crafting anything, you can get yourself to say...61 to use the cheap white crafting/gathering gear.
Case in point, leveled gsm from 66 to 70 in 15 min, with HQ ingots at 2k a pop, with about 30-40 leves. (can't remember exactly)
- Prices later went up to 12.5k an ingot though

If gear is up to date, success rates should be around 80% for gathering same level items I think.

Scrip items is also an excellent source of exp, when you run out of leves or turn ins.

Also tried the Moogle crafting quests?

[Maeka]

Buy cheap HQ items for leves turn ins, if you have those available. Same thing for GC turn ins.
Without crafting anything, you can get yourself to say...61 to use the cheap white crafting/gathering gear.
Case in point, leveled gsm from 66 to 70 in 15 min, with HQ ingots at 2k a pop, with about 30-40 leves. (can't remember exactly)
- Prices later went up to 12.5k an ingot though

If gear is up to date, success rates should be around 80% for gathering same level items I think.

Scrip items is also an excellent source of exp, when you run out of leves or turn ins.

Also tried the Moogle crafting quests?

I've been grinding moogles for weeks now, but it takes 3 days for 1 levelup on my Lv58-59 classes.

And no, you don't get 80% success with gatherer gear in SB. It's 70-73% with 3% HQ if you have the Lv61 clothes, Lv62 main hand, and Lv63 offhand doing a Lv62 item. I just did Mountain Popoto earlier. Lv63 BTN with the aforementioned gear.