Gath thinks this is a game, it should be fun!

[Razor]

The only thing I think they should really do is add more gathering points for Botany and Mining. Break the materials into different sub groups. Add more visibly different gathering nodes that reflect the things they drop.

For example. Instead of having a general <tree> that drops oak, maple, ash, and every other wood under the sun, add those specific trees to the game. For lower level botanists, you would either have to research/memorize how the different trees looked or use trial and error to find the one you want (if you're even concerned with getting a specific type of wood). Once you have become higher level, the Arbor Call ability will gradually have items added to a mini menu that would pop up when pressing it. So once you're say, 25, you can Arbor Call > Oak and you'll be directed to the nearest oak tree which will only drop oak logs/branches.

This could be expanded upon by adding a visible beehive to certain trees in a particular zone. Setting the notch to +4 or +5 will allow you a chance to strike the beehive and collect 1~X beehive chips before that particular hive is exhausted and you must move to another tree that has a beehive in it.

Gathering patches could have a cluster of plants instead of just being a sparkling bush. A particular harvesting location could have 3~4 targetable plants in a cluster which will give you your 1~8 or so gathering attempts. Like with the trees, at lv1 you won't know the difference between a Flax plant and a Cotton plant, but as you become higher level you will remember where certain materials are and can harvest more efficiently.

Just my "1 gil" lol. I don't see anything wrong with the current minigame, but applying the example above to both Mining and Botany would make it much more intuitive and dynamic than it is now while still preserving the fundamental aspect of the classes.

EDIT: Just another side note; as you leveled up the names on gathering/harvesting points could change from "???" to what they actually are. So once you're a high enough level you can target the Flax plant and it will say "Flax Plant" instead of "???", or "Oak Tree" instead of "???" etc