Crafting in FFXIV is not for the faint hearted. It's definitely not easy at times. I'm not trying to be mean but do you have any idea how many hours I spent googling, watching youtube videos, reading guides, scanning the forums just to figure out some things. Honestly I spent way too much time....and I still suck at crafting compared to a lot of people. But I finally made it to the end game. I don't have it full of materia yet but it's good enough to craft anything I need plus I stopped so I could save materia for the expansion. I'm still working on materia and figure I'll be doing that for all eternity lol.

I spent a LOT of time just to make it this far and I'm super lazy about it. So many people dedicated so much more time than I can imagine figuring all of thise out for "slow" crafters like me. It was hard, frustrating and I nearly quit a few times but i kept at it and learned more and more as I went and the sense of accomplishment once I finally made it to the end was enormous even if I did have to lean on a lot of other people to get there.

There's so many great guides out there, so many good videos...you just have to dedicate yourself a bit. It's not easy to get the latest HQ gear although if all you want is to craft normal quality gear then it's super easy to level up. You don't have to craft everything...just pick what's easiest to make and keep doing it to level. Do levequests, do those turn in's at your guild company, etc. And most importantly if you haven't read it yet then please read Caimie's guide to crafting: http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...e-tsukino.194/

Even if a lot of things change the basics and fundamentals in that guide are still important. I can't even explain how much that guide helped me out.