Square Enix, please think about both Casual AND Hardcore crafters..

[Granyala]

First: RNG =/= challenge

This.

There is nothing more infuriating to me than RNG messing things up despite me doing everything right.
Why? Because I cannot compensate it with player skill. It is out of my hands.

So no: I do not want "difficult" and "hardcore" crafts back that way.

Now, is prudent touch a wee bit OP? Yeah I'd say so. 'Twould be nice to be forced to use other skills too to make ends meet but design it in a non RNG way.

There's also nothing truly challenging about crafting in a game where you can have things like crafting macros. If you want a truly challenging system, you want something like EQII that had events you had to react to that could completely tank your craft if you didn't do them right. There was no macroing there because you had to stay active and engaged the entire time.

Agreed. The only way to make crafting challenging is demanding reactions in very little time. Not sure whether that would be fun though, esp if expensive and rare mats are involved. :X

Macros or no macros make no difference to me difficulty wise, it is not hard to write down a step sequence and execute it ad nauseum. Macros for "farm items" feel like a nice progression from manual to me, because basically, Ifalna gathered enough experience to do the basic task w/o her Daddypon. ^_^