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

[Ethelwind]

I don't think there ever was any game where crafting was seriously hard per se.
Its probably just not possible and what was considered hard was not technically hard but just due to time consumption aka hardcore grind albeit fun for some.
EQ1, EQ2 for about a month, Vanguard, FFXIV 1.0 ARR were hard, SWG was tricky. These were all games where if you commit the vast majority of your time you spent 3-4 months until you reached max in 1 craft and maybe 6 months if for most.

EQ1 was probably the hardest because gathering and getting the drops to drop was so rare sometimes, you could spend a whole week gathering every evening intensively for a couple of skill ups on the weekend (3-4 of 175, 225, 275, ...)
Vanguard was probably the most 'skill-based' because you had icons float through you had to click and use correct reactions on them, with time gaps of 3-4 seconds. The approach similar as in FFXIV, just that you had only that gap to use your skills.
FFXIV 1.0 beta was hard, because getting resources was either dangerous if you didn't gather yourself or very costly. Took 3 months for the top 8 botanists to reach 50, and about 3.5 months until first crafters hit 50.-
UO was hard in that crafting was a social & building community aspect which was extremely fun for me, but could be hard that people expected you to be around. It sometimes felt more like a job in that way, than a game.

Pure crafters - which didn't necessarily mean they didn't adventure - were known and I'll be honest - that can be a draw and was for me - when people all over server would come to you to make something. You knew them all, because there were only a couple of handful of them. You could become filthy rich or not depending how you went about it.

Those days won't come back and maybe thats a good thing. I also do not want any content arbitarily locked for any player!

However what I as a crafter foremost and adventurer second would like, is that if i spend 90% of my time crafting I should have some maybe even clear advantages vs. someone that spends 40 hours levelling up. It doesn't have anything to do with skill, because that is just not possible, so time spent remains the only difference (regardless that at the end of day we are just talking about some pixels :P)
Now many might disagree, why should I, not be equal with 40 hours to someone with many hundreds and that is an absolutely acceptable stance. This has been excarcerbated with the newest changes.

What cannot be expected is that those that advocate for more 'hardcore' aka time /commitment aspects in crafting will agree with that approach. Rationally i explain it as the 'entitlement-syndrome' which plays on both side of A fence regardless what activity is being done ingame or even out of game. That syndrome I would like to add has become much more prevalent imho in the last decade.

Yours,
Ethelwind