Quote Originally Posted by Jojoya View Post
What wasn't fun about the crafting system before that deterred you from getting into it?

What makes it fun now?
The sheer amount of grinding it took to levelup, to be honest. And/or how you had way too many buttons and it was far too confusing, that most people simply just looked up whatever macros they needed.

There's really only been 2 major changes - the removal of cross class actions (which weren't necessary in the first place, they just made it possible to get HQ reliably on more difficult recipes instead of relying on RNG) and a massive increase to XP to speed up leveling. The remaining changes are relatively minor, akin to balance adjustments that combat jobs get every expansion.

You still have to use actions to increase quality and synthesis progress. You're still limited by durability and CP. You're still going to have to level up all the classes if you want to be self-sufficient or buy from other players the materials you need that aren't made by your class. You're still going to have to keep your gear up to date and overmeld it to reliably get HQ on current level Master recipes. If you suck at the math mini-game, you're still going to be reliant on Teamcraft or waiting for other players to share their macros with you so you can make those Master recipes.
The "rotations" and/or actions are far more intuitive now, and yes, the XP change makes a large difference, and it feels smoother to actually HQ items now than it did in the past, and removing the button bloat was a huge change in the right direction.

If you didn't enjoy crafting before the changes, chances are good you're still not going to enjoy it after. At its core, the system hasn't really changed. It's just quicker for you to reach level cap.
Wrong, I make stuff on a regular basis now. I only touched crafting a little before 5.1 and within a few weeks, I set out to get all the crafts on 80, do all the craft/gatherer class quests, etc, which I did in maybe two weeks. It was fun, and I enjoyed it. I still make things now and then, and had juggled the idea of getting into making facet stuff, but I don't really have the time for that just yet.

You had the option to become one of the rich players by putting in the same effort they did. You chose not to.
Or maybe I was not able to, because of IRL obligations? And besides, there's a point where established crafters were always going to "win" no matter what, and regardless of what work a new player entering the ring puts in, they are never going to catch up without some sort of re-balancing (which is what 5.1 was). You could put all the work possible in, and still never catch up to those people who had 9-digit figure bank accounts who already ruled the MB.