Mr. Yoshida, the Endgame Crafting System should become more Skill Based:

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I am not sure a "skill based" crafting system is possible in a video game. Skill implies being exceptionally proficient at something not necessarily easy to do, but there is no proficiency level in a video game. You either are capable of doing something or you aren't. And if you are capable, you then need to figure out how to do that something.

In this age of information at the touch of your fingertips, once one person figures something out and shares that knowledge, the rest of the world basically has access to it too. It would be one thing if you could hoard your discoveries and tricks and keep them to yourself, but in a video game system, barring RNG, once a formula is solved and shared... that's it, it's solved for everyone. Tools like the optimizer websites remove the risk of trial and error to figure out those formulas. There is no "skill" to base the system around. It's basically math. And once solved and shared, that math is available to anyone who takes the time to look for it.

When people say skill in crafting I think of real world things like hand/eye coordination, exceptionally steady hands, exceptional agility or flexibility of the limbs, refined instincts. I'm not sure how such innately physical attributes could be required for video game crafting, outside of turning crafting into a first person shooter minigame which I would find abhorrent.

As far as I can see there is no such thing as "skill based" crafting in FFXIV and there never was. There is only:

"RnG/Persistence based crafting" where rng always holds sway and you can never guarantee your results, leading to only those willing to risk multiple failures for a few successes as the top of the food chain. This sort of system leads to potentially only a few big fish running the economy and likely higher prices for buyers.

and

"Gear/Information based" crafting which is what I think we have now, where as long as you have the right gear/stats and take the time to learn the ins and outs of how the system works, use the tools at hand, and keep up to date with various forum resources, you're going to excel at crafting, leading to anyone who takes the time being able to take part in the system at the highest levels. This leads to far more competition in the crafting market with many suppliers and thus lower prices for buyers.

"Skill" doesn't really play a part in either. And I personally prefer more competition among sellers than only a few big wigs (who often collude with each other to keep prices high) running the market.

[Granyala]

I am not sure a "skill based" crafting system is possible in a video game. Skill implies being exceptionally proficient at something not necessarily easy to do, but there is no proficiency level in a video game. You either are capable of doing something or you aren't. And if you are capable, you then need to figure out how to do that something.

Not skill as in a traditional RL sense, where you not only need technical knowledge but spend years training your motor skills / hand eye coordination etc.
No, that isn't possible with a video game.

The only skill based thing a video game can do is demand quick reactions and quick thinking, on the fly adjustments (which also needs a lot of technical knowledge about the underlying mechanics and systems).

Could they incorporate that into the crafting system as-is? I honestly do not know. Giving the items procs the player has to react to (and has to react to correctly) would introduce RNG because if you can craft the item w/o having to pay attention to the procs, they are meaningless.

They could curb macro crafting very easily, if they really wanted to: random procs that do not advance the item or quality (so no adverse RNG is introduced) but fail (or severely hinder) the synthesis if the player chooses the incorrect skill in his response.

Would that be fun though? I doubt it. Also it would again not feel satisfying on an intellectual level. While macros would be gone, it's be still static "green light -> use X" and "blue light -> use Y".

For me, the most fun part of crafting is coming up with a rotation for a given item tier using a simulator. Everything past that is pretty much uninvolved labor.