Let us craft from Retainer Inventory

[HurtigeKarl]

My analogy is sound. Choosing to craft an item for the sole purpose of making money already has a time management decision making built in. "Do I stop to buy/gather the items I need, then take the time to craft the item and put it on the market for a profit, or do I choose another money making strategy?".
Adding an unnecessary chore like tediously moving items in and out of your retainer does nothing to affect this decision making but simply increases the time needed to craft said item. In the same way than answering 13 CAPTCHAs to be able to sell an item on the market board would do nothing but add time to the decision making of selling something to a player rather than an NPC.

The difference is that simplistic captcha don't really give you ingame options to think about that can allow you to reduce the time spent on them, while the current retainer management allows you to think about how you are going to sort your items to reduce time spent looking for them.

If the captcha system itself contained analagous decisions, they would do the opposite of "dumbing down".

[Flyojumper]

/snip
If the captcha system itself contained analagous decisions, they would do the opposite of "dumbing down".

Alright, let me alter the CAPTCHAs' mechanic by introducing an extra layer of fun choices. You can either solve the CAPTCHAs normally or skip each one of the 13 CAPTCHAs by pressing the X button 47 times. Now I get to decide "Am I faster by solving one CAPTCHA manually or hammering my X button 47 times?" Thrilling, isn't it?
The fact remains that switching inventory in and out of the retainer is not anywhere near as strategic or fun as you make it sound and is actually hindering other aspects of crafting which are much more fun and strategic (the crafting system itself). It has nothing to do with instant gratification or dumbing down. If anything, you transfer time from doing a mundane task to doing more crafting, which is more strategic, so one could argue that you actually increase the stategic portion of time you spend while crafting.

[HurtigeKarl]

Alright, let me alter the CAPTCHAs' mechanic by introducing an extra layer of fun choices. You can either solve the CAPTCHAs normally or skip each one of the 13 CAPTCHAs by pressing the X button 47 times. Now I get to decide "Am I faster by solving one CAPTCHA manually or hammering my X button 47 times?" Thrilling, isn't it?
The fact remains that switching inventory in and out of the retainer is not anywhere near as strategic or fun as you make it sound and is actually hindering other aspects of crafting which are much more fun and strategic (the crafting system itself). It has nothing to do with instant gratification or dumbing down. If anything, you transfer time from doing a mundane task to doing more crafting, which is more strategic, so one could argue that you actually increase the stategic portion of time you spend while crafting.

The meat of your new suggestion is: introduce a time sink and give the players different options through which they can reduce the degree of the timesink. Of course, if the solution to the new "problem" is far from self-evident, then it makes the player have to think more than he would have otherwise done; i.e. opposite of dumbing down.

"Captcha" would though feel out of place inside a Final Fantasy game, but the meat can be introduced in more elegant ways.

For instance in crafting it has been introduced in a more elegant way: we are unable to remove animation time in options. We have though been given though options to decide the degree of the time sink per craft, like manipulating the amount of steps you choose to have in a craft session.

[Flyojumper]

/snip.
Of course, if the solution to the new "problem" is far from self-evident, then it makes the player have to think more than he would have otherwise done; i.e. opposite of dumbing down.

You are overemphasizing and overestimating the strategic elements added by micro managing item transfers between retainer and main inventory. It's really nowhere near as strategic as you make it sound. I'm curious, would you be a proponent of say reducing the main inventory space to 10 slots? After all, you could argue that it forces players to think more about what they are going to use those 10 slots for. There are ways of making a system more strategic/engaging without making it cumbersome and tedious to the player.
Also, you have not touched on the fact that removing a less strategic forced step would increase the overall time you spent on the strategic part of crafting.

[HurtigeKarl]

You are overemphasizing and overestimating the strategic elements added by micro managing item transfers between retainer and main inventory. It's really nowhere near as strategic as you make it sound. I'm curious, would you be a proponent of say reducing the main inventory space to 10 slots? After all, you could argue that it forces players to think more about what they are going to use those 10 slots for. There are ways of making a system more strategic/engaging without making it cumbersome and tedious to the player.
Also, you have not touched on the fact that removing a less strategic forced step would increase the overall time you spent on the strategic part of crafting.

The mechanical act of crafting, i.e. pressing the buttons during a craft session, is not the strategic part. That's just a timesink, but a good such in the sense that you are forced to think more before the physical crafting. The strategy should already have been thought of and done before you even start the physical crafting.

Once you have crafted enough, like I have, you don't even have to think about the crafting per se anymore. You would already have an idea of how much time different crafts take in comparison to each other and what buttons you need to click and how your success rate is.

So what do I have to think about: time management, pricing and #selling slots. There are so many ways to get profit, but every person has 2 limited "resources": time and # selling slots. By introducing more and more variables to the time management problem, you force me to think more.

You got a valid point though: if you already were spending all your time thinking about other things, like the crafting system, then it would not make sense introducing a complex inventory management system as well to think about. However, the reality is that when you reach crafting endgame, there is a hell lot of time when you don't have to think at all and you just do because you've already thought enough, that's why the current or a more thought-inducing inventory management system is necessary: it introduces more thought in a endgame where there is far too little thought required.

If you know and execute each step blindly (like a macro would) before the crafting has even started, then you are not 100% optimizing the quality you can get because of Goods/Excellent and their timing. That is fine if you have a buffer to work with and can 100% HQ the item 100% of the time with a macro, but otherwise, you need the human strategic element to adapt to when goods/excellent pop up and how to make the best use of them. There's more satisfaction crafting a lv40 HQ item when you are say lv35 than monotonously moving items around between your retainer and your inventory.

EDIT: because of posting limitations, I will probably respond to anything by editing this very post.

You make it sound as if I would be completely surprised and amazed if I had a "good" or "excellent" happening. Of course the plan you figure out before crafting (endgame crafting) already knows exactly what to do when you get a "good" or "excellent" in different situations, so there is no actual thought to speak of when you see "good" or "excellent" happen, you know exactly what to do in such situations.

I suppose midgame crafting would be the point where you would find inventory management something that simply removes time you can use to optimize your crafting, because at that point you may not have enough experience to know exactly what to do in different situations, but you may have so many items so that inventory management becomes a problem to solve. During endgame crafting, you no longer really have to think much if at all about the crafting itself, so every little bit of extra thinking required counts at that point.

Edit: To be more precise what I mean about endgame crafting: the point where you have several classes where you can guarantee 100% HQ on i70 item.

[Flyojumper]

The mechanical act of crafting, i.e. pressing the buttons during a craft session, is not the strategic part. That's just a timesink, but a good such in the sense that you are forced to think more before the physical crafting. The strategy should already have been thought of and done before you even start the physical crafting.

Once you have crafted enough, like I have, you don't even have to think about the crafting per se anymore. You would already have an idea of how much time different crafts take in comparison to each other and what buttons you need to click and how your success rate is.

So what do I have to think about: time management, pricing and #selling slots. There are so many ways to get profit, but every person has 2 limited "resources": time and # selling slots. By introducing more and more variables to the time management problem, you force me to think more.

You got a valid point though: if you already were spending all your time thinking about other things, like the crafting system, then it would not make sense introducing a complex inventory management system as well to think about. However, the reality is that when you reach crafting endgame, there is a hell lot of time when you don't have to think at all and you just do because you've already thought enough, that's why the current or a more thought-inducing inventory management system is necessary: it introduces more thought in a endgame where there is far too little thought required.

If you know and execute each step blindly (like a macro would) before the crafting has even started, then you are not 100% optimizing the quality you can get because of Goods/Excellent and their timing. That is fine if you have a buffer to work with and can 100% HQ the item 100% of the time with a macro, but otherwise, you need the human strategic element to adapt to when goods/excellent pop up and how to make the best use of them. There's more satisfaction crafting a lv40 HQ item when you are say lv35 than monotonously moving items around between your retainer and your inventory.

EDIT: because of posting limitations, I will probably respond to anything by editing this very post.

You make it sound as if I would be completely surprised and amazed if I had a "good" or "excellent" happening. Of course the plan you figure out before crafting (endgame crafting) already knows exactly what to do when you get a "good" or "excellent" in different situations, so there is no actual thought to speak of when you see "good" or "excellent" happen, you know exactly what to do in such situations.

I suppose midgame crafting would be the point where you would find inventory management something that simply removes time you can use to optimize your crafting, because at that point you may not have enough experience to know exactly what to do in different situations, but you may have so many items so that inventory management becomes a problem to solve. During endgame crafting, you no longer really have to think much if at all about the crafting itself, so every little bit of extra thinking required counts at that point.

Edit: To be more precise what I mean about endgame crafting: the point where you have several classes where you can guarantee 100% HQ on i70 item.

It sounds to me like you are grasping at any small mundane task to find entertainment after you have personally gotten bored of the main entertaining part of crafting. If you are that bored and proficient at crafting end game that you basically have to put 0 thought into crafting, then I'm certain you'd be equally proficient and bored about a brain dead activity like moving items back and forth with your retainer. I suggest finding ways to keep yourself entertained with the main crafting part rather than try to keep a cumbersome inventory system just because of the busywork it creates. How about trying to 100%HQ that ilv70 by using the least steps possible? How about finishing the craft with the most durability left?