Boa

Here's the thing though, I mentioned each of those games because each time the developers "tried" to make crafting more fun and interesting, and in my opinion each time they failed miserably. At the end of the day crafting is pretty basic, you make an item, you use or sell said item. Adding layers or "challenges" quickly goes from being novel to increasing the amount of tedium involved. I guess my issue with crafting (and I say this as someone that's always loved the idea of crafting) is that the amount of time and money it takes to make crafting even remotely relevant takes away from time/money that can be devoted to fleshing out the rest of the game. To make crafting interesting you have to have a system that isn't repetitive, that doesn't use RNG to club seals to spite you(I really really hate RNG based crafting), and it has to produce items you can't get easily. The problem is many "innovative" or "fun" layers added to crafting aren't innovative or fun, they just add to the tedius nature of crafting. Again,I already have a full time job and I doubt many others would disagree in that we play games to get away from work, not to add more work just for the sake of working. If the developers could add crafting that wasn't tedius and boring I would buy them a unicorn, because out of every mmorpg or RPG I've played(and I've played almost all of them, I only abbreviated the ones that stuck out in my memory) every single one no matter how novel turns into a grindfest when it comes to crafting.

Here are my thoughts on crafting(I know I'm "new" to the forums but I've been playing RPGS for over 20 years now and have been lurking here for a while). Standard MMORPG: Collect resources, click button, make item: BORING. Advanced mmorpg: Collect resources, click button, maybe RNG hates you and you fail to make item: Boring as hell. Unfortunately in my opinion making crafting more "involved" almost makes it more boring, let me go into detail based on the "hardcore" crafting I've done in previous MMORPGS/games. EQ 1: Ah, the good old days of grinding crafting, back then you had very limited web search ability, there were no listed recipes, and you had to grind a lot. The plus side there were a lot of skills, you could make some fun items(food in particular was my favorite) and there was something serendipitous about the grinding process. SWG: My personal FAVORITE crafting system. You could set up harvesters to collect the resources(for the most part) for you, you could modify the schematics to make them different or slightly "unique", and you had factories to pump out the items for you, with the game offering a RNG so sometimes the item wouldn't be the "best" but you wouldn't really fail. EQ 2 and Vanguard: Why do I bundle them together? Because as a hardcore crafter I hated both systems, which is what the OP wants to believe people want, but once they're implemented they take a grind and then turn it into a complicated grind. I have played a LOT of other games with a mixture of failure and success at crafting, but I wanted to present the 3 most memorable crafting games in my opinion and how each one stuck in my mind. I love crafting, I love seeing the different items you can make, but the tedious nature of crafting should NEVER be amplified by throwing a RNG that can effectively spit in your face and make you hate the system. This is a game, this is not a job, it isn't a side business, it's not a form of torture. Games that engage the audience without making them feel like they're being punished for playing the game are a success in my opinion. Unfortunately OP as a crafter I have to completely disagree that the crafting should be more like a job requiring more clicking, more tedium, more "decision" making. Because at the end of the day no matter what "challenges" are added to crafting it just equates to more clicking to get the finished product. Combat on the other hand involves other people(or NPC's) and is fast paced, fun, and appeals to the brutal nature of the human psyche. Adding "combat" to crafting won't pump endorphins, it won't create a "challenge", it will just annoy people that just want to see their finished product. I had such hopes for Vanguard's improved "crafting" but it really just added a huge tedium instead of engaging the players. A game should be fun, not a second job that we have to literally bleed over.(Grinding EQ 2 crafting which threw "challenges" at you was so tedius that I still hate it to this day)