Professions are too hard to level. You should be able to level them as you increase in combat levels. the way it is at the moment means that you can be level 10 and if you're lucky have 3 or 4 weapon smithing. This of course means that you'll have no mats for armour making. This means that players have 3 choices.
1. Rush to the maximum level and ignore professions until you reach it and probably never actually bother getting very high level professions before you quit.
2. Spend 100s of hours (and it literally is hundreds) grinding as you level which will means you'll see barely any of the content before you get bored and quit.
3. Don't bother just quit as it's not worth your time.
Another problem is one that was highlighted in a thread I read yesterday. Some one was complaining that his lvl 10 helms he had created were not selling or that he was getting terrible offers. Well guess, what, those helms are dead content. People are either doing option 1 and therefore there's no point in paying for a helm that they will out level quickly or they are going to do option 2 and make it themselves. Lets also not forget the terrible economy. Nobody has money, repair costs are ridiculous and you get barely any money from monsters or quests.
You may say to me that you don't want easy crafting, and that's fine for hardcore players with founders packs but as soon as you ignore casuals the game is dead. Casual players make up the bulk of the player base, they still pay for cash shop items and they will be the ones who buy your lvl 10 helms. They'll make up the bulk of the games economy (if it ever develops one) and it will put potentially new hardcore players off joining if the game is depopulated.
Please sort out crafting and the levelling process in general.
Edited by richell, 07 December 2013 - 14:00.