Here are the problems: 1) Crafting takes up so much inventory space. It just takes too long to rearrange everything when 33%+ of the inventory is filled with crafting mats. I end up not taking crafting skills because I know i'll go so much faster without them. 2) The smaller dungeon+more exp mode seems to discourage crafting. I often end up halfway or more through the dungeon without having encountered a particular crafting tool. Materials also seem harder to find. In contrast, I usually work on crafting first in the regular mode because it allows me to get stronger weapons earlier. By the time a player is lvl n, he will have encountered <normal amount of mats> * <dungeon size modifier> while he'll be of the same level. 3) Current crafting interface needs work. I saw that in the list of upcoming changes too. Suggestions: 1) Taking a profession grants an extra bag of 6 slots that only stores items of that profession. 2) Increase drop rate of mats for the first 5 levels of the dungeon in smallDungeonMode.
I agree with these ideas, or at least make the bags mentioned in suggestion #1 a craftable item, with ingredients players will tend to get fairly early. The inventory space loss seems like a bigger disadvantage than is worthwhile for the advantage of crafting, in many cases at least.
The only time I bother with crafting anymore is for Tinkering, and that's mainly for trap disarming and crossbow ammo.
