That’s 24 Iron Ore, 6 Starmetal Ore, and 3 Flux. Per Ingot. Multiply that by a few dozen just to make some Tools.
AND
It’s not just the quantities of basic materials but the time required to go and get them.
But by the time you actually make a decent chunk of this you don’t even want to use it because:
All that harvesting and crafting has levelled you so much there’s no point to crafting anything that is worse than what you can get from a mob
You need to save it up to make Orichalcum Ingots which need 2 Starmetal Ingots each (plus Flux again).
Some people do spend hours farming piles of Iron, but then they get bottlenecked by Sand Flux.
Crafting looks good on paper but the total time to craft has to take into account all types of harvesting, including looking for Sand Flux, which is an RNG drop from containers and cannot be crafted.
It’s really far too tedious and for no good reward at the end compared to going out and farming some minibosses in the overland.
Refining mats like sand flux are definitely bottlenecks. I don’t mind it though, it’s a great way for non-crafters to make good money selling them as they pick em up.
I do agree that it’s been hard to craft useful stuff for myself. By them time I can craft something great I’ve outleveled it. I’m playing a very balanced character that does everything (probably a little heavy on gathering). Working with my company mates, we’ve pooled resources and have been able to craft T3 and T4 bags and tools BEFORE we can equip them, but that’s my only real success story (as it persons to armor and weapons… I think the food and potions are good).
One benefit of crafting is that you have a better chance of getting EXACTLY what you want… but, by and large, drops are way too common from mobs and chests, so you’re likely to get something close doing that.
In short, maybe give a slight boost to refining mats in chests, and decrease the armor/weapons drop rate on the world by half (at least).