The 5mins I said was generous. I'm confused about
@Undone saying 2m per level up because it was like 1sec per combine (feels like less) 100 combines isn't even 2mins, for the full 1-10. I was including time to like run to camp and grab the stuff from bank hehe. I mean the progress bars were flying. That is not including refining which I did as I came to town over time while leveling.
One could argue that since I already have the mats, just give me the levels don't make me sit around for it. On the other hand, 100 seconds is pretty fast for 10 levels. On that note, a crafting master NPC quest that comes up and does something like "You've made it to Adept 1 but this is only the beginning etc etc would be cool to sort of let you know that this was newbie/the beginning of something grander.
Since I was scratching my head at the dings in chat I wasn't paying enough attention if any notification or recipe is in for lvl 10. A nice screen splash of "you have gained XYZ recipe" from leveling would certainly help for the end feeling. I realize that is WIP and some recipes are on vendor and notifications stuff WIP.
On this char I solo'd except 4-5 adventure lvl I grouped and I did no skinning. Obviously being grouped and sharing would slow down the mats. Makes it hard to decrease mat #s but as is may push people to solo on crafting alt, which is normal anyway.
One of the reasons I was caught off guard was that the first time I did provisioner I leveled it with Forestry because I wanted potions, and I think I was roughly on level between them, or at least much closer. I was using the Flax for other crafting tho is probably why. That was before the wipe. Perhaps most people feel okay with it and it's just because I wasn't trying to grind anything out before, and didn't realize it only took 100 combines, it surprised me enough I thought it was a bug.
I can't think of anything elegant, only slowing it down in various ways. As you mentioned diminishing returns, a bit tougher with less total tiers of mats, not sure grinding the last few lvls until you could get to next tier in NNH. Less mats from hunting. Both no good for groups? people are asking for More mats from hunting to share kills easier at higher lvls?
Edit to clarify my frame of mind just in case it helps think it through: I had been looking forward to 6 in hunting as I knew I was going to get a pretty good upgrade to my efficiency with Deer Tea so I was excited just to make some tea and headed straight to camp, I had No idea or expectation that I had enough to get to 10 prov.