I would like to second this. Been farming Secret Tunnel twice a day for a month, still only at 30 of the 45 squid ink the single crafting item requires
Made an earlier post on this thread with a mis-speak. I'm doing like an average of like 7 runs a day for a long while in Secret Tunnel. And like tonight, I've done some odd 12 runs already, and haven't picked up a single flying squid ink. If there was one aspect of this game that is so unfun and seriously repels customers: it's stuff like this. I wanted to get Tarrak's Focused Tome while I was playing through the Empyrea quest line, but here I am like 4 months later beyond Empyrea and Karamelle, sitting at 140.
The tediousness of a single reagent for a single craftable item (that is already outclassed by easy drops later on) is eye-rolling . Why have crafting in the game at all, if by far and wide A) your crafts are outclassed by items a quarter-quest line later or B) the work it takes to get the already-outclassed craftable items is game-halting?
Reagents as hard as Flying Squid Ink (and others as ridiculously difficult to come by) need to be made transmutable for additional ease. The alternative (which I don't like, since the concept is fun and their SHOULD be a worthwhile payoff) is just to rid crafting altogether - since without any actual payoff for such tediousness, it's basically a system to get worse items with tedious road blocks.
In addition to making it transmutable, adding a gardening source would be helpful. It is very frustrating when you want to craft something, but there is one rare reagent that you can never find at the Bazaar and can't get except for hours and hours of grinding hoping some boss or mob will drop enough of them for you.