Recipe Difficulty

Some items are much more difficult to craft than others. The effort it takes to craft an item is called Recipe Difficulty.

In theory, every player may craft any item in the game. There are no skills you have to raise, no "boxes" to unlock. However, the better the item, the more challenging the crafting process is. If you are a starting player, chances are you won't have access to all the necessary components. The more you play, the more characters (and players) you will meet. Your social network will grow, opening up new possibilities, making it easier for you to craft advanced items.

Recipe Difficulty is a representation of how difficult an item is to craft. The higher the number, the more difficult. If you are starting out, it is advised you stick to lower Recipe Difficulty items first.

Recipe Difficulty Factors

There are multiple factors contributing to the overall Recipe Difficulty number. These are called factors.

While two items may be similarly difficult to craft, they may be difficult to craft for various reasons. It is useful to consider this, as each player is different. If you are a highly social character, you may find it easy to involve many different people in your crafting process. On the other hand, you may find it difficult to import rare goods from the mainland. The opposite would be true for a commited trade politician.

Recipe Difficulty Factors
Component Rarity	How difficult to obtain are the components.
Component Quantity	How many different components are needed.
Component Diversity	How many different playstyles contribute the components.
Recipe Complexity	How many crafting steps there are until you get the final item.

Component Rarity

Component Rarity is the difficulty of obtaining the crafting components. High rarity components drop from stronger monsters, are mined from rarer harvest nodes, cost more money to import, or require higher reputation to buy from an NPC.

An example of a low Component Rarity recipe: a sword consisting of common metals, hide from common animals, and cheaply imported sharpening stones.

An example of a high Component Rarity recipe: a sword consisting of rare metals, hide from exotic animals, and sharpening stones that cost a lot to import.