These are my primary concerns as a player, as well.

This game promises to provide a pretty deep experience for crafters. I know -- I've heard that before, too. But the economy is supposed to be entirely driven by players and NPC crafted goods, made only from finite resources in the world, with no fast travel or magical movement of goods. There should be dozens of different crafting professions, each part of an interdependent web of goods and services.

This link to the all the FAQs should give you the easiest index for review. Admittedly, this draws from several years of discussions and plans, so you'll have to take it with a grain of salt, but there's a lot to dig into.

https://chroniclesofelyria.com/forum/topic/34207/read-first-general-info-faqs

Enjoy!

Crafting is learning by doing and working with others to learn faster. In the beginning you could learn something by reading, but then you have to practise your profession. There are skillramps for mastery from life to life, and success is stored in your soul. You may also learn by failing, if you tried hard. There will be guilds and masters for any profession and you should join them to learn. DJ 8 is about learning, DJ 9 about professions.

Posted By Diaxxie

Does this game cater to a crafters dream, or will I have to be able to fight large things to unlock this content?

Nope, you don't have to fight anything in order to craft. But you have to remain aware that this is a multiplayer game with no safe zone. It's very likely you're going to confronted by players eventually. You don't have to do the fighting yourself though. However, self defense seems pretty important in my eyes, especially if you're making something of yourself. Living in a settlement and having a strong pet should be sufficient, at least until war breaks out, lol. Just to be clear: You don't have to fight to unlock stuff.

Posted By Diaxxie

Or will I have to know how to fight large beasts for their skins?

Generally speaking, no. But this is highly contextual. For standard craftables I'd assume you don't really need to fuss. If you're aspirational and looking to break new ground or craft something extremely high end you might have to create your own mission in order to obtain rare resources. If you want to avoid that, I'd suggest starting and staying closely connected to the best settlement you can. And join an Organisation! They're like Guilds in other games, but they can be focused on crafting in particular skill areas. Seems perfect for you.

Posted By Diaxxie

Or will my reputation as a crafter ring if I am skilled enough and people come to me with material and coin?

Highly skilled crafters will often be known to the local Count(s). If you're looking for particular resources, you might be able to curry favor with your count in order to get some help in the form of security, hunters, trade, merchants, leads on locations of the resources, etc. So fame and affinity ABSOLUTELY will have benefits like that. But I wouldn't go into this assuming you'll have people coming to you, possibly giving you everything you'd need to fulfill your requests. It's just better that way. And at least that way, if it happens, it's a nice surprise.

Posted By Diaxxie at

Does this game cater to a crafters dream, or will I have to be able to fight large things to unlock this content?

Read this LINK to see if it caters to your dream.

Or will I have to know how to fight large beasts for their skins?

You can contract others to get you skins.

Or will my reputation as a crafter ring if I am skilled enough and people come to me with material and coin?

If you produce quality products that characters choose to talk about, then that's that.

My understanding is that crafting will be mundane. Even alchemy isn't alchemy, it is just mundane chemistry. The items created will not be infused with any power by the crafter. There will be pots and pans, nails, planks of wood, cooking knives, and combat armor and weapons. The biggest difference in combat will likely be decided between those that have armor and those that do not, and, of course, those that have weapons and those that don't. However, a sword that kills a daemon might be infused with some power if it becomes famous, whether the sword was crafted by a novice or a grandmaster. Tho, the novice sword, itself, might not survive long enough to get the killing strike.

Between two people that have armor, the difference will likely be very slight. Think of two equally skilled knights, one with grandmaster crafted full plate, the other with novice crafted full plate, bashing at each other over and over. The one that has the armor from a grandmaster crafter might take a couple extra bashes before breaking, that's all.

Likewise, for weapons. A grandmaster crafter's broadsword might be a bit more durable than a novice crafter's. A grandmaster likely will be able to make a sword sharper and retain its sharpness longer.

The most aparent difference between a grandmaster and a novice weapon crafter, I think, will be what kind of sword they can make. The grandmaster might be able to make a katana-esque sword, a broadsword, a greataxe, rapiers, etc. While the novice might only be able to make a broadsword. But a slicing weapon (katana) tends to suck against heavy armor while a broadsword has much more bashing accompanied with its ability to slice, so it'd do more damage to heavy armor. But if the enemy has only light armor, then the slicing weapon likely would do much more damage than the broadsword; the broadsword would also do more damage against light armor than heavy armor.

In sum, the biggest difference between crafter skill levels will likely be what they can craft, much less so how good they can craft the same item. In other games, a grandmaster crafter's broadsword is night and day compared to a novice crafter's broadsword. In CoE, it'll be more a shade of grey compared to another shade of grey.

I hope I'm wrong, I'd love to be able to eventually craft alchemical items instead of only mundane acids, poisons, solvents, etc.

Posted By Avastar at 05:08 AM - Wed Jan 22 2020

My understanding is that crafting will be mundane.

This is a very odd way of describing a crafting system that SBS details as one of the most in-depth any game has ever offered. Just because it won't let you create your pet desires -- custom chemistry -- doesn't mean it's all mundane. Other than gear not being as powerful in general as it is in other games, this sounds like you're describing a different game's crafting.

Posted By Zyzax at 09:25 AM - Wed Jan 22 2020

This is a very odd way of describing a crafting system that SBS details as one of the most in-depth any game has ever offered. Just because it won't let you create your pet desires -- custom chemistry -- doesn't mean it's all mundane. Other than gear not being as powerful in general as it is in other games, this sounds like you're describing a different game's crafting.

Sorry, i meant mundane meaning non-magical; "of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one."

I actually agree with Avastars assessment - but that aligns with what we know about the game as a whole.

"Magic", as we are accustomed to in other games, isn't really in CoE.

Yes, there are talents, some as yet unclassified "powers" from religion, some subtle potential expressions of magic alluded to in things like liches.

However, unfortunately (IMO), it's not going to be a big part if game mechanics.

As such, crafting, while supposedly complex and deep, will in fact still be very "mundane".

It's one of the things that I am curious to find out how the players react to.

Without "magic stats", how will they actually differentiate the "value", or impact, of a master crafter vs a journeyman, outside of rep and fame?

If it's things like a sword being sharper, or more durable - how much would they need to dilute that rating over several skill levels in order to represent that?

At what point does the time required to achieve "X% more sharpness" just become not "worth it"?

From all that's been said, implied and shown, crafting will be mundane in the magical sense but it will not be mundane in the player experience. On paper, it's just too deep for that.

With respect to stats, I think it was said that how you craft an item will determine its quality and quality will determine other things like damage and durability. Or maybe I've just inferred that. But if this is how they go about it, then the end result is roughly what players are used to: items with different stats (shown or not shown). There just isn't any magic involved, for the most part.

There's also the idea of legendary items, which happens when great deeds are performed using that item. Just what powers that will or may confer isn't entirely clear either. But I think it's possible that it will be more than simply reputation. It's a case where the perception of an item being legendary gives that item its power. So a sword that was once used to slay a dragon becomes Dragonbane and it is exceptionally dangerous to dragons. Power perceived is power achieved.

p.s. Welcome to CoE Diaxxie. You've sparked an interesting conversation here and a much-needed change of subjects. :)

Posted By Avastar at 10:31 AM - Wed Jan 22 2020

Posted By Zyzax at 09:25 AM - Wed Jan 22 2020

This is a very odd way of describing a crafting system that SBS details as one of the most in-depth any game has ever offered. Just because it won't let you create your pet desires -- custom chemistry -- doesn't mean it's all mundane. Other than gear not being as powerful in general as it is in other games, this sounds like you're describing a different game's crafting.

Sorry, i meant mundane meaning non-magical; "of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one."

Ok, then I understand what you meant by that, and you're right. Thanks!

I gave this more thought and I realized i had entirely forgotten about materials. An unobtanium broadsword might be able to cut an iron broadsword like butter, due to whatever properties it has compared to that of iron. But working unobtanium might be impossible unless trained in that material or without the proper equipment/tools. Perhaps unobtanium is an alloy that the crafter could research someday.

So, in addition to the resulting quality and knowledge of more patterns, a grandmaster crafter might be able to work with rarer and better materials, and research and create new alloys.

Things we know about crafting are just ideas and devblogs. We don't know what crafting will actually look like or the progress done on it. There is a small blacksmithing video if I remember correctly but who knows if that is still valid.

Posted By Stundar at 11:42 PM - Wed Jan 22 2020

Things we know about crafting are just ideas and devblogs. We don't know what crafting will actually look like or the progress done on it. There is a small blacksmithing video if I remember correctly but who knows if that is still valid.

unless they lied (i don't believe they lied), i believe it's best to assume that the most recent info about something is still correct.

because the game's design is very deep and complex, we need to have these type of conversations to understand it comprehensively, even tho things might change in the future.