Years ago I picked up another game while still paying for many UO accounts and they used a color system so you knew if something was good/desirable. Then I came back to UO and they had changed the names of everything and put all of the percentages on everything and I was totally lost!
If you play the Enhanced Client, Pinco's UIs have some color coding to tell quality of loot though, rather then on use it is more based on what materials they give when unravelling them. But at least it gives a rough idea.
Some modifiers are more wanted then others and most of all, the "combinations" of modifiers on an item make its worth....
For example, some modifiers are mostly for Mages so, an item that has high spellcasting modifiers BUT also has other modifiers for dexers, could be "ruined" by this mixed salad of unrelated modifiers. Sure, it has high spellcasting modifiers but the co-presence of dexers' modifiers useless to spellcasters might make it not as desirable for a spellcaster.....
It is not a "well rounded up" item with just spellcasting wanted modifiers....
So, the way to get to understand items and their modifiers goes through learning Templates and their combination of skills. Some of them are very effective for PvM some different ones for PvP and thus, because of their effectiveness in their respective fields of play, they are highly desired.
So, whatever modifiers those templates need are the modifiers on items which players want, to make their Templates more effective....
There is then other items which carry modifiers which cannot be "created" through the use on imbuing, because of game restricitions, on those items. Swing Speed Increase 10 on jewellery is an example. Since for a dexer it is very important to have high SSI to be then able to leech back as much health and mana (their leeching is related to damage done which is related to swing speed increase), even though on a weapon the SSI CAP is much higher then on jewellery, since there are some modifiers which can only be applied to a weapon like Hit Life Leech or Hit Mana Leech and others, a lot of players prefer way more not to have any SSI on their weapons so as to have a free slot for another modifier that is more important to have on a weapon....
It sounds complicated, and it sure is....... it makes the learning curve for Ultima Online way steeper then compared to other games but personally, I think this complexity is what makes Ultima Online a GREAT game....
This said, I'd sure LOVE to see a Comprehensive Guide about building Templates and dealing with modifiers and items......
Somewhat bit and pieces can be found on Stratics in the Professions Forums, but it would greatly help a whole lot of new or returning players if there was a comprehensive Guide that recollects at least the most played out Templates for PvM and PvP and their most needed/wanted gear set ups....
A lot of players use spreadsheets as help to build up their preferred templates. There is several out there and some are better then others though, I am not sure where one can find them.... It would be nice to see these spreadsheets offered as Resources to playing the game on Stratics so as to make it easier to UO players to find and use them ......
It would also be nice if the Enhanced Client would offer a Template Editor, the client can access the database of all items existing in the game and thus would be always able to be updated with artifacts. The player would then click on the random item generated as loot to add it to the database to then compute the building of a suit taking into account all CAPs and so forth.
A calculator, an editor, to help build templates, built in the Enhanced Client....
Hey Pinco, is this something we can see at some point ?
