It's harder to come back to UO every time I try...

[Mabe_SP]

I discovered the following quote from a player in a review of Ultima Online at Massively.com and it made me laugh, but I have to admit there is some truth to it...

"Why stop with Enhancing, Imbuing, Reforging, and Refining? They should add Improving, Spiffing, Refracting, Adjusting, Tweaking, and Twerking too, each with one or two hundred random items and math problems to solve. Just keep piling on crap until the system collapses under its own weight and we all end up in GM-crafted armor again because no one knows what's good anymore."

Maybe this is front of mind for me because I'm attempting to craft a weapon after being gone from the game for a few years. I started researching yesterday and spent 4-5 hours online and I still don't know if what I know is right. I find charts, graphs, math equations but not one cohesive document that says ok returning newb here is how you craft this. I have bookmarks, semmerset's reforging charts and about every other page I could find. If I do find information the threads are usually a step above my knowledge of the game at that point. They are talking about cap % and weight. I want to know the proper steps to make a weapon. When do you reforge, imbue etc. But the information is scattered and old and sad.

I end up coming back and leaving the game for the same reasons. They rarely change. I just wish that I would stay a little longer. I get tired of trying to figure it out. If only they had a knowledge base. Something that was update and thorough. A vault of vast information on templates, crafting, housing, weapons, publishes, and gear. I digress but my point is this game lacks something very simple. Information.

See you all on Siege, that is if I ever get off google and leave my house

 

[SpyderBite]

I feel your pain!

I was really overwhelmed by all the changes, not just to crafting, but to almost every facet of the game when I returned a couple months ago. After sifting through a virtual library of information trying desperately to get caught up; I finally decided that I was going to try something new that would not only be fun but also relatively free of all the complications of new systems piled on top of each other over the years.

I have a basic template that has very few requirements. No armor, no high end weapons and the freedom to roam where ever I like without worrying about farming monsters or juggling bulk order deeds.

I've enjoyed every moment since I had that realization and I think I might stick around for a while this time.

Disclaimer: I do have an alt that I am trying out all the new stuff on. But its at my convenience as it isn't my only character.

 

[Captn Norrington]

All the new crafting changes seem kind of pointless to me....I have never once, ever used any gear other than imbued stuff in about 5 years. It takes me about 2-3 hours to plan and make a high end imbued suit myself, and only costs about 20 million or less in supplies usually. On Atlantic, I can still easily kill almost any monster in the game, and win during pvp about 75% of the time against the people who have the billion gold "perfect" suits. I'm not even that good at pvp. Why do people spend so much time, energy, and gold building a "perfect" suit, when in reality it's only like 5% better than a cheap imbued suit....I will never understand it.

 

[Troop_Gil]

I make my own stuff for the most part. It probably sucks by some peoples standards, but it's fairly quick and easy for me to complete. My stuff seems to suit my needs. I have no desire to read a dissertation about making the perfect armor piece. Maybe I'm playing the game wrong. I dunno.

 

[Klapauc]

Reforging or refining is not needed for anything in pvm, but it does help sometimes or is needed for some odd specialized templates that would not work very well without. It just opens some more options in the way you build suits and chars. Also, since both reforging and refining is expensive, there is very limited use for that on siege.
Steps are:
1. craft from plain iron,leather ,wood or stone, no special materials, only exception is dragon scale armor
2. reforge item, expect to burn a lot of runic tools to get desired properties sometimes
3. enhance with special material like verite,barbed leather etc., pray that item doesnt break
4. apply powder of fortification to get desired durability, needed for pvm weapons or other expensive items
5. imbue item with additional properties
6. Add refinements now

Note: you can also enhance item after imbuing, it just gets even more expensive and frustrating if it breaks.
If you are not going to reforge, craft directly from special material, apply powder if needed, then imbue.


Since you wanted to make a weapon, cooking recipe for pvm is actually easy.
You want max mana leech, either whats possible or what you can afford loosing.
Same for damage increase.
Next i would suggest stamina leech, for general purpose around 40.
2 imbuing slots left now, its usually swing speed increase and slayer weapon, but there are more options depending on suit, template and what you fight.

Btw i really do not get why people think UO item system is hard to understand. WoW is actually much more complicated at the upper end and simulation software is often used. And still played by millions of people.In uo one can still add up most things in his head with a bit of practice and experience.

Agra-Lem

 

[Mabe_SP]

Reforging or refining is not needed for anything in pvm, but it does help sometimes or is needed for some odd specialized templates that would not work very well without. It just opens some more options in the way you build suits and chars. Also, since both reforging and refining is expensive, there is very limited use for that on siege.
Steps are:
1. craft from plain iron,leather ,wood or stone, no special materials, only exception is dragon scale armor
2. reforge item, expect to burn a lot of runic tools to get desired properties sometimes
3. enhance with special material like verite,barbed leather etc., pray that item doesnt break
4. apply powder of fortification to get desired durability, needed for pvm weapons or other expensive items
5. imbue item with additional properties
6. Add refinements now

Note: you can also enhance item after imbuing, it just gets even more expensive and frustrating if it breaks.
If you are not going to reforge, craft directly from special material, apply powder if needed, then imbue.


Since you wanted to make a weapon, cooking recipe for pvm is actually easy.
You want max mana leech, either whats possible or what you can afford loosing.
Same for damage increase.
Next i would suggest stamina leech, for general purpose around 40.
2 imbuing slots left now, its usually swing speed increase and slayer weapon, but there are more options depending on suit, template and what you fight.

Btw i really do not get why people think UO item system is hard to understand. WoW is actually much more complicated at the upper end and simulation software is often used. And still played by millions of people.In uo one can still add up most things in his head with a bit of practice and experience.

Agra-Lem

Thanks very much for this info. This helps clear some things up. From what I can tell there are a few reasons to reforge. Maybe someone could shed light on some others, but from what I've seen if you want weapons with higher hit magic %, or hit leech % that imbue can't offer or adding properties that you can't imbue like HCI in your armor.

What really threw me for a loop was when I happened across a post on refinement 5 hours into my research. I was like o heck, refinement! Something else now:0 What is refinement?

 

[Spiffykeen]

Never be afraid to ask questions of REAL people in REAL time. *Most* people in genchat are very knowledgeable and helpful about game mechanics

 

[Troop_Gil]

Reforging or refining is not needed for anything in pvm, but it does help sometimes or is needed for some odd specialized templates that would not work very well without. It just opens some more options in the way you build suits and chars. Also, since both reforging and refining is expensive, there is very limited use for that on siege.
Steps are:
1. craft from plain iron,leather ,wood or stone, no special materials, only exception is dragon scale armor
2. reforge item, expect to burn a lot of runic tools to get desired properties sometimes
3. enhance with special material like verite,barbed leather etc., pray that item doesnt break
4. apply powder of fortification to get desired durability, needed for pvm weapons or other expensive items
5. imbue item with additional properties
6. Add refinements now

Note: you can also enhance item after imbuing, it just gets even more expensive and frustrating if it breaks.
If you are not going to reforge, craft directly from special material, apply powder if needed, then imbue.


Since you wanted to make a weapon, cooking recipe for pvm is actually easy.
You want max mana leech, either whats possible or what you can afford loosing.
Same for damage increase.
Next i would suggest stamina leech, for general purpose around 40.
2 imbuing slots left now, its usually swing speed increase and slayer weapon, but there are more options depending on suit, template and what you fight.

Btw i really do not get why people think UO item system is hard to understand. WoW is actually much more complicated at the upper end and simulation software is often used. And still played by millions of people.In uo one can still add up most things in his head with a bit of practice and experience.

Agra-Lem

That makes it seem a lot simpler than I thought it was. Thank you for posting that.

 

[Mabe_SP]

Never be afraid to ask questions of REAL people in REAL time. *Most* people in genchat are very knowledgeable and helpful about game mechanics

Very true! I tend to not ask a lot of questions. Thanks for bringing that up. I'll ask more questions in gen chat.

 

[Uvtha]

I discovered the following quote from a player in a review of Ultima Online at Massively.com and it made me laugh, but I have to admit there is some truth to it...

"Why stop with Enhancing, Imbuing, Reforging, and Refining? They should add Improving, Spiffing, Refracting, Adjusting, Tweaking, and Twerking too, each with one or two hundred random items and math problems to solve. Just keep piling on crap until the system collapses under its own weight and we all end up in GM-crafted armor again because no one knows what's good anymore."

Maybe this is front of mind for me because I'm attempting to craft a weapon after being gone from the game for a few years. I started researching yesterday and spent 4-5 hours online and I still don't know if what I know is right. I find charts, graphs, math equations but not one cohesive document that says ok returning newb here is how you craft this. I have bookmarks, semmerset's reforging charts and about every other page I could find. If I do find information the threads are usually a step above my knowledge of the game at that point. They are talking about cap % and weight. I want to know the proper steps to make a weapon. When do you reforge, imbue etc. But the information is scattered and old and sad.

I end up coming back and leaving the game for the same reasons. They rarely change. I just wish that I would stay a little longer. I get tired of trying to figure it out. If only they had a knowledge base. Something that was update and thorough. A vault of vast information on templates, crafting, housing, weapons, publishes, and gear. I digress but my point is this game lacks something very simple. Information.

See you all on Siege, that is if I ever get off google and leave my house

It's not that complicated really. All you need to know is what the mods do, and what you want your character to be. From there it's pretty straight forward find the mods, and the higher the number the better. Imbuing is more or less a necessity, but you can ignore reforging, and especially refining as it is idiotic and if you play siege it's especially dumb.

If you wanna be a warrior increase all your stats (primary AND secondary), and get lower mana cost, hit chance and defense chance increase, damage increase (to max of 100). On weapons you want a slayer (if applicable) stamina/mana leech, then hit lower attack/defense, SSI if the wep is slower, then whatever floats your boat.

If you wanna be a mage, mana regen, int and mana increase, hp increase, lower mana cost, lower reagent cost. 2/6 fast casting/recovery and as much spell damage increase as you can get.

Tamer: Don't matter. Luck and LRC seem sensible.

Everyone wants as high to all 70's in resists, and any luck you can fit.

Those are the basics of course, once you play a bit you'll pick up more intricate character tuning.

I think people make it far more complicated for themselves than it needs to be. If you want to make spreadsheets and min/max every last bit of gear you can, but you certainly don't NEED to.

The most important stat is your party size, not the actual party system party, but your companions, as even 2 characters with good not great gear can fight most stuff. Take 5, and and plan, and your gear is much less important.