Quality Crafting
In most Ultima Online shards, getting a high-quality item means crafting the same thing repeatedly and hoping for good luck. It creates rarity, and a healthy player economy, but the process is tedious and breaks immersion in a world of resource scarcity.
Quality Crafting is our solution. Instead of gambling with RNG, players steadily improve non-consumable items like armor, weapons, clothing, and decorations through continued work. It still consumes the same average amount of resources, but removes the guesswork and the pile of unwanted results.
Additionally, quality only affects durability and appearance. There are no stat bonuses. Higher Quality unlocks access to better appearance options, as well as additional durability for weapons and armor to help them last longer.
How It Works
The maximum quality level an item can reach is determined by your skill in the relevant craft.
| Quality Crafting | Skill (%) | Durability |
|---|---|---|
| Poor | 0% | 50% |
| Normal | 25% | 100% |
| Exceptional | 50% | 200% |
| Artisanal | 75% | 400% |
| Masterwork | 100% | 600% |
Skill Gains
Each Quality Tier unlocks at a specific skill threshold, and once unlocked, that tier becomes your active gain window until the next tier opens up.
- Poor unlocks at 10% skill, and gives you gain chances from 10% up to 25%
- Normal unlocks at 25% skill, and gives you gain chances from 25% up to 50%
- Exceptional unlocks at 50% skill, and gives you gain chances from 50% up to 75%
- Artisanal unlocks at 75% skill, and gives you gain chances from 75% up to 100%
- Masterwork unlocks at 100% skill, the ceiling of the system to represents mastery achieved
How to Begin
To begin, find the crafting recipe for the item you want to make. Quality Crafting is only available for non-consumable and non-component items. When it's available, you’ll see the Quality Crafting button just below the item preview after navigating to the recipe in the crafting menu for your chosen profession. Instead of clicking the usual Make button, select Quality Crafting to start a project. You’ll need all the materials listed in the recipe to begin.
Once started, the unfinished item will appear in your backpack. This is your Work in Progress. Hover over the item to view its name, current quality, and how much progress is needed to reach the next quality level.
To continue refining the item, simply double-click it to open the Quality Crafting Menu, where you can keep working until it reaches the desired level of quality.
Quality Crafting Menu
Once you double-click your Work in Progress, the Quality Crafting Menu will appear. From this menu, you can:
- Change the item’s name
- Write a custom description
- Choose its appearance from the available styles
- Review the materials required to continue working
- View your current quality and the progress needed to reach the next tier
The pool of appearances is based on the item type, with more options unlocking as quality increases. In general, the higher the quality, the more visual variations you'll have to choose from.