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Grumpysmith

Priest / Religion overhaul

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Congrats on the announcement of the update coming on Nov. 2nd.   Along with that announcement it was also stated that the Priest / religion situation would be looked at with an eye towards balancing etc.  I thought that it might be good to start a thread to discuss what players would like to see looked at.  I know that there are numerous threads, but thought that maybe one thread of things to be looked at might be beneficial.

 

My areas of concern are: 

  1. PvP / aggressive casts should have some form of visual or text based indicators of the strength of the cast.  Currently all you get is a succeed or fail notification.  Some casts have visuals Fungus trap or Ice pillar are examples of that.  Some casts like Drain Health or Fireheart  you can see the targets health bars move.  But Tentacles and Pain Rain visuals seem to be completely missing or sporadic and no indication of the strength of the cast.  If I hit something with a maul there are text based notification of the damage I've done, not so with casts.
  2. Phantasms
    • No indication of power of the cast,
    • Target should not be able to click "No Target" to escape the cast,
    • The illusion should be visible to both the target and the caster.  Currently visible only to the target, having it visible to the caster also, would allow the caster to attempt to steer the opponent to keep it in range of the phantom.
  3. Scorn of Libila needs to be balanced better with Light of Fo
  4. Rotting Touch and Venom need to tick more often then once every ten minutes.  Both are very quickly healed with one Light of Fo cast.  Granted I'm not a pvp'er, but from what I can tell neither of those casts is particularly useful, beyond the immediate damage of the weapon hit.
  5. With the advent of all of the player gods, linking between Priests as become almost impossible.  This is especially true with the low populations we have seen in the past couple of years.  This may change if we get a large influx of players, but I think there should be some form of linking between Priests who share the same spells.
Edited by Grumpysmith
Hopefully made Item 4 more readable.
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Good thread, I approve. If anyone else has things they think we should be looking at for this, please add it to this thread. Already have a lot of things lined up to look at, but I'm sure there are some we haven't thought of yet.

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I'm a pve priest and while I know that linking priests of different faiths would be so simple and easy, I do not think we should do that.  While there are many priests that have a spell here or there that are the same, there are none that share the same spell list.  Once you are linked, I think it would be rather difficult to do all the checks to say only these spells can use the combined favor.  I think the lowered prem cost is going to make it very easy to have priests prem up for large casting sessions.  Lowered in that we would not need to pay for a full month.

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I've never had a priest, but looking at making a priest for the first time with a new character on Epic is daunting, simply due to the requirement of traveling through wild PvP country to the Altar on Elevation. (I realize priests can make priests, but there aren't many active priests on Epic at the moment, especially compared to how many gods there are).

 

Would be nice if, say, Avatars of gods could make priests (or followers). From a purely logical (not gameplay) perspective, one would think altars could be used to convert as well.

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Perhaps for the linking priest part, you can use up half the favor of the priest that is of a different god. Making it not OP but still useful, even in PVP Situation where the main priest could use some favor from other priests, while the other priests remain to have enough favor to do their own stuff.

 

Half being = 100 faith so used up to 50 maximum, not half of current favor.

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Concern with useless skills. Currently it feels like Channeling is the be-all-end-all skill, at least from  PvE perspective. Feels like they could be removed and converted into other more desired new skills (and thus not upset the cooking system).

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The current linking system with sam Gods works against people trying different religions. For example, I have a Nahjo, a Paaweelr, a Vynora and a Smeagain priest. 4 priests, two of which can cast LT. Yet I cannot link and cast it. If I want to cast LT, I need to get a 5th priest to do so. And if I want to cast both MS and LT, I need a 6th priest. In essense, it brings out the concept of a battery: a full premium account who's only use is helping with casting a spell.

You

Thats ridiculous. 

 

Add to that the problem that a Champion of any God will never be able to link with another champion. That was made impossible with the Champions update.

 

The linking system needs an overhaul. Options to solve the problem is allowing Priests from different faiths but same side (WL with WL, BL with BL) to link. As suggested above, you can put a cap to those with different Gods, or make it skill check based (Needs to have 60+ Praying skill to link with different faith, for example.) You can also make a skill check, like for stealth, where different religion priests need to succeed for the link to be established.

 

I wont comment on spells. No use beating a dead horse there.

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I'd love if the daily cool down was removed on prayers. Having to have 7 peope gather for more faith is a huge hassle. In this way, you could pray all you wanted until the 70'ish, then the ticks become incredibly tiny - at 80's and painfully small, and there would be no  point at the 90's. People would still have to gather for sermons if they wanted more then around 70 faith within a year,  but forcing us to find 7 people for a bare-bones basic sermon, with the player base quickly vanishing, is pretty harsh.

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57 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

The current linking system with sam Gods works against people trying different religions. For example, I have a Nahjo, a Paaweelr, a Vynora and a Smeagain priest. 4 priests, two of which can cast LT. Yet I cannot link and cast it. If I want to cast LT, I need to get a 5th priest to do so. And if I want to cast both MS and LT, I need a 6th priest. In essense, it brings out the concept of a battery: a full premium account who's only use is helping with casting a spell.

You

Thats ridiculous. 

 

Add to that the problem that a Champion of any God will never be able to link with another champion. That was made impossible with the Champions update.

 

The linking system needs an overhaul. Options to solve the problem is allowing Priests from different faiths but same side (WL with WL, BL with BL) to link. As suggested above, you can put a cap to those with different Gods, or make it skill check based (Needs to have 60+ Praying skill to link with different faith, for example.) You can also make a skill check, like for stealth, where different religion priests need to succeed for the link to be established.

 

I wont comment on spells. No use beating a dead horse there.

naho nahjo + 1 vynora.. 3 priests for LT NIM MS Coc 

but i agree with the sentiment

 

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15 minutes ago, elroth said:

naho nahjo + 1 vynora.. 3 priests for LT NIM MS Coc 

but i agree with the sentiment

 

I wouldnt be against a battery if you could have multiple characters per account. But paying an extra premium for just one spell is lame. The system should encourage you to try different religions, not force you to work on a second priest of the same which you will never skill up other than as a battery.

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i do have 1 of most every religion ending at nacho.  I still don't think it is a good thing to link from different faiths but that is just my opinion.

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3 minutes ago, Angelklaine said:

I wouldnt be against a battery if you could have multiple characters per account. But paying an extra premium for just one spell is lame. The system should encourage you to try different religions, not force you to work on a second priest of the same which you will never skill up other than as a battery.

When the population is staying level or dropping and you have a niche game that struggles to attract the right kind of players, it's important to build revenue by increasing the number of premiums each "player" has to pay.

 

Having played as a one character does it all quite enjoyably on WU, what other reason is there really for the premium system in it's current form?

Edited by Nappy

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I would love to see each priest type getting unique spells and spell lists. It would require a huge increase in the number of spells available however it would also add a lot of variety that currently doesn't exist. 

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If we were looking at a complete rework of priests and spells, I would love to see a system like the cooking system, where you could combine various simple spellwords into more complicated spells to explore effects. Learning new basic spellwords via "recipes" could then be a thing (some would be taught by the gods, maybe monsters would drop some, some could be dug up, etc.).

 

Edit: even if we couldn't do this with priests (since the current system is so engrained), I wonder if the sorcery system would be more malleable. I'd love to see mage towers, just for researching spells. :P

Edited by Roccandil
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I just want a rework of channeling and casting itself. The number of failures and shatters that you can see with high-90s skill is ludicrous.

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6 hours ago, Roccandil said:

I realize priests can make priests

 

Sorry to disappoint but on epic you can only priest at the wl/bl.  It's honestly a silly and dated mechanic.  Those on chaos can just go to freedom to priest up without having to go to the altars, and in general being the place of priesting has never been a contest about the altars and often times enemy kingdoms will even allow people to safely priest and leave.  Allowing priests on epic/chaos to priest up others wouldn't be imbalancing and actually make it more available for weaker/newer players when they can be assisted by their fellow kingdom mates especially on home servers

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4 hours ago, Pashka said:

 

i do have 1 of most every religion ending at nacho.  I still don't think it is a good thing to link from different faiths but that is just my opinion.

Why? Is there a reason other than for the developers making more revenue? Because, frankly, I think there are better ways to make revenue than to make you pay more and spend two months grinding Faith (or more) just so you can cast a single spell you already grinded for on a character you will likely never use for anything else.

 

And before you suggest finding another priest to link with, keep in mind chances of finding someone who a. Is the same religion than you, b. Is online at the same time as you. c. has enough faith to link with you, and d. is willing to be at your beck and call and sit there just for you to cast your spells? Its pretty unrealistic. 

 

Let the devs worry about their revenue and lets figure out better ways for outdated mechanics.

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I'd like to see Life Transfer, Mind Stealer and Venom changed into double-digit favor spells

I've never understood why it's just these three enchants that require linking to cast

 

increase the dispel timer/difficulty when casting on an enemy player

there's currently no way to punish people for just freely dispelling every opponent they face which means that many buff spells are completely worthless to cast

 

thx

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REMOVE FORCED SHATTER.

keep the low skill and low item quality shatters around because those are fair enough, however a priest with 99+ channeling casting on 90+ quality items shouldn't run danger to completely destroy the item just because the WurmNG had a hiccup.

introduce spell-specific dispelling with an additional difficulty based on how far down the list it is, so theres still a benefit in enchanting in the "right" order, yet if you messed up the order you didn't literally brick the item, requiring you to recast from the beginning which then has a chance to completely poof the item because forced shatter is fun.

those two are very important and having seen the reactions in IRC after the enchant decay rework just about every player that was around agreed with it.

 

one thing i'd love to see is maybe the introduction of cast-scaling for high casts so it works similar to how BT works now, where you can cast repeatedly on the same item and do not need to actually score a higher power cast to improve the power of the cast. of course with a reasonable scaling penalty the higher the cast already is, so you can't cast two 50 power casts and get a 100 power item.

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I think, when it comes to priests, a solid question should be answered.

 

Do we want them to be playable as mains, or do we want them to remain as alts?

 

A lot of support lies in the latter (wurmians hate having to rely on others, both crafters and priests), though gameplay-wise the former makes better sense.  The following thoughts are put forward in support of the former (priests as mains), so beware that they may not be as popular as some:

 

  • Player gods need a serious rethink, the notion of relegating them to "saints" or some other minor role would promote balance without needing to rethink all spells.  Otherwise you might as well remove most of the elder gods now because the RNG will always break whatever balance you enforce ;)

 

  • Grind faith, grind channel, master priest.  That's pretty much it, the role is very narrow in its main capability, extending it outwards a bit, maybe having channeling be the parent skill to enchanting (casting spells on items), abjuration (casting defensive/healing spells) and evokation (casting offensive spells) might diversify the role a little and encourage the creation of new spells to fill the training gaps.  Of course, this is not something that would be encouraged under "priests as alts" as it would make creating an effective genesis bot much more difficult.

 

  • Creation skillgrind; this is quite painful and really could use some form of better balance.  I challenge anyone here to level stone cutting or jewellery smithing via creation only from 1-50.

 

  • Alchemy really should be the province of all priests, not just fo priests.  It's such a basic skill with 0 economic impact.

 

  • Free alts; if I want to do something as a priest I just log in a free alt.  It doesn't encourage me to buy or use other player services, nor to prem that alt.  Extending priests to the capabilities of free players would provide a solid QoL boost without impacting any markets (unless QL20 tools are worth a lot now).
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As a pvper who had pvped hardcore since its childhood (not much in wurm tho) i think its all about balance.

 

Give all priests the same spells, a few attacking spells (name them different). A few aoe spells, a few buffs/debuffs and one unique spell per godhood.

 

This will make sure the balance will be even and u can work from here.

 

Most important imo is don't give to much unique stuff to a certain kingdom coz it will encourage metagaming

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I'm not sure if someone covered this already above but, it'd be nice if the restrictions were turned off on PvE worlds for priests. I really don't like having alts. Would save us some money too since more players would just have priest on their main (and don't have to prem another account).

Edited by Skinded

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4 hours ago, Skinded said:

I'm not sure if someone covered this already above but, it'd be nice if the restrictions were turned off on PvE worlds for priests. I really don't like having alts. Would save us some money too since more players would just have priest on their main (and don't have to prem another account).

This will never happen. There is more to it than having an alt to build for you. Priests are intended to be used in a community, and the difficulties they face are intended to balance the benefits of priesting. If priests had no penalties, they would make Champions mostly obsolete, and then everyone would be a priest. It would just become another skill to grind and loose their flavor. More than that, players on Chaos would just priest on Freedom where they can cast and grind their channeling or enchant their tools on their own.

 

The game would completely change. 

 

Take a look at most major WU servers and you'll see how everyone is already a priest.

 

 

 

 

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2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

This will never happen. There is more to it than having an alt to build for you. Priests are intended to be used in a community, and the difficulties they face are intended to balance the benefits of priesting. If priests had no penalties, they would make Champions mostly obsolete, and then everyone would be a priest. It would just become another skill to grind and loose their flavor. More than that, players on Chaos would just priest on Freedom where they can cast and grind their channeling or enchant their tools on their own.

 

The game would completely change. 

 

Take a look at most major WU servers and you'll see how everyone is already a priest.

 

So far those impositions have not encouraged priests to be "used in a community" but rather "as alts".  The only real difference between the "everyone as a priest" scenario and the current "everyone has a priest alt" scenario is that the former means less CC income.

Of course, if priests were rebalanced to be a major role rather than just alt fodder....

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*scratches head*

On 10/27/2017 at 7:10 PM, Angelklaine said:

The current linking system with sam Gods works against people trying different religions. For example, I have a Nahjo, a Paaweelr, a Vynora and a Smeagain priest. 4 priests, two of which can cast LT. Yet I cannot link and cast it. If I want to cast LT, I need to get a 5th priest to do so. And if I want to cast both MS and LT, I need a 6th priest. In essense, it brings out the concept of a battery: a full premium account who's only use is helping with casting a spell.

You

Thats ridiculous. 

 

Add to that the problem that a Champion of any God will never be able to link with another champion. That was made impossible with the Champions update.

 

The linking system needs an overhaul. Options to solve the problem is allowing Priests from different faiths but same side (WL with WL, BL with BL) to link. As suggested above, you can put a cap to those with different Gods, or make it skill check based (Needs to have 60+ Praying skill to link with different faith, for example.) You can also make a skill check, like for stealth, where different religion priests need to succeed for the link to be established.

 

I wont comment on spells. No use beating a dead horse there.

 

1 hour ago, Angelklaine said:

This will never happen. There is more to it than having an alt to build for you. Priests are intended to be used in a community, and the difficulties they face are intended to balance the benefits of priesting. If priests had no penalties, they would make Champions mostly obsolete, and then everyone would be a priest. It would just become another skill to grind and loose their flavor. More than that, players on Chaos would just priest on Freedom where they can cast and grind their channeling or enchant their tools on their own.

 

The game would completely change. 

 

Take a look at most major WU servers and you'll see how everyone is already a priest.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't think it is the game's intention that 1 person can do everything, this includes having 15 premium alts to cast all the things. I think the idea was for people to specialize and group together/socialize to fill the holes ie things they can't do. Personally I would like to see priests with the same spell beable to link... only because I think it is odd Nahjo knows LT but he can't link with his Fo brother who also knows the spell to cast it. I guess they have a different type of mana that doesn't allow it? I think WL to WL or BL to BL would just make it a bit to easy imo but then again I do not mind it staying how it is since I know about 10 different people that play this game as their "main game" with at least 1 priest alt I can set a date and time to link (Fo, Nahjo, Vyn). If you want to be a hermit and cast everything then that is your choice and you need to pay dolla dolla bills to have that luxury. 

 

I rather them not make WO more of a single player game.

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