My life as a Priest...

[Angelklaine 4,266]

Upon the release of Wurm Online on steam, I decided to do something fresh: an entire makeover of how I play Wurm Online. After some time playing the game as a priest, I have found that the experience is quite different, and now I am sharing it with you. Now, for full disclosure, I am going to explain my current living situation. 

 

The Setting

 

I started in Harmony on day 1 and was delayed on praying for about a few days when I was able to get some clay and iron to make my first altar. Other than the time spent as a follower before priesting that's the time I spent with access to imping and other non priest activities. I did not speed grind any skills at this time other than farming and played casually (about 5-6 hours a day) without sleep bonus. My account was premium and I did not purchase sleep powders, only used the ones I obtained from my prem time.

 

Along the way I made 1 other account, and 4 sermon alts. Currently all my accounts are priests with no exception: all 6 of them. I have no characters to imp with and I have for the most part worked on my accounts exclusively. I currently do not have a crafter account. I was recently joined by my friend Yodie who is new to the game, and who picked up smithing to the exclusivety of all else. This was the bulk of what I had access to on Freedom.

 

Where I went from there

 

I will admit that playing the game exclusively as a priest is blyat. You will be living in a wooden house if you can even make it, and you wlll spend your time asking others for help. You can enchant a mailbox, but you can't make the damn thing to begin with unless you do some hard grinding before you priest. Freedom is full of self serving people for the most part so if you decide to live on your own you will need a lot of silver if you don't want to terraform with 1ql tools and spend 90% of your time building and crafting instead of working on your priest skills. Add to that the fact that grinding channeling is a no go for your average non-elite player, as farming consumes most of your time and it will take a legendary amount of time for you to have enough sacables to be able to grind effectively if you go that route. The same could be said about iron if you decide to make locks, but in the end the issues are the same. Your best bet is to join an already existing village and not stake it out on your own. The biggest drag is you cannot imp your own gear, so you'll be doing everything slower unless you find someone to do it for you.

 

Defiance is a much different experience as a solo priest and completely changes your game experience. Due to the nature of PVP alliances, everyone seems to work together with a more communist mentality. Miners mine for skill and give their materials to crafters to skill with. Crafters in turn make tools, weapons, armor for the kingdom to use, who then go out to pvp with or use them for their other various crafts. The smith makes the tools for the farmer, who tends the fields for t he cook, who then makes food for everyone allowing the smith to be able to concentrate on his task and not need to farm and cook for his own food. PVPers go out and while hunting they bring back the corpses for much needed meat for the cook to use, and animal parts for the Alchemist, plus hides for the leatherwoker who makes their saddles and armor... and the priests enchant everything. It is an economic cycle in which silver never changes hands, yet everyone has what they need.

 

The difference between the two types of playstyles for a priest is glaring, making it all feel like a different game.

 

Conclusions

 

Well the jury is still out on this one. Currently I have mixed feelings about playing as a priest and many times I have wanted to just quit and go back to being a crafter. The grind is slow, and I spend more time doing creation tasks instead of priest duties (casting, enchanting, etc). Being a priest main I can't just sit in front of an altar and pray for my entire game session (otherwise I wouldn't be able to play.). 

 

It is my belief that you cannot play this game as exclusively a priest on your own (without a crafter alt, the market or another player to help you) and that even if you do, you can't work on your priest skills exclusively, as they are time based. Faith is a huge one that requires you to be chained to a single spot for the span of a minimun of 2 1/2 hours a day (if you don't sermon. If you do its forever). During this time you are unable to channel grind sacrificing unless you have your own sermon alts, and you can't go too far even if you do, as you are stuck to your altar for the duration. Adding to this is the long prayer/sermon/sacrifice timers, which are some of the longest action timers in the game. This coupled with extremely long cast times on certain spells makes priests unable to do much of anything else unless they are willing to sacrifice their gameplay. The time sinks are astronomical, cutting down your game experience and your game time. This is something I did not notice when I used priests as alts, but that its glaringly obvious when seen through the eyes of a priest main.

 

To add to the above there is the problem that other players do not understand this struggle. On PVP kingdoms you are expected to be up to par with all your combat skills (fighting, weapon skills, stance (for two or more weapons/stances) , your priest skills (faith and channeling) and to do menial task on top of that (help build towers, make bulk, gather materials, etc.). This digs into your available time to do your own priest skills, and when compared to the reality of how long priest actions take, you are left with little time to do anythng else, or sacrifice your priest skills at the expense of everything else. For example,  you cannot pray to grind Faith at the same time you're out hunting. You either do one or the other. However, as a priest you are expected to do both, so prepare to get rid of your social life and live, eat and breathe this game to be able to be on par with the others.

 

How can this be improved?

 

Here is a list of my suggestions on how living exclusively as a priest can be improved.

 

Eliminate the need of altars for faith gains. Priests are already able to pray without an altar, but are unable to get any faith from doing so. This is a pretty restrictive requirement that serves no purpose other than to imobilize an account. You can even increase the prayer timer to 1 minute without an altar as to still retain the benefit of owning one. This would be a huge QoL improvement for priests and would unchain them from the altars they have to live on. Keep sermons and saccing as they work right now, but free prayers so we can actually play the game. No one wants to spend their entire game life on deed doing nothing but praying.

 

Reduce Sacrifice timers. Half the timer, or if you want to get technical, tie it to altar quality and enchant like any other tool. Simple. Why do they need to be so long? This is a huge QoL for priests. Channel grinding is tied to quantity of materials already, I don't understand why another time sink for them is required.

 

Remove the Alignment Gain from Sacrificing. Why is this even a thing? You are a priest and because of this one thing you cannot channel grind while participating in a sermon group. What? Why? So now not only am I required to be chained to an altar for my entire game session for weeks on end, but I cannot grind my channeling skill at a moment which I have plenty of free time to do so. 

 

New Priest exclusive skills. Give priests something more priest-like to do. An inscription skill that allows priests to put some spells to parchment should be interesting. Things such as a Mend, Strongwall and Genesis could be sold by priests with the ability to make them. Tie the inscription to the quality of the cast (90 cast on the parchment = 90 cast on the inscription) limited to the inscription skill. A 50ql scroll = 50 cast ql max on the inscription. Being able to mail a Genesis would increase the QoL of priests. You can also pick and chose which spells would be allowed for this skill.

 

Continue tweaking spells. I know there has been many changes to the spells usage and within reason. However, right now the sole reason for a priest to become a priest is to use spells, yet most of the spells a priest can use on the go take nearly the entire faith bar. What's the point of having spells you can't use? I know there are balance issues with this and I understand is a still ongoing process, but please don't forget about this fact.

 

Add more QoL spells that allow priests to have a much easier time. Things such as lighting a furnace, falling trees (for fo), removing dirt (for Mag) and increasing food/water bars by means of spell can mean an incredible boost of QoL for a priest. Temporarily increasing the effectiveness of skills (increasing the timers of non tool skills such as forage/botanize/pottery/etc) could be a good spell that can be activated on the body instead of the item, thus making priests adept at these skills. Favor usage is a good compromise to what would be normally done by a mining action, but that now goes against the priest's diety.

 

There is much more than can be done and I have not included here, but these are my experiences and I thought I'd share. Good luck to those of you who decide to follow the path of the solo priest. It is an arduous road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kelody 333]

I do agree priests need some fixes.

 

Your comparison pve to pvp is unfair. You choose the solo life with 1 friend on pve vs a village/alliance of 10+ people. While random people in kingdom may not work together, there are many villages that have cooperative players working for the good of the village. You also discount the fact that in PvP, you can't sell to other players to pay your deed expansions or upkeep, so those fees come from the shop. Even if it's not your village, someone has to pay those fees.

Edited September 28, 2020 by Kelody

[Finnn 3,298]

Some of the ideas on their own "seem ok", but they also dip into several other things making it overpowering or ignoring other content that else other have to deal with.

 

Question is how does average priest main day go? How does non-priest char's day go?

Should there be some balance change, and what should be improved for both?

 

As new shipbuilder or carpentry-related grinding I had an issue of not having high ql wood or anyone around me able to supply such, ending up with only market as source or having to grind WC, which I did(it's a game, why not play it, it was part of the 'few' skills my 'class' gets to improve), so now I have 2-3-5ql higher logs, but and I got better in sb or fc, carpentry-whatever skill I was after, BUT now I am also in another trouble need higher ql tools, need better enchants, need higher ql iron, need higher blacksmithing, more enchants, sleep bonus, FATIGUE(probably reached this 2-4 times in 5yrs) plays HUGE role into this all, same for enchants and sleep bonus, also RL time to spend on the waterfall ladder I have to climb.

 

Just as you can not do certain basic things on your own:

*a non priest can not mend a pelt or whetstone, plenty of other tools and gear, or some unique items like pottery which can only me mended, not even repaired(30 faith and ability to mend gives you 90 repairing ignoring difficulty of the item - pretty op, as 70 repairing is something you get around 3-4-5th year of grinding improve/repair on various skills naturally),

* you want to do some transmutation on your own - well too bad you can not,

* you want to get into AH - well too bad you need to wait rng 1-2 weeks IRL if you get a bad trait for a new creature if rng or age doesn't kill the mother in the process,

* you want to make a mailbox - it's easy you have 100 fine carpentry - well too bad you can not enchant it and it's useless,

* you'd like to make a few strange devices for fun or profit - well you can't they are all not moving,

* you want to bless a few buoys or lamps for your shipyard or the highway - you can't,

* you'd like to remove ice at rifts or do heals - you can't,

* you'd like to utilize wildgrowth or humiddrizzle - you can't,

* cheat death with a healing spell - nope - apply some healing cover or cotton and wait xx minutes also pray that high potency mix helps for the 60+ wound,

* you'd like to see creatures around you or the villages - go find them because magic wont help you,

* you'd like to just know where somebody is on the server - cool go ask them or walk all over it no other way to locate them,

* you'd like to buff or debuff something with your 1 or 99fighting - well no luck buddy,

* etc

 

^ some are really silly examples but both 'classes' have their silly mechanics that only WOGIC knows why there is such a barrier forcing some 'social' activities where it all takes some time and people aren't always that welcoming to help somebody in need of that 1 thing you just can not do on your own, which leads to my other line.. why can't we rethink a few more things than just QOL of priests and improve gameplay as whole.

 

After rmt ban few doors were closed, but opened so many windows to improve the gameplay and invite new people in the game. Maybe part of the many that just turn around once they see what they do not want to deal with, could any of that be improved to be turned into more fun gameplay content?

[Angelklaine 4,266]

1 hour ago, Kelody said:

I do agree priests need some fixes.

 

Your comparison pve to pvp is unfair. You choose the solo life with 1 friend on pve vs a village/alliance of 10+ people. While random people in kingdom may not work together, there are many villages that have cooperative players working for the good of the village. You also discount the fact that in PvP, you can't sell to other players to pay your deed expansions or upkeep, so those fees come from the shop. Even if it's not your village, someone has to pay those fees.

This is not a comparison. This is my experience, what I did. I am saying how it varied from one place to the other. I can't opine on what I did not experience. As soon as I moved to a group on Defiance, things were much better.

 

@FinnnI am not saying one class is better than another. I am saying that there are many simple, essential things a priest cannot do that a normal account can. If you are solo as a priest, you can't really build a proper deed without help. This is something that is an absolute: you cannot. As a Fo you cannot cut down trees so you can terraform. As a vyn, you cannot open a mine or gather ore or stone to build your houses. As a mag you cannot flatten an area to build your house because you cannot dig. All these are absolute limitations on very basic aspects of Wurm.

In any case I am not trying to make comparisons of which is better. I am simply stating what my experience as a solo priest is and documenting the difficulties I've come accross. This has nothing to do with anything else.

[Sindusk 2,447]

2 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Remove the Alignment Gain from Sacrificing. Why is this even a thing? You are a priest and because of this one thing you cannot channel grind while participating in a sermon group. What? Why? So now not only am I required to be chained to an altar for my entire game session for weeks on end, but I cannot grind my channeling skill at a moment which I have plenty of free time to do so. 

 

A more elegant solution would be to remove the bonus granted by alignment, then double or triple the bonus for standing in your deity influence. This would allow players who want to grind channel a better option (simply don't stand in your god influence) without hurting existing play pattern, since most priests are already casting from their influence. Might also encourage more "faith war" on PvP servers, which could be interesting.

[Angelklaine 4,266]

3 minutes ago, Sindusk said:

 

A more elegant solution would be to remove the bonus granted by alignment, then double or triple the bonus for standing in your deity influence. This would allow players who want to grind channel a better option (simply don't stand in your god influence) without hurting existing play pattern, since most priests are already casting from their influence. Might also encourage more "faith war" on PvP servers, which could be interesting.

Your alignment change doesn't let you participate as a listener to sermons, which is problematic when there's more than you as a priest there. That is what I am referring to.

[warrior 455]

Hmm not sure I agree with all of that. I think it is a time consuming way to play and you are reliant on other people. But it's an MMO, I think that's a good aspect.

 

I think planning is key. If you're going to priest as soon as you hit 30 faith, then you need to hit certain goals first. If you're new to the game, it's unlikely you'll priest as soon as you hit 30 faith.

 

I think of it as a more specialized way of playing for more experienced players, it's gonna take some time, it might cost you a bit, but it's fun and can be super rewarding.

[Angelklaine 4,266]

2 hours ago, warrior said:

Hmm not sure I agree with all of that. I think it is a time consuming way to play and you are reliant on other people. But it's an MMO, I think that's a good aspect.

 

I think planning is key. If you're going to priest as soon as you hit 30 faith, then you need to hit certain goals first. If you're new to the game, it's unlikely you'll priest as soon as you hit 30 faith.

 

I think of it as a more specialized way of playing for more experienced players, it's gonna take some time, it might cost you a bit, but it's fun and can be super rewarding.

100% agree with this. Its been a challenge, but a much more fun way to play I believe. To me has been like rediscovering Wurm for the first time all over again.

[Badvoc 204]

9 hours ago, Angelklaine said:

Eliminate the need of altars for faith gains

 

This is a good idea but only once your a priest, also make it so you have to carry a religious object around to pray and get faith gains, this item could be crafted by a jeweller , same as we can carry our mediation rugs around with us. 

( maybe a mini altar but doesn't have any other use but to praying for faith gains, no sac'ing )

 

I wanted to also main a priest but play solo and was talked out of it by other players due to how its pretty impossible to run your own deed and be a main priest, so did the tried and tested "alt" route for a priest, I kind of regret it to be honest, as you write up makes it sounds a very interesting playstyle.

[Muse 2,216]

I think your post was well written and gives a lot of food for thought.

 

I particularly like the idea of spells on parchment / scrolls - I think most people would buy a wild growth scroll through the mail for the sprout farm, a genesis scroll for a favourite horse , or buy a healing spell from a merchant whilst out and about, and that's just the Fo spells.

 

I can see people buying 'top up' scrolls to top up the casts on their tools and weapons - rake cast a bit worn out?  Top up the circle of cunning with a 90ql CoC scroll.  Got a weapon with the wrong cast?  Replace an old Venom cast with a new Flame Aura scroll.

 

I can see this idea has potential. 

 

I noted with interest your difficulty getting a mailbox built as a priest.  I would say this is a basic Wurmian right!   Everyone needs access to a mailbox, and something needs to be done about it.  I think mailboxes should be easier to build, and also not require a priest to enchant.

One thing we might see is some way for other new players to enchant their own mailboxes using your scroll.  Some players make their first deed far inland and so remotely, even they don't know where they are on the map for some time!  So getting a priest to come out is an undertaking.  It would be nice to be able to find some way of setting up mailboxes remotely....

 

  🕊️ I have already suggested elsewhere a 'mundane' non-magic version of a mailbox which is just a simple dovecot.  New players can attract carrier pigeons into it using seeds or similar, without requiring much skill.  Just to get a basic packet pigeon post mailbox up and running. 

 

 

 

Thanks for your report, it makes interesting and sobering reading.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Muse

[Etherdrifter 2,512]

My hat goes off to you Angelklaine; you've survived the gauntlet so to speak.  It's a very different way to play wurm, but I always found it rewarding in its own way.

 

There is a lot of potentially good content that could be added to priests; especially "household" spells for QoL.

 

You could easily just have papyrus making as your inscription skill which opens a rather delightful possibility of giving priests different ways of using existing skills.

[Angelklaine 4,266]

2 minutes ago, Etherdrifter said:

My hat goes off to you Angelklaine; you've survived the gauntlet so to speak.  It's a very different way to play wurm, but I always found it rewarding in its own way.

 

There is a lot of potentially good content that could be added to priests; especially "household" spells for QoL.

 

You could easily just have papyrus making as your inscription skill which opens a rather delightful possibility of giving priests different ways of using existing skills.

I understand much of what you've gone through now. The priest rework made much of the things we didnt have in the past possible now, and thus the current state of priests is much more enjoyable. It could still be better by adding things for a priest to do. Not lifting restrictions, mind you, as they are good where they are, but.making the profession more viable overall in other areas. It still feels like an alt exclusive class.

[Ohana 907]

I love the ideal of a priest being able to make and sale(mailable) spell scrolls. 

Makes paper more valuable, lets players not have to wait for a priest to come to them.