Priests in Wurm - Examining the Data

[Etherdrifter 2,517]

Firstly, thanks to everyone who took part! - The data is freely available here (https://forum.wurmonline.com/index.php?/topic/184223-priest-poll-alts-and-mains-take-part-in-the-great-priest-census/#comments)

Before we delve into things, we offer a "critique"; this sample would be hard pressed to call truly "random".  It is definitely skiewed towards forum players, who may have more investment in the game, and as such the number of "alts" a regular player has is likely to be somewhat lower.

 

There is also the consideration to be made that many of the forum users appear to favour the SFI (further arguing that there is skew in the sample) and, as such, we will not be offering observations on NFI (the rules there may be VERY different).

 

The definition for "main" and "alt" was left subjectively to the user, and as such, we also leave these vague.  In general, we are assuming users identified their "main" character as the one they are primarily active upon, and consider to be most advanced.

 

We'll begin with a simple statistic which, for the SFI at least, will be hard to argue against.  If we take the total premium respondants for the SFI (95), we note that only 12 identify a priest as their main, the remainder consider a crafter as a main.  In essence less than 12.64% of the population play a priest main.

 

Trying to identify WHY this is the case is beyond the scope of this study, but it certainly infers a future study (done by those with access to more varied data than the author) should be undertaken.  Clearly, there is content within the game that does not hold up on its own for some reason!

 

The next statistic is somewhat debatable, but it is worth mentioning because of its implication to population.  As many of you know, the data I present each month is based purely on player count and offers no correction for alts.

 

Given that our sample is large, the central limit theorem tells us that the means of such samples from the population would be normally distributed IF THE SAMPLES WERE RANDOM.  In this instance, it is debatable if this is the case, as mentioned above, so the reader is advised to take the following with a stern pinch of salt.

 

A 95% confidence interval for the number of toons played by any player (on both clusters) amounts to the following interval (2.845499155,3.435750845).  Now, this heavily suggests that a lot of players play more than 1 toon, and even at its most charitable (taking the lowest bound) assuming 2.8 toons per player would not be unreasonable.

 

If we assumed that every time a player was logged in, all their alts were logged in, we'd be overstepping our bounds.  However, assuming that roughly half their alts are logged in on average would not be too much of a stretch, and thus dividing observed populations by 1.4 might be a reasonable decision to correct for alts.  Further data is needed, but is beyond the reach of this study.

 

Finally, we offer the last (also to be taken with a pinch of salt) statistic.  Namely that we can be 95% certain that (on SFI) the average number of priest alts a player has lies somewhere between 1.21 and 1.78.  

 

This forces us to ask the question, would making priests more viable as mains be in the interests of wurm online at all?  If we assume that, should priests became viable mains, some players would drop their priest alt, this could be substantial loss of income for Wurm Online.  Thus, is it really a good idea to de-alt priests?

 

Again, this really begs more questions than it answers, but it certainly suggests a viable hypothesis as to why priests have generally been ignored/nerfed by the developers over the years.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Etherdrifter

[Drogos 513]

Some nice work you have done here! Depends how they would "de-alt" them. I am thinking 3 options: Enable them to improve, Remove restrictions on Mining/Paving/etc, or do both. I would convert main to priest just for the extra bonuses if they did both, but I would not be ok having my main restricted in either of the two ways. And yeah, I do think it would reduce the salary for the people creating this wonderful world for us. It could also reduce the market opportunities for those that sell priest services.

[Ekcin 2,406]

Some remarks:

1. More than one tenth of the respondents in the poll playing a "main" priest character is astonishingly high to my impression, and at odds with all my acquaintances and observations.I would have guessed half of it at most, and most of them on SFI due to the long PvP history, and Chaos/Wild being directly connected to SFI. Insofar the questions concerning NFI are ambiguous: What about a "priest main" on Defiance whereas being a "crafter main" on SFI_PvE, with or without priest/crafter alts?

 

But sorry, attempting to put confidence intervals on the still quite tiny amount of data, without theory about statistical modeling (i.e. applying a numeric model onto an empirical finding) is just unsound. Not only we do not know anything about randomness, much less representativeness , we know even less about the distribution or the error margin. Applying confidence intervals is no better than throwing dice, or asking an astrologist (or priest as we are at 😎). There are sound reasons to assume that the data are neither random nor representative.

 

I already mentioned that the wording in the poll, especially concerning section 3, was not unambiguous. I had trouble to choose whether I am "currently" (the day I responded, the week, the month, the year?) am playing with 1, 2, .. 6 "toons".  If one takes the whole year, it is certainly 6+ as I log my f2p characters every couple of weeks not to lose the account, and my priests, as far as premed at that time, accompagnied me to public slayings, one or 2 of them to rifts too.  When I am on larger mining projects, my Mag priest is with me if premium. When hunting, crafting, foresting, farming, or exploring, I just play the one character which can most times be called "my main".

 

So where can we agree? That a minority is playing priests as main characters most times, sure (when browsing through my friends, allies, and acquaintances, I even fail to find those 12%  priest "mains"). That something should be done to make priests' path more attractive, yes. That certain shortsighted nerfs should be retracted, certainly.

 

Now to priest alts. Why are we PvE crafters, miners etc. so vicious to take priest alts? Well, one reason for a longer term player of course is to delve into the priest experience in Wurm, learn and experience the spells, and all the mechanics around priesthood. For some services like Strongwall, Genesis, Courier/Dark Messenger it is just impractical, boring and often untenable to look for some priest to hire. The frigging missions to slay x creaturse where all pheasants, roosters or whatever seem to have vanished in a diameter of 1000 tiles. Ok, and then summon soul ...

 

In other words, there will be reasons to play "alt" priest characters, as long as not  all abilities are lumped into one universal character. I am not sure whether I want that.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Ekcin
typo

[Etherdrifter 2,517]

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

But sorry, attempting to put confidence intervals on the still quite tiny amount of data, without theory about statistical modeling (i.e. applying a numeric model onto an empirical finding) is just unsound. Not only we do not know anything about randomness, much less representativeness , we know even less about the distribution or the error margin. Applying confidence intervals is no better than throwing dice, or asking an astrologist (or priest as we are at 😎). There are sound reasons to assume that the data are neither random nor representative.

No, I'll debate that.

 

While it is true we can question randomness and representativeness (certainly) I would say assuming it is neither would be foolishness.  Given the low population of SFI, this sample size is quite a reasonable one, and it was broadcast in-game.

 

If the sample was sufficiently random, then (due to the large (n>30 being the "usual" benchmark) sample size) we can apply the central limit theorem and assert that the means of such samples would be normally distributed (thus, the confidence intervals would contains the means of 95% of samples); the distribution of the original data does not matter in this regard (as any student of statistics would know).  Note, here, we do not need the sample to be representative, it merely has to be random (as this already infers that enough random samples would be representative); given that surveying random volunteers is considered sufficiently "random" for many modern studies, it is only caution that dictates my warnings.

 

 

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

(i.e. applying a numeric model onto an empirical finding)

Feel free to suggest and implement such a model to make a more convincing counter-argument based on the data obtained.  I look forward to poking holes in it and making veiled insults

 

1 hour ago, Ekcin said:

Now to priest alts. Why are we PvE crafters, miners etc. so vicious to take priest alts? Well, one reason for a longer term player of course is to delve into the priest experience in Wurm, learn and experience the spells, and all the mechanics around priesthood. For some services like Strongwall, Genesis, Courier/Dark Messenger it is just impractical, boring and often untenable to look for some priest to hire. The frigging missions to slay x creaturse where all pheasants, roosters or whatever seem to have vanished in a diameter of 1000 tiles. Ok, and then summon soul ...

There are a lot of good suggestions here but...  If you wanted to experience priest skills, why not just priest your main for a while; the character is already well developed and that way they'd also get stat gains while levelling priest-themed skills.  The core point you seem to be making is "convenience", and here one could argue that if it is more convenient to train a character from scratch than to ask another character to assist you, then you've clearly made training that character too convenient.  Of course, one could only draw that conclusion as a guess, but then a guess among guesses is no ill guest.

[Ekcin 2,406]

Sorry to say, but your assumptions are wrong.

 

While the number of respondents is not bad, and, for simplicity, we may assume that all participants responded honestly and benevolently, and understood all questions. But certainly, there is ambiguousness in the questionnaire, such as was "currently active" in section 1 and 2 means, and what "currently play .. in total" in section 3 which does not make mention of premium. Also, priests with priest alts are left out.

 

That is not irrelevant. Two respondents in section 3 filled in 0 "toons" to be "currently played". There may be respondents who interpreted "currently premium" differently according to the time frame. I exclude the possibility of pranksters though we cannot be sure. There are a large number of not currently playing forum accounts and readers, so there is no 1:1 representation of forum users and players.

 

Moreover, there will be other biases making the assumption of representativity even more questionable. It is a known phenomenon in MMOs, especially english only MMOs, that a considerable number of players, very active players among them, does not or rarely participate in forums, in particular when not native english speakers and not fluent in that language. They are then unlikely to participate in discussions, rather may read some guides and hints if at all. This means that forum participation has a strong bias towards english language proficiency.

 

This is not the only bias. There are players, not few of them, who may see the game just as something to use, not something to campaign for changes. Though there are always a couple of newer players who engage as "activists", it is very likely that old players are doing that much more, especially as they are more aware of game mechanics and points to be possibly subject of change. Therefore there is a further bias towards longer participation. I even think, and know from own experience as well as conversations, that especially beginners may be skeptical towards ground breaking changes. They rather prefer to experience, learn, train, and enjoy versus "improving" the game by toppling established uses and mechanics. They will certainly not be vociferous in forums where they would expose their lack of experience. 

 

It is hard to say how these players, and the totality of over 5k accounts logging in on by gliding 7day average compare to bit over hundred forum users. To me, it seems highly unlikely that the respondents already are normally distributed over the forum users much less over the larger set. 

 

As to your remarks which sound like accusations over "convenience": Wurm is a sandbox game. Everyone is in her full rights to play "conveniently". Moreover, alts are not a sin or a crime. They are also a way to do a bit of roleplay in a not very roleplay oriented environment. For example, playing a character of a certain alignment to a deity as such, a follower, a priest or whatever. Hopping through crafts, then all creeds to experience several sides of the game may be destructive to a credible and pleasant ingame biography. Of course, one could do so, even enjoy it. But not because someone else wants to prescribe that alts are evil.

Edited May 25, 2021 by Ekcin
addendum

[Tristanc 570]

One thing to consider is that standalone client users would have to create their own forum login to post/respond to any threads in the Wurm Online forum.  Many players, particularly shorter-term ones, don't or haven't done this.

In contrast, Steam lets those with the Steam client for Wurm Online post in the Steam forum for the game with no added effort.  Owning the game client through Steam is the only requirement with no additional login needed.

 

This would and does affect participation levels in the Wurm Online forums here, especially with regard to the Northern Freedom Isles players who were introduced to the game through Steam.

 

Edited May 25, 2021 by Tristanc

[Antony 280]

I'm gonna go ahead and say it, this all seems really dumb. Calculating population decline, priests and alts. What's the plan once you get accurate statistics?

[elentari 2,660]

17 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

his forces us to ask the question, would making priests more viable as mains be in the interests of wurm online at all?  If we assume that, should priests became viable mains, some players would drop their priest alt, this could be substantial loss of income for Wurm Online.  Thus, is it really a good idea to de-alt priests?

 

This is one of the purposes of the statistic. A lot of people own priests. I owned one at one point, even two when I was playing on Epic. (Fo and vyn)

 

Alts in general skew the population data and a lot of things when it comes to wurm. Storage alts can be eliminated entirely if the devs simply increased bank space to something decent like items.

 

As for priest alts, it's a huge can of worms since I suspect the owners wouldn't really change any game design that gives them more money = premmed priest alts bring in the $$$.

Personally, game design wise, I never liked any game that "encouraged" me to play effectively by making multiple accounts. If one account isn't enough then there's something bad with the game design itself. That's just my perspective.

 

Pretty much any game out there these days that encourage you to make multiple accounts use microtransactions made to boost your main account. Village building games (especially those abhorrent mmo-gacha-clash of vikings type of games) tend to do it a lot. Make multiple subscribed accounts to boost one main account.

 

Wurm is no different. Most people make a priest alt to do chores or one way or another offer a boost to your main. Want enchanted coc/woa tools? You make a vyn alt and cast your tools. Want genesis / path of love fo priest? You skill him up to get better horses. But all those efforts are in the end pointed towards a main account.

 

Priests are not viable mains as they are right now. They are booster accounts , nothing more, the only exception is pvp where the reverse is often true. People make a priest main and a crafter/imper alt.

 

 

[Archaed 2,280]

Why raid in a party when you can multiclient tank and healer and dps? 

 

 

[Ecrir 887]

1 hour ago, elentari said:

Storage alts can be eliminated entirely if the devs simply increased bank space to something decent like items.

 

This is so spot on. We've got magic chests to somewhat fill that role, but plenty of stuff of course won't fit in there so storage alts are still really useful. I don't get why they don't add extra storage space on PvE. I mean, it's a no brainer for a micro transaction (like on traders), or for an upgrade option from the token (like the extra sleep bonus, care for slot, etc).

[elentari 2,660]

15 minutes ago, Ecrir said:

This is so spot on. We've got magic chests to somewhat fill that role, but plenty of stuff of course won't fit in there so storage alts are still really useful. I don't get why they don't add extra storage space on PvE. I mean, it's a no brainer for a micro transaction (like on traders), or for an upgrade option from the token (like the extra sleep bonus, care for slot, etc).

 

yep. They could even have storage tokens in the shop.

 

"Storage token small increase by +5 items = 9.99 EUR"

"Storage token medium increase by +10 items = 15.99 EUR"

"Storage token large increase by 20 items" = 29 EUR "

"Storage token gnome banker level + 35 items = 50 EUR"

 

(spitballing prices, devs can work out other models, but you get the point).

 

Magic chests are cute and all but they are static, tied to a certain deed, if a player leaves, the chest stays there if I recall, and if it's locked I doubt the lock drops off it (needs confirmation on pve).

[Calan 86]

Personally, dislike microtransactions that fix issues the developers purposefully created.

 

If they agree more bank space would be good and wouldn't break anything (i.e., the original reason for the limitations), they should simply increase bank space full-stop, not introduce it as a microtransaction.

[elentari 2,660]

Either that. I'm happy if I get anything for free.

 

At the moment we'll see what happens if it ever happens. Although I know for certain deed token bank space is something that has been asked for 10 years by now. I haven't met one single player that didn't enjoy the idea.

[Ekcin 2,406]

Actually, my understanding for these crusades on alts is running thin if it ever existed. What exactly didn't you understand on sandbox game? If you do not like alts, do not create them. And after marks points, a regular subscriber can be swimming in LMCs, unless wastes all on tomes or what.

Edited May 26, 2021 by Ekcin

[KellyTxX 614]

i may be one of the only ones but my main and only character on defiance is a priest.

[Atonewell 28]

Sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.  Need more people to respond.

[elentari 2,660]

7 hours ago, Atonewell said:

Sample size is too small to draw any conclusions.  Need more people to respond.

 

This sample size is pretty much all that's left of us right now. Forums used to be waay more active in years past. Sometimes a small sample size reflects the population.