Allow Priests To Pursue Their Follower Crafts, A Priest's Anecdote Of A Bad Time

[Metallumere 66]

Here is a brief backstory.
So, as someone who fervently refuses to play alts for reasons, I find myself at a crossroads regarding priest restrictions.

Last year, when follower bonuses were added, I was expecting a trend to continue with that precedent: priests being allowed to pursue a select range of crafts. After all, if a follower of Libila is encouraged to work leather, why would a priest suddenly no longer be allowed to? Why would Magranon approve of forging the finest swords as a follower, but not as a devote priest? Etc. I fully expected this to be rectified in the near-future, knowing how awkward the current restriction system actually works based on action-type alone.

As such, I decided to play a priest myself. I initially founded a no-alts settlement to moderate(and unexpected) success, with people to rely on for the things I was directly blocked from doing as a priest, and they in turn could also play priests and rely on others in the settlement for things. In fact, I specifically structured the rulings of the settlement to almost strictly serve priests to that end. Eventually, for failures on my part, and for things like Melody and Cadence quickly releasing, this settlement dissolved and people either quit or went their own ways. C'est la vie.
Fast forwards several months later, I see there's another no-alts settlement booming and blooming. I join up of course, happy to once again have some semblance of what I previously got to be a part of; dozens of people helping each other out. Fast forward some months again, and it's now unfortunately mostly devoid of life.
Worse still, priest restrictions over a year later are completely untouched, which I did not expect with the huge success the Steam launch seemingly had. Choices stand before me; bite the bullet and join any other settlement that condones alts making my miserable existence as a priest nonsensical to them, continue on my own being miserable by myself, abandon my faith entirely, or try and build up yet another no-alts settlement. As you'd expect, it's a conflicting choice.

So, why did I even become a priest in the first place? Well, to sustain my settlement really. I figured the steadiest source of income would be selling enchanted equipment, which could be used to sustain upkeep and pay out peoples' premiums, which was another policy I established in favor of my no-alts settlement. Paying people to play with me, crazy right? I figured it was a pretty good incentive to get people to drop the very thought of alts and cultivate a better sense of community rather than what I perceived to be an inevitability; ignoring others in favor of alts.

Now, on two counts, this has gone wrong. Two instances of a no-alts settlement, both seemingly failing. I can recognize that there is probably a reason this isn't working, at least in regards to priests.
There may be a range of people like me who find themselves with similar problems; people they previously relied on now being gone. I certainly enjoyed the company of talent who's now gone. Perhaps this could be minimized if priests could at least be guaranteed a craft? But then, would I have come to rely on some people in the first place for those crafts, would we have made contact like we did? This starts to fall into a weird spot of becoming a study in human behavior, which I'm no expert on by any means. I guess it's at least maybe worth pointing out though that this probably is a behavioral issue more so than a gameplay issue, and priests are probably at least one of the stronger aspects tied to this.


Okay, so, what should be done?
Well the way I see it, being a priest bars you from things. And this sounds fine. Something for something. Perfectly agreeable.
However, when those somethings are core aspects of the very nature of the game, like terraforming and improving items, suddenly it's more like you're trading one game for another. I, as a priest, unable to dig dirt and improve any kind of item at all, am effectively choosing to play a different game. Is this fair? Well, maybe. It could be argued that a choice as significant as that is something truly special. Then again, this is probably exactly why people just have priest alts. It seems silly to come to this and go "oh, yes, I totally don't want to dig and do any of this wide assortment of crafts, I definitely just wanted to be able to cast fancy magic instead".
So, what I feel should be done is to allow priests more of the core features of the game. I'm not asking for restrictions to be lifted entirely. I, and I'm sure others would agree, want there to be restrictions still, but the restrictions as they have been just don't make sense. What exactly could be done about this should probably be part of a larger discussion, but at the very least as the title says, allowing priests to do what being a follower sets the precedent for is probably a perfectly acceptable start.


Let me put it this way:
I didn't become a priest so that I couldn't play the game, I became a priest so others could play the game for me, and so I could play a priest for them. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe, just maybe, there should be a little more crossover for the people getting the worse-side of the deal; priests. Maybe it's as simple as giving them a single craft. Maybe there's far more interesting measures to take. All I know is that trying to have others play the game for me, and me playing a priest for them, isn't really working, and maybe hasn't been working too well for others either.
Maybe I'm a complete fool for consciously choosing to not do what a majority of people are already doing to get around this problem, for what is essentially just a personal theory into human behavior and better growth for the game in the long-term.
Maybe my understanding of this and a few other problems Wurm faces are purely anecdotal and not really the case for the majority who don't find themselves caught in such existential-human-behavior-problems.
There's a lot of maybes here.

In short, please do something with priest restrictions. I know the exploration update is just around the corner, and I have high hopes that maybe fun priest times will come with that, but there's a real possibility that I am just a complete fool, so uhhh yeah, sorry if that's the case.

Edit:
Oh right, and just to be clear, these are the "follower crafts" I speak of:
Vynora: +10% QL gain when improving wooden and clay items.
Magranon: +10% QL gain when improving metallic items.
Fo: +10% QL gain when improving cloth items.
Libila: +10% QL gain when improving leather items.

Thoughts and such worth putting at the top here:

17 hours ago, Metallumere said:

Like, I dunno, maybe being restricted from digging was only supposed to be a restriction until some sort of ritual system could be established. Consecrate a site for terraforming before digging it proper and freely, or something like that, ya know? In other words, I feel like priests are just supposed to have more steps to accomplish the same things, not be barred completely forever.

Edited October 31, 2021 by Metallumere

[MrKettle 121]

Not gonna lie, as a Fo priest I am okay with the no cutting down trees but the no imping thing really makes one of the biggest chunks of the game dead, we kinda get the worst end of the priesting in that sense.

[Metallumere 66]

5 minutes ago, MrKettle said:

we kinda get the worst end of the priesting in that sense

Out of curiosity, what sort of imping would you want to be able to do as a Fo priest? Or at least, what do you feel would be fair?

[MrKettle 121]

8 minutes ago, Metallumere said:

Out of curiosity, what sort of imping would you want to be able to do as a Fo priest? Or at least, what do you feel would be fair?

at the very least anything under tailoring 

[Aleck 316]

+1 to the above. Letting priests do imping of any kind would dramatically increase their attractiveness... And I say that as someone who wants very much to main a Fo, but keeps hesitating because I'd lose access to so many of the game's core activities.

[magdegreen 43]

2 hours ago, Metallumere said:

Edit:
Oh right, and just to be clear, these are the "follower crafts" I speak of:
Vynora: +10% QL gain when improving wooden and clay items.
Magranon: +10% QL gain when improving metallic items.
Fo: +10% QL gain when improving cloth items.
Libila: +10% QL gain when improving leather items.

 

This would be amazing, it might be asking for too much, but allowing all priests to do rope making or jewelry smithing would also be amazing. 

 

+1

[Metallumere 66]

1 minute ago, magdegreen said:

allowing all priests to do rope making or jewelry smithing would also be amazing

Huh, you know, I didn't even think about the simpler crafts like toymaking and such, yeah that'd be pretty nice!

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

5 hours ago, Metallumere said:

there's a real possibility that I am just a complete fool, so uhhh yeah, sorry if that's the case.

I think this about sums up how most folks who chose to main (and solo) as a priest feel (and it's why most of us left, or are semi-retired now).

 

In general, wurm is not designed to be played as a priest main, and the developers seem dead set against that kind of play.  It took years of people complaining to allow priests to even build walls.  The last new PvE spell came in under Sindusk I think, which was a fair few years back now.  After that, we've had a couple of nice tweaks (being able to cure disease again was nice), but otherwise nothing major or in any way really useful.

 

Most people on the old cluster have a priest alt, it is actually uncommon for someone not to.  This wasn't always the case, but as time has gone on...  Well, the evidence suggests it is extremely unlikely for priests to be given any meaningfully unique content gated behind skills other than faith.

 

I'd love to see this idea in the game, but I don't think it will ever make it in.

[Metallumere 66]

20 minutes ago, Etherdrifter said:

The last new PvE spell came in under Sindusk I think, which was a fair few years back now.

Man I miss that guy. I hope he actually makes it as a volunteer again one of these days.

I feel inclined to agree that Wurm was never made with maining a priest in mind, but it certainly feels as if priests were perhaps supposed to get their own sort of style of gameplay to compliment non-priests, rather than be directly removed from them. Like, I dunno, maybe being restricted from digging was only supposed to be a restriction until some sort of ritual system could be established. Consecrate a site for terraforming before digging it proper and freely, or something like that, ya know? In other words, I feel like priests are just supposed to have more steps to accomplish the same things, not be barred completely forever. I think I previously suggested some sort of system of sin and atonement, where you can totally go against a restriction as long as you later repent by doing something more agreeable, like planting more trees than you chopped as a Fo priest or such.

Honestly, I don't think this will ever make it in either, but I only say that due to how the priest restrictions are actually programmed. As it is, it's just based on action type, and there's no separate action type for imp'ing a boat or a sword, so priests are just universally barred from any kind of imp'ing action until they are either separated finely or some other layer of checks is laid down.