Holy sites - what do you want to see?

[Madnath 3,113]

Posting this in suggestions since really most of the posts are going to be suggestions and feedback on said suggestions.

 

Spent some time at the Vyn and Lib holy sites. I have some passing thoughts about tweaks I'd like to see to them.

The biggest for me is the Lib holy site. Currently at the Abyssal Circle, and there's just a major thing bugging me, and that's the pulse/purify/whatever wounds. For the other gods these seem to be things like burns or acid wounds or other unimportant wound types. The Lib site however does infection wounds instead. This might not sound significant if you've not really used BT or RT casts on your weapons, but an infection wound is always (at least as far as I've seen, but definitely in the case of holy sites) worsening and these wounds really do a lot of damage if left to fester. You know, like if you're leaving accounts on for others to benefit from larger sermons, which seem to really be one of the best reasons for holy sites to exist for the priest player. I'd just like to see the wounds changed to something like acid since I think it's just as fitting for a Lib site.

 

Another thing that feeds into the above is the circle spawning things like Simulacrums that are hostile to anyone who isn't Lib. It makes sense if you're on say, PvP and you want to use them in a fight, but on Freedom it just serves to make things a lot more complicated if, again, you want to leave accounts on for others to sermon off of. Most priests I see aren't really fighting fit, especially not for some of the creatures spawned. Pens or houses in range aren't possible due to the building restrictions. Holy Sites seem to be an alt AFK thing for the most part since they're... honestly just pretty boring. Not many people really want to lug around a load of bulk or items to work on in the range of the Site.

 

Also having things like pulses get rid of things like disease would be magical. The Lib holy site I'm currently at isn't exactly bursting with players but me and some others are basically always diseased. Again, fine if you're at a Fo site, but nobody else has a spell to get rid of this iirc. So yeah, maybe something to chuck in.

 

Fo holy sites reset milking timers along with sheering, but so far I've only heard of bison being spawned. I've not heard of sheep yet, but it would make sense for cows to spawn since they can be milked, no?

 

I also just feel these things need a bit more visual flare. I mentioned this in one of the threads not long after the release, but they're just... the thing. Add some fancy god related things near them maybe? Even if it's just some of the floating crystals or whatever from some of the portals that are used. Just give us something that isn't just the rite sky effect. Lib holy sites for example, why not give us the corpses strung up at the bone altar?

 

It'd also be nice if all god followers/priests, or at least WL gods could pray at any WL holy site too. We can already sermon off of the holy site regardless of which god it's dedicated too, but it'd be nice to not litter around altars if you want to sermon at a holy site. Just make it so followers/priests of another god can't contribute or add to the corruption of the holy site. So as an example, a Fo priest could pray at a Mag holy site, get their usual faith gain, but it wouldn't count towards the power of the site or run the risk of contributing corruption.

 

Misc things I feel I might need more time to seriously think are needed:

I think exorcism and praying for removing corruption/boosting power still needs some buffing since there's no significant scaling for amount of people at the site. I'm willing to wait on this since these might see more traffic when the boosted spawn sites all fizzle away and things pick up a bit.

Also maybe it'd be nice to boost the action on the altar to find holy sites to say "there's x god's holy site found in the far away land of y server", and going to that servers map from the window that opens shows the location of it.

 

Also add cows to the creature spawning pool please

 

And just so this thread doesn't sound negative, I want to thank the devs for an actually pretty great job on balacing the Vyn mirror. The skill ticks are big enough to be neat, and even if they're not big enough to be worth sticking around to have whenever they pulse, it's still probably nice for a lower skill player to have this.

 

I've not had the pleasure to try the Fo or Mag holy sites yet, so please, if you've been to them, sound off in your post about what you think of them and their balance. I think if Holy Sites lean more into making things more comfortable for priests and sermons, the system might be better received. I'd be lying if I said anything other than the holy sites getting a "meh" from the average player I speak to.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Madnath

[ChampagneDragon 971]

My one big thought so far after spending time at Fo and Mag holy site:

 

Fo tree site gives you the ability to harvest the tree. The products are higher, but based on forestry. The pulse also resets trees in the area. If more than a couple people are there it takes five minutes and they're cleared. The mag monolith lets you rummage for lumps, which quality results from the quality  of the monolith. The monolith spawns meteors. After the first couple of days there were only a couple people mining them for the tiny chance of a tiny (I mean, i lost count on how many .00 sized lumps) Not balanced IMO.

 

Just at the first vyn wellspring on Indy. No feedback yet.

[Stargrace 602]

The Vyn one - as a priest - is very lack luster to me.

 

I don't see a reason to be here, I can't imp, and the biggest reason everyone else is here is for the imbibe buff / bonus rares while imping. Sure, there's the sleep bonus pulse, but since rite of spring is being flung around everywhere it's really not much incentive to hang around.

 

 

 

I went to the Fo one but only 1 person was there and there were angry mobs everywhere in the middle of the woods so that was not exactly a lot of fun for (again) a priest character with a lot of soft squishy skills, so I didn't stick around. 

 

The mag one I didn't go to or participate in - but I loved the meteorite bit since I lived nearby I got to benefit from it as a non-mag. 

 

Overall? They are cute, and are "new" right now, but they also feel unbalanced for both followers and priests. Convincing people to come out and hang out is as difficult as it ever is in Wurm when they live far from the sites. Veteran priests can summon, but I'd love to see things a bit more balanced for both new/old player & priest/follower alike. 

Edited March 26, 2023 by Stargrace

[Rocklobster 298]

Spent time at Vyn mirror site on Celebration, was very meh - never once in maybe 100 gazes did i get a "significant tick" in a characteristic. I did get a few maps, maybe 1 in 50 pulses. The sleep bonus was nice while i was doing other things at site, like making cordage (my knitting) or doing casts and making building materials. Overall, pretty meh - the gains are not worth spending time there.

 

I like the holy site spawns, thou alot of the spawns are complete waste like unicorns, wraiths, ect.

 

Edited March 27, 2023 by Rocklobster

[kochinac 1,395]

My overall impression so far is meh, I want them to be good, but they are just to complicated to think about, plan or do anything about them... Didn't hang around much of them, but benefits are meh and hardly worth my time. So one really big meh, don't know what to say about them really 

[Tor 523]

Tried all of them and it feels like waste of time, unless you there on a under 100 faith priest and there's people for sermons. idk what was that panic on how much vyn is too OP and how that contributed to the waste of time live release and the meh and blah feeling of the moment.

 

Also, i think their ql/dmg status should have been reset after the first patch fix, player contribution towards them started with like 1ql and 70+ dmg to work with

[Ulost 144]

Went yesterday to check out this Vyn thing. Gazed it, got little gain to something and acid wound. I dont understand meaning of these places but i feel like i dont need these.

[Muse 2,221]

I think there should be more to do or more happening and more often at these sites.  I have only visited the Sampo (Fo site) so far both with my Fo priest and separately with a non-follower toon.  

 

The location on the open steppe was accessible and convenient for collecting conditioned animals, but in my opinion there were not enough conditioned domestic animals spawned for even the few people who turned up.  When the shrine was tainted, only conditioned aggressive animals spawned which are usually available naturally anyway.  Muse being a Fo priest was often called out to help remove the taint, but there was little else to do.  The cooldown of 20 minutes between purifying was not convenient for me and not safe to wait around afk in the open so I usually logged her out.  The source salt from praying is a good benefit, but in such very small amounts, so it wasn't really worth the time. I got one seed, but I haven't looked into its uses, I hope it can be planted.  The site only pulsed (to cure disease) once per hour, and seemed to be tainted more often than not, so non-priest visitors were either constantly praying (usually trying in vain) to increase the shrine's power at the tainted shrine, or afk, or they moved on and did something else because there was nothing much to do.   This is especially the case for my main which is not a follower of any religion.

 

Being an atheist or non-follower, my toon was offered nothing to do at the site.  We could do with an atheist site, or open benefits at all sites, offering mundane benefits to non-followers.  Perhaps a skill boost, or something useful to new players such as a food and water refill.  The ability to see where you are on the map (which is available to followers/priests at the sites) might also be useful to everyone, especially new players.

[Madnath 3,113]

3 hours ago, Tor said:

idk what was that panic on how much vyn is too OP and how that contributed to the waste of time live release and the meh and blah feeling of the moment.

 

I'd say the panic was justified as we had no real idea what "significant" meant and there was a chance of affinities too. The presentation made it sound a hell of a lot stronger than what we got honestly. Though at the same time, it was also to draw comparison to how strong that site could be, compared to weaker sites like Fo.

 

1 hour ago, Muse said:

I got one seed, but I haven't looked into its uses, I hope it can be planted. 

 

Can't plant it I'm afraid, you feed it to a female horse iirc and it increases the chance of better trait offspring. Might be really good for high level AH accounts trying to get rare traits?

[Etherdrifter 2,517]

So, I spent over a week at a Fo site...

 

For me, it just felt like an interactable object on a tile that added a fog effect.

 

What I'd like to see is more to see - animals interacting with the site, better effects (I mean, even an ultra-dense fog isolating the area of effect); a particle effect for tiles in the area (to show it is sacred).

 

In terms of rewards - source salt and 2 source seeds, not too bad on the salt front (beats mining gains), but it wasn't too engaged.  Pray or exorcise are the only real options - might be nice to cast spells linked to the god on the site to generate special effects (e.g. a group of 6 fo priests casting wild growth on a Fo site spawning a treeguard that uses guard AI with the holy site as the guard tower that lasts 24 hours, awarding all linked priests a large channeling tick).

[nineol 111]

I've spent a lot of time at multiple holy sites over the past month and will post my observations/thoughts on each one that I've spent time at along with some very quickly constructed suggestions.  I was especially interested in the new conditioned animals (specifically cows) so I also will include those that I observed spawning at each site.  I am very disappointed that it appears cows (and bulls, hens/roosters, pigs and crabs) seem to be omitted from the list of mobs that can spawn.  

*Mob spawn observations were done with a character online 24x7 on the center of the holy site with a WA trigger set to 'has arrived' so there were mobs that spawned outside of that range.  Regular Reveal Creatures casts were made to attempt to identify any additional mob spawns that were outside of event range.

I'll keep each site type in spoilers to avoid a wall of text.

Magranon - Glowing Fissure (nearly 10 days spent at/observing 24x7)
 

Spoiler

Pulse - Random fragments, mostly cooking utensils/lamps/lanterns with a couple of masonry (marble tables (120+ frags?!)/gravestones) which was pretty underwhelming.  Re-lights furnaces in the holy site area which is cool.  Not wasted at all on AFK players.

Special - Gems/chance at bone is decent enough at higher power but we have a ton of gems from tmaps already.

Activity - 0-2 other players at the site at any given time.  Typically completely AFK. (Usually the other player(s) that were here were after conditioned mobs)

Spawns observed - Sheep, Rams, Gorillas

Site-specific suggestions - Eliminate 'junk' fragments (ores/lumps) and add in MM/Empyrean at a low chance if they are not already available.  

Vynora - Wellspring of Knowledge (6 days spent at/observing 24x7)
 

Spoiler

Pulse - Extra SB is nice, not enough to relocate a forge/bins/etc. alone.  Not wasted at all on AFK players.

Special - Imping rarity bonus is useless to priests.  Timer isn't long enough to consider repeat trips without summon/recall/karma home.

Activity - 1-3 other players at the site at any given time.  Typically nearly completely AFK. (At least one player was here with me nearly the same amount of time looking for conditioned mobs)

Spawns observed - Seals, Octopii, Dolphins

Site-specific suggestions - Change Imbibe from +rare chance on improving to +affinity chance (same as RoS) so that priests can benefit.  SB from pulse is fine, any more would be too overpowered.

Fo - Wishing Tree (13.5 days spent at/observing 24x7)
 

Spoiler

Pulse - Additional trees/bushes harvestable nearby too random to be worth anything. Completely wasted on AFK players.

Special - Harvestables from tree seem too random, most players would have 100's/1000's of these in FSBs already at home aside from new ingredients, which don't seem to be powerful enough to incentivize the time investment.  

Activity - 0-2 other players at the site at any given time.  Typically semi-AFK.  (At least one player was here with me nearly the same amount of time looking for conditioned mobs)

Spawns observed - Unicorns, Deer, Wild Cats, Wild Boars, Hell Horses, Huge Spiders, Black Wolves, Brown Bears, Black Bears, Mountain Lions, Pheasants, Wraiths

Site-specific suggestions - I'm not sure what to suggest with this one other than toning down the hostile mob spawns and adding some previously unavailable mob types.  Players are already capable of making pizzas with 12+ hour affinities and even more with overpowered unfermented moonshine so the new ingredients aren't very useful.  Possibly an item similar to the Sampo source seed that lets players feed to an animal prior to breeding with a slightly increased chance to breed a rare trait?

Libila - Abyssal Circle (5 days spent at/observing 24x7)
 

Spoiler

Pulse - Rampage is super fun if you're planning on going for a hunt.  Completely wasted on AFK players.

Special - Soul Crystals seem to be possibly OP.  Big characteristic gains even at very high skill ([10:59:23] Body strength increased by 0.0002 to 98.3214 - This was from a 80-something ql hell scorp crystal) and not detrimental to non-libs as consuming only costs .1 faith and 5 alignment per which is easily recoverable.

Activity - 3-6 other players at the site at any given time.  Typically not AFK.  (Nobody hunting conditioned mobs that I'm aware of in my time there)

Spawns observed - Trolls, Scorpions, Hyenas, Goblins, Wraiths, Simulcrums, Hell Scorpii

Site-specific suggestions - The Circle is a pretty good site as it is.  As Madnath suggested, change the Infection wound backlash effect to something less 'certain deathy'.
 

Fo - Sampo (2 days spent at/observing 24x7 - ongoing)
 

Spoiler

Pulse - Someone dragged a hitching post and wagons/tents and shoved shearables/milkables on them so some people are interested however I feel it is underwhelming. Completely wasted on AFK players.

Special - Full refresh is okay, random affinity is next to useless unless you don't have any affinity food or love to spin the wheel to have the game tell you what to grind for the next 6 hours.  Best flavor text in the game, completely random food combinations. Keep this.  Fermented pork and hot beef with maple syrup.

Activity - 0-4 other players at the site at any given time.  Typically semi-AFK. (At least one player has been here with me nearly the same amount of time looking for conditioned mobs)

Spawns observed - Pheasants, Bison, Wild Cats, Unicorns, Wild Boars, Brown Bears, Large Rats, Tortoises, Donkeys
Spawns reported - Horses

Site-specific suggestions - This site should spawn creatures that align with the pulse effect - spawning all milkable mobs (sheep/cow/bison) makes so much sense.  This is in addition to the other mob types that are spawning here.  I'm not sure what to do with the random affinity as that seems practically useless.
 

At each site, except for the Libila Circle, there were as many or more players there for the chance at some new conditioned mobs than there were who were primarily concerned with the sites themselves.  As someone who was very excited for the new mob types, this makes me happy however the lack of availability of the mobs mentioned above personally tempers that enthusiasm for me.  I acknowledge that there is the possibility that nobody has seen and/or reported a champion pig yet (sorry@Aeris), but the more time goes on the less likely that seems.  I've also noticed that for the vast majority of the time, with the exception being people there imping for the +QL bonus, everybody is semi/completely AFK.  I'm not sure if the intent was to keep players actively engaged while at the site but as it stands now, most people just pop back now and then to pray/purify/special action and then disappear again for a half an hour.

Overall I think that Holy Sites are an interesting new feature, but I'm not sure how much use they will see once the novelty wears off without some changes that I am not smart enough to suggest.  As I mentioned in the Holy Cows suggestion thread that I made, it's clear that a lot of time and effort went into these so I would love to see them become better and a part of the game that players are excited about engaging with.  I do want to mention that I think that the changes to Power/Corruption worked very well.  The sites are not too difficult to maintain now with a few dedicated folks around.

Edited March 27, 2023 by nineol
a single period

[tomcatvmp 43]

I spent a week at the fo one on melody, for a fsb bin with a few rare food items and a little extra skill gain it was not worth the bother. few  boars spawned and that was about it.

[Madnath 3,113]

this is a certified lib holy site moment

[Rauros 232]

Definitely, after all the time the site were up, one thing shows perfectly: no-one bothers about the imping bonus, after all is not even that much of a desirable effect, since it reduces chance to make an item rare. I think that after all there is not much to do related to religion, the sites are about that so they should give more to do with that: as i already wrote elsewhere, some actions i'd like to see are sacrifices, spellcasting, more prayer effects for anyone, and more preaching effects, it's not good that there are few skills useful only for priests in the game, this is a chance to make them more worthy.

[Ehizellbob 885]

I literally have no desire to be there other than the animals and even then my interest is only in conditioned cows. The soul crystals and the rampage effect from the Lib site were fun, but not worth the trip and time spent waiting for them. I'd rather be doing what I already do, grinding in the comfort of my own deed or out hunting.

 

I've discussed this with friends, and I feel these things had so much potential, but would have been better off as a temporary craftable item that a player could create at their deed (requiring high skill/materials) to assist with already ongoing sermons within a small community of friends/allies. Some of them would certainly make a sweet decoration at the very least.