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Priest Abilities Contradicting Intent, Possible Changes? (Epic)

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To give a small history -- basically back to 2011 or so everyone had a Champion, and it was a caster alt, they were very easy to make, and everyone got like 90woa 90coc+ casts first try super easily with like 40 channeling. Then Rolf put in the "Religion Update" that added a ton of new spells for each God such as BotD, and Rite of Spring, etc. This also completely changed enchants so it was very difficult to get enchants.

Rolf announced that he wanted Priests to be offensive, that they were intended for PvP (of course this was all PvP back then, there was no Freedom so I understand a Freedom perspective to say, 'We use them as enchanters!') Overall though their enchanting power was diminished because they were designed to be more PvP-oriented, which is understandable but many PvP abilities and mechanics are disabled.

1) Certain priests can't lockpick. There's no PvE value to lockpicking, it's purely a PvP raiding tool, so why would it be disabled for the more "dedicated" PvPing priests? Wouldn't your God encourage you to lockpick into enemy areas?

2) Certain priests can't bash minedoors. Again there isn't a lot of PvE value to having a mine door, most are merely set down as protection for loot, or entry ways to deeds/boats. So why can't we bash them if they're enemy owned?

3) Certain priests can't do archery. Archery is 50% of PvP sometimes, and yet not all priests can do it, meaning that a non-priest is sometimes better than a priest -- which contradicts what Rolf designed. How are PvPing priests meant to do much without ability to even archer?

4) Priests (last I checked) can't even do some the missions for Epic despite them being the most dedicated followers. For instance, if Vynora has a mission to make obelisk -- a Vynora priest can't even attach bricks to it to complete it. (I discussed this with Rolf in IRC, but unsure if it was changed).

I am okay with restrictions of crafting and certain resource skills like mining/digging/woodcutting, but there's a lot of PvP-oriented skills that get disabled, but the overall designs of Priests (on PvP servers) were designed to be the fighters, yet it's contradicting to nerf their abilities to PvP. It would be nice to see some revision to make Priests the actual frontal fighters of groups.

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Can't agree more. I'm heavily training my freedom priest ( vynora ) to bring him to chaos, and I'm scared on the idea that all he can do is enchant my items and act as a Sonar. Penalizing or even better disabling certain crafting actions is logical since it would give a priest a do-it-all role in freedom. But lockpicking, bashing and archery limmitations are unnecessary.

Edited by Issle

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After some devolution, and years of people just working around the bad game design, instead of being given more choice, we are faced with giving the developer more money to create a convoluted sense of diversity. Nowadays, on PvE servers, people have crafting main accounts and priest alternate accounts. On PvP servers, it's getting to be just the opposite. People that play other games, or an outsider looking in, might be reluctant to try a game where you pay more money to be more restricted in your play. Of course you can always just do one or the other, but then one gets the sense of missing out on half the game. I understand the restrictions being placed on this type of account, I just can't seem to wrap my head around how restrictive it is in relation to how other games are run. I'm from the school where you ADD another layer to increase value instead of removing abilities to enhance something. I also understand that you lose some abilities as a priest to gain others and that being a priest isn't necessarily better than being a crafter. What I don't understand is why it takes a certain amount of time to become a priest if all I am doing is losing the ability to craft in exchange for the priesting abilities. Also, the only thing that makes you a better priest is how long you've been a priest, really takes away from how the rest of the game operates with it's time investment paradigm.

In all honesty, the whole system is really shoddy and only works for now because the community that plays this game is pretty good at finding ways to work around the crap design.

Edited by JackBurton

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WL priests, or even Mag priests specifically, not being able lockpick is rather silly. Even just being a follower, you get penalties for lockpicking. I've once lost 20 alignment in minutes getting punished for picking into enemy gates/houses (-0.25 faith and -5 alignment per punishment). God of war, wants you to bathe in the blood of your enemy and all that stuff, as long as you don't lockpick to get them?

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Priests should have a lot of the restrictions placed upon them removed and replaced with something else.

Perhaps instead of not being able to do the item, they have a (slightly) reduced aptitude for it and gain skill slower, or take a (very small) hit to the success chance.

This does not include lockpicking, archery, and bashing. Priests should be able to do this. If your god/goddess wants you to go to battle against your foes they shouldn't look down at you using a bow and arrow to kill enemies and go "Woah woah, wait now hold on, you can't use THAT what's wrong with you?? Put that away at once!"

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All priest should be able to do archery, and bash, however i believe only mag and lib should be able to lp

Take for example, a fight on jkh, 2 knarrs of blers, 1 knarr of us(jk), facing superior numbers, even with a cr nerf, we couldnt just engage in melee, so we have to start archering people to both slow down their boat and lower numbers

I was a fo priest at the time.

I sat there and was just like..."Anyone want shitty heals? eh?eh?"

Edited by Gone420
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right i agree on the archery and other pvp restrictions lifted. would also like to see something done where a priest can do something to get a ballanced bc and stamina gains, wich is basicly a painfull thing to level once preist.

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I think that in Rolf's quest to make priests balanced, he made them perfect alts and horrible mains.

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If your god/goddess wants you to go to battle against your foes they shouldn't look down at you using a bow and arrow to kill enemies and go "Woah woah, wait now hold on, you can't use THAT what's wrong with you?? Put that away at once!"

Defending yourself? Preposterous! :P

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right i agree on the archery and other pvp restrictions lifted. would also like to see something done where a priest can do something to get a ballanced bc and stamina gains, wich is basicly a painfull thing to level once preist.

This is according to Rolf (from what I recall) priesting and champing were meant to be end-game goals and mechanics, meant to be fighters who've already trained up and are permanently ready to dedicate themselves to PVP on behalf of their God. So I don't mind the stat gain issue, as I think that's something you should train up beforehand.

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Hi,

excuse plz if I'm writing here ignoring the "epic" tag, I don't play there. Feel free to hit "alt-F4" now.

But I think what I'd like to say would suit you too, maybe. Because it's not PvE only or PvP only - I see a misconception in the whole Religion system. This may be different on the different kinds of servers, but as the OP shows that there's problems on Epic, too. Add this thread, similar.

I see that the different gods was made with certain intentions. But after years, after quite some buffs, nerfs and changes it has become a mess. Priests are heavily nerfed, wherever. The perks they get often don't balance it. And some priests got this much perks on certain kinds of servers that any other seem quite useless. In PvE this is Vynora, with an innate license to coin Silver. The other gods are rare (Magranon) or to be ignored (Fo). No idea about PvP. Is there a similar imbalance?

Next point is the distribution of Gods to the Kingdoms. All WL have 3 gods to choose from, BL has Libila only. Why can't JK have Vyn, MR have Mag (or vice verse), HotS have Libila (all with similar, balanced attributes), and all could have Fo that really doesn't care about these kingdom hassles? After all he created it ... And he even loves Libila, even if she in her disturbed mind will not recognize - but maybe even she might be able to learn one day?

Wouldn't it be much more easy to balance the religions this way? 3 that would match each other (1 for every faction), and a forth available for all?

With 3 factions each one could have one of Smithing, Carpentry, and Masonry as an exclusion from the else useful crafting restriction. Fo could get "packing" and pottery instead.

Additionally coal-making for Vyn (paving? not really ...), woodcutting to Mag, alchemy to Fo and archery to Libila? For sure regarding archery, in exchange another cheap, long range, low dam aggressive spell to the others, too - but much weaker then a good archer would do.

Going further, each Gods priest should have:

  • 1 weapon/ gear enchantment spell, and maybe a 2nd, stronger, that requires linking. Subject to damage. (Nimble, FB, LT and AosP etc.)
  • 1 gear/ weapon enchantment spell. Maybe a 2nd, stronger, linked, too. (CoC, WoA etc.) Modification to gear values here.
  • 1 long range low dam attack spell (besides Libila, there'd be Archery)
  • 1 direct damage spell
  • 1 area of effect spell, damaging/ hindering
  • 1 equivalent to "cure light"
  • 1 "taming" spell (with equal requirements/ strength/ duration).
  • 1 demise and 1 anti-demise spell
  • And a multi-link ceremony that yields equal benefits to all followers on the server - so "Rite of ..." for SB, for all.
  • And last but not least, a few similar rewarding skilling spells following the increase in channeling. These might give tiny boni (like "opulence"), but should need low favor, and should available to all, in different tiers.

The other spells would be suitable to the God's intentions, so Strongwall/Mag, Genesis/Fo, Reveal .../Vyn etc.

Don't you think that this messed up system would urgently need an overhaul?

Have fun anyways, and thx for reading!

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- 1 for enabling lockpicking and archery. Why would you use anything else than a priest to PvP then?

This would just favor the veteran players even more and make it even harder for newcomers to compete.

The balance seems pretty ok as it is if you take both PvE and PvP into account in terms of spells, it all depends what you want to do with your priest. Vyn is PvE mostly yes, but the enchants are needed in PvP. Mag is mostly favored for PvP but Fo is not bad either (no animal aggr + thornshell (weightless armor)).

What I don't like about priests though is that you can't become a good one if you priest up from start, you first have to grind for a year or two as an ordinary char to get body stats and then priest up and loose all your crafting abilities. Sure some crazy ppl like it but I bet the majority doesn't even consider it.

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- 1 for enabling lockpicking and archery. Why would you use anything else than a priest to PvP then?

What I don't like about priests though is that you can't become a good one if you priest up from start, you first have to grind for a year or two as an ordinary char to get body stats and then priest up and loose all your crafting abilities. Sure some crazy ppl like it but I bet the majority doesn't even consider it.

Have you read above? that is kinda the point, a good fighter becomes priest, then champion and as a fighter you get those body stats rather quickly, even while being a priest.

In that context I like Xandras idea pretty well, needs work in the details, but the general idea sound almost perfect. One could for example have the 3 factional gods as more of a battlepriests, while Fo is a startup priest and healer.

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Have you read above? that is kinda the point, a good fighter becomes priest, then champion and as a fighter you get those body stats rather quickly, even while being a priest.

In that context I like Xandras idea pretty well, needs work in the details, but the general idea sound almost perfect. One could for example have the 3 factional gods as more of a battlepriests, while Fo is a startup priest and healer.

Yes, I read it and didn't like it much.

Xandra's Ideas are better, much more balanced than just opening up everything to all priests.

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All priest should be able to do archery, and bash, however i believe only mag and lib should be able to lp

Take for example, a fight on jkh, 2 knarrs of blers, 1 knarr of us(jk), facing superior numbers, even with a cr nerf, we couldnt just engage in melee, so we have to start archering people to both slow down their boat and lower numbers

I was a fo priest at the time.

I sat there and was just like..."Anyone want shitty heals? eh?eh?"

This really made me chuckle

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So.. take away all priest penalties, everyone will be a priest? :s This would be buffing priests so that every PvP char out there is a priest.. like if there wasnt enough already

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You guys realize they still wouldn't be able to craft at all? I'm saying allow like 3 skills of nearly a hundred that are still locked. You're exagerrating heavily.

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