Followers

[Mysterious box]

So I've been thinking followers should get a refresh giving them more functionality like for example maybe making a spider follower wake up a nest in a non hostile way or allowing a pig or merm to hold a torch or bag to carry things at the cost of increased loyalty drain or something.

Basically I feel like it'd be a good idea to expand what followers can do so they can do more than just hound wave/single boss/resource gathering. But what do you guys think  are they ok as I'd or do followers need to be explored more?

[Owlrust]

I would love for spiders to do that tbh, but I feel like Webber is next in line for a rework anyways so that will be addressed soon. You do have Chester for carrying items, so I'm not sure having a temporary walking chest that drops your stuff on the ground when loyalty stops would be very helpful; and in Hamlet we have royal pig guards that carry torches at night, but when they fight an enemy with the torch it burns everything down except where in DST you don't have the advantage of a builder pig that fixes property damage if things get wrecked. 

If followers need to be reworked I would suggest making pigmen flee in terror only during night, not dusk as players usually only have followers long enough to do one big menial task instead of actually following them around unless you want to invest a lot of resources in keeping them happy. That's why I think one of Wurt's biggest advantages is the ability to befriend merms. Merms don't freak out and leave your service at any point, can be befriended very easily with seeds and kelp fronds (the latter of which you will be swimming in once you get your hands on bull stalks), can mine boulders, stay active at all times of the day, and their incredible health/speed is nothing to sneeze at either. 

[Squirrel12]

Critters are useless and I wish they would be made 'real' (as in, real mobs that can be hurt and that you have to actually look after and therefore you can actually form some sort of connection with them)

[Mysterious box]

I more so just meant for followers on the loyalty system chester isn't included in that and while merms don't panic I do feel in general followers should either offer abit or be able to take simple commands because a lot of times outside of resource gathering it's easier to trick them into fighting than actually paying them I feel like there should be more incentives to actually recruit followers rather than resource gathering.

A good idea of commands could be making them attack anything that gets too close with a 2x loyalty drain, or commanding a follower to not eat things off the ground with say a 3-5x loyalty drain those are just random ideas but feel like they'd be more interesting if you could spend loyalty on better functionality for all loyalty based followers with each having their own flavor to them.

Edit: abit off topic here but if I'm being honest spiders are one of my favorite mobs simply because they have so many different variations with different abilities to spice things up,

-you got cave spiders who hide in their shell

-Spitters who have a shooting attack

-warriors with their lunge attack

-shattered with their mass aoe attacks

Spiders are the most fleshed out followers combat wise even if they aren't super useful in combat if there's one thing webber needs it's the ability to relocate all types of dens without destroying them.