Proposal: Altars stay relevant

[kenmtraveller]

Right now, once I've chosen a deity altars don't have much impact on my game -- unless I want to change dieties, or brand a kiku weapon, and maybe 1 or 2 other edge cases I'm unaware of.

I think it would be cool if we found some other uses for altars. Maybe some diety powers work better when standing on an altar. Maybe more altars generate effects in their radius. Maybe 'enemy' altars of opposed gods summon creatures to fight you, much as statues currently do. Maybe Altars work as portals to pocket shrines populated by servants of the the diety.

I'm sorry I don't have a defined, concrete list of proposals at the moment. I wonder if this idea has been discussed before and shot down? Right now it just seems wrong that when I'm a Trog worshipper and find an altar of Nemelex, I just ignore it.

Ken

[BlackSheep]

There's talk about adding altar corruption as a Lugonu feature, but we're trending away from forcing players to do things at specific altar sites. (You used to sacrifice some things on altars, now you just offer them up wherever.)

[Galefury]

Things we want to avoid:
Players luring monsters to altars for tactical benefits
Players having to run across the dungeon for no reason many times per game

One thing that might happen at some point is Lucy worshipers (and only those) being able to destroy altars of other gods.

[evilmike]

Altars used to be "more relevant" several versions ago, with regard to sacrifices. Overall, altar-based gameplay was never good, so it's been reduced over time. Now, the only uses are really for conversion and for permanent gifts. Arguably, we don't even need the latter, vehumet already gives us a model for receiving "final gifts" via the ability menu. Zin has worked this way for a very long time too.

Past the early-dungeon (where you find most altars), they still have a use in vaults. They can be thought of as a sort of "dungeon furniture", not really useful by themselves, but good for thematic purposes. There are a lot of god-themed vaults in the game, generally centred around an altar with tough enemies associated with that god. There's nothing wrong with having more of this kind of stuff.

Note that altar portal vaults were briefly tried once. They weren't really necessary and got merged into the main dungeon, as regular vaults.

As for other effects you've mentioned, it's unlikely they will ever happen.

[KennySheep]

Things we want to avoid:
Players luring monsters to altars for tactical benefits
Players having to run across the dungeon for no reason many times per game

One thing that might happen at some point is Lucy worshipers (and only those) being able to destroy altars of other gods.

Why only Lucy? It would make sense flavor-wise for the evil gods to want to destroy the good god's altars, and vice versa.

[Kate]

The regular pantheon of gods all tolerate each other, hence all of their altars being together in the same temple and so on. Lugonu has been banished and is the only one who actively hates all the other gods and really wants to mess with the status quo. (dpeg can give a much more detailed/flavourful explanation I'm sure but that's the gist of it).

[dpeg]

The regular pantheon of gods all tolerate each other, hence all of their altars being together in the same temple and so on. Lugonu has been banished and is the only one who actively hates all the other gods and really wants to mess with the status quo. (dpeg can give a much more detailed/flavourful explanation I'm sure but that's the gist of it).

dpeg can ... and cannot resist doing so

The replies in this thread are spot on. Nethack-style altar sacrifices are not fun (you can easily witness this in Nethack itself -- the method is called "altar camping"). Tactical effects of altars like certain players/monsters incurring boosts or penalties at the altar or it's neighbourhood will lead to bad gameplay: think of teleportation trap luring, only in worse. Perhaps something in this direction could be done, but it'd need proper thought and would probably have to be quite subtle.
Using altars for divine purpose exists in Crawl, and it has a very restricted application: one-off abilities. I think this is actually okay: it will occur so rarely that it is not tedious, and there is a slight gameplay tangent (you cannot do this anytime, although this does not matter too much with the current one-off powers).

Now on to Lugonu: Marvin already said that there is a kind of mutual agreement among the temple gods which seems to bridge even antagonistic gods like Trog and Sif Muna (refer to your favourite polytheistic religion to probably find something similar). However, [as I see it] Lugonu is something like the fallen god -- presumably banished to the Abyss by the other gods after an attempt to usurp the pantheon. This is why Lugonu followers are supposed to spread out (from the Abyss) and sow corruption. It would be extremely flavourful if part of Lugonu's piety came from desecrating (i.e. destroying) other gods' altars. The only thing holding us back at this is the current wrath mechanic: obviously, no god will like having the places of worship being demolished, and such an action will incur wrath. However, that wrath should build up slowly. This concept is not just for theme, it is also about gameplay: a future Lugonu worshiper would have to think about which altars to desecrate; in other words, altars would be a (finite) resource.

[KennySheep]

So does Jiyva have an equally terrible relationship with the temple gods, or did he just never have enough worshipers for anyone to bother building him a temple altar? I'm sort of curious now.

[rebthor]

Let's have a portable altar that you have to set up every time you want to make a sacrifice. It's OK if this is only for Nem.

[khalil]

#KennySheep
I always presumed Jyvia altars are so rare because making altars requires hands, a trait her worshipers generally lack.

[xzanthius]

Jyvia's Altar builders tended to eat the other worker's tools.

[mumra]

Let's have a portable altar that you have to set up every time you want to make a sacrifice. It's OK if this is only for Nem.

There's already a portable Beogh altar, it just has to be set up by an orc priest...

[dpeg]

There is no official backstory: the game intentionally leaves certain pages blank, and everyone can find some way how to fill them. I think it's good to have some background in mind when devising these things, though, just to be sure there is at least one decently coherent backstory.

Anyway, the way I see it, Jiyva is a marginalised god -- the other gods would mock Jiyva (as the slime god is certainly the odd one out), but no measures are needed. Beogh may have to be taken more serious, but with the extremely narrow focus on worshipers, the orc is certainly not a threat either. Lugonu was (in my vision) a member of the pantheon, and amassed power to establish a rule -- this is something completely different.

Regarding portable altars: back in the day (before the DCSS Nemelex overhaul which introduces the deck tiers and god abilities), players would carry an actual portable altar (an item in the inventory) and use it to sacrifice items. The flavour is excellent, but the interface was extremely cumbersome: you would press dxpy, (drop command, altar item slot, pray command, confirmation, pick up command) -- thousands of times. I was sad when we removed portable altars, but the interface clearly beat the theme at this point.

[njvack]

@dpeg: What's Ash's back story? I'd thought Ash was shacked by the other gods for some reason but they seem to be cool now...?

[nicolae]

@dpeg: What's Ash's back story? I'd thought Ash was shacked by the other gods for some reason but they seem to be cool now...?

IIRC Ashenzari was like "I want to be able to see and know everything, but how...?" and then "I'll nail myself to the sky!"

[Bim]

I've always thought a one off temporary boost from altars (as in, after you use it the altar crumbles away) would make them a more interesting sight to see further down the dungeon. This could be themed, but ultimately nothing too big (an example would be temporarily gaining a random resistance or two) and it would be further tempered by the infrequency of seeing your own gods altar. It would also make altar vaults a lot more interesting in my opinion.

[BlackSheep]

I've always thought a one off temporary boost from altars (as in, after you use it the altar crumbles away) would make them a more interesting sight to see further down the dungeon. This could be themed, but ultimately nothing too big (an example would be temporarily gaining a random resistance or two) and it would be further tempered by the infrequency of seeing your own gods altar. It would also make altar vaults a lot more interesting in my opinion.

This sparked an idea that's sort of the reverse, but not really. I think it would be neat to find a fallen/desecrated altar and get a boon for restoring it. (Most likely by clearing out a vault.)

[Bim]

I've always thought a one off temporary boost from altars (as in, after you use it the altar crumbles away) would make them a more interesting sight to see further down the dungeon. This could be themed, but ultimately nothing too big (an example would be temporarily gaining a random resistance or two) and it would be further tempered by the infrequency of seeing your own gods altar. It would also make altar vaults a lot more interesting in my opinion.

This sparked an idea that's sort of the reverse, but not really. I think it would be neat to find a fallen/desecrated altar and get a boon for restoring it. (Most likely by clearing out a vault.)

I prefer your idea, it makes a lot more sense and adds some more 'active flavour' which I'm always keen on - I suppose there might be room for both ways as well (as in, you might find 'already restored' altars that can just be used, whilst others you might have to restore).

[roctavian]

+1 to the idea of temporary localized bonuses -- if they went away after a certain number of turns / when you go off level, most of the scummability goes away.

I think the difficult thing would be thinking up bonuses that are both interesting and relevant enough to justify being in the game, though.

[Bim]

I like the idea of keeping them floor relevant, although it'd be a bit useless if you found them right at the end/after you'd done a lot of clearing so possibly just turn based would be better. I think aligning the bonuses to their respective gods would be good, with a pool of random bonuses that could also be picked from). Below I've listed a few that I think wouldn't be too overpowered, but wouldn't be redundant.

Ideas for temp. bonuses:
-resistances, a random mix of 4 pluses I feel would be good.
-flat bonus to weapon skills (would be good for warrior gods)
-stat bonus (very simple, but nice)
-increased hp (could just borrow the berserk mechanic, this might be good for Ely)
-slow a few random monsters in radius (maybe too strong...guess who for)
-increased armour/ev (again, simple but nice)
-a random charm, maybe excluding some of the powerful ones.
-minus one on all spell costs (unsure about this, but as it's only temporary it might be ok)
-turns you into a walking apple.

I think it's important not to have bonuses that are already achievable by a lot of items (clarity, see invisible etc), as by the time players reach secondary altars (and have chosen a god) they'll probably have a lot of the stuff like that they need.

[dpeg]

@dpeg: What's Ash's back story? I'd thought Ash was shacked by the other gods for some reason but they seem to be cool now...?

I wasn't really involved with Ashenzari's backstory. When we made this god, my main concern was to introduce (and then keep) the use of cursed equipment -- I always felt that the corresponding mini-game (when/if to use curse foo scrolls; on what; when to uncurse; when/if to pray over remove curse scrolls) would lead to strategic and relevant but not overly pressing choices, which was supposed to fit with the god. (It was agreed from the start that Ashenzari would play "lightly", i.e. no sacrifices, and no active powers to be spammed). So I threw my weight behind that and then someone (perhaps Brendan, but I don't really know for sure) came up with the story.

The bit about "nailed to the sky" was always perfectly fine with me -- great power comes at great costs, after all It never occurred to me that the other gods would have nailed poor Ash to the sky -- I always envisioned something else, for example Ash making a deal with Time herself and the loss of movement being part of the trade.

[XuaXua]

Both Beogh and Jiyva are not in the temple as they prefer to be where their worshippers congregate.

[XuaXua]

What is odd to me is that certain gods are left off the o list.