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What role would you like religions to play?
Asgerr
Member
I do believe there may have been threads on this topic before, but I can't remember when, thus let's rehash it.
As usual here are some questions that may spark conversation:
- Do religions give specific skills/buffs to their devouts? If so how to avoid a meta of X class needs Y religion
- Religion specific quests? Only withing Religious nodes?
- Can there be taxes/limitations one node imposes on a specific religion? This could create situations where people may stage some sort of conflict to have their religion represented or untaxed etc (think the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes irl)
- Crusades? Deus Vult and pump in the Sabaton/Powerwolf music! But how would they function?
- Merely cosmetic with a few story quests that don't progress the world story necessarily?
Discuss
As usual here are some questions that may spark conversation:
- Do religions give specific skills/buffs to their devouts? If so how to avoid a meta of X class needs Y religion
- Religion specific quests? Only withing Religious nodes?
- Can there be taxes/limitations one node imposes on a specific religion? This could create situations where people may stage some sort of conflict to have their religion represented or untaxed etc (think the Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes irl)
- Crusades? Deus Vult and pump in the Sabaton/Powerwolf music! But how would they function?
- Merely cosmetic with a few story quests that don't progress the world story necessarily?
Discuss
1
Comments
Part of the design sounds like they want to have the religious choices create more soft friction to cause player generating conflict. If they do any crusades I would expect it to be more religious conflict between nodes with goals of taking religious relics or locations.
I am intrigued to see how far they go with 6 different religious quest story lines of any depth. I fear that we will see some good, especially if they can tie the quests into both religious tenants and foundational lore of the setting. And some truely half assed, like worship of the love god giving a quest like Final Fantasy X2's pairing up the monkeys. If they can make decent belief structures then quests that challenge and reinforce the belief I will be happy.
As for taxing some religion, I do believe they plan that the mayor of a religious node can raise one over the others but actively punishing them mechanically seems unnecessary.
There will be questlines. There will be certain actions that players are capable of taking to perhaps pursue the darker side of this metaverse so to speak.
Sometimes games in the past have tried to shy away from heavy emphasis on religion because of the parallels that can occur between what is in the real world and this fantasy realm. I don't really subscribe to that theory. I think that religion plays a very significant role in the story of what Ashes of Creation is about and it is very much this almost monolithic idea of good vs. evil; so that is really at the crux of what the overarching narrative will be in the game; and I'm not trying to pigeonhole players into "everyone has to be good", like I said earlier there will be opportunities for players to deviate from that, should they so choose to roleplay in that regard.
As a player advances their rank within their chosen religion they will gain access to the following benefits.
Strong religions provide unique augments that can be applied to a player's primary skills.
There are player progression paths within a religion.
Definitely Tank.
If I understand what you mean, you would like some sort of Miracles or Divine Interventions to occur if enough "religious power" is accrued by one or both of the sides fighting?
That could be very cool!
Perhaps if someone can become some sort of Pope-like figure, he could bestow a title on some "Crusaders". This could grant them some specific buffs or weapons. However their number should have to be limited, and they would need to pick the best fighters wisely.
That is skelepope to you all
Religion should be there to create new quest lines, unique lore, distinguishable characters, and interesting perks that do not break the games balance or force us into a specific religion because of certain buffs.
That will be hard as the gods are a real thing in ashes
The gods have already displayed they will take action during important issues throughout the world, so this should be reflected in our characters but not purely linked to Religious nodes. As clerics seem to not be purely those who worship gods, we are left open to anyone being able to become "devout followers".
What I am trying to say here is that a player who is religious should be able to do questlines, increase their "faith" with the selected god, and be able to use that devoted time as an actual resource for powerful game-play altering bonuses.
For example, if 8 summoners get together and are all of the same religion with at least one being of a high faith, perhaps instead of a generic siege golem they summon a divine avatar of their diety with unique skills and animations?
Sure that's on the massive scale, so lets tone it down and see what a lower level of faith gets you. Cosmetics for spells, mounts, pets, armor, etc. Access to quests or "shortcuts" within the world that others cannot get to safely or easily. There is a ton that could be done on this front alone. How much will be done? That remains to be seen, as I am fully aware such a system would be a great undertaking. However I feel it to be a good addition if possible.
I now want to see a pope and his priest summon "angels" in sieges and they are a war target to kill or defend
What would be the high fantasy equivalent of the freaking Sisters of Battle dropping churches from low orbit as deployment pods in 40k?
We could also get bards singing holy hymns that would buff everyone, but would buff devouts of that religion even further.
Well the Ancients used asteroids as drop pods
Must be present (living) to win
This could be a thing! Imagine an augment for a dps/tank class that has some give take.... something like [hard hitting ability with a 10 second CD] now does 40% less damage but generates a holy aura around the caster reducing damage taken by 30% for 12 seconds.
Combine this with some tanking gear and some other defensive augments and you start to get some cool role-change gameplay.
In might be too good for a religious augment though (the risk here is similar to making race abilities too strong... the more powerful they are the higher the risk that players feel they have to pick the power over the lore to be competitive)...
I worded this wrong. I love that the gods will be a real thing in AoC. What I dislike is the cliché story having the main bad guy in the bad guy religion and all the followers are bad guys that do bad things. These bad things are beyond what a sane person would do because they follow this faith blindly without any common sense. Holy religion is there to purge the wicked who don't follow! Evil religion is there to taint the land! Etc.
To me, these are lazy story arcs that is usually wasted on an entire expansion and we all know they don't win because the good guys kick their ass in cliché fashion. My hope is that the story of AoC will be unique or at the very least interesting. All gods being at war would be awesome. The main villain not being a part of a religion would also be a cool twist (considering the nodes will be random....why not keep religion gods constantly struggling for power to match that of the community).
takes notes vigorously
Must warn the pope.
Well I don't think these followers are doing it against their will... I am pretty sure they will be written as people that were disenfranchised from normal society or power hungry overlord wanna-bes. The whole idea behind corruption is that its extremely powerful, but at a cost. People that interact with it, willingly or not, basically turn evil. And with the gods telling us how dangerous such a thing is, I doubt people would be ignorant to it's corruptive qualities and most would attempt to steer clear of it. Meaning most "cultists" would have chosen to trek down this path.
Is that lazy? Maybe? Maybe not. I don't think it's original by any means, but it fits well the lore. Naturally they have not shown us all of the deets so we cannot know exactly how lazy/original the story will be, so lets wait and see.
I think, actually, Ashes has already hinted at a conflict that is a bit too binary...but, it's hard to break out of the Christian roots of America and think in concepts of a true pantheon.
Conflicts shouldn't just be about good v evil.
Even among the The Seven, we should be seeing conflict and wars erupt as different religions strive to establish as many shrines and temples as they can.
The followers of Resna should be knocking down shrines of Norlan and replacing them Resna shrines - not because Norlan is Evil, but because the world is better when Resna has the greatest influence.
With regard to religious followers - of course all the followers of a god are going to support the god. And they will believe anything the god directs them to do is good. No one in an MMORPG has the moral high ground. Characters slaughter anything in sight for their own gain. It's not really Good v Evil, it's just faction v faction.
At least in Divine nodes this should be more of a fight as the mayor might remove and change temples.