Shrine: Ideas for the change

[alexei]

When other discussion about waxing and waning power, i remember about shrine. I think no discussion about this yet.

Shrine. Mastery shrine, oh I love it. Making my skill several level stronger make the them really power. That's mean I can kick the monster up into the sky! Experience shrine, oh extra xp. Better scram to kill those creature fast. I'll pick the loots later.

Yep. So how shrine doing in GD? I think it is quite sensible to change this into new, appearance.

I thought about anomalies. Since Cairn have become a warped world be of the two un-otherworldly creature killing each other with their superpower, that war could introduce to new phenomenon called anomalies. I couldn't really explain about it but anyone who ever played STALKER might understand this.

Well, other than that, any idea guys? Or it should just stick to shrine?

[eisprinzessin]

I like the healing and regeneration shrines (nerf potions please). The frost shrines are good, too. I tend to avoid experience shrines. The other ones are fun, but nothing more ... or nothing less ;)

Regarding the name - how about "warp hole" :rolleyes:? Little spots with some special power. Maybe you can hide them a little bit ... would explain, why monsters don't use them.

[yerkyerk]

I never really got the use of health shrines.. the chance to actually need a instahealth boost when near such a shrine is extremely low. In all other cases you can just use potions.

Anyway, I don't care much about their appearance. Anomalies sound interesting. But shrines, stones, menhirs, whatever...

What could be interesting;
A -100%recharge and -100%energy shrine. Allow players to spam their most powerful spells full-out for a short while.

Transformation shrine - just for the sheer awesomeness of transformation.

[4987354987]

A -100%recharge and -100%energy shrine. Allow players to spam their most powerful spells full-out for a short while.


yuhuhuuu get fast boots and go meteor that boss in 5 seconds:rolleyes:

[alexei]

Shrine could also give out negative effect. Normally, if it just shrine it would make sense to give out positive boost to stat or skill, but with other kind like anomalies, player wouldn't know what kind of effect for such phenomenon. This goes along with shrine name which shouldn't convey the obvious name like 'Mastery Shrine'. Better to use name like Shrine of Greed or something like that. For anomalies, maybe something like 'Vortex anomalies' or 'Hollow anomalies'.

Those who ever played Diablo 1 should able to remember. They have a bunch of negative shrine like Mundane shrine and Creepy shrine. Give out negetive effect like lower weapon durability.

But I think in TQ there are not many shrine. And also not many effect to. Only give effect to mastery, skill, stat, give elemental damage or something along that.

Maybe shrine can be made to drop magical item, shrine to drop rare crafting ingredient or lower resistant or making random normal monster to become hero monster.

[Rhis]

Negative shrines! I love it. Thanks for reminding me of those.

[alexei]

Wow! Yay to negative shrine!

And with un-obvious name for shrine could add suspense when player decide to activate it or not.

"Wow a new shrine! Should I touch it? Shouldn't I? Maybe I shouldn't. But maybe I could get this uber item? wow what should I do? Touch it?"

exaggerate it a bit

[yerkyerk]

Random shrines, that are usually positive, sometimes negative and sometimes spawn ridiculously overpowered bosses :D

[jiaco]

You could make a shrine that is just a big magnet, get too close you loose all your metal gear.

I guess that would be negative for most classes.

Actually, it would be most interesting if the shrines were in the main proxy that spawns monsters and accessories. That way in a mob battle, if chance provided you with a health shrine, it would at least be in a good spot to be used. Another twist would be unmarked shrines that you could only figure out their function upon use.

[Confuted]

another possible shrine would be...un-creatively called a Portal Shrine. Unlike town portals, Portal Shrines could teleport you and/or your party into another dimension or location and that new location would act like a sidequest or just some random dungeon. You could related it to the D2 portal to Tristram except that you won't actually know where you're being portal-ed to.

[Z3us]

Shrine could also give out negative effect. Normally, if it just shrine it would make sense to give out positive boost to stat or skill, but with other kind like anomalies, player would know what kind of effect for such phenomenon. This goes along with shrine name which shouldn't convey the obvious name like 'Mastery Shrine'. Better to use name like Shrine of Greed or something like that. For anomalies, maybe something like 'Vortex anomalies' or 'Hollow anomalies'.

Those who ever played Diablo 1 should able to remember. They have a bunch of negative shrine like Mundane shrine and Creepy shrine. Give out negetive effect like lower weapon durability.

But I think in TQ there are not many shrine. And also not many effect to. Only give effect to mastery, skill, stat, give elemental damage or something along that.

Maybe shrine can be made to drop magical item, shrine to drop rare crafting ingredient or lower resistant or making random normal monster to become hero monster.

Negative shrines would suck, players would just wait a painstaking 30 seconds in cover (or how long it takes for the effect to wear off).
Now wheres the fun in that? :rolleyes:

[andreyy]

Negative shrines spawning some nasty creatures would be fun. You're hoping for a heal or some buff and then... BAM! Four Deathclaws tear you into pieces!

... I guess I'm playing too much Fallout 3 Oo

[Malpheas]

This could also be a mechanic for entrance to a secret or challenge level. Provided you had some sort of key in your inventory. I think there was some thread made about this on the TQ board.

[Kluga]

This could also be a mechanic for entrance to a secret or challenge level. Provided you had some sort of key in your inventory.

Torchlight did something like this with their phase portals, although there was no key needed. I quite enjoyed that mechanic it was a lot of fun. Kind of like a mini side quest which broke up the main quest a little.

[ZZSmufa]

You could make a shrine that is just a big magnet, get too close you loose all your metal gear.

METAL GEAR?!

Yeah, sorry, too much Metal Gear Solid... I think that for the negative shrines to have any actual gameplay impact, you'd have to have randomly named shrines. Otherwise no one would activate the negative ones after the first time.

[Vorkronor]

I thought about anomalies.

Stalker! Yes, that brings some memories. But unfortunately it's gameplay mechanics is quite the opposite of ARPGs ... :cry:

I'm 100% behind anomalies being the shrines. Plus it could make some areas much more fun if you add in Stalker-like anomalies. Not sure the usualy clickfest-oriented ARPG folks would think the same :D

But utilizing these anomalies in normal gameplay would me much more interesting. You could, for example lure monsters in them or use them for your own good (think 'rocket' jumping, projectile teleportation, spell channeling).

[alexei]

Something cross my mind..but I'm not sure. I think it's about shrine having mixed positive and negative effects. Any ideas how it could be useful?

[Panthro]

Something cross my mind..but I'm not sure. I think it's about shrine having mixed positive and negative effects. Any ideas how it could be useful?

Well, you could have a shrine that gives you a big boost to health regen but removes all your mana.

Also, you could have defence boosts and attacks nerfed (good for mages).

Or perhaps massive enemy spawns but increased gold drops.

[alexei]

Hmm..not sure but maybe 'lower x resistance and spawn a group to monster with x damage attack'.

[Roros]

I'd really love it if in coop games you'd have a second version of shrines that affected all those in range - in addition to regular ones that only affect the person who uses them.

I still think single-target ones has their place in coop as it feels more rewarding to agree that the rogue gets the damage buff than simply everyone getting it. Maybe that's just me though.

[Scryer]

I would prefer power-up orbs that drop individually per player and apply separately.

Then you wouldn't have to sit around and bicker about who got what power-up or sit around and discuss who gets what. It's a fast paced game, we don't need stuff like this slowing us down.

Shrines could still be used to open portals, or spawn unique enemies.

[Roros]

When me and my friends play these games, it's usually a given who gets what and 90% of the time it's not even debated. If everyone runs past and nobody grabs it it's either whoever takes it first or a quick "gogo kit". I could see how it might be annoying for playing with strangers though.

[Malpheas]

Diablo 1 had the best shrines ever.

I'm also here to plug the usefulness of a CRAFTING SHRINE!

For 30 - 60 seconds, you get increased success on crafting (if that's part of the mechanic in the game), or you get increased crafting materials drops when you kill something or whatnot.

Also make it so you get ZERO experience when under the influence of shrines (I don't really care what type). Divine gifts come with a price. This leads me to the want the experience shrines gone.

And also, I don't like healing shrines. They're not as useful as they seem.

Cheers,

Malph

[alexei]

I don't think it is useful to have success rate for crafting. It's make sense where there is leveling involve but here it is rather useless and could be annoyance.

Diablo 1 had the best shrines ever

Couldn't agree more. D2 shrine quite useless with the poison, lightning, fire shrine and many other. And the naming convention is not great either. Less obvious naming convention in Diablo 1 is great. Without guide, you wouldn't know what you're getting. Lower durability?

[Malpheas]

Oh, I don't know how shrines that affect crafting would work (as it would only be theory at this point), but that being said - they could take any form. I'm just here to plug the crafting aspect of the game, as I always do.

I've been spoiled by Median XL, Star Ocean, Legend of Mana, Vagrant Hearts, Eastern Sun (less well known D2LOD Mod with crafting HOLY CRAP in it) and games where crafting is decent. I've got a little bit of preset expectation of how viable I want crafting to be in GD.

Cheers,

Malph

[Yggdrasil]

Some ideas for the shrines :

- summon unique monster
- summon pet or ally who will fight by your side until his death
- give magic/rare item, craft ingredient or recipe
- open a portal to a secret zone (like Torchlight)
- give visually enhanced buffs : frost or fire shield, chain lightning with each attack, poison cloud...
- sometimes give funny debuff : left/right up/down directions are inverted, your toon is 50% smaller and weaker (or monsters become 50% bigger and stronger, like the colossus skill)
...

[Malpheas]

Edited - AN EXCELLENT for the shrines :

- give magic/rare item, craft ingredient or recipe...

Yeah, definitely, except these would be REALLY rare, and mostly for ingredients of crafting recipes.

[Renevent]

Some ideas for the shrines :

- summon unique monster
- summon pet or ally who will fight by your side until his death
- give magic/rare item, craft ingredient or recipe
- open a portal to a secret zone (like Torchlight)
- give visually enhanced buffs : frost or fire shield, chain lightning with each attack, poison cloud...
- sometimes give funny debuff : left/right up/down directions are inverted, your toon is 50% smaller and weaker (or monsters become 50% bigger and stronger, like the colossus skill)
...

Great suggestions, especially the bolded ones. I was going to post about how D2 there were monster shrines, and when you clicked on them text would read "a great evil approaches" (or something like that) and you get to fight a pretty hard special monster.

Regarding "summon pet/ally" that actually works very well. I've been playing Din's Curse and one of the shrines in the game does just that. It's pretty cool to, as sometime you will just get a regular monster, while other times you can even get named monsters that are pretty powerful.

[SoulSeekkor]

Good ideas as well! :) I especially like the bolded items too.

Soul

[Yggdrasil]

Thanx.

Summoning an spectral ally wolf with a shrine in a haunted forest, or a servant succubus in a zone of hell would be cool !

The greatest aspect of the shrines in Diablo 1 was the surprise. You never knew what you get. I always had a little heartbeat when touching a shrine.

A thousand apologies for my terrible English. :)

[PureKnickers]

Gotta put my vote in on random positive or negative shrines!
Shrine of Poison:
90% chance of adding poison damage to attack.
10% chance of releasing poisonous gas trap.

I like the idea of health shrines, but as eisprinzessen mentioned, potions need to be nerfed or health shrine benefiets increased. Perhaps a long health regen boost in the region or just applied to the player would make it useful.

Finally, I prefer the idea that buffs are applied to anybody in the area rather than the individual. It just makes games with strangers that much smoother. An interesting twist on that could be that it also buffs monsters in the area >:] With the poisonous buff shrine above, everyone in the battle would suddenly be dealing poison damage or choking on gas.

[Fortuitous]

I'm not really a fan of shrines; I do not know whether the temporary buffs add a whole lot to the game play. In some cases it can be worthless to pick up an experience shrine only to realize there is no one around to kill.

Someone else made this suggestion and I like it quite a bit; why not have buffs last based on a per/hit basis as opposed to a time basis (ie consumables, like printer ink :D). Perhaps to counteract the hoarding of buffs for a boss you could have it so these buffs are only attainable by killing enemies (ie the orb idea that scryer mentions), or simply make buffs debuff themselves in a boss fight.