This will probably be edited more then once as I am a horrible writer. Despite this I will try my best to properly convey my ideas.
Limit how many religions you know and how many your clan can collectively know. (Configurable). Doing this will make what you pick actually matter. If you want to switch then you need to abandon your current faith. Could even make a quest out of it. (Again Configurable). Something Funcom does exceedingly well is give people options for private servers. Could also make it so the religion you pick affects how NPCs react to you. Rather then Stygians being passive to everyone they could be passive to worshipers of Set. Dafari to Yog, Nords to ymir and so on. This would open things up to have traders specific to each group.
Balance is important and some of these ideas would need thorough testing. Obtaining Zeal
*Set - Fine as is
*Yog - Fine as is
*Mitra - Change gain zeal from murdering people to âcleansingâ the undead. Hitting a vanquished skeleton or zombie with the Ankh gives lingering essence.
*Jabal - Get sacred blood from animals.
*Ymir - Change tool from a hatchet to a low grade pickaxe. Get ice shards from trees, stone, and other ores. (This idea expands on how it was when it was first added).
*Spider God - I honestly havenât used it so I donât know
*Derketo - Put a follower in alter and give them good foods like oysters and honeyed bread. Gain Zeal by letting them do what they do in the place they do it. (Would need it sperate from normal crafting times to preserve balance).
Mitra and Derketo in particular donât feel like they fit very well. Thus I have ideas.
*Mitra is the only God in the Exiled lands whoâs in-game lore doesnât match with itâs in-game mechanics. Murdering people to gain favorer goes against what he stands for as the god of Justice. Changing it to smiting the undead and cleansing people of corruption would make more sense and falls into the idea of the God being weaponized like Conan himself states. Could make Holy Water an item crafted in the Mitra alter. It would give a specter coating like effect to undead and maybe cleans temporary corruption from people. It could be a throwing orb or a weapon coating.
*Derketo⊠Iâm not a fan of her being the combination of two different Gods but I also know the Devs wonât ever change it. I donât think their being a lack of content with just the normal Derketo is true. And saying a more accurate Derketo being inappropriate for this game is just silly. Derketo gives the perfect opportunity to address the concerns of players who donât like the idea of forcing people into servitude. The Pleasure palace could be used as a way to convert NPCs using the carrot rather then the stick. Mechanically it would work just like a wheel of pain, you put people in with food, priestess makes it work faster, and they turn into thralls. However rather then their will being broken you are just showing them a good time, little light chit chat, bath with some scented candles, and they join you willingly. For balance I would say it only does 1 person at a time.
Speaking of a good time, Derketo could have an item made that messes with peoples sense. Rather then fighting people off they throw a gas orb that jacks up the gamma and makes you dizzy. (Something they would do for a good time). It would make it hard to fight and they could run away.
*Last but never least is Crom. For the above mentioned limit on religions to work Crom would either need to be recognized as not a religion or a none religion option would need to be added. If the former is applied then Crom could give people a free +1 to all attributes. Symbolizing that Crom has blessed you. It would be lost if you forsake him for another religion. It doesnât seem like much but I think Itâs actually a lot more then you would expect.
Again all of this would need balance testing and options would be Configurable.
Hopefully religion overhaul will be coming in one of the future ages. In the 2.6 dev stream, Den said that religion was originally intended to be a major factor in how you played the game and they really wanted to rework the religions.
You have a history/reputation of being rude and unhelpful. If youâre not going to give appropriate feedback then please remove yourself from my thread.
I dislike the current religion systems, and I use it as little as possible.
So maybe that disqualifies me from commenting in this thread.
But, I think the OP suggestions are better than what we have in game.
I particularly like the Pleasure Palace as a means of acquiring thralls.
Because I also dislike the bonk system.
there isnât a lack of information on Derketo, it simply hard to find because each region of the Conan world has different names for her. In Stygia she is known as Anuket, in Kush as Derketa, she is also referred to as Setâs â â â â â and The Sable Queen as well.
I had a similar thread called âReligion System Overhaulâ back in Junâ 21 with some similar ideas. I would link it just not sure how to do that on my xbox browser. But @Croms_Faithful might remember it.
True, but just as you said, Conan kinda explains this, and Iâve come to like the way gods work in the Exiled Lands.
Theyâre not the Hyborian gods. Thereâs little to suggest that the real gods meddled with the lives of mortals that much anyway. Rather, theyâre entities powered, or perhaps created, by the faith and zeal of the desperate people stuck in the Exiled Lands. And these people just label these entities with familiar names.
So the Exiled versions of Hyborian religions are mutations. Perversions of the actual religion, even. These things happen in isolated communities in the real world when written canon is lost and traditions get mixed, so itâs entirely reasonable that it could happen in a harsh, violent, Lord of the Flies kind of environment.
Iâm not saying I wouldnât welcome some updating to the grindy religion system, but I donât find the current depiction of the faiths as problematic as some people.
Greetings Anglinex. While I suspect you are correct regarding your writing and some of the means of collecting Manifestation of Zeal, I agree with you in the strongest possible terms that the games religion system could use a nice overhaul and some love. Although I feel it would be better that instead of limiting the number of religions we can aquire (something which Funcom previously said that they do not want to do), we can instead select one of our religions and assign it as our âprimaryâ faith, allowing us to upgrade it to a T4 shrine. And I was very heartened to hear this from Tephra:
Bravo to Den again on this one, he has such good vision and insight for game. And heâs a charismatic blighter too!
Agree! I have already provided a firm rationale for both of these two gods in your other thread, which I can add here also if you would like. But I would firmly agree that both Mitra and Cromâs roles in the game feel the most problematic. And while I am genuinely, and utterly sincerely not trying to be either derogatory or scathing toward poor Funcom, they both feel a bit inauthentic to me. Mitra worshippers should not be murdering people and offering their souls up to him for favor as a blood scarifice of sorts. And Crom should not be a no religion option which leaves his faithful without a means to complete the Journey Steps, destroy rival gods offerings or even decorate their bases in a thematically appropriate way. Alrhough many people do not realise this, Crom items do exist in the various lore sources; we just need to be able to use them.
Aye. But here in lies another issue with the way the gods are implemented and function, most notably Crom and Mitra. But I am off to work now, so shall expand upon this later.
Derketo and Derketa are not the same God. This debate has raged among Conan fans for a long time and I wonât be surprised if someone tried to argue otherwise in response to me. The way Derketa is introduced in Red Nails is consistant with how Howard presents a âNew Godâ. If it was a subsect of Derketo he would written it as so. Unfortunately he was taken from us too soon so the debate will most likely never end.
That doesnât explain it though. If you go solely by the lore provided in-game Mitra is the God of Justice and his followers talk of peace. If the people worshiping Mitra in the Exiled lands determine what is wright and wrong based on how they think the God is then Murdering to get zeal is still wrong.
When we the last time you got raided by an army of Mitrins in their blue rags Ankhs in hand?
I made sure to include (Configurable) for a reason. I just think the option should exist. Even if official servers leave it as unrestricted. That said I didnât even think about making it so one would be the primary religion (T4) and the others could be lesser. Maybe stuck at T1 or something. Itâs not a bad idea either.
I shaped most of my ideas around the concept of putting limits. For example if my Idea on Crom followers getting an attribute boost was added but no limit on religion was added then everyone would just Pick Crom and then learn rest in-game. Making picking Crom basically a requirement. Having hard limits would force people to actually think about what a religion is and does and means for gameplay.
I actually got that information from an Age of Conan Wiki. Funcom is the official and sole owner of the Conan IP so Iâd say they put that debate to rest.
OK but for one Funcom does not run the Wiki and for two Age of Conan was made what, 11 or so years before they took ownership of the Conan IP. So using an Age of Conan wiki as a source in your debate to âproveâ something which has been debated since âŠprobably the 1950âs or so is not exactly as âput to restâ as you may think it is.
Now, I am not here to debate the merits of the claim, just pointing out that your reasoning if very flawed to say the least.
(Would need it sperate from normal crafting times to preserve balance).
Iâm like⊠but Iâm trying to be balanced.