Fortnight Discussion: Altars and Sacrifices

[Madguy]

Altars have been a staple of the roguelike genre dating back to its very early days. Some notable examples: Nethack[nethackwiki.com] and Spelunky[spelunky.wikia.com].

As of Alpha 35, Streets of Rogue allows you to sacrifice dead (or knocked-out) bodies that are lying within the building that houses the Altar. Beyond that, I haven’t put much thought into rewards, punishments, and overall functionality of Altars. So, what do YOU think?

[G_o]

good cultist/evil cultist
* new building with Altar and neutral cultist-NPC-guards
* neutral cultist hate player's cultists
* cultist obtain exp only for Sacrifices and capturing Altars
* good cultist cant use any weapon (like doctor)
* good cultist can proselytize other people (mechanincs the same as for comics)
* evil cultist has Sacrificial Dagger (work like doctor, but making noise)
* evil cultist can bought slaves and sucrifice they at altar to give additional exp
* evil cultist can use of altar for sucrifice near teammates (this is Evil, baby :)
* good cultist can use of altar for random buff (increase speed\heal\invisibility\etc)
* good cultist can use of altar only after some count of succesful proselytizes (or after each)
* all NPCs hate evil cultists in case if they use dagger
* all NPCs don't like evil cultist (like sellers don't like thief)

capturing of Altars: like hacking, but cultist should be close to Altar. This action has chance to make angry near NPCs. All near neutral cultist should react on capturing.

as one of funny things: you can destroy Altar (like generator) and this spawn big NPC that want to kill you


these classes will be a good challenge (I'm hinting about achievement :D)

[-W3E- HellDevil]

I say buffs and debuffs or chicken nuggets! Scafice the mortals to the all mighty chicken gods! or summon the all mighty Mc krakken chicekn fingers from the grave!

[Furry Slurry]

引用自 G_o：

good cultist/evil cultist
* new building with Altar and neutral cultist-NPC-guards
* neutral cultist hate player's cultists
* cultist obtain exp only for Sacrifices and capturing Altars
* good cultist cant use any weapon (like doctor)
* good cultist can proselytize other people (mechanincs the same as for comics)
* evil cultist has Sacrificial Dagger (work like doctor, but making noise)
* evil cultist can bought slaves and sucrifice they at altar to give additional exp
* evil cultist can use of altar for sucrifice near teammates (this is Evil, baby :)
* good cultist can use of altar for random buff (increase speed\heal\invisibility\etc)
* good cultist can use of altar only after some count of succesful proselytizes (or after each)
* all NPCs hate evil cultists in case if they use dagger
* all NPCs don't like evil cultist (like sellers don't like thief)

capturing of Altars: like hacking, but cultist should be close to Altar. This action has chance to make angry near NPCs. All near neutral cultist should react on capturing.

as one of funny things: you can destroy Altar (like generator) and this spawn big NPC that want to kill you


these classes will be a good challenge (I'm hinting about achievement :D)

pretty nice idea

[pizzasoda]

引用自 DeeEcks：

Money reward. Let's not overthink this.

that is way to boring

[Mirai]

I actually find the idea of ritualistic sacrifice in this game to be "out of it's character"? (I do remember the creed that this game would ultimately offer and support anything players wanted to do, so not entirely but,) I mean, there are classes where that makes sense, the Slaver might, the Cannibal might, and I'm sure the Zombie doesn't care.

But beyond that, I'm not sure what rewards they could/should offer that aren't obtainable in other ways already. So it's either more of the same, or I'm not sure how to make them stand out.

[Evilous]

Here is a thing for void priest

- to become one you must activate an item that you get from a void priest or you can just buy it.

- you lose all of you items when activated and you cannot eat food anymore

- whenever you beat a level instead of the normal level up you get a diffrent version just becuase you are void.

- you have a new mission to accomplish every level now

Your weapons changer becomes a away to change your second ability

- the shadow level ups give you secondsry abilitys for insta kills, reanimating the dead, brainwashing, summoning a voidin warrior to help you for a period of time, and regenitivr health.

- downsides is that you cannot eat or use normal weapons. Cops hate you. All void ablilitys have time limits so they are not over powered.

[Bozologist]

Using an altar could come at a price. You could get a permanent buff and a permanent debuff, a permanent buff only, or a permanent debuff only. It should be based on chance. You should be able to take a risk with an altar if you choose to use it. Maybe if you destroy an altar it triggers a specific event in which Cultists spawn (similar to the killer robot) in the room you're currently in, maybe surrounding you, and you have to defeat them. They all have knives and they are pretty hard to take until you whittle down the numbers, eventually turning it into a 1v1 scenario. After beating them maybe you get 10 chicken nuggets.

***Side note: Can the cap on chicken nuggets also be increased. I can't tell you how many times I went through a whole run and realized at the end that I already had 50 nuggets :(***

[Folly]

I'm goning to agree with the folks who suggested the more simple things like #3, #5, or #7. Past that maybe go for a Simple alignemt system for who you stabbed (Good/Bad) with gifs tied to how many of one kind you sacrafice

Have gear, Stat buff / nerfs, traits of varying use. that kind of jazz.

[Simple Sight]

I don't think an altar feels right. I think a better idea would be something like a sick-minded character, nearly as evil as the mayor, who'll pay out ammo or food for bodies, or maybe he could be some sort of rogue scientist that gives you abilities (#7) for high body counts, or maybe both

[Black Hammer]

My vote would be for something that fits the urban decay setting and doesn't tie to a specific class. So many things in the game already feel relevant only for certain characters.

A literal altar with blood sacrifices doesn't really mesh too well with the game's overall aesthetic. As far as offerings go, sacificing chicken nuggets that you've collected so far on the run seems like a good idea. You'd be gambling your current permanent rewards for the hope of getting further and generating bigger rewards later.

[metalem]

Hum altar can give buffs and items but why not give some "friends" too ? I mean it can spawn allies who follow you or raise the deads (more zombies :D) and if you sacrifie a lot of corpses, a new special zombie unit spawn (like a tank from left 4 dead)

[abcdif]

After sacrificing like 5 peoples ,it should spawn demon, and after killing him drop special weapon (maybe scythe).

[mr.kittyman]

how about you steal peoples life, for each person sacrificed you get a small extra blue bar over your health that acts as normal helth but only it dose not regenerate and once the more you sacrifice the more blue bar you get.

[Chef Nae Nae]

And in regards to the ideas of a demon or whatever spawning, that could be a new character also...

[PurpleXVI]

Altars should be risky to use, but also reward risk. KO'ing a "tougher" target and bringing them to the altar should have a higher chance, or even a guarantee, of a reward, than just sacrificing some random slum dweller. But the more you sacrifice, the higher the risks should become, enough sacrifices and you'll essentially be triggering some of the events from level 3 of any given area(killer robot, bombs, etc.) but with a creepier twist.

Rewards should probably be items, because those will matter way more than money. Maybe make them altar-specific items(voodoo dolls, sacrificial knives, still-beating hearts, bone clubs, rib cage armor, etc.) that all have some sort of drawback(voodoo dolls do ranged damage, even through walls, but require you to sacrifice health with every "shot," that sort of thing) if they're particularly powerful.

And yes, if altars are going to be present on all, or most, levels, then some sort of class or perk tied into them would be great. Either being needed to use them at all, or giving you greater use out of them(maybe an ability to choose your reward... or your doom, when you get a bad roll).