Bible / Prayer mechanic to decrease hunt duration.

[TheSama]

I'm using these hunting times and assuming they are correct: "Phases last for 25 secs in Amateur, 35 sec in intermediate, and 50 secs in professional."

Each prayer recited could reduce hunt duration by a few seconds up to 25% of the total hunt depending on the number of players in the game.

For example: Let's say a hunt starts in professional for 50 seconds with 4 players in the game. The most time you could reduce the hunt by is 12.5, making the total hunt time 37.5 seconds. Each prayer reduces the time by 2.5% / number of players in the game. So solo you would need 10 prayers to get maximum benefit, whereas a full game would need 40 prayers between the entire team.

The bible could be what contains the phrase to be recited and maybe plays a special animation to indicate it worked. It wouldn't be required to get the effect of the prayer, but could be useful to toss in hiding spots beforehand.

Some ghost could be reworked or added to have strength/weakness against the bible as an object too, eg, leaving a bible in the Demon's room & reciting the prayer will make the Demon less aggressive, but doing the same with a Yokai will increase activity.

I think the balance and tension of this would come from just having to use voice coms while being hunted. Whispering a prayer in the corner of the room or closet, hoping the ghost doesn't get you.

[Eguzky]

We really don't need MORE items that:

Protect the player in a hunt
Distract the Ghost in a Hunt
Unlock the front door so everyone can flee the Hunt
Put up fake walls against the Ghost in a Hunt
Or reduce Hunt times

The hunt is literally the ONLY threat in the game. It's the ONE TIME a player can die. Reducing, removing, distracting, or otherwise altering the Hunt would make the game easy as hell.
You already have 2 Crucifix's for 4 blocked Hunts, plus Sanity Pills to prevent hunts, plus Smudge Sticks to stop a Ghost from killing.
What more do you want?

Plus, not everyone would be comfortable reading literal bible tracts out loud. Be it because it's their religion or because it's NOT their religion.

[TheSama]

I just want a way to speed up the hunt once your "safe". Hiding quietly in a locker for almost a minute is boring. It's not like you just get a free debuff to hunt duration, you have to risk it hearing you and finding your hiding spot.

Prayers don't have to be literal bible verses, could just call it a "holy book" and have generic text like "Guard me from this evil that haunts me" or something. The devs have an imagination, they could change it to whatever they want so it doesn't hurt r/atheism's feelings. It's just a baseline idea.

[Emurinus]

We have enough safety items in the game.

[TheSama]

It's a risk reward system, not a safety item. The item ​itself wouldn't even be required if you memorized the phrase.

Like I mentioned above it could just be used as a visual cue to show you're doing it right and/or a secondary evidence gathering tool like salt.

[Kai]

Instead of stopping the hunt, why not have it enrage the ghost and it knows immediately where the speaker is, but only during a hunt, not outside of it, and the speaker must be in the building.

In essence it's a lure to get the ghost from abandoning it's current roaming patterns during the hunt and go directly to the person, changing their target to that person reciting the book.

Ghost
Screams loudly that rings through the entire building.
+10% Move speed instantly, speed drops over time as it does not have line of sight to anyone.
Charges straight for the person reciting the book, which it happened to hear within earshot (which is a relatively close range, through walls).

Add in a optional objective to 'anger the ghost by reciting the book' or something?

[TheSama]

Originally posted by Kai:

Instead of stopping the hunt, why not have it enrage the ghost and it knows immediately where the speaker is, but only during a hunt, not outside of it, and the speaker must be in the building.

In essence it's a lure to get the ghost from abandoning it's current roaming patterns during the hunt and go directly to the person, changing their target to that person reciting the book.

Ghost
Screams loudly that rings through the entire building.
+10% Move speed instantly, speed drops over time as it does not have line of sight to anyone.
Charges straight for the person reciting the book, which it happened to hear within earshot (which is a relatively close range, through walls).

Add in a optional objective to 'anger the ghost by reciting the book' or something?

I wasn't really suggesting it being able to stop a hunt or alter ghost behavior, just decrease the duration of the hunt while the ghost is hunting. The hunt timer would restart at 50/35/25 for the next hunt and saying the phrase only works during the hunt if you're inside the house and are within a certain radius of the ghost.

The amount of time removed from the hunt could be capped at a percentage of the total hunt duration. 25% of the current hunt duration would cap it at 12.5 professional, 8.75 intermediate, and 6.25 amateur. Meaning in optimal conditions the total hunt time would be 37.5/26.25/18.75 in their respective difficulties.

I'm not especially attached to the idea tbh. Just trying to think of a way, with features that already exist in the game, to make the hiding process less time consuming and tedious; Especially in professional. Maybe Horror 2.0 will make it a non-issue anyway.

[Jimmy Hunter]

We don't need ways to shorten the hunt.

[thrythlind]

The major thing that concerns me is that your suggestion seems to imply a permanent reduction of hunt duration and I'm completely against that.

While I am for other hunt defense items as a way to introduce more optional quests my criteria for those are as follows:

- They should absolutely represent another optional objective/sub-puzzle to add an additional gameplay challenge.
- You should have to pay for them and choose a limited load out you can't have all hunt defense items in place for each investigation.
-- The limited load-out would have to be facilitated by either objective selection being based on your load out or equipment selection happening after objectives are revealed.
- No hunt defense item should have a permanent effect.
- Hunt defense items must be consumable.

I look at the potential of alternate hunt defense items as being alternate play-modes/challenge-modes. So from my perspective a way to shorten the hunt would have to be done during a hunt and only impact THAT hunt and be very dangerous to try. Like, having the ghost in line of sight while using it and being a slow item to use.

I also don't like the idea of such an item being tied into the voice recognition stuff. And to be honest, I'm uncomfortable with doing prayers in a way I'm not uncomfortable with taking a cross and dropping it a room.

The kind of effect you're talking feels like it's more something to do by having more specific difficulty sliders. Like have a setting for determining hunt length independent of other stats.

[Mynx-In-Match]

I'm pagan. I'm not going to recite another religion's prayers to keep video game spirits at bay. I'm fine with plopping a wooden stick on the ground. And hunts don't need to be made shorter. You need to get better at identifying the ghost before it kills you for throwing crucifixes at its feet. By your logic, there should be Wicca and other pagan prayers to control the ghost and have it appear on command for evidence gathering. And for keeping it at bay, why not Taoist ciphers? Or Buddhist prayers? Why not religions based completely on spiritualism? Just saying. It's a nice idea but extremely narrow minded.

[TheSama]

Originally posted by Mynx-In-Match:

I'm pagan. I'm not going to recite another religion's prayers to keep video game spirits at bay. I'm fine with plopping a wooden stick on the ground. And hunts don't need to be made shorter. You need to get better at identifying the ghost before it kills you for throwing crucifixes at its feet. By your logic, there should be Wicca and other pagan prayers to control the ghost and have it appear on command for evidence gathering. And for keeping it at bay, why not Taoist ciphers? Or Buddhist prayers? Why not religions based completely on spiritualism? Just saying. It's a nice idea but extremely narrow minded.

I literally said it could be some generic unoffensive phrase 2 posts down. I really don't care about the method. I just hate how long the hunt lasts on professional and tried to think of a risk/reward game mechanic to cut out some tedium.

My logic is: they should have mechanics to shorten the hunt at the risk of being killed for angering the ghost. I'm not attached to the method or tools used to do so, I've stated as much in this thread already.

I also never insisted on being able to control the behavior of the ghost or have it appear on command. You can already do that with ouija board anyway.

I also didn't say using the prayer to keep it at bay. I don't know how much more clearly I can say it would only be used to reduce the hunt duration by a percentage.

1. Hunt starts (60 second duration).
2. Run and hide. Ghost is wandering about 5 meters away.
3. Say "go away ghost before i get me spirit paddle"
4. At this time the hunt has 50 seconds left, the game recognizes the phrase and that the ghost is within radius.
5. Reward player by making the remaining hunt 48.5 seconds.
6. Repeat phrase 8 more times and recieve small bonus at risk of giving away your location.
7. Saying it the 11th time doesn't work and endangers you for no reward.
8. Hunt ends. Duration is reset to 60 for next hunt.

On a final note.. You should also extend your moral outrage to the use of smudge sticks and crucifixes being used. A crucifix is a Christian symbol (there is a difference between crucifixes and crosses) and a Christian using smudge sticks can be seen as blasphemous.