The Dark Shrine ruined my save!!

[Anadian]

[So, according to the "Code of Conduct" thread, the developer doesn't want people to criticise the game here on the Steam forum; this policy is a sleazy and transparent way of hiding criticism that, quite frankly, I don't think Valve should allow developers to enforce on [i]their[/i] forums.]
I am pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ salty right now and with very good reason! Here's what happened from my point of view: I purchased some new land in the fire biome and I discovered a new structure in the centre of said land; when I interacted with it I was FORCED (I was not allowed to back out of the menu or walk away from the shrine, I tried with both controller and keyboard) to select from two ♥♥♥♥♥♥ options, both of which would permanently reduced my max HP by 1 and give some worthless ephemeral buff I had no use for; I haphazardly selected one of the options just so I can get out there and, surely enough, the game immediately saves afterwards. So then I thought to myself: "the max HP reduction couldn't actually be permanent, right? Like, there's no way the developers could be that full of bile that they'd do that to their players with so little telegraphing, right?" so I continued to experiment, not yet fully releasing my savefile was already irrevocably borked. So I hoped the "permanent" just meant for the course of my character's life so I tried dying to see if that would cause me to respawn with full max HP again: NOPE! So then I thought: "Surely, it must work like the cursed shrine in Breath of the Wild where I can return to the statue and pay to get my heart container back": nope, I was once again force into the same trap where I couldn't leave without selecting something and both options permanently reduced my max HP by 1. I did some online research via the Forager Wiki and it turns out that structure was the Dark Shrine and its effects truly are permanent: the only way to truly get rid of the effect is to start the game all over again from the very beginning. Basically, it's a structure that exists for literally no other reason than to troll unsuspecting players, ruining their savefile, and potentially wasting 20+ hours of their lives!!

This is honestly the single most mean-spirited and toxic trolls I've ever seen in a game. Eight hours of my life wasted: I think my saltiness is pretty damn justified!! I'm truly disturbed how much disdain the developers must have for their players to do something like this in a otherwise non-troll game. The developers had to actually think: "LOL, wouldn't it be so funny if we added an obscure and completely unexplained mechanic that permanently ruins the player's savefile, wasting dozens of hours of their life; like imagine how angry they'd be!!" and actually went through with adding it. Really, you might as well've just had the structure immediately delete the player's savefile and crash the game: the same end result but more direct. Why stop there? Why not have the game also install malware on the player's computer? That'll get 'em for sure, right?

[Butter Knight]

you can craft spirit orbs to get your hp back

[rose.mark]

While I do think it would be nice for there to be a warning before using the Dark Shrine the first time you can not only regain your max health but increase it by a fair amount using spirit orbs. It's hardly a game over - even if it is annoying that you're stuck with two random options and like as not neither will be of particular value.

[Put Dispenser Here!]

wow, so much rage because of you being not smart and using it TWICE in a row. And all the drama: "8 hours of my life wasted". First world problems.

[mkUltra]

Actions have consequences, man. Stop going to the dark shrine.

Or be like the rest of us and level up so that we can visit the dark shrine hundreds of times to improve our characters.

[Lunaotic]

Just get yourself another spirit orb.
You're fine

[ANGIE]

I was smart enough to just close the game and load back to my last save when relaunching. Thus resetting the options I get as well.