So, what is the point of "angering the gods"?

[Misery]

Okay, so, this occurred to me just recently. Now, this aint a complaint about the fact that the mechanic is there. Mostly, I just want to know.... WHY is it there?

The comparison often given is to Spelunky's shops. Small places guarded by a dangerous shopkeeper who is normally friendly, but will absolutely flip the heck out if you do anything he doesnt like. Damage the shop or try to run off with an item without paying, and you'll have to face his wrath (and in future levels, he'll keep coming back to hunt you down). Players who are still learning the game often find the guy to be an overwhelming threat.

But the thing is, he doesnt just exist to go "haha screw you" (though obviously it's possible to accidentally enrage him). There's a bit of a risk-reward element to it. If you're willing to take him on... and if you think you can win... there's good reason to do so, because if you defeat him, not only can you grab his shotgun, but you can snatch everything from the shop. But if you screw up even slightly when fighting him, he's going to turn you into a red smear on the floor. And yes, I know there's ways to cheese that guy, but that's a whole other issue. I'm just talking about the concept here.


So, back to Noita, we have the shop, and we have the guardian that appears if the shop area takes too much damage, but..... why? What's the point? Alot of players are really irritated at the fact that enemies can set the whole thing off. Makes sense. But if they make it less sensitive.... I mean, the mechanic wont ever be explored by players on purpose, because there doesnt seem to be a reason to do so?

Is there something maybe I've missed here? Something extra that happens when this mechanic is activated (or when the guardian is defeated) beyond just the guardian showing up and going berserk? Right now, the whole thing just seems kinda pointless.

[Random McRandomness]

Hi, I am not 100% sure on this, this is mainly what I got from a pre-release stream, (I've only encountered it once throughout my playthroughs) but I remember hearing that the "Angering the gods" is triggered by going to sacred places in the map that you are not allowed to go, sort of (also maybe going back into the temple after choosing a perk and the temple kind of collapses)? I remember that the player doesn't have to do anything. The "guardian" isn't intended to be there like Spelunky, the shop/temple is meant to be safe for players and a resting spot, inbetween levels. It will drop some gold if killed (I am relatively sure of this), which I find is really hard to do. I don't think there is anything more to it than that.

[Garth Sidious]

I agree, it's dumb. There doesn't seem to be any 'risk-reward' way to trigger it, it's just pointless as a mechanic. The guardian showing up when enemies destroy it is just plain frustrating, I've lost a few good runs due to that.

[Krag]

You can kill it for some gold but he's tough and it's not really worth it unless you're already in a god run, but then what's the point?

99% of the time, it's not triggered by your actions and it actually ends your run.

[SilentCaay]

It mainly just forces you to take the proper route through the temple in between each level. Otherwise, there are a few ways to tunnel straight through from one level to the next. It also discourages you from backtracking into the temple if there's an item you wanted that you didn't have enough gold for.

I don't mind the idea of the mechanic but the fact that enemies can trigger it and one of those enemies happens to be a giant worm that enjoys tunneling through literally everything is a bit annoying.

[greenman]

I second that.
Got this floating mystic skeleton following me after a "you have angered the gods" I had no idea what caused it - I was nowhere near a shop and the enterance to the Holy mountain was clear...

So - I get this thing following me.
Now I kill it.
TWICE - I lasted that and the next level.
Dodged SIX guided plasma blasts that I'm sure could have killed me one hit. Hit the thing with a "Chainsaw" wand. Died and turned into a huge pile of SALT...! Later I killed one of those ice level one blast off the screen kills you electro sorcerors or whatever... Turned into a pile of DIAMOND... (took screenshots) But zero $ increase. And would have made it to the next level but those vikings with machine guns and jet-packs piled up on me.

IMO there's too much "unfair difficulty" - Dark Souls, Salt&Sanctuary are D--- hard - BUT you can find Youtube videos of people conquering them in underwear and butterknives - same with full playthrough AxiomVerge with only the mandatory save... Hard game but you can learn the patterns.

This game's flaw is it throws too much random stuff at you while severely limiting what you can throw back at it.

[wanderindin]

Yeah first of all I don't understand what triggers it after it happening 3 times. No reward from killing whatever spawns even though the encounters are cool. The wizard is not cool certain builds simply cannot fight him. Without a shield it's rough.

[Linel]

I've seen people suggest that its to prevent backtracking, but that doesn't make much sense. By the time you would want to backtrack, the guardian is a pushover. The fact that the developers are taking so long to fix enemies setting it off and only said that they would "tone it down" instead of prevent it entirely makes me worried that angering the gods is just included to irritate players and end runs.

[Botji]

From my experience you only anger the gods if any of the shop/perk areas gets connected to another area.. on other words, if they get another exit, you anger the gods.

Worms flying through means that they dig a hole from another area into/through the Holy Mountain area = angry gods.

On the other hand that means its perfectly fine to dig between levels as long as you dont do it through the shop/perk rooms... kinda defeats the purpose of the skeleton guy since you can dig up/down away from it, even if you dig up into a Holy Mountain area with one of the teleports that leads to the next shop/perk area from the level below, thats no problem.

[Fleshmeister]

I just had one of my first better runs, was editing my wand drinking coffee and relaxing after a hectic exit to the holy mountain, the worm came thru. RIP. What's the fun/point on that?

[Brackman]

Originally posted by Botji:

From my experience you only anger the gods if any of the shop/perk areas gets connected to another area.. on other words, if they get another exit, you anger the gods.

I was testing spells, wands and perks with save-scumming on friday and, whenever I wanted to die and reset the world and shop, a single black hole angered the gods every time, sometimes with a few second delay, sometimes instantly. So, unless it was changed very recently, or something burrowed through the holy mountain at the exact same time I fired a black hole in 20-30 different worlds/seeds in a row, you only need to destroy some set amount of the brick walls to trigger it.

This was on the beta branch.

[Botji]

Hm I havent used black holes too much in there since the first time I spawned the skeleton guy I was experimenting with them but it wasnt until the 2nd black hole I angered the gods and that 2nd one went 'outside'.

It might be that a set % of the area needs to be destroyed but the area that counts cant be that large around the shop/perk area since as I said before I have badly damaged Holy Mountain areas around the teleporters that lead there without issues.

[sbobo3113]

Originally posted by Botji:

Hm I havent used black holes too much in there since the first time I spawned the skeleton guy I was experimenting with them but it wasnt until the 2nd black hole I angered the gods and that 2nd one went 'outside'.

It might be that a set % of the area needs to be destroyed but the area that counts cant be that large around the shop/perk area since as I said before I have badly damaged Holy Mountain areas around the teleporters that lead there without issues.

Yea ive had many worms dig "through" the temple brick to the next zone without angering the gods.


They will only get angered once a certain amount is destroyed Near the actual shop room inside.

[Jeanmouloude]

i like to think that the gods are the game devs and that if you anger them that mean you didnt do the game the way they intended it, i think its a fun little thing

[Destroying Angel]

At one point smashing him with a tablet one shotted him iirc. He drops a lot of bone dust. Potential for more alchemy combinations... As I have only seen a single pile of bone dust in the time I have played. Interestingly enough the god is commonly spawned by worms burrowing into the temple. If I wasn't a drunken lazy fool with no patience I would be spraying worm blood on bone dust.