Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Announcements about major changes in Haven & Hearth.

Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby jorb » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:09 am

We've been developing tonight, and here's what's new.

Some changes introduced in tonight's update will most likely redraw a fair bit of the map for how H&H works. The fundamentals of death, and also the tradition/change slider, have been significantly altered. We are very unsure about the balance issues on these effects, but we think they have the potential to be a bundle of fun, so bear with us.

Ancestors can now be worshiped. Worshiping ancestors is done by sacrificing to them an item that they desire. To see what the ancestors currently desire, please see the new sub section of your character sheet. When you sacrifice an item, you gain "Numen points". Numen points represent your ability to act as a channel for the magical powers of your otherworldly ancestors. The ancestors always desire three items, one more so than the others. The most desired item is the one on the left. Giving the ancestors the item they most desire will give you a numen point if its quality is greater than the amount of numen points you currently have. If you sacrifice one of the other items you will not gain numen points, but the ancestors will ask you to bring them other things. Fulfilling one of the secondary requests is only recommended if the first item is particularly hard to acquire. If you sacrifice items of a lower quality rating than the amount of numen points you have, you will lose a numen point instead. This applies regardless of whether the primary or secondary desires are fulfilled.

Items are sacrificed at a shrine. Hold the item you want to sacrifice, right click on the shrine. Build -> Furniture -> Ancestral Shrine. Learn ancestral worship if you can't see it.

The amount of numen points gained by fulfilling the primary desire of your ancestors is modified by your tradition/change slider. If your tradition is +5 (I.e. 100% tradition) you gain 3 numen points per fulfilled primary desire. If you, on the other hand, are full change (+5 change) you will only have a 1/3 chance of getting a point at all. Normal scaling applies across the other settings of the slider. This also applies when losing numen points due to inferior sacrifices.

If you die at 100% change you still retain 25% of your statistics when reincarnating. If you die at 100% tradition you still lose 25% of your statistics. Also the time between slider changes has been modified. At full change you can now adjust the belief sliders once every 8 ingame hours and at full tradition once every three days. Changing a slider still moves you one step towards change.

What, then, are numen points good for?

Light of the Ancestors, 3NP: Light effect on your character determined in strength by the perception + exploration of your ancestors. The effect lasts six ingame hours.
A Prayer for Bread, 5NP: You get a loaf of bread, quality determined by the cooking skill and the perception values of your ancestors.
Prayer of a Lost Child, 10NP: You get a local map of the area you are in, filled in to a degree corresponding the the perception/exploration values of the ancestors.
A Prayer to Loftar, 25NP: You get one loaf of Lembas bread.
Einherjeraspekt, 40NP: Strength, melee, unarmed and ranged combat values of your ancestors are added to yours. This effect lasts for one full ingame day.

When calculating the values of your ancestors, only the three most recent ancestors are used. The most recent ancestor's values are used in full. The second most recent ancestor adds half of his values, and the third most recent ancestor adds a quarter of his.

Also, update your clients.

That's probably it.

Enjoy.
"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will be equal to the physical trials of the martyrs. In order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."

-- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Neyvn » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:13 am

But what if we haven't died yet???

Edit: Also.. First post...
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby jorb » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:14 am

Tough.
"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will be equal to the physical trials of the martyrs. In order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."

-- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Neyvn » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:15 am

Oh well. Not to worry, the Change Gauge difference is nice anyway...
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby jorb » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:15 am

It's also worth mentioning that you can forfeit the current ancestral request. If you do that you lose half your numen points. You also lose 3/4 of your numen points if an altar built to your ancestors is destroyed.
"The psychological trials of dwellers in the last times will be equal to the physical trials of the martyrs. In order to face these trials we must be living in a different world."

-- Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Gaiadin » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:16 am

so you have to be a bad player to be a good player? I don't understand...
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Manson » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:17 am

I'm just going to go jump into the nearest lake now.
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Neyvn » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:19 am

So just to retain the facts...

You must have a dead character to reincarnate from before this skill becomes useful...
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Gaiadin » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:23 am

Doesn't this basically give griefers yet another advantage? Incentive even. Go around killing people until you get killed, then come back, worship, and go around with near double stats doing it again? I suppose it depends on the amount of time it takes to get that much NP but still... This seems so backwards :-/
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Re: Game Development: Ancestral Worship

Postby Peter » Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:24 am

This will be interesting to see. I myself was rather hoping that the effects would be more constant... but I'll give it a shot.

This is what I like about being on the west coast; I get my updates on Friday.
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