The Deities ; Thoughts on the Final Roster

[Darvin]

There was quite a few people complaining about most pacts being useless and consensus being too usefull...

You are now no longer precluded from selecting a Pact after picking consensus (though if you pick a Pact you cannot pick consensus, so order matters).

Body, Warrior, and Scholar's Pact are fine in my view. Alchemist Pact is mediocre but not entirely useless. Spirit Pact is the one that's the problem; haven't used it at all since the Orc was changed to a non-stacking progression.

Part of the reason that Earthmother and JJ aren't regarded as highly (at least among the forumites) is, IMO, that they lack that kind of symbiotic relationship with particular classes.

Rogue works well with both of these. It's just that the GG overshadows them in this department.

[The Avatar]

I agree. Class Synergy is huge. The other huge thing is general synergy, or synergy with a human fighter (or whatever you consider the baseline generalist). The problem with dieties like Drac, TT and GG is that both their class and general synergy. Compare Drac to JJ. Drac crushes in class synergy AND is just flat out better for my baseline human fighter, not to mention the fact that I don't need to find him early. That's why Drac, TT and GG are so good. They clean up in every aspect.

[TigerKnee]

Since we're on the topic of deities, I kind of like to reflect on the fact that I believe the original Dev intention was that religion isn't supposed to be a net-gain 99% of the time. You were supposed to analyze the situation and pick a religion once if its strength and weaknesses coincide with your plan to beat the dungeon. Atheism would be a legit choice and not "Well, I'm only going atheist to get the badge or because all 3 of my altars spawned terrible gods."

Welp, funny how things turned out. In a certain sense, most of the Alpha deities were kind of terrible but they were closer to design intention. Maybe they'll get it right in the expansion.

[q 3]

I think the (relative) freedom to convert is the biggest reason why atheism is generally a detrimental strategy in the beta vis-a-vis the alpha. You're seldom stuck with the penalties of a deity because you can convert out after grabbing whatever boons you want. Even if that means you can't take as many boons as you might like, you're still getting a net benefit for nearly zero cost. Consequently, choosing not to worship means you're essentially leaving useful resources unused. (The alpha actually did have two deities with a similar dynamic: Pactmaker, since he had no penalties and some very nice boons, and GG, since you could get two full heals out of him for free if you started worshiping him after exhausting every other resource.) (Of course, the Paladin is quite strong even without being able to convert, but his theological antics synergize well with each of the current big three and are usually well worth the restrictions.)

Short of an across-the-board reduction in deity usefulness, which would probably be a bad idea at this stage of development, promoting atheist play could perhaps be achieved by adding some incentives for such a strategy. I still like the idea of being able to desecrate altars as an atheist, perhaps for a reward of CP or gold.

[Darvin]

I kind of like to reflect on the fact that I believe the original Dev intention was that religion isn't supposed to be a net-gain 99% of the time

Old Mystera worked like this. No one used her. People still don't use her flames or weakening boons. It's just the nature of strategy; if there isn't a net-gain 99% of the time, it isn't used 99% of the time. This lead to a situation where the one deity that actually had a good trade going (ie, old Dracul's "gimme your health and I'll give you mana" deal) and the guy whose penalties could be skipped out on (the great back door of the Glowing Guardian) got used and everyone else got ignored.

[sitnaltax]

The gods are certainly of different power and usefulness, but I think they're well-enough developed that I don't think there is any "issue" in their design. There is plenty of learning to do to figure out the best ways to use each one and plenty of interesting combos all around.

[Lujo]

Eh, I'd hate to put any suggestions out there due to the status of development, but I wonder what would happen if different deities had different piety costs to convert out of? Or if taking different boons added or subtracted from it? Just having fun with speculation...

[Darvin]

I suggested that for the GG, that humility, absolution, and enlightenment added to the piety required to convert out (cleansing and protection would not). The devs went for their current bead solution instead, which works well enough but keeps the back door wide open.

[The Avatar]

Conversion is extremely powerful. Especially when compared to the alpha where it either was not possible or only possible with a few gods. I like the idea of boons making conversion harder, but would it be a higher threshold required, less piety after conversion, or both?

[Lujo]

Not sure, and all of it could have unforseen concequences and all that, but as long as we're speculating - the big non-obvious thing with TT is that he'd be significantly less powerfull if it wasn't so easy to jump in, grab random utility/debugfeature, and jump out avoiding the difficult ethos. You're converting at 50, sure, but if you're walking out of there with Poison or stuff, well, you all know how it is... (Also, a significantly less powerfull TT or Drac doesn't mean they're not powerfull in my book, you just can't nerf some mechanics hard enough ^^)

That was the principal mechanism behind the collective "Whait a minute!" moment when that Pactmaker discussion sprang up - everybody was using Consensus as a free "Get out of PITA religion free" move, and everybody assumed somebody out there must be using the pacts. Turned out we were all mostly abusing an obvious loophole and feeling slightly guilty about it