Favor of a God

I know gods and alignment have been suggested earlier, and this is clearly inspired by them, but I wanted to suggest something that uses existing game mechanics. Essentially this uses the lightbringer/sunspear/favor mechanics already in game, just the skills/buffs are different.


1. A point system for each god's favor, exactly like the sunspear and lightbringer titles.

2. Earning favor points:
/bowhead at a shrine to summon a spirit emissary of that particular god.
A trial is offered from this spirit, which temporarily replaces one of your skills, of your choice, with 1 of the 2 skills a god would normally grant after you earn a title. You'd have a time limit to test how well you can complete the trial using that skill within your current build. Completing the trial would show the god that you synergize well with their ways and you would receive points.
Tests could have different point amounts rewarded similar to mission ranks, you can't repeatedly earn points form the same shrine unless your next attempt is more successful than the last, also similar to missions. Getting a master rank in the test means you are completely finished with that shrine's trial and can no longer gain points from attempting it.
The trails would be like mini puzzles. You would need to cleverly think about how to use the god's granted skill to work effectively in your current build in order to successfully complete the trial in the time limit and get a good rank. Be clever with your builds!

3. After earning enough points you are granted titles. (eg. Lyssa's Muse, Grenth's Adept, ect)

4. Titles give passive bonus when activated. (eg. Grenth's -x% damage reduction against undead, Lyssa's +x max energy, ect)

5. Titles unlock the temporary skills from the trials for use in any PvE build making. Just a couple of skills per god. The skills would only appear in your skill list if you activate the rank/title in your persona window. That way you can gain favor with all gods, but not have access to all their supplementary skills at once.

6. Titles, passive buffs and skills would only be useable in explorable areas and would not work in PvP. They would be greyed out in PVP similar to the sunspear rebirth signet. It may be interesting to allow their use for inner Guild Scrimmage matches, just for fun.

Wow, grind, yay. The sunspear and lightbringer systems were awful ideas, why extend them -.-

Just something to do in PVE for longevity. The extra skills could add some extra life into PvE build making. Implementation would require adding 5 titles, 10 skills and 5 passive buffs using the mechanics already present in game.
It would be a diversionary time sink. It would be like obsidian armour. You would never need to rely on the titles, buffs or new skills in PVE. Something to get for those that were curious and done everything else they wanted in PVE. And with each new god added a new path to explore.

ok sounds good!

mmm me likes it kinda...hmmm...ok i just like new skills the problems as always is...(boo) PvP

how can you balace summit like =x E there?

then again does lightbringer activate there?

never tried...

OK back on topic

MY personal fave of all thy gods has to be lyssa lets start there:

Lyssa
Ranks
100 "faith" points - Inspired
300 "faith" points - Divinely Inspired
1000 "faith" points - Lyss'a Inspired
2500 "faith" points - Lyssa's Muse
7500 "faith" points - Devout of Lyss
Here comes the choice, you get to choose what path to follow
Path A:
15000 "faith" points - Defender of Lyss
25000 "faith" points - Crusader of Lyss
50000 "faith" points - Champion of Lyssa
Path B:
15000 "faith" points - Adept of Lyss
25000 "faith" points - Mage of Lyss
50000 "faith" points - Sage of Lyssa

Skills
inherent
Inspired
You are inspired by Lyssa. You gain +1.5 armor (per rank) against physical attacks when casting a Spell, and +2 armor (per rank) against magical attacks while attacking

Rank 2
Sever Power E5 C1/4 R20
Target foe takes 80 damage, If that foe is casting a spell costing more than 24e that foe is interupted and takes 40 more damage (-2 energy limit per rank, min 10)

At rank 7 there is a Choice in path - you can only have one

Rank 7, choice A
Crusade of Lyssa E10 C1/4 R90
For 20 seconds you strike for +10 damage agaisnt foes using skills, whenever you hit a foe using a skill you again 2 E

Rank 7, choice B
Lyssa's Battlefield E10 C1/4 R90
For 20 Seconds all creatures within earshot cast spells 20% fast and attack 20% Slower. Each time you succesfuly cast a spell you gain 1 E for each creature effected by Lyssa's Battlefield

I wonder if it'd be bad to make it that complicated Mr.G
Most content requires a dev staff a lot of time to make and players rip through it and get bored in a small fraction of the time.
I think it'd be easier to make it simple ie. 2 titles, 2 skills, 1 passive buff per god. The skills would be simple so as not to be tricky balancing nor require a lot of development time.

This system isn't exactly the best for gods because you can possibly anger them. Maybe there should be a temple to you deity where you can "turn on" this system, so you can have buffs when you play by the rules of your deity, or you can be hexed when you anger him and you have low favor. If you don't want to activate this system, you simply don't go to that temple .
Agree.
Agree.This is not very good. When you have only a positive bonus. Let's say it would be better if you receive -x% damage reduction against undead, but also +x% damage amplify from .... (You know, it would be more challenging). Maybe there should be the possibility to pray at altar and spend those points you gathered so you can not pray too often . Title should be gained from sum of points gained from pleasing - sum of points lost from displeasing. So when you pray, your rank will not go down but it can if you displease your god too much (If you want his/her blessings, you must do as he/she want). Points should be gathered from temple quests maybe some repeatable or some rules that you must fullfill as his/her follower at certain rank... With greater power comes greater responsibility
I don't think that it would be good to have pavor with all gods. But I think that it's going not to be possible because when you do one thing, you please one god, but displease others , so maybe you can "switch" god but you lost all ranks with the old one. You know Gods don't like to requite followers not devoted to them with buffs .
/kneel would be more appropriate but you don't need the 'favor of the gods' as a region when you as a sole person are in favor of your deity . I don't see the point. And maybe you can choose from more than one "buff", but it depends on your points you want to spend and your rank.

But the gods in Guild Wars aren't Greek gods in that they war with each other or get jealous. The gods already show favour all at once. They were once human and respect all humans. I think it's simpler to keep it similar to how existing favor works.

The /bowhead was just to separate 'favor of the gods' avatars from the 'single favor of a god' avatars and allow the summoning of an avatar in a different way when the shrine wasn't changed.
/bowhead already exists and I thought it more fitting in showing a different form of respect.

But your system, as you have offered here, is not applicable because it has no challenge nor it offers interessting addition to game. It only adds some skills or ranks. Absolutely unnecessary work for developers because it will attract only few people. It will be only new title hunting nothing realy new. You know ANet will do only things that can possibly attract more people to buy this game, so adding new titles isn't the right way. There are already enough titles that does nothing. Your idea is only a one path. Get as high with each god as you can and then what? You can do what you want, you can not anger them or displease them . So as I see it, the Gods are only a pupets without any emotions, if you go and kill whole village and raise them as undead minions, Dwayna will only sit and applaud you for your great work .

*kisses feet* You read my mind! My mesmer would kill to have an awesome Lyssan title

Of course you would (as unfortunate as it sounds) have to make the titles not too hard or not to easy to obtain, or add restrictions or else everyone would nab the/a Grenth or Balthazar titles simply for farming purposes

I edited the original post to include a specific way to acquire points. It would require...

1) finding all or most shrines in your particular campaign and using /bowhead to be offered a mini trial
2) successfully using 1 of the 2 skills offered from the spirit within the time limit of the trial.
3) if the mini trial is completed within the time limit, points are granted.

Completing trials from the total number of shrines in 1 campagin would offer more than enough points to unlock the skills and titles necessary. So you wouldn't need to own all campaigns.

Once you start earning points you unlock the titles and also the skills the shrine tests offered to be used in any PVE builds you make so long as you are wearing the particular title. This would limit you to only being able to have 2 skills from 1 god available for build making at 1 time.

/signed

Anet needs to add more content to keep the players playing, and something like this could work.

Lightbringer could be the Kormirr one, then, having Balthazar, we just need the other 4.

Something like...:

Lightbringer (Kormirr) : Against Torment demons. Requires Nightfall.
Earthriser (Melandru): Against Titans. Requires chapter 4.
Fire Stoker (Balthazar) : Against Menzies shadows. Requires Prophecies.
Frozenbane (Grenth) : Against Dhuum creatures. Requires Factions.
Windwalker (Dwayna): Against (Seers?). Requires chapter 5.
Mirager (Lyssa) : Against (Mursaat?). Requieres chapter 6.

That?

Ohhh. I like that.
Lightbringer is somewhat already one of these things and it does kinda fit with Kormir.
I wonder when more realms of the gods will be introduced?