To make it clear, this is not a debate about atheism vs. religion, or even one playstyle vs. another. Real world history is also irrelevant.

The point is, religion giving bonuses and special gameplay aspects is fine, as long as it has requirements equivalent to other professions or gameplay paths. It should not be a different type of path that is basically required. Religion should be one of that character's primary focuses, and take up time and energy like anything else would.

If religion offers bonuses with very little required of the player, it basically makes it a requirement of all players unless they want to be at a disadvantage. This is not good, because maybe I don't want to have religion as part of my character.

I think in most cases buffs are tied to debuffs. Eg. Armor is heavy.

Idk. In real life faith and belief or even just optimism tends to give people a type of "buff" so to speak. Makes them believe that they are stronger, faster, healthier, luckier, etc, and in so believing that they can that they do, and the reverse as well if they believe they have been damned or cursed. Call it the placebo-effect if you like. If an in-game religious buff worked in a similar effect, buffs and debuffs just enough that storywise it could be written off as the placebo effect of positive or negative thinking, I don't think it would be too bad.

The talent system is one way to differentiate religions.

"Prophets" or the like might spring up within each kingdom. When praying at shrines it would be good if people were in some way rewarded or better still, made aware that their prophet(s) were gaining in power through their actions.

The talents available to prophets could be interesting. They might have all manner of odd abilities, even helping to reveal talents in others. I guess that would be the part where pilgrimages kick off.

My focus on "buffs" is more fluid. I'm not thinking buffs in regards to "passive" buffs. I'm thinking of a dark priest who makes a deal with a dark entity with the potential of unlocking dark magics. Or clerics who've made deals with spirits of light gaining healing magic/turn dead style magic. This is inspired by the thought that they said magic will slowly be coming back to Elyria and this would be one path to that. Of course, dealing with dark forces may require, as the lynch example they laid out, killing people for soul retrieval in order to appease the deity. This is more to where I was going and the myths could be based out of some of these religions.

I believe deity should be created by the devs, but religions by the players and my reasoning for that is.

What's a religion, and the answer to that is, a sect with enough following that the majority of people have to agree that it's an actual thing, for example, Christians may think that Muslims aren't right and vice versa, but by disagreeing with each other, the both recognize the other as a religion.

That's why I believe that while players shouldn't have the ability to create their own deity, the religions in-game shouldn't be created by the devs, but by players who actually manage to gather enough following to get their sect recognized by the population and the nobility.

Definitely don't disagree with the deity's being made by the developers with religion driving by the players. If gods existed in the world of Elyria, learning the rites, rituals and laws of those gods would be established through player made religions. To me, religions without any benefit would be pointless. But, if the religions that existed did so because the player base began to discover the correct rites/rituals that lead to unlocking abilities in a skill tree, it would seem to me that players would be more apt to seek it out. The closer one gets to performing the correct rites and rituals the more they could get out of their skill. Religions serving the same deity but having different rites/rituals could unlock an entirely different set of skills. I'd assume that not all of the Elyrian gods will be good, which is why I mentioned dark deity's.

I believe that it would be perfectly viable and a very fun play style, hence why i joined the Order of the Black fang in Nirath. If your into the lore side of a religious order we have some lore you can look at to decide if you would would like to go down that route. Ill message you and reply to me if your are interested !

Anyone think that religion might work in similar ways to technology where story comes based on cults etc that people create?

Posted By Sharielane at 02:46 AM - Mon Mar 20 2017

Idk. In real life faith and belief or even just optimism tends to give people a type of "buff" so to speak. Makes them believe that they are stronger, faster, healthier, luckier, etc, and in so believing that they can that they do, and the reverse as well if they believe they have been damned or cursed. Call it the placebo-effect if you like. If an in-game religious buff worked in a similar effect, buffs and debuffs just enough that storywise it could be written off as the placebo effect of positive or negative thinking, I don't think it would be too bad.

I think this is very good, if we adopt a religion and then stray from it our character should suffer some sort of growing penalty being weighed down by the guilt of doing so. Then they can either return to their religion or forsake it, which would probably leave a permanent but fixed (non-growing) debuff on the character due to the uncertainty associated with believing something your whole life and then turning away from it. This would also prevent too much religion hopping for min-maxing.

Religions could also become multi-kingdom neutral parties to oversee negotiations, just like the Catholic Church has in history.

They could also be an authority above kingdoms in the case of emergencies, such as a lich of demonic invasion.

Otherwise: Deus vult.

Posted By Adriac1993 at 11:05 AM - Sat Mar 18 2017

With what Scipion said, I would say that you could technically build a settlement and it be a monastery. There wouldn't likely be an ingame way to show this but CoE seems to be a place where imagination is enabled to fill in a few gaps.

They said in a recent Q&A that having Religious buildings with their added passives or boons would require the same things you'd need to increase your settlement size (e.g Hamlet to a Village, etc), you can still possess any building/structure in your settlement but until it reaches a certain population size fulfilled other requirements some of their effects won't be activated.

Posted By Lunaus at 7:47 PM - Mon Mar 20 2017

Posted By Adriac1993 at 11:05 AM - Sat Mar 18 2017

With what Scipion said, I would say that you could technically build a settlement and it be a monastery. There wouldn't likely be an ingame way to show this but CoE seems to be a place where imagination is enabled to fill in a few gaps.

They said in a recent Q&A that having Religious buildings with their added passives or boons would require the same things you'd need to increase your settlement size (e.g Hamlet to a Village, etc), you can still possess any building/structure in your settlement but until it reaches a certain population size fulfilled other requirements some of their effects won't be activated.

Right, so what I'm saying is that you plant a settlement, a village to start with. You put the first level of religious building/statue/whatever. You put in a building that acts as a temple/shrine/church/whatever. (The you is plural, as in the group looking to start a monastery). You upgrade the settlement as normal but with the religious buildings and a player community that treats their settlement for all purposes as a monastery. It may not be a "religious settlement" on the game-side of the deal, but to you and your friends you have established a monastery settlement.