Shadows of Forbidden Gods

Shadows of Forbidden Gods

View Stats:
Deeyourelf 19 May, 2022 @ 10:05pm
[Beta] Issues/Thoughts on Mammon
I like the idea of Mammon, but for me, both the flavor text and the endgame experience when it comes to his playstyle are a bit of a letdown.

It's decent fun, but like I didn't really feel like there was an "end game" in this one, either expressed through gameplay or writing implying it.
She Who Will Feast spawns the serpent.
Iastur also has this problem kind of, but at the end of his campaign everyone is going insane and going to war with eachother, which feels right.
Vinerna let's you start spawning wilderness spirits and destroying settlements by having trees overtake them.
Ophanim let's you start running giant crusades on everyone.
Mammon just kinda goes like "You are winner"

His third to last awakening unlocks an ability to spawn a very small army that can be used to harass settlements, which is a huge turning point for Vinerva, but here it's just used to harass. Which is fine, it makes sense that you don't want to be razing settlements.
But his second to last awakening JUST gives you an ability that unlocks his final awakening. His final awakening unlocks no new abilities, and just makes you win which is I guess cool, but it never felt like you can escalate things. It's a fairly same-y experience the entire time.

It just says basically "And now Mammon's hunger is temporarily sated, and the mountain will abide again until the next cycle." And you win.
Which is like, okay I guess? It seems like thats pretty boring/standard if the win condition, lorewise, is the same as if the chosen one just puts back the seal.

It seems like there wasn't a super clear end-goal in mind when playing as Mammon, which is kind of disappointing. I feel like all the others have a kind of cresendo to them, Mammon is a bit more "Man that was great, gonna take a nap, see you in 5000 years!"
As an example of how I think it could be improved as a "final plan" would be something that makes it so that anything outside of the trade routes gets messed up. Maybe an ability that makes it so that areas outside of tradelines can be 'heated up' and made arid, and make the trade line cities start having higher population caps.
So basically it'd be like the trade routes are super Decadant Plutocratic lines/routes carved through poverty ridden-wastelands as a final theme/gameplay endgame. Flavor text as the ending instead being about like that kind of "wandering through the desert looking for jewels in ashes and dreaming of golden cities as bastions against the desolation." type stuff instead of just re-entering slumber.
Just spitballing with the mechanics and writing stuff, but I hope i got across what I mean.


Also, one very very small thing/bug to note, after the final awakening, population continues to be drained if you used the "All is Mine" ability, despite no longer being needed, but I get that balancing the game after you already won isn't a priority.
Last edited by Deeyourelf; 19 May, 2022 @ 10:10pm