As a graphic & website designer by day, I chose to take on the task of revamping the Shrine's to make them more accessible, less 'mathy', and more fun! "Shrines shouldn't be a chore", I thought!
Below is my little presentation on just that, with totally hand-created 'what a Shrine window could look like' windows! The first two slides just explain the dilemma of Shrines (as I see it) so you can skip them if you want, and get to the good stuff starting in slide 3!
If you want to know more about me, or contact me directly, hit me up on my site shivian.com
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Slide 1
http://shivian.com/images/glitch-ideas/glitch_shrine_improvement-01-01.png
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Currently
Shrines kinda stink.
Yeah they give you good XP... but it's hard to tell all the details you eventually both want, and need, to know.
How much will this get me?
How much can I donate today?
Is this too much to donate?
As one user said: they're too 'mathy'
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Slide 2
http://shivian.com/images/glitch-ideas/glitch_shrine_improvement-01-02.png
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We Need
Better, clearer information.
Simple functions that any user can understand and look / act like other in-game elements.
A shrine window that any user will find delightful, useful, and simple. From level 5 to level 60.
Less mystery, which generally just causes annoyance.
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Slide 3 (NEW SHRINE PICTURE!)
http://shivian.com/images/glitch-ideas/glitch_shrine_improvement-01-03.png
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New Shrines
A familiar set of buttons just like vendors, to remove confusion.
Text under the favor bar for the giant o tell you how much you can acquire today.
Bar at the bottom of every shrine window showing how much XP you can gain from all shrines in a day, as well as your current progress. It is darker to make sure a user does not get confused with the shrine itself. Hovering over this area would give a popup further explaining it, in the same way that the Mood icon does.
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Slide 4 (NEW SHRINE PICTURE!)
http://shivian.com/images/glitch-ideas/glitch_shrine_improvement-01-04.png
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Donating
Perparing an item to donate now shows you how much favor it will gain with that giant.
An animated gold (the color of emblems) bar in the shrine's favor bar showing how much it'd increase, as well as numbers in the favor bar directly. The bottom donation area would directly tell the value of a donation (including the effect of powders).
Optional idea: to keep the 'mystery' aspect, if you've never donated an item before it would show up with '???', until your Glitch 'learned' how much it was worth when donated.
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Slide 5 (NEW SHRINE PICTURE!)
http://shivian.com/images/glitch-ideas/glitch_shrine_improvement-01-05.png
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Spending
Spending is familiar, but keeps the same look and feel of the rest of the shrine's interface (same as buying vs selling at a vendor).
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NOT ON SLIDES
My other suggestion would be to simply also make donations 'wrap around'. If you accidentally (or deliberately) donate something that exceeds the maximum for an emblem, allow the favor to wrap around to the next favor bar. This also removes a level of 'mathyness' and makes shrines much more accessible and less calculated when interacted with.