I will keep pushing for this until Rare does anything to fix the awful state Shrines are in.
TL;DR:
Shrines are too complex and long, requiring me to actually turn my brain on to find the loot spread out throughout the shrine, instead of just doing any other form of content that gives you all the loot in a big easy to collect clump. There is too much risk leaving your boat alone in the ocean where someone could just sink you and you'd have no idea, or you just have someone sit still on the boat bored out of their minds while everyone actually plays the content in the shrine. Naturally this all also applies to Treasuries.
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Add a map in the main room of a Shrine that shows 3x3 map tiles surrounding the shrine. This map shows all player ships that come within the range no matter what. The map will glow when a ship comes near, and play a loud noise when they get super close. This allows people in the shrine to check the map to spot a player coming and pre-emptively get ready, or at the very least the horn lets them know to return before they sink, even if they already have a few holes in their ship by the time they get back on boat.
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Increase the amount of loot in the 'main' Loot room, increase the value of Coral loot in general. Have the Mermaid Statues you store treasure in glow green to signify that all loot within the shrine has been collected, that way you don't get stuck thinking ''did I find all of it or not? better stay in and keep looking''.
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'Mini world event' outside of the main world event rotation, have a chance that the blue/green/purple swirls above a shrine (and on the map) glow Gold to signify the loot within the shrine is increased, this will actually mean people bother with going to a shrine right now instead of later because hey good loot. It also features a new Golden Item you can sell to start unlocking the coveted Golden Sailor clothing set.
No more TL;DR:
The main issue people have with shrines other than them not being profitable is the risk of leaving your boat unattended resulting in you sinking without having any chance. Or having to leave someone to watch the boat and do nothing while everyone in the shrine gets to actually play the content (something solo players don't even have the choice to do). And again, everything I'm stating also applies to Treasuries.
You know those big maps they have on Sea Forts? Basically just put those in shrines main central room, but only the nearest 3 map tiles are visible rather than the entire map. This map should mark all player ships on it that get within range no matter what. This is by no means overpowered due to it only being a 3x3 map tile map that cannot be moved around. It would have no extra use outside of while you are doing the Shrine because any ship on the map would already be in plain view from the surface. This map simply lets people in a shrine check for any oncoming ships and know they need to go back to their boat to defend it. Note that a 3x3 map tile with the Shrine in the centre would mean 1.5 map tiles in each compass direction. This is about the Distance between Crooks Hollow and Stephens Spoils, so really not that much at all. Imagine you were on Crooks Hollow and could only see up to Stephens Spoils, then beyond that was fogged out like Minecraft Render Distance. That's how small this map is. Its even smaller than an Hourglass ring.
This map has 2 triggers on it, once an ship gets within 1 map tiles of the shrine (therefore your ship), it will start to glow. Once a ship gets within .5 map tile of your ship, a loud Siren Horn will sound. This will reward the player for checking the map as if they routinely check it they will be aware of the enemy ship once they get within range of the map. Once they get close enough the map will glow making it more obvious that you need to check the map if you weren't already doing so. If you just completely ignore the map, you'll only know there is an approaching ship too late, and by the time you return to your ship its probably already taken on some holes. The more observant players will be able to return to their ship before the enemy is within attacking range and take the fight on equal footing, and the lesser observant player who only notices due to the Siren Horn will start the fight at a disadvantage.
This map means that you no longer need to leave some poor soul on the ship while everyone has fun in the shrine, everyone is free to explore the shrine while knowing their ship is okay. And this would also remove the annoyance of being a shrine as a solo and then seeing ''Ship sunk, emissary status lost'' entirely outside of your control. This will encourage the use of shrines more, and therefore allow for more opportunities for PvPers to steal more interesting loot, as literally nobody does shrines right now so you basically just cant steal coral loot.
Beyond that.. generally speaking just improve the loot. The shrines are as I said too unique and often too demanding of your full attention in order for you to care about. As all the loot is spread out you actually need to scour the entire location to make sure you grabbed all the loot, unlike most other forms of content where once you finish all the loot is given in a neat little pile. If the loot is increased it would give more incentive to bother going to check every nook and cranny, or at least increase the 'main loot room's loot value.
Shrines lack replayability because of how much you need to engage, whereas I can just completely turn my brain off at a Fort and m1 the skeletons knowing once the game tells me I've completed the fort, all the loot is together in the vault. Shrines are simply too complexly designed and I need to decide if I think I found everything and leave when I believe the time is right because its really not that obvious. I think you could also do something to signify all the loot has been collected, such as to maybe have the return mermaids glow green once all loot within the shrine has been deposited. That way I stop doing the 5th loop to make sure I really found everything this time.
This next part could basically apply to any form of existing content, have something akin to a mini world event that exists outside the world event rotation. Where something within the world is upgraded temporarily to give more loot. So for Shrines, you know the like blue green purple swirls above a shrine and on the map? have that glow a bright Gold colour to signify the loot within the shrine has been temporarily increased and is now actually worth your time. This will increase the usage because Shrines suffer from the ''I'm busy right now I'll just do the shrine commendations later'' mentality a lot, but if you had these Gold form Shrines you might actually decide to stop what you're doing and run the shrine. And as its visible on the map not just in the world, people from all over could actually want to go sail over and fight for the shrine.
And again its worth noting this 'Gold Form'' is not just something that would work on Shrines and Treasuries, but also Sea Forts, you could even have it occur on actual World Events to make it the thing to be doing on that server over anything else. The Ghostly glow that Emanates from Sea Forts would glow Gold, The main grey cloud colour of world events would glow gold. So like not the eyes of the skull going gold or anything, the actual skull itself would be golden.
This chance needs to ACTUALLY be rare in order for it to work as intended. So many times this game adds a 'rare' thing with the intention being ''wowow its so rare if you ever saw it you'd drop what you're doing to go for it'' but in actuality its so common that you don't even care because why do it now when I can do it later. FoF tried to be Rare like that, Siren Song tried to be rare like that, but they were still both far too common, so nobody cared. This needs to actually be like oh wait guys there's a Gold form on the map we need to go do this.
And what's another good way to make people play content? throw things they want behind doing it. As such this will be how you get Golden Sailor clothing. The 'key loot item' you get from the Gold Form content goes towards you getting the Golden Sailor clothing. You could either have it be graded and just every time you get sell one you progress the clothing in a set order, or have it be like Tomes where you just get a random bit of clothing each time. You could then have it be that you know what clothing piece it is prior to selling it, that way it feels more personal as you know you definitely need it. But that would have the downside of meaning if its a part of clothing you already have then you don't care as much about it, but even then the gold form content is still good for money regardless of if you need the clothing.
