Curses

[snow]

Curses should be removed with experience or exploration, not scrolls. The curse god can gift curse scrolls, and remove curse scroll should be removed.

Can't believe I'm suggesting this as it makes the bot I'm writing harder to write, but honestly this seems like the obvious, possibly inevitable, next step for curses.

[Aean]

Gotta agree here. Right now curses and remove curse scrolls exist mainly as interface screw, unless you're playing Ash. Would probably be simplest to replace non-Ash curses with temporary mutations, which already are XP-gated, and replace remove curse scrolls with a piety cost for Ash.

[andrew]

Except in the early game, where they do IMO create interesting decisions/situations. Yes, once remove curse scrolls become common, curses become irrelevant.

[Majang]

Well, even in the late game you are forced to waste an equipment slot for the scrolls, because there is often enough stuff that you want to try out without wasting an id scroll. But I wouldn't call that an interesting decision, as it is in the early game.

[Shtopit]

I find the curse scroll inventory tax very inconvenient, so I'm all for a solution that removes it. The only question is how it would interact with the *cursed weapons.

[andrew]

Could just replace them with *Drain.

[snow]

Andrew, I'm guessing most players will just take the drain hit. The idea is that you should be stuck with the item for like a floor before you can take it off. That's how it works in the early game, anyway. Late game curses just are an annoyance.

[andrew]

I was talking about a replacement for *Curse on artifacts, not for curses on random equipment.

[Sprucery]

Andrew, I'm guessing most players will just take the drain hit. The idea is that you should be stuck with the item for like a floor before you can take it off. That's how it works in the early game, anyway. Late game curses just are an annoyance.

What if the curse was indeed tied to floors? Like, you have too visit 3 new levels and then the curse comes off. This would make late game curses matter as well.

[quik]

Well, even in the late game you are forced to waste an equipment slot for the scrolls, because there is often enough stuff that you want to try out without wasting an id scroll. But I wouldn't call that an interesting decision, as it is in the early game.

I disagree. Once I have enough scrolls of identify I dump remove curse. Also, on some games where I have a very tight inventory I drop both identify and remove curse and just CTRL+F them when I need to use them.

[andrew]

Andrew, I'm guessing most players will just take the drain hit. The idea is that you should be stuck with the item for like a floor before you can take it off. That's how it works in the early game, anyway. Late game curses just are an annoyance.

What if the curse was indeed tied to floors? Like, you have too visit 3 new levels and then the curse comes off. This would make late game curses matter as well.

Would require some serious rebalancing, though. The game is (I assume) currently balanced around cursed floor items only being (relevantly) an early-game effect.

Edit: and now I see the devs went with the more direct solution.