Lots of negativity in this thread (but not only!), which is of course no reason in itself to react. However, this is a list of arguments, so I'll say something about it (I have nothing to do with amulet changes themselves):
lethediver wrote:Hi, I just wanted to say I don't really like the direction of the amulet changes.
1) Adds a lot of complexity. There's different removal penalties for each amulet? That's a lot for new players to pick up.
New players have to pick up much, much more than this. The learning curve of Crawl (or any similarly sized roguelike, I guess) is very steep. Amulet effects do not have a noticeable impact on this. Also don't neglect that getting into the game has been made easier in many other ways, over many versions.
2) Not thematic / not intuitive.
You say this, casually, so let's remind what amulet effects we had before everyone started screaming:
* Faith having a piety toll when removed
* Gourmand having a warmup period
* Spirit zeroing MP when put on
In all of these cases, I hope it's clear that some effect is needed. I can vouch for Gourmand, because that's the very first thing I proposed as a developer. People, and that includes me, actually swapped in Gourmand after a kill, ate as many chunks as possible, and swapped in a more useful amulet right away. It was tedious, it was possible, so we did it. (Now you can say that the proper solution would have been something about food itself instead, but: one step after the other, better a quick solution right away than the perfect solution never etc.)
These effects are not hard to learn, they are thematic and I'd say they're appropriately intuitive.
There's a point to be made that up-front effects are superior to post-removal effects. Cool ideas are always appreciated!
You can discuss whether the new effects are as thematic, but that's a discussion to be actually had. (Hint: if you dislike them, it's very useful to combine "I don't like this!" with proposals.)
There is "cursed" gear in a lot of RPGs, but not a lot of neutral, unintelligent gear which would inflict harm on you for the crime of taking it off. It kind of just doesn't even really make sense, there's no tradition of amulets doing stuff like this in any game or setting.
That's a non-argument, as far as I am concerned. (But I'm also the one who happily moved away from tradition by supporting MD removal and coming up with DD. So for me it's even an anti-argument: I support avoiding tropes.) What about "making sense" in a fantasy setting? The rules are ours, and if we think the game becomes better for it, that's good enough.
3) Malmutate was already tedious and unreliable to deal with while having rMut. Without rMut, the late game just got even more annoying. Please at least have more cure mutation potions or something if you're going to remove rMut. I don't want to have to treat every neqoxec like a boss fight.
It has been said often enough by now, including by orange people, that malmutation will need at least a lookover and possibly changes.
That is a general effect, and it'd help if players would get more used to it: a massive change will imply follow-up changes. It is likely (though I'm not sure it is strictly necessary) that rMut removal forces changes to malmutations and/or malmutators. So we'll see that
by playing trunk and react. More cure mutation potions is one way, malmutations being temporary first and getting permanent upon second hit is another one, simply fewer but more relevant malmutations still another etc.
I just hope that permanent, bad mutations stay. I think they add a lot to the game.