Confusion is just a tax on curing

[Woog]

Think about it. You've just been confused near some monsters that are even potentially dangerous, what do you do? Drink a curing potion obviously. What if you don't have one or are trying to save curing potions for some reason? Well then you just have to live with a crippling status effect that leaves you at less than 1/3rd your normal power (based on the 1 in 3 chance to act normally + other effects of confusion. Having allies makes it a little better though).

This is especially annoying as a Xom follower, as you're bound to get confused plenty of times over the course of a game, draining your supply of curing. Yes, I know it's Xom and it's supposed to be a challenging "high-tension" kind of god, but still.

Anyway this is just my opinion that confusion isn't really that interesting from a tactical point of view. It was just added because it exists in other games. Haste/Slow are also like this, extremely good/bad statuses that don't have much tactics to them. You're just much stronger/weaker because of it.

[delarado]

isnt that what status effects are though? Buffs and de-buffs?

Each different status effect is just a different flavor of buffs/debuffs - with different mechanics to go with to add variation.

I kind of understand what you are saying, but essentially I understand it as "This status effect is bad because I don't like the way you fix it"

I don't like being confused either... But part of the game is deciding when you need to use a curing potion and when you can just .... it out.

[Hellmonk]

Agree that confusion is a bad status, largely because curing exists. There really shouldn't be a status effect that you cure by drinking the most common potion in the game. The status effect itself also isn't super great but I'm not convinced that it's worse than, say, banishment. My biggest objection is that it's super awful to fight with interface-wise if you're in a trivial fight. If cancellation cured the status instead of curing, chain confusion was prevented (like chain paralysis prevention) and the duration was possibly reduced a little bit, you'd have a much better status effect. I'm not going to claim it'll be great, but when shit like monster cause fear exists I won't complain much further about confuse.

Strong disagree on slow and haste. Movement speed has obvious tactical implications.

[Sprucery]

There really shouldn't be a status effect that you cure by drinking the most common potion in the game.

Why not? Poisoned is also a status effect, is it bad that it is cured by !curing? What if curing was the second most common potion in the game, would it be ok then? Whether curing potions are too common is another question.

If cancellation cured the status instead of curing, chain confusion was prevented (like chain paralysis prevention) and the duration was possibly reduced a little bit, you'd have a much better status effect.

Sure, this would be ok too.

In any case, I've stated my view on what the effect of confusion should be in 3 different threads before, I'll just quote myself once again:

You can attack normally, but there is a 50%* chance of attacking a square next to the target. You can read, but there is a 50%* chance of failure (or, reading takes more time). You can zap a wand, but there is a 50%* chance of misfiring. You can cast spells, but miscast chance is greatly increased. Etc. The idea is that you could try to do the stuff you normally do, but confusion would make it (more difficult / sometimes fail).

* or some other value

(And cancellation should definitely remove the status effect.)

[duvessa]

There really shouldn't be a status effect that you cure by drinking the most common potion in the game.

Why not?

There's no point in having a debuff in the game if you don't actually have to deal with it. Poison has the same issue.

[Woog]

I'm fine with buffs and debuffs. I guess my main issue with it is that confusion is too strong. A character with heavy armor is much more likely to survive not being able to cure it but a spellcaster wearing much lighter armor and they can't even cast any spells is doomed. Something like Hellmonk's suggestion to nerf it would be a step in the right direction. Like the duration reduced and maybe a higher chance of spell/ability failure but not outright disabling it. Perhaps scrolls could take longer to read instead of just disabling that too.

I actually don't really mind Haste/Slow it's just that when I'm hasted I feel like Superman and when I'm slowed all I can think is "how can I get away long enough for this to wear off?"

[Sprucery]

There's no point in having a debuff in the game if you don't actually have to deal with it.

Quaffing a potion is dealing with it. If curing potions are too common is another question.

But using a consumable to deal with a debuff is perfectly fine.

Confusion is a good debuff in that you can always decide whether to use a consumable or just wait it out. This is an interesting decision. But I wouldn't mind if curing potions were less common. (Not that any other potion should be more common.)

[phloomp]

Should merge curing and cancellation.

[svendre]

The cost is the time spent quaffing the potion, not just the potion. In the heat of a tough battle, time is precious. Also, there are tactical considerations such as, if I quaff now, will I just receive the status over and over (think of a pack of bees and poison). If you sit there quaffing cure several times, you're guaranteed to not have other actions and may take more damage than the cure provides, and if this pattern repeats, you will die even if you have 1,000 cure potions. On the other hand, maybe you'll die if you don't quaff cure enough and at the right times... maybe you'll run out of potions and need one last one to avoid death...

Quaffing cure to cure confusion or poison is not an absolute correct response for all situations. If I'm surrounded on almost all sides, in good armour and swinging an axe confused, if there are no allies (and maybe if there are), why am I going to give a hoot about the confusion? Someone is still going to get hacked, just a little more or less than planned perhaps. What if there are allies and I might hit them, well should I quaff, or maybe I shouldn't attack, but I should do something else instead.

What if I need just one turn to possibly make it to some stairs, and I might make it... more interesting situations.

Then there is being undead, unable to quaff where confusion can be a totally different problem.

I don't see any major design flaw, and I have seen a fair amount of dynamics from the statues. There are issues with the game that I think are a lot more serious problems than confusion/curing potions if this is even one at all. The fix to the problem the OP has is actually to decouple wearing armour from affecting spellcasting, and then dealing with game balance from there if there are any issues.

[Sorcerous]

Think about it. You've just been confused near some monsters that are even potentially dangerous, what do you do? Drink a curing potion obviously. What if you don't have one or are trying to save curing potions for some reason? Well then you just have to live with a crippling status effect that leaves you at less than 1/3rd your normal power (based on the 1 in 3 chance to act normally + other effects of confusion. Having allies makes it a little better though).

This is especially annoying as a Xom follower, as you're bound to get confused plenty of times over the course of a game, draining your supply of curing. Yes, I know it's Xom and it's supposed to be a challenging "high-tension" kind of god, but still.

Anyway this is just my opinion that confusion isn't really that interesting from a tactical point of view. It was just added because it exists in other games. Haste/Slow are also like this, extremely good/bad statuses that don't have much tactics to them. You're just much stronger/weaker because of it.

Thought about it. I still can't understand your post. "Tax on curing".
Confusion is a much larger game element than playing under Xom or quaffing for a chance to survive. Should at least three player spells get changed/removed because confusion is such a bad and unnecessary thing? Or should loot generation get skewed towards more cure/cancel potions? Yeah, and tell all players who like stabber or hexer builds to find another game, while you're at it.

[Shtopit]

Should merge curing and cancellation.

I once thought of this, and later realized that it means that a fighter who drinks a potion of might to fight snakes on D:2 will debuff himself by drinking curing against poison.

Other than this somewhat unfair case, it would be interesting to have cancellation and curing merged. It would mean that drinking the potion could have negative effects, and thus add a level of decision making.

[acoolguy]

The difference between banishment and paralyze as opposed to confusion is that it is a lower level status ailment. Enemies quite early on like orc wizards and Sigmund use this at times where the amount of curing potions are quite low and these threats are still significant even with curing potions. Slow is also another status ailment that occurs early on, but it allows the player act. In a normal game, the number of confusing enemies that matter post lair is small (orange brains, golden eyeballs in slime, tarantellas in spider, ogre mages).

I also think merging curing and cancellation early on at the rarity of cancellation potions would be a bad idea because curing cures poison. Curing is especially relevant for lair runes that are done without rPois (not sure how viable branches like Snake or Spider would be without a way to deal with the poison).

Perhaps we should just change the confusion effect from Xom to be slow instead? It would force the player to more frequently play with a slow status or drink cancellation which is much rarer. Confusion remains a relevant ability for early game enemies like orc wizards and Sigmund, but is much rarer afterwards. I think the ability to drink curing to cure tarentella is fine. I would be fine with golden eyeballs,orange brain, and ogre magi confusion to be uncurable but I don't really think it would have a significant impact on gameplay (Slime should only be done with MR and ogre magis need to be treated as though they have paralyze/confuse which are more dangerous anyway).