Make cursed equipment appear as glowing or enchanted

[Quazifuji]

While I'm personally a proponent of curses being removed entirely (aside from Ashe), it seems like it does sometimes create an interesting risk/reward dynamic when you find potentially good equipment in the early game while lacking remove curse scrolls.

Except it's not just potentially good equipment that can be cursed. It's literally every equippable item in the entire game, even ones that appear to have no magical properties whatsoever. That's not not a risk/reward trade off, that's "you basically might just get randomly screwed over for ever trying to change your equipment," which doesn't seem desirable to me. The risk/reward that curses create is only interesting if there is a safe option. Deciding whether you should take the risk and equip the glowing, potentially cursed weapon or use the safe plain one is a potentially interesting choice. Feeling like you shouldn't ever equip anything ever if you don't have remove curse scrolls is not. The player should be able to safely equip a plain, unenchanted sling or long sword or whatever without worrying about being randomly screwed over.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I disagree. You already have a safe option - continue using what you are using (or have empty slot). You are suggesting a buff for all characters who find early lajatang, halberd, eveningstar etc.

[Quazifuji]

That's a very boring safe option, though. "Use only your starting gear or risk getting stuck with something cursed" is much more interesting than "use only non-magic gear or risk getting stuck with something cursed."

I'll also throw in a "tedium" argument: If you find a ranged weapon you're interested in possibly using and have a remove cursed scroll, it's currently optimal to immediately equip it just in case it's cursed, which is a bit annoying and unintuitive in my opinion.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Personally I like getting stuck with -2 weapon when I am a caster who found a dagger as first weapon.

[Doesnt]

Somewhat relevant question Felid: how do you play Arcane Marksman? You start with only 20 bolts, no damaging spells, and not even a knife. Trying to wield something from the floor means potentially locking yourself out of your launcher. Are you supposed to box things to death?

[Quazifuji]

Personally I like getting stuck with -2 weapon when I am a caster who found a dagger as first weapon.

Yeah, but that's not the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario is what Doesnt mention, starting as an AM and wanting a melee weapon, or starting as a hunter/assassin (or possibly even artificer) and wanting a non-shortblades weapon.

[jwoodward48ss]

What if we just did curse reform?

Idea: Removing a cursed weapon has a 50-50 chance of giving you a strategic or a tactical debuff. Strategic debuffs include draining, statrot, contamination, etc. Tactical debuffs include being slowed, corroded, confused, etc.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Somewhat relevant question Felid: how do you play Arcane Marksman? You start with only 20 bolts, no damaging spells, and not even a knife. Trying to wield something from the floor means potentially locking yourself out of your launcher. Are you supposed to box things to death?

I pick first weapon. If it is cursed, then I train its category and forget about ranged for a while.

[Hurkyl]

That's a very boring safe option, though. "Use only your starting gear or risk getting stuck with something cursed" is much more interesting than "use only non-magic gear or risk getting stuck with something cursed."

"Finding loot you can use on the first five floors of the dungeon " is more interesting than "pretend loot doesn't exist until you've identified ?RC".

[Blomdor]

This is something I've been hoping to see implemented for a long time. It'd be nice, and IMO not particularly detrimental to the game's overall difficulty or strategy, to just axe curses, but barring that this would be an improvement.

Curses are meaningless beyond the very early game, say, by the time you reach Lair. The vast majority of characters will never have a shortage of curse removal at that point. So this mechanic of every single item, glowing, enchanted, or not, being potentially -2 or more and cursed is just another early dungeon annoyance. Actually treating every item as potentially cursed and therefore not using any of them until a certain arbitrary scroll is found is, as has already been noted, boring and silly. I certainly don't do it. What does it add to the game?

[VeryAngryFelid]

Actually treating every item as potentially cursed and therefore not using any of them until a certain arbitrary scroll is found is, as has already been noted, boring and silly. I certainly don't do it. What does it add to the game?

Actually treating every item as potentially cursed is the whole point of curses. Otherwise just remove curses completely.
Personally I switched to equipping first weapon/ring/amulet as soon as possible, it is fun to be stuck with inaccuracy, teleportation and negative protection and still survive (happened to me recently).
We should enjoy it while it lasts, I believe curses and identification will be changed soon.