Yes, yes, it can theoretically be useful if you equip a huge amount of it, but honestly, I think it's fair to say that the leeching ego is a massive pile of fail. Its negatives generally make any item that has it crap for almost everyone, and it seems waaaay too common for something almost nobody ever wants. Individual leeching items provide almost no benefit, and finding a whole suit of it that's worthwhile is nearly impossible. Even if you do, the massive penalties are rarely worth the benefit. The fact that it's available for everything -- making it appear constantly even though it's a crap ego that, 99% of the time, nobody wants -- only adds insult to injury.
If it could be fixed in a way that got rid of its absurd negative healing effect, it might be usable, but honestly, even then, it just feels poorly-conceived. What it wants to do is not something that really fits well into ToME's balance, so it's currently slapped with an absurd penalty that says "DO NOT USE THIS" in angry red letters. If it needs something like that, I think the more appropriate conclusion to draw is that it doesn't belong in the game at all.
Choosing equipment is meant to be fun. It's one of the major decisions that makes up ToME's gameplay. Equipment that the vast majority of characters have absolutely no use for and no chance of ever putting to any sort of use has no place in the game. I mean, yes, every game involves some equipment you won't use -- wrong weapon, wrong armor, whatever -- but the leeching ego just feels like a perfect storm of obscenely common and glaringly worthless.
If I never saw another negative healing item ever again I'd be happy, but the leeching ego in particular is what almost everyone is thinking about when they talk about it, because unless you wear a complete suit of it it provides absolutely no benefits worth its horribly irritating negatives. It's just extremely poorly-conceived -- if the general leeching concept is something worth saving, it should be salvaged in another way, not as something like this.
More than that, I just hate, hate, hate the leeching ego, on a gut level that goes beyond any logic. I'm sick of seeing so many items that have it; I'm tired of getting excited when I see an early-game blue item only to realize it's yet another crap leeching thing. My visceral hatred for it, I'll admit, goes way beyond anything its gameplay impact could justify, but I think it's worth mentioning -- in general, egos should be designed around making items cool and fun, and the leeching ego is, at least to me, in the subjective way that 'cool' and 'fun' are always subjective, the exact opposite of that.
I could suggest various ways of fixing it -- of making its penalty less painful and such -- but ultimately, I don't want it fixed. I want it to die die DIE and never be spoken of again.
Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Moderator: Moderator
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
I agree. Half the stuff I find seems to be leeching or insatiable, and I never, ever use it. That ego that has the ridiculous Con penalty (plague? pestilent? something like that) can probably be removed while you're at it, too. Nobody uses it. Lose the penalties, or lose the egos altogether. Either would be fine.
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Leeching egos are almost essential to my Cursed builds, and you only need two or three items for it to be worthwhile, not a full kit of 13. 20% chance of 3 leech is easily enough to regenerate Hate during a battle, and it is the only method that Cursed have to regenerate Hate in a boss fight. My idea for the ego is to make Life regen never go below 0, but I don't know how well that would work overall.
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Condensing the key points:
1. Negative effects on egos are bad, especially blue egos which we're supposed to get excited about.
2. Life regen is a horrible thing to have a penalty on. If anything it should be healing mod.
3. Leeching itself seems like it's out of place with the rest of the game. No use to most classes, and even in use they need several to stack to be effective. Its real effect are also far too obscure. Very inconsistent with the rest of the game. If a specific class needs them then let that specific class have some attention.
1. Negative effects on egos are bad, especially blue egos which we're supposed to get excited about.
2. Life regen is a horrible thing to have a penalty on. If anything it should be healing mod.
3. Leeching itself seems like it's out of place with the rest of the game. No use to most classes, and even in use they need several to stack to be effective. Its real effect are also far too obscure. Very inconsistent with the rest of the game. If a specific class needs them then let that specific class have some attention.
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Enough saidYou stop resting
Reason: Negative health regeneration
_ So _ damn _ annoying _ !
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
An easy solution to make it useful in small amounts would be to change the scaling to something like this.
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Hate generation is going to be much easier in the next version, if I'm not mistaken.lukep wrote:Leeching egos are almost essential to my Cursed builds, and you only need two or three items for it to be worthwhile, not a full kit of 13. 20% chance of 3 leech is easily enough to regenerate Hate during a battle, and it is the only method that Cursed have to regenerate Hate in a boss fight. My idea for the ego is to make Life regen never go below 0, but I don't know how well that would work overall.
Sorry about all the parentheses (sometimes I like to clarify things).
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
Aww... I kinda liked that frenzied hunger even in between battles... reminded me of Jason Statham in Crank, needing to keep the heart rate up or he's toastbricks wrote:Hate generation is going to be much easier in the next version, if I'm not mistaken.
Plus, once you got Seethe to give yourself a little booster, you just took out the weakest in the group first and then you were well on your way... 
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
If it's only useful to Cursed, make it a curse. Equipment with negatives and positives to balance out is supposed to be their big thing, anyway.lukep wrote:Leeching egos are almost essential to my Cursed builds, and you only need two or three items for it to be worthwhile, not a full kit of 13. 20% chance of 3 leech is easily enough to regenerate Hate during a battle, and it is the only method that Cursed have to regenerate Hate in a boss fight. My idea for the ego is to make Life regen never go below 0, but I don't know how well that would work overall.
Re: Remove the Leeching ego entirely.
It's still going to be valuable to come into fights with high Hate, perhaps still more so than Doomed since most of your damage will scale with Hate. Seethe is now a passive that will essentially give you a higher basal level (you begin regen'ing Hate at very low levels).Gliktch wrote:Aww... I kinda liked that frenzied hunger even in between battles... reminded me of Jason Statham in Crank, needing to keep the heart rate up or he's toastbricks wrote:Hate generation is going to be much easier in the next version, if I'm not mistaken.
Sorry about all the parentheses (sometimes I like to clarify things).