Cursed Item Brainstorming

[HousePet]

Hmmm... Making the Curses partly function without requiring equipped items is an interesting idea. Having to juggle items to make the effects useful, isn't the best part of them by a long shot. Maybe they could be changed to function without cursing items at all?

[stinkstink]

I think the bigger issue with the Cursed Aura tree is that it isn't very good on Doomed.

It wasn't an Optimal Build but I had a goodass time in the prides as an undead Doomed with Curse of Death a while back. Having it work on more than humanoids would help, I think.

[Delmuir]

I'm just brainstorming...

Having said that, why remove the item-juggling aspect? I mean, I get why... it is irritating, but if you do, it's just another category tree. More so, how would you then have the curses activate?

At that point, I have a hard time seeing the point.

What's nice about the curses IS the inconvenience and risk. Do I keep a weaker item in order to maintain this amazing curse? It's a trade-off.

The problem is that the tradeoff is rarely worth it, given how shitty everything but Shrouds is.

So... another idea:

What if you tweaked some of the curses to make them better but then made them interact with one another?

What I mean is this: Each curse would have its own benefits and penalties but as you combine them (say 3 shrouds and 2 madness and 2 corpses), they also produce extra bonuses and penalties based on how the interact with one another.

I realize that this is a little tricky as there are quite a few combinations (based on how many items have curses activated) but that might be fun.

Edit: About Doomed... I'm sure it can work, and Corpses is definitely the best one to use, but all in all, I think it's less valuable on Doomed than Cursed because Doomed is so good as Anti-magic and so strapped for Generics in general. Still, solid build.

[HousePet]

Yeah fully removing the item matching aspect might be going too far.

Maybe have a bonus for having at least 1 point of each curse?
Full house? Straight flush?

[Delmuir]

Maybe have a bonus for having at least 1 point of each curse?
Full house? Straight flush?

Yeah, that's basically my thought on it... just have some more chemistry. Types of curses AND types of gear, and so on.

... assuming max 10 slots, perhaps something like this (not necessarily ALL of these ideas, maybe just some):

1. Curses of the same type scales as per the way it is currently.

2. 1 of each type grants an added bonus over whatever scaling (you might have 2 or 3 of one type and 1 of the rest) you have.

3. 2 of each type... same.

4. 2 curses at 4 or higher and no other curses... each combination having its own bonuses.

5. 3 curses at 3... same.

6. 2 curses at 4 only and any other curses.

7. Both rings and amulet have the same curse type...

8. Belt, armor, boots, shield, and helmet have same curse type.

9. Belt, armor, boots, shield, and helmet all have different curse type.

10. Dual-wielded weapons have same type as tool.

And so on...

[Frumple]

... so, idea that... seems to be fairly radical compared to earlier ones in the thread, unless I missed something.

Why not turn the curse strength aspect into something like mark prey? Each curse (maybe new ones, maybe not) would have a sort of point pool. While you wear cursed items, kills increase the respective pools, one (or however many) point(s) per item per curse. After a threshold, the curse goes up a rank. Removing an item would just stop the point progression. So the first tier talent would curse items, maybe increase the number of concurrent curses you can be storing up (one per raw tlvl or somethin') and possibly maintain the effect-new-sorts-of-item thing, but that's about it. Probably have a fairly high number of kills required to top off a curse, but not as hard scaling for the lower levels; basically, you'd have to be wearing one curse for a significant portion of a normal run to max it out, but it'd be fairly easy to get two or three ranks in a short-ish period.

Maybe have it so if you run out of slots/max out a particular curse, the excess points will just go into one of the other curses at reduced efficiency... so say you max madness, but have other curses you're powering -- they'd get one point every two or three or so kills credited to the madness curse. If you've only got three slots, but are wearing five different curses, the extraneous pair will siphon strength into the other curses at a similarly reduced rate. This'd tell the fiddly part of the item management to bugger off, while still encouraging and rewarding the management in general. Probably tie some bonus into what curses you're wearing, too.

Then you can have some real fun. Have the rest of the talents sup or scale from the curse pools, and probably vary based on what curses you have stored. So ruined earth, if kept, ferex, would not just be damage reduction (or not be damage reduction at base at all, and have that be dependent on one of the curse types) -- it would just be an (increasingly large and powerful, with tlvl) AoE that infects an area with curses for a set amount of time, as many effects as you have curses. You could keep the sentry, and grant it talents and abilities based on available curses and their power (and maybe something extra based on whatever the weapon itself is cursed with?). Dark gifts would probably just be replaced with... something or another. Not sure what. Forget the rank limitation entirely though; the investment for that will be time and usage instead of talent points.

Though did have an idea, heh. Have it be a talent, possibly the only talent in the tree (and almost certainly the tier four one, bumping ruined earth and cursed sentry down a notch), that actually consumes curse strength (the other two actives would be about what they are now, resource/CD wise). You choose your curse and it straight up downgrades it a rank. In exchange, you curse the entire level, basically making a level/zone effect, with severity and effect based on the curse and its strength, tlvl providing a (fairly strong, since you want to encourage investment) multiplier to the effect, or possibly gating rank of curse you can choose (naturally, choosing a higher rank than the talent allows would just snip the amount of the lower level from the pool, rather than downgrade regardless). If you want it to be not as punishing, you could have it refund most/all the consumed strength if you kill everything on the level. You'd probably have folks with the cursed aura either immune or resistant to the effect, but nothing else. Probably no layering, but... maybe. Could see it, but splitting the amount of the strength return between the chosen curses (maybe or maybe not being a way to sacrifice some of a high rank curse to quickly boost up a lower one) or somethin'.

That'd add something we actually haven't seen at all mechanics wise, so far as I'm aware, and do it in a way that returns high risk (the chance of losing precious curse strength, if you choose one of your higher rank curses and can't clear the level for whatever reason) with high reward (debuff friggin' everything, no saves, no mitigation unless they're also cursed).

It'd be a significant rework (so a lot of coding, which is always a downside to reworking), but it'd both tie in to an already existent mechanic a cursed class uses (the cursed predator tree), nix many of the issues the current curse system has (mostly related to the item juggling) while still encouraging much of the same playstyle (managing which curses you have equipped, etc., with less punishment if the RNGods aren't merciful), and potentially introduce some interesting stuff besides. And thematically, the curse that grows stronger primarily with time and murdery cursed things is a hell of a lot more on point than the one that fluctuates entirely depending on what boots you're wearing that day, imo.

E: Actually, tlvl investment across the board would probably gate either the maximum rank effect or number of curse effects (probably the latter, at least for ruined earth and cursed sentry), or both. So with ruined earth, tlvl one would just get one curse effect (defaulting to your highest rank, as it would going down the list if you have more slots), but tlvl 5 would get you 3-5. This would mean you still get decently powerful effects from single point investment, but get significantly more varied (and presumably powerful because of it) ones with talent point investment.

E2: Though... probably have some way to purge a curse entirely, maybe just that T4 talent, maybe some kind of new area or fortress effect (purge the curse, fight a foe/clone with (extra) abilities based on the curse removed!) in case you get stuck with something you don't want early on when you have limited (or more limited, anyway, if it ends up being less available slots than there are curses) slots.

E3: Actually, that clone thing would make for a simpler T4, too. Same cost, but it gives you that clone until you leave the level, maybe or maybe not having the same strength return effect (possibly just refund entirely on clone death; basically trading a rank in a curse for a fairly powerful, or at least high utility, golem/thoughtform/etc. equivalent). One of the extra abilities could be a gloom like or on-hit/talent/etc. effect that imparts the debuffs the first idea would use, possibly similarly irresistible save for other folks with the cursed aura. E5: Could also just have it be something like the doombringer Destroyer talent -- enhance other talents/give extra effects/etc. based on curse(s), on use -- if you didn't want to fiddle with summoning or particularly exotic stuff ala level effects. Could have each curse lean towards (or focus entirely on) a particular cursed class, even...

E4: And ah, in regards to those cursed artifact ideas, they'd tie pretty much perfectly into a system like this... and also be a good vector to spread curses to classes without the tree, while still letting the cursed classes have a monopoly on the cursed aura tree itself. Basically, using them would put points into a (probably unique, because why not?) curse tied directly to the item; no need for cursed aura, and probably at a -- significantly, maybe based on item tier or thematic intensity of the curse -- increased rate. Cursed aura users may or may not have it eat up a slot. If not, the artifact curses might be rank limited based on artifact strength, too, if the curses tied to them are unique, so a cursed aura user wouldn't have to sacrifice a slot to utilize it, and would in fact be encouraged to use a lot of cursed artifacts just to accumulate more curse effects. Or maybe only have one available "extra" slot like that (accessible to everybody, cursed aura or not), that artifact curses would basically fight over. It might still allow for a lot of different minor curse effects, but they'd share effectiveness based on overall pool share (probably with any of them that have a rank advantage having substantially disproportional influence), so you'd still be incentivized to focus on a particular item lest you end up with a lot of barely useful junk. Maybe even have some artifact curses include penalties if they're fighting other curses for dominance, heh, or have the current one just passively degrade older ones instead of having to kill for it. There could even be particularly special/high tier cursed artifacts that resist or are immune to being fought, so they'd always hold on to whatever portion of the artifact curse pool they've accumulated.

[HousePet]

Bumpage in the hope of more people diverting the run off of their own brainstorms into this thread.

[astralInferno]

I have the beginnings of a class design called the Shrouded which has a talent tree for each curse, with the trees adding permanent levels to the curse. The design is incomplete, but if anyone thinks it'd be useful, it's here.

[Atarlost]

I'd suggest making the penalties scale as well as the benefits with the number of items. Right now, opening the tree will
severely penalize you for no meaningful upside until you're into the mid-game. And eat your generic points on top of it.

The penalties need to be negligible for the level 1 curse to not be a huge liability, but they have to have meaning later on, thus they must scale like the benefits.

[Frumple]

... if you're going to ramp up the downsides, you really should have a way to weaponize them. Add the penalties to gloom auras at a minimum, perhaps, or just everything in a radius equal to the curse strength (maybe the highest determining radius, maybe independently for each curse, maybe stacking radius based on total curse strength rather than highest, whatever works best for balance). At least add the effects to ruined earth and/or let the cursed sentries inflict them on hit or somethin'.

There's incredibly few talents in the game that have detriments that scale with investment, so if you're going that route there should be some kind of really compelling reason to do so, and particularly a good reason that the player would be willing to take the hit. Unless you're jacking the benefits up hard, some way to make your misery everyone else's, too, might be a nice way of doing that.

E: ... actually, now I'm half way wondering why it isn't already like that. It would make for a pretty slick bit of design if, say, the curse of corpses inflicted its penalty on everyone around you as well... and eventually caused everyone effected to be treated as undead,* yourself included. Probably have to change up misfortune's somewhat, though.

*And something of similar nature for, like. All of them? Would be nice. Undead nature for corpses (and maybe something else, I'unno), light/sight radius reduction for shrouds, small chance to generate traps for misfortune, etc., so forth, so on. Some kind of environmental influence at higher ranks of curse, showing how the effects twist the world around the afflicted.

[HousePet]

Currently thinking:

Not much point building a category around cursed items as it would just be a point sink or have unrelated filler talents attached to something which is an all or nothing choice.
Instead have a single talent as a choice in the Cursed Form category which acts like Defiling Touch and Dark Gifts, but without the luck penalty reduction effect (and maybe remove the option for boosting a curse by 2 levels, just make it curse more items instead). Actual curses would be similar in form to what they are now, but with revised effects and maybe one more curse so there is one curse per stat.
Each curse would also apply its detrimental effect to all creatures in a radius equal to its curse strength.
Have an extra benefit for having at least one point of each curse. Maybe bonuses for other combinations, but that could get out of hand very quickly...
Ruined Earth can go in Cursed Form.
Cursed Sentry can go into a new generic category with a few new similarish flavoured talents.

[Frumple]

Eehh... you can still do it. Just unfill the filler talents. It's not exactly difficult to interconnect 'em if you actually want to -- see the thing about changing ruined earth and/or cursed sentry based on active curses, ferex. They both still fit fairly thematically due to their expression of the curse on the surroundings (which is... a pretty substantial theme for the afflicted. About the only area they're prominent that doesn't have some kind of overt environmental effect, aesthetic or otherwise, is the lumberjack village, iirc, and it's probably half the doomed's entire shtick.), they're just currently disconnected from each other, particularly mechanically, in a way they probably shouldn't be.

Alternately re-theme it around curses rather than cursed items (one way being that wall of text I bricked up the thread with ). I'd kinda' like to see something like that m'self, obviously enough, heh. But just something that really pegs an afflicted's developing curse(s) with something that isn't just level gain and talent point investment would be... nice. Add a thematic point that I'd really say they're kinda' missing and could probably use (more of, I guess... mark prey would sorta' fit) given their fluff and whatnot. Make the development of part of the cursed nature more visceral, less purely mechanical, kinda' like mark prey or stalk or whatev' does. Current cursed aura system sorta' does that, it's just very... not sticky? When it should be sticky. It shouldn't be as easy to shed a curse's effect as swapping hats. Really kind of reduces the gravity of what's going on with the afflicted, y'know?

Or fold 'em into other trees, as you're thinking, I guess. I'd like that least, m'self... really do think a tree specifically for having and managing a curse system would be really nice to have, both for ease of integration into other classes and for how much a thematic component of the afflicted it's mostly supposed to be. Don't really think I'd like having that just being kinda' scattered around and secondary/subordinate to other parts of the class(es). Should stand on its own, proudly, as befits the overall fluff weight of the afflicted's curse, ehehe.

Point sink wise, though, it's a design thing. You just have to make it so one point is still good, or at least good enough to spend otherwise spare talent points on it, while more investment makes it more desirable. It's usually not really that difficult, it's just that... well, major kudos to who made the afflicted the first time (though I've unfortunately forgotten who they are :V), 'cause they were really quite innovative and whatnot when they were introduced, but the numbers and mechanics on 'em have pretty much always been a little... clumsy, I guess is the right word? Basically wouldn't assume that because something relating to them has historically been a point sink means it has to be one. Just swap stuff up; bundle the first and second tiers, have full curse item access from the start and extra investment improve the effects, or have some other influence, ferex; something where the first point is good and the next ones are better, instead of the first one being kinda' painful and low impact besides, and the later ones ameliorating those problems.

---

Also see you're thinking of replacing two talents in cursed form, there. Which'uns would go? Unnatural body would almost certainly stay and already has a large enough tooltip bundling something else into would be silly, and you'd probably hear grumbles if you touched relentless (unless you folded something into it, anyway... maybe even the latter two talents to make room for the new ones), so I'm guessing seethe and grim resolve? Do people even put points into those anymore?

And what's wrong with it getting out of hand, eh? Beyond the coding effort, anyway Curses are already kinda'-sorta' involved, no real harm in making them less single dimensional (basically all you do is stack up, right now, improvement wise), too~ Still, fairly simple way would be generic-ish boosts for having more on at a time, and then specific ones for pairing certain curses (it'd be particularly easy if that sixth curse was added -- you'd have str/con, dex/cun, and mag/wil right there, on point, and reasonable to have notable interaction). Probably with some kind of conflict mechanic so you wouldn't just get all three pairs on your kit and call it a day (only most cursed pair interaction expresses? With the generic boost for having multiple curses still being there). If y'don't want to make it super involved, you don't have to, yeah? It's still a good enough idea that involving it at least a little would be neat.

[HousePet]

Its not difficult to interconnect item curses with other talents, but that is detrimental to the other talents. As it is currently, if you want to use Ruined Earth or Cursed Sentry, you have to take Cursed Aura even if you don't want to play with the item curses. That could be avoided by putting the item cursing talent after the other talents, but I'm noticing people tend to freak out when they see they have 20 categories to pick from so I'm trying to condense things. Following Benli's lead of choices in the Tranquil Meadow, I'm making talents 2,3 and 4 in Cursed Form based on choices you make. As item curses is an optional sidegrade for afflicted classes, it would fit there nicely.
Of course, if I find more ideas and can construct another reasonably elegant solution to the talent tetris problem, or this one just doesn't work well enough, we can try something different.

You can check out what I've done with Cursed Form in the thread in the Development forum.

There are 15 combinations of 2 out of 6 curses, and that is just the simplest option. Forgetting the coding of combination effects, we still need to think of suitable and useful combination effects for each one.

[Frumple]

Nah, a much simpler way would be what I suggested just then; just have three pairs that do anything, not any combination of two. Game even has that fairly consistent pairing pattern, as also seen via the alchemist potions. Three conditionals (a str/con one, a dex/cun one, and a mag/will one) and a generic bonus isn't too bad, methinks... thinking of 'em is a thing, but you've got a fairly obvious theming point (body/speed/mind) you can latch on to the style of either of the afflicted classes, which makes things a bit easier.

And nah, what I meant by interconnected was more, y'know. Actually have the curses do something for ruined earth or cursed sentry besides their unlocking talents gating them, so it wouldn't be detrimental, but rather a natural progression (item based uses of 'em could just use a random curse effect, or have one associated with the item or whatev', if you don't actually have cursed aura; it'd even make a clear distinction in effectiveness beyond effective talent level for item vs. talent use...). You'd be having the later talents actually build off the earlier ones, so investment in them would be reasonable rather than a burden to get to the good stuff. The current implementation is certainly just kinda' disconnected from each other, which is why you fix it

S'what I'd like to see, really... the later talents should be some kind of evolution or advancement of the curse, particularly thematically. They should actually display that the curse is progressing, the effects are broadening beyond the self, having influence on the surrounding world, etc., etc. The curse unleashed should grow, yeah? Though I'd really say cursed sentry should come before ruined earth, from a thematic point of view; clearer progression from self, to item, to surroundings, very clearly signaling that the scope of the curses effects are broadening rather than just kinda' jumping around.

Though yeah, expanding that to a more general thing brought about by in-game choices (of which item curses in particular would be a subset/sidegrade) is also something that could be pretty neat. I'd still really, really prefer to see some kind of non-talent point progression involved regardless, above and beyond whatever flags those choices flip (because seriously, the class category's theme bloody screams for it, and right now about the most we have is mark prey, discounting cursed aura's kinda' clunky bit), but decoupling that from items in particular would be just fine~

[Ace0fSwords]

I say give a percent chance to seed all weapons with a cursed ego.

For example
Insidious steel-longsword of vileness might become

Frenzied Insidious steel longsword of vileness

Cursed egos would have both positive and negative effects, for example:

Frenzied:
25% attack speed
-10 Defense
5% chance of confusion (self)

Haunted:
+10 Mind Damage
5% chance of user being disarmed (self)

Bloodthirsty:
10% of weapon damage given to user
-15% Heal Mod

Hateful:
+20 Physical Damage
User takes 10 physical damage when attacking

Maddening:
10% chance of inflicting confusion (on hit)
-10 mind save
1% chance per turn of confusion

Talents in the cursed tree might allow the player to improve the positive aspects of a cursed ego and negate (or cast upon the enemy) a negative aspect of a cursed ego, as well as unlock and improve a property of a cursed weapon.

Non-cursed players can decide whether the benefits of the weapon a cursed weapon outweigh its disadvantages. Perhaps players (maybe just anti-magic ones) can take the weapon to a shop where the curse can be removed.