What is the point of "curses"?

[Flpstrike]

This is purely artificial difficulty, my best friend said that he had a Curse of the Blind in a certain level, and then he sadly had picked up "The Wiz"....

Sometimes having skill is never enough...RNG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is always around.

[Helix]

hmm i think curses enhance the randomness experience of the game, Isaac is not only about skills but rather, it focuses on luck and probability

[Eighteen-Counts Trevor]

I think they are supposed to disable something you really rely on in order to make the game harder. Not saying they're all good, but that's what I think they are there for.

[Eprico]

I think curse of the blind is fine. Obviously it sucks if you get it but it isn't problematic. Before repentance, the game was so easy you could just not pick up items when you had curse of the blind and be fine. Now during repentance, you can still not pick up items from pools where it can kill your run if you have curse of the blind but also potentially benefit from doing so later in the run in planetariums. You should always skip item rooms if you have curse of the blind, although the chances of getting screwed are pretty low so you only really have to do this during important runs.

[RZA]

Curses are put onto the player with the purpose of making them play differently. Not knowing your items may make you not take them, not knowing your health may make you play more cautiously, etc.

[Match]

To be fair there should be a slight chance for curses to be blessings instead, that could act like counterparts.

Curse of the Blind -> blessing that gives you higher quality ítems for that floor.
Curse of Darkness -> blessing that lights the floor and gives random enemies the stunned status or something like that.
Curse of Lost -> blessing that gives one of the three Book of Secrets effect
Curse of Unknown -> blessing of idfk, something health related, maybe the Wafer effect for the floor. Not completely useless on early floors since you can use it for Sacrifice doors
Curse of Maze -> blessing that keeps doors open or something like that
XL -> blessing that makes a floor very small instead

[TheZWolf]

Originally posted by Felippe:

This is purely artificial difficulty, my best friend said that he had a Curse of the Blind in a certain level, and then he sadly had picked up "The Wiz"....

Sometimes having skill is never enough...RNG ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is always around.

Just extra fun, RNG is a big part of the game after all

[slendyproject]

Curse of the blind in particular is there to add an extra layer of decision making. Do you pick up the blind item? It could ruin or define your run.

Picking up a blind item has nothing to do with skill. You either take the risk or you dont, but you can only blame yourself after the fact.

[Octavian]

I'm not a fan of curses. With the exception of curse of the blind and unknown they don't change how you play and are more annoying than anything. Maze just pisses me off, darkness just makes me turn up my monitor brightness, lost just makes you memorize the floor instead of using your map and only hurts if you have compass/maps, and XL is actually good. Besides the fact that there still aren't blessings over a decade later, it's upsetting that something that's supposed to limit your knowledge of the floor is often just a minor inconvenience that wastes your time and doesn't contribute to any meaningful changes in gameplay.

[HeraldOfOpera]

In actual clones of Rogue, the game randomly ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you over with artificial difficulty was outright intrinsic to the base mechanics. Just saying.