Don't like shadow curse in ng+

[Fuzzy the imperfect]

Feels like a slap in the face for liking the game enough to play this long, especially as a melee character. "Oh you like our game? F you here's a bunch of ghosts that evade your attacks and give you permanent debuffs!" Motivation for playing further dies fast. It's not that I have found it difficult to play with stacks of shadow curse, rather it's a frustration; it ruins fun.

The only ways I can imagine fixing the situation would be not much different than removing it from the game. Being able to upgrade the pyres to remove more stacks. A potion upgrade that removes stacks (is there such a thing? I haven't unlocked everything). Removing a stack when healing at full health. That sort of thing.

I can't imagine the percentage of people that play after encountering this to be high- checking 3.6% of people have beaten ng+.

[Nyu]

its really stupid, specially cause these ghosts can evade attacks and you are forced to use aoe skills.
while the character is unable to evade one of 500 attacks with evade stats over 30%.

[Cobar]

Curse should be completely removed from the game if we take in to account NG+ modifiers.

NG+2 already removes 399 armor from you and gives crazy debufs for your resistances. Its more then enough to make game punishing for being hit.

Even if you get pyre upgraded to lvl 2, blessing, special drink, armor and trinkets with curse decreasing passive, you still can get +3 shadow curse from one hit. Bosses like shadow face can easly give you 40+ curse if youre unlucky, just because youre going to get damaged anyway with some cheap hits.

[Cobar]

Also revive mechanic in multiplayer should be reworked, because right now its punishing people for teamplay, but this is another topic I suppose.

[DaGuy]

0% Shadow Curse Gain is possible though the higher you go the more shadow gain curse there is so without getting the Zeal enchant for your gear (-10% shadow curse gain) it may be pretty rough at ng+ 3 and above (already getting +25% shadow curse gain from +3). Anything related to shadow curse resistance is a must have at the higher NGs

[Das Trojanische Pferd]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Cobar:

Also revive mechanic in multiplayer should be reworked, because right now its punishing people for teamplay, but this is another topic I suppose.

oh i rather have this system then the old.... the system in HoH1 was way worse....

[Altearia]

Oprindeligt skrevet af DaGuy:

0% Shadow Curse Gain is possible though the higher you go the more shadow gain curse there is so without getting the Zeal enchant for your gear (-10% shadow curse gain) it may be pretty rough at ng+ 3 and above (already getting +25% shadow curse gain from +3). Anything related to shadow curse resistance is a must have at the higher NGs

If it is a required stat then it is a bad design.

[DaGuy]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Altearia:

If it is a required stat then it is a bad design.

Eh it's not "required" if you avoid the attacks that give shadow curse, all of the attacks are fairly telegraphed or avoidable. Problem is avoiding everything while killing groups, etc.

[Terranoch]

Oprindeligt skrevet af DaGuy:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Altearia:

If it is a required stat then it is a bad design.

Eh it's not "required" if you avoid the attacks that give shadow curse, all of the attacks are fairly telegraphed or avoidable. Problem is avoiding everything while killing groups, etc.

Problem is some of the classes are designed around being able to take hits but with the current shadow curse system they are nigh unplayable. Take the berserker warrior for example; I want to get hit to increase my rage stacks but the shadow curses make it extremely punising to get hit.

In a similar sense it makes health regen, healing, reduced damage taken, increasing HP etc. pretty useless.

It incentivizes the play styles where you hit enemies from distance and try to kill them before they can reach you and discourages you from playing more sustain/tanky based builds.

[HairboJackson]

I agree. Mechanics like Shadow Curse are bad. Playing through NG+1 and it's just annoying as a Paladin. I also get frustrated with the constant Disarm/Silence mobs in whatever zone. If the solution to making a game difficult are mechanics that remove my ability to react and play then they need better game designers.

Difficulty through deprivation is tacky design.

[Nyu]

ranger has skills around getting hit. other classes too :3

[Hieronymus Flex]

Shadow curse definitely seems somewhat poorly thought out, and really pushes you towards playing a Ranger/Wizard since any time you wade into a pack of enemies you risk gaining stacks. On levels with darker backgrounds especially it can be hard to notice when the shadows are approaching you. I generally don't like the ARPG paradigm of nuking your resistances to add difficulty, but maybe a system where your combo causes you to lose stacks of curse could work? Your character is glowing, so thematically it makes sense, and it adds a bit of a risk/reward balance to engaging lots of enemies rather than just kiting them

[Skeltis]

I dislike adds giving shadow curse in NG+ of additional punishments into already scaling content. Shadow Face feels terrible in NG+ with the curse, especially with how long the fight is.

I really enjoy shadow curse from the selectors as a risk reward system for getting extra trinkets, skills or damage buffs.

One system feels like terrible RNG with evasions or going into big packs and losing telegraphs among them will just screw you over. Just doesn't feel very fun.

The other system of dying to a one shot because you had so much good stuff is actually hilarious and enjoyable. I took the gamble and 65 shadow curse was too much to handle and never saw a Pyre after. I like the feeling of the gamble not paying out, but it really could have.

[owo]

There's tons of ways to mitigate shadow curse if you keep playing, to the point that you can become easily immune or near immune to it if you want to.

[DaGuy]

Oprindeligt skrevet af owo:

There's tons of ways to mitigate shadow curse if you keep playing, to the point that you can become easily immune or near immune to it if you want to.

This, after getting higher there's a food and two drinks along with a blessing if it's a major issue.

I will say the only thing that seems counter intuitive is it incentivizing skipping combat and only picking up trinkets or skill orbs plus the level's secret or two. I basically don't bother clearing floors until the Dark Halls because the curse isn't worth the small amount of exp till the last floor or so. Makes the modifier for having an explored map much more worth it for planning routes though.

[derw4tz]

with the new update shadow curse seems to be even less of an issue,

i was afraid of it in the beginnign but you can actually manage it pretty well and still play aggressively