Minor gripe regarding Cursed Tome event

[Nightmyre]

This is the one where you're reading the book that talks about Neow. You click to turn the page three times, each costing one more life (so 6 life total). Then, on the third page, you have the option to either spend ten more life to get one of three relics, or you can decide not to spend the extra life and leave.

The problem is that the option to not spend the extra life and leave, is located exactly on the spot that the page-turning options were. So if you're not paying attention, you end up clicking to leave without intending to.

And yes, I know, you can simply close and re-launch the game to re-do it. But first off, not everyone even knows this, and second, it seems a rather silly way to resolve the mistake.

I'm sure with a bit of extra spacing, it could be made such that the option your mouse is already hovering over becomes the spending the extra 10 life to get the item, rather than to leave. Chances are if your objective was to leave, you would be in a situation where you are already being cautious (IE, low on life), and so there's a much better chance that you will not inadvertently lose the life when you were planning on leaving, than vice-versa.

[Rogue]

They could change it, and I guess that wouldn't be a negative, but I question why anyone would spam through an event they aren't familiar with. To me that is essentially the same thing as complaining about the card hotkeys changing in your hand as you play them out. People who aren't paying attention are going to make mistakes regardless of whether this was changed or not.

[Dusk_Army]

^I think it's the opposite. I've misclicked like that a couple times precisely because I'm familiar with the event and want one of the books. As it is, I don't really understand why this event gives you the option to not take the book after spending all the HP. If you find out it's a book you don't want after spending it, you can just not pick up the relic, and you can't stop reading in the middle if you suddenly realize you don't have enough HP, only at the end. It honestly seems like that part is a trap for those that aren't paying enough attention.

[Rogue]

How familiar can you really be with it if you click past it not just once but multiple times?
As to why it even gives you the option; because everyone sees the event for a first time and you have no idea what the total investment will be. There are also fringe cases where you may want to take some hits but don't care enough about the reward in your current build to want to take the final, much larger hit. An example could be to activate the Red Skull bonus.

Ultimately I think it would be fine if they changed it, but I think that creates a much bigger problem than it solves because a lot of people will have it completely by muscle memory now and they would get screwed over a bunch for, honestly, not a fantastic reason.

[Nightmyre]

I already know what the event is. I don't need to read it every time. But, when I'm not paying attention and am just moving quickly, especially early on in the game, I've found myself more than once accidentally clicking to leave, and needing to relaunch the game in order to reset the event.

[Benkyo]

I believe this is a deliberate design choice.

[Dusk_Army]

As they say, familiarity breeds contempt. It's the same as instinctually clicking end turn after you've dumped your hand, then remembering that you have a potion you could have used or Unceasing Top. Is it your fault? Fully yes, but it still feels bad.

That said, I fully agree that swapping the options isn't a solution. The problem could be solved by moving the option slightly so that neither option is in the same location as the mandatory one.

Also, I should clarify: I understand the principal of allowing the player to refuse the book, what I don't understand is why the player can't choose to stop reading in the middle. Like, imagine if the reaching into the slime event made you keep reaching in and taking damage until you found the relic, and only then did it offer you the option to stop searching (and doing so skips the relic). These events have the same design principle (make the player think the cost isn't as high by using a series of small values instead of one large one), but only the tome event gives you the option to refuse your reward after investing.

[Rogue]

I believe the reason you aren't allowed to stop half-way is for flavour. The event text says you feel compelled to keep reading after you have picked to read once. You could argue that then it could just say "lose 6 HP" on the first choice but the increasing damage you take is representing the incremental pains of reading the book. Then again I didn't make the game, but this is my interpretation of it.

I also can't say I particularly agree with the comparison to the Scrap Ooze event, for multiple reasons. In one case the cost is static, and you'll end up paying the same amount of hp every time you come across the event. In the other case the cost is variable. The other reason is that the mechanics of the events are too different. They would be more comparable if, after success in the Ooze event, you had to pay an additional amount of hp to get the relic.

[Dusk_Army]

Fair. They're hardly the same, they just happened to be the closest comparison I could make. I'd still argue that the design principle is more or less the same though; the amounts might vary for one, but they both invoke a kind of "I'm in it for X HP, what's Y more?" thought process.

It is flavorful, I just think that the flavor is getting in the way of the mechanics in this case.

[Rogue]

Maybe, although I think since the amount of health you'd save if you wanted to stop after reading once only amounts to 5 hp it makes no discernible difference, whereas the Ooze event the difference can be colossal. If I was going to make a change to the event itself my change would be that after reading three times it tells you what book you're going to get if you pay the additional 10/15 hp because that would make the choice meaningful.

[Dusk_Army]

That's also a good point. I forgot to bring that up, but it's a bit odd that you only find out which book it is after paying the final cost. Which kinda cheapens the impact of the earlier decision.