Curses break the design

[Solodric]

The developer responded to some objections to the curse system after the stats were changed to have a finite number of increases way back when, saying he was considering some sort of recovery or mitigation approach, but as far as I know he never implemented one.

He compared this design to XCOM and Darkest Dungeon. Here's the problem with the comparison: No matter what happens in either of those games (short of outright defeat in XCOM), every setback can be recovered from. That's the whole point of that design; rather than loading saves when you stumble, you are forced to live with the consequences, but you CAN overcome them.

Curses in this game permanently decrease your stats, which can make victory impossible or torpedo and otherwise workable game. In my case, I was playing as the Detective and got hit with a Dry Soul Curse, which I was powerless to prevent or stop (and had no warning about until it was too late). This was my first experience with the Curse system, and with my Reason permanently decremented, my whole playstyle fell apart.

It's not necessarily that I'm in an unwinnable state from that one curse, but rather that the knowledge I will permanently be stuck in an aggravating cycle in that regard thanks to the curse just killed all of my interest in the game immediately. If there was a long, arduous process to reversing the effects, I wouldn't care - that'd just be business as usual in Cultist Simulator. Instead, there's absolutely nothing I can do.

This basically adds yet-another newbie trap and encourages players to take the safest possible route through the game, via memorization and careful planning (what the developer calls the Heart approach), rather than taking risks. Winter players, as the dev calls them, take risks so they can reap the rewards and overcome the obstacles; by making unrecoverable situations a part of the game, you flatly deny that playstyle, rather than encouraging it. It's a mistake. If anyone knows of a way to reverse curses as they currently are, I'd like to know it; otherwise, I might just be done with this game entirely, as memorizing and avoiding every single curse in the game sounds like a dull chore.

[AK]

I just dropped by to say that, grumpy start notwithstanding, this thread renews my faith in humanity. Thanks OP for listening, thanks everyone else for helping.

[PaleBlueDot]

I hope this isn't too heinous an act of necromancy to respond to this thread, but I want to point out that even if you prepare for an expedition exhaustively, the RNG will still decide that you need to lose this one.
I can assign three skintwisters to Grunewald's circus and the worms in the world can STILL follow them home, and I can assign three seers and Theresa to explore St. Agnes' hospital and STILL get poked in the third eye.
That's why people complain about curses, I think. Realistically, you won't lose followers on expeditions due to this mechanic unless you're really reckless, but if the RNG decides that you need to fail a curse challenge, your only recourse is to somehow come up with a fifteenth-order heart influence (Ha, ha, ha.)
Losing a maid-in-the-mirror to a big snake is a loss of maybe two minutes of playtime. Losing King Crucible to some watchers is a loss of five minutes to a half hour, depending on when it happens. Losing an exalted disciple stings, but it won't ultimately make you lose the game, and as far as expeditions go it's very forgiving.
Drawing the short straw on a curse, however, is permanent, and if I wind up eating too many curses despite sending 10 intensity of whatever the requisite aspect is, I could potentially be locked out of a knock victory for the priest, at least. Other victories don't experience quite as much of an existential threat from curses, but depending on the legacy you're playing, an early loss of a stat really can put a crimp in your game, especially if you wind up not having enough passion to do the big paintings.

[madsamurai]

Originally posted by PaleBlueDot:

I hope this isn't too heinous an act of necromancy to respond to this thread, but I want to point out that even if you prepare for an expedition exhaustively, the RNG will still decide that you need to lose this one.
I can assign three skintwisters to Grunewald's circus and the worms in the world can STILL follow them home, and I can assign three seers and Theresa to explore St. Agnes' hospital and STILL get poked in the third eye.
That's why people complain about curses, I think. Realistically, you won't lose followers on expeditions due to this mechanic unless you're really reckless, but if the RNG decides that you need to fail a curse challenge, your only recourse is to somehow come up with a fifteenth-order heart influence (Ha, ha, ha.)
Losing a maid-in-the-mirror to a big snake is a loss of maybe two minutes of playtime. Losing King Crucible to some watchers is a loss of five minutes to a half hour, depending on when it happens. Losing an exalted disciple stings, but it won't ultimately make you lose the game, and as far as expeditions go it's very forgiving.
Drawing the short straw on a curse, however, is permanent, and if I wind up eating too many curses despite sending 10 intensity of whatever the requisite aspect is, I could potentially be locked out of a knock victory for the priest, at least. Other victories don't experience quite as much of an existential threat from curses, but depending on the legacy you're playing, an early loss of a stat really can put a crimp in your game, especially if you wind up not having enough passion to do the big paintings.

Couple of things.
First, you only need a heart influence of 10 intensity to defeat a curse that has settled.
Second, for most of the victories, you could probably stumble into every single curse and still manage to complete your ascension.
Third, priest is a hard legacy, so by the time you are trying to become a door, you should know how to make level 10 heart influences. Also, the priest does not really require that many expeditions. I'm pretty sure you can complete it with just the lore you get from Moreland's.

[berandro]

Yeah, and dying. I mean, the permanence of dying really kills this game. There should be a way to reverse that, otherwise the whole run is ruined and the player just has to restart and ... That's the level of "argumentation" here.

As plenty of people have said, there are ways to reduce the risks of getting cursed and 100% chance of preventing the curse from taking effect. As it was also pointed out, even if they do take effect, they will never really ruin a run, because you get more than enough of Reason/Passion/Health to win the game. And even if you're unlucky and they do affect all the same stat, there are rites that change Passion into Reason and vice-versa. And you can even change Passion/Reason indirectly into Health. In other words, curses are a non-issue, a minor inconvenience at most. Saying they "break the design" of the game is just laughable.

[Solodric]

Originally posted by btonasse:

Yeah, and dying. I mean, the permanence of dying really kills this game. There should be a way to reverse that, otherwise the whole run is ruined and the player just has to restart and ... That's the level of "argumentation" here.

As plenty of people have said, there are ways to reduce the risks of getting cursed and 100% chance of preventing the curse from taking effect. As it was also pointed out, even if they do take effect, they will never really ruin a run, because you get more than enough of Reason/Passion/Health to win the game. And even if you're unlucky and they do affect all the same stat, there are rites that change Passion into Reason and vice-versa. And you can even change Passion/Reason indirectly into Health. In other words, curses are a non-issue, a minor inconvenience at most. Saying they "break the design" of the game is just laughable.

Necroing a thread where someone actually managed to answer my initial question, I marked it, and the whole thing was resolved over a month ago just so you could feel superior for a minute by typing up some useless snide comments.