So, as we all know, Cursed Gear in the GS games are useless without the Fallen Angel's Ring/Cleric's Ring. This is because there's a 1/4 chance of the character just doing nothing, as if they got pegged by Ground or Petra. But what if that wasn't the case? What if, instead of a 1/4 chance to get pegged by that effect, it was a 1/4 chance for one of four negative effects? That'd effectively drop the stun rate to 1/16, a much more acceptable amount for the added power of cursed gear.
Here's the idea I have:
When the chance for negative effects activates, one of four things can happen with equal likelihood.
1 - The traditional Cursed Equipment stun effect
2 - User takes HP damage equal to a quarter of the highest amount of HP damage or Healing they did this turn (Ex: Casting grand gaia will only look at the center target, rather than the total damage. Casting pure wish will only look at a single character, rather than total healing amount).
3 - User takes PP damage equal to a fifth of the highest amount of HP damage or Healing they did this turn (Ex: Casting grand gaia will only look at the center target, rather than the total damage. Casting pure wish will only look at a single character, rather than total healing amount).
4 - User gets a debuff based on what action they did this turn.
In GS Vanilla:
- If damage was dealt to the foe, ATK -50% for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early.
- If healing was done, DEF -50% for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early.
- If a support ability was used, AGL -50% for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early.
In my Mk2 System:
- If physical damage was dealt to the foe, -50% ATK for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
- If spell damage was dealt to the foe, -50% CST for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
- If healing was applied, -50% DEF for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
- If a buff or recovery spell was used, -50% WRD for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
- If a debuff, ailment, or enhancement spell was used, -50% AGL for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
- If a summon was called, -80 RES for 4 Turns. Luck has half influence on ridding it early, Normalize effects are half as likely to rid the debuff.
This should keep cursed gear as being dangerous without necessarily crippling the user in battle. With this, it's much more viable to use cursed gear before you get the Cleric's Ring, and cursed rings become a decent option in and of themselves.
Quote3 - User takes PP damage equal to a fifth of the highest amount of HP damage or Healing they did this turn (Ex: Casting grand gaia will only look at the center target, rather than the total damage. Casting pure wish will only look at a single character, rather than total healing amount).
If you have 0 PP what happens? (One of the other three? Or do you magically get a "Cursed gear tried to deduct PP, but failed"?)
If former, if you are low on PP, but don't have 0, then what happens? (Ex: Like if you have 1 or 2 PP, and did damage of 20 or more. ; Would curse gear do some damage on this one (provided it was the random effect picked.), and then pick another effect to finish off the damage, or stop there?)
Oh, good idea. If it moves to damage PP and it hits zero, it should wrap around to HP so that the penalty still applies. The damage to HP should be given a 1.25x multiplier so that it fits the greater damage that occurs to HP. As such, if you dish out 200 damage, and have 10 PP you take 10 PP damage and 37 damage to HP.
I have to be honest that I'm not a huge fan of the HP damage simply because haunt already does something really similar (just with random damage instead of percentage). The standard curse wouldn't be so bad either if more cursed items were actually worth wearing to begin with, since many of them are barely comparable to other gear that can be acquired at roughly the same point. Like, for example, the Fear Helm is mostly inferior to the Mythril Helm because the difference in defence is very tiny and the latter boosts unleash rate more than the former boosts attack. Or the Gloria Helm, with an HP recovery boost. Granted, the two(?) exceptions are nice enough.
Fairly fond of the debuff idea though, but ideally for that turn only rather than for multiple turns. Might also be cool to see how random seals or lowered accuracy work out, which would effectively have a similar effect to the standard curse but only work with the right attack types.
Alternately, lowering the curse rate to 1/6 or 1/8 of the time could work as well (without additional effects)d. Still think that cursed gear in general should be strong enough to warrant their use in the first place, but at least this would make existing gear more useful without making it too similar to existing effects. And also because vanilla GS and GS2 only have eleven cursed items between both games, with five of those requiring transfer data along with the Cleric's Ring; the remaining six would be even more useless without it, save for maybe the Darksword with enough unleash boosting gear equipped alongside it.
Demon Circlet is why I give Jenna my Cleric's Ring. I completely agree with you about how they should be better than they are, though. It's why in my system Cursed Gear is just categorically better than non-cursed gear - betters stats, better unleashes, better effects. Buuuut you have to deal with the nasty stuff too.
I think Haunt and any upgraded forms should stack if the HP damage triggers. In fact, inflicting haunt was one of the ideas I had about one of the random effects.
Good point about availability. That's the same issue that Ankhs have - there's just not really as much representation as there should be.
QuoteAlternately, lowering the curse rate to 1/6 or 1/8 of the time could work as well (without additional effects)
And for another alternative that I'm not sure about: Make it so your chances of getting stunned after being stunned are less?
1st turn = 1/4h chance of being stunned, if not stunned, stay 1/4th.
2nd turn = If stunned, be 100% chance of not getting stunned this turn? (Or 1/8th chance?)
3rd turn = Return back to 1/4th chance (if former), or maybe keep decreasing the chance to 1/16th if stunned in latter? .... (Percent chances are just examples.) ;
Could maybe even have one where the stun chance only ever decreases each time you get stunned, without increasing... for some equipment, if you wanted. (While resetting for each battle, of course.) - But its ability to increase back can still be controlled, if it is really wanted.... (Like if you attack with the very cursed weapon, add a 10% chance, where-as self healing could do nothing... for instance.)
The problem with that is that there's little change from what we have now - battles only take 2-3 turns, tops, and the rate of affliction would be roughly the same in practice as it is now.
Hmm.. (2-3 turns where one turn could be guaranteed 0% chance of stun provided a char doesn't use stun on him/her...?)
If it only takes each char having one turn, then you could have a point.. but I still wonder if it is worth considering for certain strategies... Assuming in the event that one set of turns was enough to kill the enemy anyway, without the cursed guy, and you could just save him for boss battles like Dullahan and Doom Dragon.
I imagine one could set up initial rate of curse stuns through a custom made table (maybe each curse item can have different rates? Although, I do see that as not being entirely necessary... But I reckon numbers around 1/16, 1/8, and 1/4 would be picked... )... and also have the table include how the stun rate is affected. (Relative to something/using a selected formula, or simply being absolute. - Similar to how secondary effects worked.) - Depending on what people want in their hack, though, simpler patches should be considered as well.
P.S. = Already thinking about a Town of Curses, where every weapon/armour in the shops of a certain city are cursed. Maybe even have one of the weapons required to be equiped as part of the story-line? (Much like how the Trident might be needed to kill Poseidon.)
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It's been about 2 weeks since I worked on that C# GS editor. (I did say that I was planning to take long breaks every now and then, so no surprise there.)