Hey Dungeoneers,

In addition to the new quest, I’m planning to add four new weapon enchantments and two new weapon curses in the next update to Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Here’s two of them, they make look very familiar to long-time players!

Venemous is a common enchantment that adds a stacking poison to the enemy. This poison can add up to a LOT of damage over time, but the initial application is delayed by three turns, meaning you’ll need to plan around it to make use of the effect.

Vorpal is an uncommon enchantment that has a chance to deal bleed instead of a weapon’s regular damage! That ends up being quite a bit more total damage, but it gets applied over time. Don’t worry, vorpal doesn’t apply to enemies that are immune to bleed and also doesn’t apply if the regular attack would have killed the enemy.

These two new/returning enchants are actually a big reason I decided to add some DOT visuals to health bars, which I showed in last week’s update.

  • FauxPseudo @lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    2 months ago

    “doesn’t apply if the regular attack would have killed the enemy.”

    And like magic all my worries vanished.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      31·
      2 months ago

      Yeah that came up pretty quick while I was play testing. Bleeding for more than the enemy’s hp means they get a hit in before death and felt TERRIBLE.

  • RavenDev1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    @00_Evan@lemmy.world

    Could you also share more about the two new curses? I love when curses can have some niche benefits, such as Annoying/Displacing/Polarized/Explosive, and I seriously hope the new curses fall in this category.

    Curses like Sacrificial and Wayward don’t seem to have any niche uses. If Sacrificial worked more like Stormbringer in Elric of Melniboné series, where the sword drinks the soul of it’s enemy and feeds it to the wielder, it would have been very fun to play with. Occationally it even attacks a nearby ally when it’s hungry. Don’t feed it enough and it will instead drink the soul of it’s wielder, lowering strength and life force of it’s wielder. I know you’re not a fan of suggestions, I’m merely giving an example of how a curse can cause a complicated parasitic bond with it’s victim, even forcing you to things against your morals. I’m hoping the new curses will have some niche benefits, that’s all.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      1 month ago

      I do plan for both of the new curses to have some niche benefits or at least some ways to be played around. I’ll give you two hints: aqua brew and wondrous resin.

      Sacrificial probably does need to get seen to at some point (but it is also nice to have some curses be harsher than others), but wayward does at least have some counterplay (compared to earlier iterations where it would just nerf your accuracy and that’s it).

        • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          2·
          25 days ago

          The curses will be mentioned in the upcoming blog. They’re both weapon curses, will likely do a similar glyph expansion in a future update.

  • Chorby_Short@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    So, why exactly? I thought that you removed them because you wanted enchantments to be less about directly increasing the damage?

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      5·
      2 months ago

      You’ll notice that I’ve changed both of these enchantments so that they don’t just add more damage to your attack without thought. Venemous is on a bigger delay, and vorpal outright replaces the damage of the regular hit. This is a bit more like blazing, which also have tradeoffs for its extra damage.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      The poison amount has been boosted significantly from its earlier version, though I am willing to change up the numbers more if it ends up needing it.

      • SnakeFangz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        Should be careful, it might be too strong, maybe keep the consideration of it needing 2 turns instead

        • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I’d rather try and balance it around the delay being significant. The shorter the delay the more it gets pushed back into its old role of just being a little extra damage in most fights.

  • TE_0@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    I’m into more enchantments that deal damage, as as of now most enchantments read as “You just used a stone. I dont do much.” The ratio of enchantments that need a good build are very high.

    • 00-Evan@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      That is partly intended though, enchantments are extra effects that layer on top of base weapon power, so they’re allowed to have fairly specific effects.