Update 35 alpha - New system for Cursed mobs i.e the Cursed Biome effect

Hey everyone!

During the past few weeks we've seen a bunch of different opinions on the new curse additions, especially the cursed mobs…

We fully understand the pushback on mobs that give curses, as curse and its instadeath effect has always been an optional experience that gave extra rewards if you chose to add some spicy danger in your run.

In this update so far, the cursed mobs were unavoidable at 2BC+, even with a low chance of them spawning, and they didn't give any reward for the risk. So the choice was removed. For people who want to consciously avoid instadeath – no bueno.

Well, we like to trumpet that we work with the community when we add updates so, 'toot toot', we've listened to you, we've had lots of discussions and have come up with a new solution.

New 'Cursed Biome' system

The previous system where, from 2BC+, cursed mobs could randomly spawn in a random biome is gone.

Instead, we have introduced a new type of biome, Cursed Biome, which features the new cursed mobs in exchange for extra rewards. NOTE: This is not a new biome, it is a new effect on biomes.

And of course, you can choose to go into the cursed biome with its rewards, or go to the other biomes that don't have any scary cursed mobs.

How Cursed Biome works:

• Cursed biomes only spawn in runs with a Boss Cell level 2 or higher.
• Just like biome incentives, there will be a specific icon above the exit to a cursed biome, so that you can have the choice of taking this challenge or just going to the other normal biomes.
• A cursed biome always contains 6 cursed mobs randomly selected from Curser, Sore Loser and Doom Bringer. This number might change based on alpha/beta feedback.
• There is, of course, a reward for that risk: all the items dropped in a cursed biome will drop 1 gear level higher, regardless of their source (shop, loots, etc.). The spawn chance of cursed chests also increases by 10% in such biomes.
• There is a cap to the number of cursed biomes that you can go through on your route, depending on the BC level, set as follows: from BC 2 to 5 respectively: 2, 3, 5 and 8 (i.e. in 5BC, there is no cap).
  This cap only limits the number of Cursed Biomes that you can go to in a run, it doesn’t mean that you must go through that many Cursed Biomes to finish your run.
  Once you have hit the cap, no more cursed biomes will appear in that run. Until you have hit the cap, cursed biomes will continue to appear.
• As long as you haven’t reached the cap, there can be only up to 2 exits to cursed biomes at once. There will always be at least 1 biome without cursed mobs at any point in your run, no exceptions.

This system has been implemented in-game with a new patch, you just need to update the game now to have it in your run.

We believe that this is a good solution that respects the feedback players gave us, while also honouring our vision for the update, but we are still in Alpha phase so we still need feedback on this new system.
The numbers are easily adjustable, so if this new setup works on a basic level then we can tweak chances, percentages, ratios afterwards - if it's mathematical, we can rebuild it, we have the technology.

We also made other changes!

Balancing

• Alienation rework. Instead of healing the player per curse reduced, it will now heal the player when the curse is lifted, with the amount of health recovered based on the max amount of curses they had (for that curse instance). The effect only starts triggering when the player had more than 10 curses.
• Slightly nerfed Anathema's damage.
• Reduced Dracula's Castle (late) scroll fragments count, to match other biomes at the same depth.
• Added a small cooldown to Emergency Triage forcefield.

Graphics & UI

• Tweaked the update banner to improve readability.

Quality of life

• Added a tooltip for Cursed Mobs in the Boss Cell Selection UI.
• The Tailor's Daughter will now create notifications for any head you might unlock when talking to her.
• Removed the "Leave the Body" prompt of the throne fountain, when at 5BC.

You can leave feedback in the comments here, or on our official Discord – there are two channels called update35-alpha-discussion and update35-alpha-feedback specifically for these conversations, so please use them!

As always, this patch only affects the current alpha test, if you are not participating in the alpha, this does not affect you.
If you want to take part in the ongoing alpha, just check out here for instructions on how to access.

Cheers,
XYZ, Matt, EE & MT