That's what I just asked myself, and I could not come up with a perfect solution right away, so I ask around, what could be done to make it better?
(I intend this to be a serious approach, so please leave out trolling and such, there are enough threads for that kind of fun.)
What I think is good:
- potentially lethal
- whispering voices
- "funny" episodes
- can be countered with just doing normal things, I mean, there is no additional grind required to fight it, except you were careless and actually got madness (or were online when a BM occured), a bit too easy maybe, but good
What I think is bad:
- is very crippling and annoying already at madness 1 due to a rather (too) high chance to lose any tool you use
- is not challenging enough, I mean, there is no "survival" aspect in it, it's not really a danger, if you know what you are doing
- potentially driving away new players (not sure though, if that kind of "natural selection" is good or bad)
- no "benefits" besides spawning more bats, which is basically useless thanks to big bats
- gain +2 madness for being online when a BM occurs, that might be rare, but I don't consider that good
So, to highlight a few things, it is good that just "doing normal things" is a way to counter it, and it is good that there is no additional grind through it, because Salem does not need more grind, really.
On the other hand it is bad that it is not really a challenge or threatening.
This dilemma is something I'd like to solve, but I have no really good idea yet.
One thing that should be done imho, is restricting the loss of tools to something higher than madness 1, and making it much less frequent for lower levels in general, and ofc JC should not tell at which lvl there is a chance for that to happen.
Also, there should be reasons to actually have madness above spawning bats, and manage it in a certain range, instead of simply fighting to prevent it altogether, the voices alone are quite nice, maybe there could be something like a chance to find/see some rare/new stuff at higher madness levels, some witch related stuff, maybe a chance to encounter darkness creatures outside of darkness, that, until killed, can only be "seen" by characters that are mad enough.
Any ideas?
Also:
Just came to my mind, an idea for a new psychotic episode that might trigger from something obsessively peaceful, like picking too much flowers or catching too many butterflies in a certain time.
Bloodlust!
- Indicated by a distinct graphical effect around your character, and possibly an info of some kind to point at what you need to do / what is going on.
- The player needs to beat something up / kill something!
- You start to slowly lose BB unless you are engaged in combat.
- Ends either if enough (to be determined, what "enough" is) blood has been shed, or if you KO.
- (optional) Murdering another pilgrim under the effect of bloodlust (choose one): adds no insanity / adds much more insanity / removes some madness
- (optional) Beating up animals and/or other pilgrims restores some inspiration, maybe base on how much blood damage you received
- (optional) If not already in combat, the character will occasionally do random attacks aimed at nearby attackable animals/players.