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CH4OT1C! -> Inconsistent Application of Double Cost Penalty for Compression Items (5/16/2026 15:42:45)
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We've recently had two new compression items, the Cursed Clover weapons and the Solar Overdrive spell, that have their resource costs doubled for their respective flavour effects. The former has a 20% damage boost for a 40% Melee HP cost, while the latter consumes twice the normal amount of Burn/Defloss for its respective abilities. These effects cannot be toggled.
In the past, we have had items that cost double for their respective effects. Stormshadow is a good example, with the the burn effect it applies halved in power. Crucially, the reasoning behind that penalty was down to it being a toggle effect: compression was already used for multiple elements, so it paid an additional penalty for the burn option.
I see several major problems with this logic, stemming from the inconsistent way these penalties have recently been applied:
No toggle: These items are do not have toggle flavour effects. You don't get a choice with the Cursed Clover weapons - they always pay an HP cost. Similarly, you don't get a choice about the status consumption of Solar Overdrive, it just happens. Given the former reasoning revolved around multiple toggles, what's the justification here?
'Efficient' and 'Overcharged' mechanisms: This doesn't just apply to any effect, it applies directly to damage efficiency mechanics. In many ways, the Cursed Clover items are like 'burst' weapons - they pay HP for additional damage. If this incurs a double cost, why doesn't every item with a similar flavour effect do this? If this is the standard, then it should apply to every burst item, including the package burst spells and (rather ironically) Solar Overdrive itself.
Multiple flavour effects: You could argue Solar Overdrive gets the penalty due to having multiple flavour effects. However, if that's the case, then shouldn't it also apply to every item with multiple effects? There are myriad items under this category. A good example would be Gingerbrute Doughbow, which has the ability to use both of its 'status' modes at the same time (harm + extra hit + bleed). Also, where is the line drawn when a mechanic is considered to be 'multiple flavour effects'? Is that final mode of Gingerbrute Doughbow one, two, or three flavour effects? I chose Doughbow as the example deliberately, given that it also falls afoul of the 'multiple compression' rule that Stormshadow follows (Earth + Harm vis a vis Energy + Darkness). Would this not incur a doubled cost? Currently, it does not.
The penalty itself: I noted that Stormshadow paid its cost via halving the potency of its burn toggle, but even this penalty is inconsistently applied. Other items, such as the Solar Flair Staff, paid via an extra 5% compression penalty. It didn't have the potency of its compressed Guest halved, and those two are nowhere near the same level of penalty.
Resolving this is extremely important; if compression items have to pay twice the cost of every other item for their effects, it becomes almost impossible to justify using them outside of a plain damage item. Sure, compression should be a key standout feature of every compression item, but it need not be the only one.
Solution
Following through with the recent iterations of the double cost penalty would require retroactively reworking a large number of items. It would also most likely involve reworking them significantly (personally, I can't imagine many players wanting to use burst spells if they each cost 698 HP per use). I therefore propose we do two things. First, the staff need to decide what the penalty is: is it a doubling of cost/halving of potency, or 5%? My gut instinct would tend towards the latter in order to keep things (relatively) consistent. Second, that penalty should only apply in the event of multiple toggles, and not to flavour effects more broadly.
These steps would also involve removing the double cost penalty attached to Cursed Clover - you cannot choose whether the effect is active, and so it isn't compression. If you don't want these items to powercreep bloodblades, a simple solution is to have them only output an extra 10 or 15% Melee in power (for 10 or 15% Melee in HP respectively). Solar Overdrive is a little more complicated, given that allowing it multiple full power status consumption mechanisms would make it strictly better than all other status eaters. To resolve this, the underlying justification should be that each item has a joint %Melee pool for status eating mechanics e.g., spells can eat a maximum 400% Melee regardless of how many status eating mechanics they have (and this can be distributed evenly or unevenly as necessary).
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