Game modifiers are things that alter your gameplay experience through bonuses, challenges or aesthetic means. They operate within the framework of the game mechanics themnselves but don’t actually change the games rules or systems. In esssence, passive things are not mechanics.
Game mechanics are the rules and systems that determine how players interact with the game and achieve objectives. Such examples are like resource management, turn-taking, combat systems, and puzzle solving. They provide the structure and framework within which all of the gameplay happens.
Having said that, I like Curios. I like being able to tailor my experience to my needs whether I have a set of curios for a specific mission type, or I want to farm ordo dockets or more curios, I like having more stamina if I choose, or more wounds, etc. I think it’s a fun little element within the game that provides some modest diversity to builds. Plus, don’t forget all of the atypical perks that people choose (or can.) Like +revive speed, combat ability CDR… all beautiful.
As for your suggestion, I don’t think the idea of having a loot goblin that you can equip would be a very good idea, because exploration and seeking to find the items within a map is a gameplay mechanic. You have to balance cohesion with the number of baddies you have to face, and how far you want to wander off alone. I could see a servo skull perhaps picking up something at your feet that you may not want to lookk down to pick up and lose focus of the enemies, but a skull that just surveys the area for you? Nah, I can’t say I’d honestly back that idea in good conscience.
There was a device and grenade slot in one of the early showings of the equipment screen.
As for the loot vacuum servoskull, its cost would also be what you may be sacrificing to equip it, which the current selection of relatively minor and passive defensive stats wouldn’t be able to compete with a mechanical change in how materials are collected. You’d want to expand the slots to include all sorts of competitive, mechanically changing choices, it just won’t work in a vacuum (no pun intended) with the servoskull as the non-curio choice.
The accessory slots in VT2 had a lot of competitive choices of traits in each of their own categories (but the properties were admittedly also boring). DT curios are very boring in comparison.
any ideas welcome here, like i said, just spitballing to pass the time
not like we got the devs on speed dial and do a :
that being said, of late the curio mechanic became rather stale for me.
it boiled down to “more of the same” for sake of stacks, so the number of baubles was just a math multiplier in terms of balacing sake.
picturing the items ingame i imagined my char hung like a christmas tree, so condensing the amount of curios while adding some % to a single one and make room for something else was on my mind quite a bit.
