Allergic Reaction

[VDZ]

The notion of multiple wounds combining into a singular, more severe one is cool. However, Allergic Reaction does not serve as an appropriate showcase of this cool possibility. Rather than being a harsh consequence of not preventing or adequately healing your wounds, it occurs only as a punishment for normal play behavior.

• Antcid Burns are inevitable if you fight ants. Thus, practicing combat and raiding anthills without cheesy kiting is punished.
• Beesting is inevitable when managing beehives. (Raiding beehives without getting stung is possible AFAIK.) Thus, a typical farming task is punished.
• Nettle Burns occur from simply picking nettles. Thus, foraging is punished.
• Midge Bite is theoretically avoidable, but if a midge swarm happened to be nearby the moment you left a building or cave you instantly get the wound. This could be the third wound triggering the Allergic Reaction.
• Adder Bite is the only contributing wound that is reasonably avoidable, and if you have an Adder Bite you already have a big problem and an Allergic Reaction would just be an extra kick in the nuts.

Now, I don't have a problem with the individual wounds above. Getting some minor wounds from normal activity is fine (especially if they're only part debuff, as with Nettle Burns, that wound is actually cool). But Allergic Reaction is a pretty severe wound early-game and you want to avoid it at all costs. What happens in practice is that the above wounds never combine, and people never get Allergic Reaction.

My problem with this is that last part; not the fact that people don't get Allergic Reaction (although it wastes the cool idea), but rather that people are forced to, and do, change their behavior to avoid Allergic Reaction. Specifically, they are effectively locked out of certain normal play activities, unless they use alts to perform those activities for them. Allergic Reaction punishes you for not playing with alts; it does not affect people who use alts for basic activities, and thus encourages using alts for said basic activities.

I personally prefer to play on my main as much as possible despite common advice being to use alts for common activities, as that's just a more fun way to play. Allergic Reaction punishes players who do this and thus makes the game less fun. In my opinion, the game would be better off if Allergic Reaction were removed, perhaps to later be reimplemented in a way that punishes actual carelessness rather than punishing doing daily activities on your main rather than on alts.