As we all know, if you're playing on perma-death, GR, or have good items already, Kronging isn't worth it. So here's my suggestion: what if, after "cleansing" a defiled anvil of Krong, you are guarantied a positive enhancement. That way players who can't afford to Krong can at least get a little bonus here and there. I have another Krong suggestion, but it's far more complicated and could easily be unbalanced, but here it is anyways: what it you could sacrifice artifacts to Krong, such as one artifact per anvil before gaining the enhancement, and the better the artifact you sacrificed, the better the enhancement gained by the next Kronging. Or perhaps you could sacrifice as many artifacts as you want before Kronging and there is a hidden "Krong Favor" stat. And maybe Krong likes some bonuses and hates others. Maybe what he likes and hates changes each game. Now you see what I meant by complicated and potentially unbalanced. Thoughts?
Some debuffs don't make much of a difference. "Oh no! -1 HP!" But others are item destroying, like -2 Vision Radius! That completely ruins an item. In the end, the one little buff you get on non-artifact items isn't going to make the game much easier. But something like a negative vision radius is really bad. Krong's enchantments on non-artifact items aren't really that powerful compared to the nice items you find in later levels. Perhaps there should be a 0 chance for Krong to curse normal items, and the normal 2/7 chance for artifacts. However, that doesn't address artifacts being cursed, which can also be a really sad event. Making offers to Krong seems like a good idea. Money is an obvious choice. He could also require gems or something like that. Perhaps you could offer any sort of items to Krong, and there is a percent chance based on the item's value that the anvil starts glowing. When you enchant an item on a glowing anvil, there is a 0 chance that it will be cursed. The mechanism that governs the chance for success can work in a number of ways. It'd be good if it didn't work identically to lutefisk, where there's a set amount that guarantees success. It's also be nice, though, if your chances improved as you offered more so you don't end up offering 100k zorkmids worth of items and still haven't gotten Krong's blessing. The random gamble how it works now it fun, but like the OP says, it gets to the point where you just ignore all anvils for your really good equipment, and that takes the fun of anvils out of the game entirely. Here's another idea entirely: If you use a previously cursed item on another anvil it's guaranteed to eliminate the curses if Krong blesses you. It would be as if the item were never used on the first anvil which cursed it. Then when your really good item gets cursed, it's only a temporary problem, and you aren't forced to just throw it away.
The curse removal is not a bad way to go, haps even take it a step further and any corruption is removed too (not sure if there is even a difference between corruption and Krong curses). You could even do it that if Krong would otherwise buff something (ie the 5/7 chance) and its corupted/cursed it clears the corruption/curse, instead of buffing it but can still curse if it would have otherwise cursed an item. This keeps the risk in tact, and gives further options in that do you try and buff a new item or try and fix an already cursed item, that may be cleaned or become more cursed. It also leaves the option of do you hold onto that good item rather than simply ditching it because of a curse/corruption that hits a stat that is very important to the character.
I read on these forums that there is a difference and the Flames of the Heckforge won't remove Krongian curses. Yeah, having a good roll do nothing more than clear the previous curse is probably more fair than clearing the curse and buffing it. Otherwise the curse is basically neutral. All it would do is cost you some time. The next time you find an anvil and get the good roll it'd be like you had never had it cursed. But if the curse was treated like a -1 and the next good roll gave you +1 putting you back at zero. then that's a bit harsher. That's two anvils you wasted just to keep the plain item you had! That's a reasonable price to have to pay in order to avoid the curse.
