I have a basic question. What does getting cursed do to you (thinking of the black mist pot traps)? I've been cursed to "critical" level a few times where the red message pops up. But then the bar clears away instantly and it doesn't seem to have done anything. This is in contrast with poison where once you hit the critical stage your health drops rapidly.
I hope it isn't making some sort of permanent stat change or something.
In Dark Souls it does this (from here:
http://darksouls.wikia.com/wiki/Curse):
Maybe it is glitched in DS2, but like I said the bar just went away and I didn't die, didn't return to the bonfire, and didn't have my health reduced to half. I'll have to check next time I play but I don't think it did anything.
This brief discussion seems to indicate others are confused about it as well:
http://www.reddit.com/r/DarkSouls2/comments/1zvar6/curse_status_effect_of_course_spoilers/
And here:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/693331-dark-souls-ii/68781545
They seem to think it just makes you slightly more hollow, which is a possibility. I wouldn't have really noticed that. I guess that would be more of a pain if you ran around all the time in human form. But if that is all there is to it, that is a big change from Dark Souls where the effect was much worse. Though it also seems like it happens much easier in this game - first of all from there being all the traps and not just the curse frogs. It also seems to build up very quickly (as does poison).