With the power at a price theme becoming the main focus of PF2's oracle, I figured it would be a good idea to rank all the curses, see what worked.
I'll keep it simple, I'm rating them on a scale of 1 to 7. 1 is for extreme cases of too much buck for too little bang, 7 is for extreme cases of too much bang for too little buck, and 4 has an ideal balance. 3 and 5 are off balence in one way or another but not horribly, it's 2 and 6 where problems start.
Note that my rankings assume a start of level 1 or 3 and an end a little bit above 15, so the later a boon from a curse comes the less it factors into the rating. I'm also assuming a home game where the GM can change what they're bringing to an encounter, not PFS. I'm also not considering dual-curse combos or potential with the Oracle's Burden spell.
Accursed 5
Blackened 2, but increase to 3 if the GM doesn't apply the penalty of the curse to scorching ray
Clouded Vision 2
Cold Blooded 4, but decrease to 3 in cold campaigns
Consumed 3
Covetous 4
Deaf 4
Deep One 3, but increase to 4 in aquatic campaigns
Demonic 3, but increase to 4 in evil campaigns
Ghoul 6
God-Meddled Uh.....I'll get back to you on this one.
Haunted 6, but reduce to 5 in intrigue campaigns if your GM gets a little too trigger happy with the mischief.
Hellbound 4, but increase to 5 in evil campaigns
Hive 4, but reduce to 3 in intrigue campaigns
Hunger 2
Infested 5, I'd say reduce to 3 in intrigue campaigns but goblin exclusive, also who wrote the progression on this? That's not how curse levels up!
Lame 5, but increase to 6 on oracles that can start with a mount
Legalistic 4
Lich 2, but increase to 3 in evil campaigns
Lycanthropy 4, but reduce to 2 if the GM rules that you can't understand anyone without speak with animals and not just that you can't speak.
Plagued 4
Possessed 5
Powerless Prophesy 4
Pranked 4, but reduce to 3 in intrigue campaigns if your GM gets a little too trigger happy with the mischief
Promethian 4, but reduce to 2 if the GM is slow at getting you to level 4 and is stingy on the npc clerics
Putrid 3, but reduce to 1 if an alchemist/investigator is in the party
Reclusive 4
Scoruge...rain check.
Shadowbound 3
Sitebound 1, yes I know this is meant for NPCs but a 1 is still a 1
Tongues 4, but reduce to 2 if your table likes to hide what you're doing from everyone else
Vampirism 2, but increase to 4 in evil campaigns
Wasting 6, but reduce to 4 in intrigue campaigns
Wolf-Scarred Face 3
Wrecker 1, but increase to 2 if you don't have a gentleman's oath to not sunder
Wrecking Mysticism 5
Elemental Imbalance 4, but reduce to 3 for water
Song-Bound 5, but reduce to 4 in an intrigue campaign
Toxic Blood 3
A save or die spell like possession is a fast track to getting a 5 or more even at 10th level, and it would take something as debilitating as Clouded Vision to get it down to a 4. In PF2 where incapacitation abilities are nerfed on creatures stronger than you Ghoul, Possessed, and Wracking Mysticism would all be ranked 1 lower.
Flying oracles do not increase Lame's rating through 6 levels of reduced speed that stacks with medium armor before they get to fly, and there's nothing stopping the other oracles from just getting some winged boots. Mounted oracles get to cheat from day 1 and enjoy the later benefits all they want.
Elemental Imbalance for cold is ranked lower because 1, fire damage is everywhere and 2, that curse cuts you off of Flame Strike
Deaf is a 4 simply because of how wide open of a door it leaves for stealth builds.
Now bare in mind that these are just the conclusions of an oracle main, one with an extreme hatred of save or die effects regardless of who's using them. This list also doesn't factor differences between PF1 and PF2. For instance blacked is way less hurtful when the cantrip damage is as inflated as it is here.
Why did I post this here? Mostly in hope that seeing what worked, what didn't, and what was a spectacular flop would help balance the new curses better.
I am sorry, but the idiom "bang for your buck" is hard to interpret in the form "too much buck for too little bang" and "too much bang for too little buck." Which end of the scale from 1 to 7 is the curses that are too easy and which end is the curses that are too hard?
(I have to run an errand now. I will have more comments in about an hour.)
In all cases where I am familiar with oracles, their curses were chosen for plot reasons. However, only one was a PC, so this is not representative of player's choices.
My daughter's oracle Anastasia chose haunted curse for her battle oracle because she became an oracle due to an encounter with spirits. However, she thought the haunted curse was too light, so she increased it to also prevent ranged projectile and thrown attacks by Anastasia. Later, I ruled that her haunted curse let her see and attack hungry haunts that the party encountered at high levels. Attacking those nasty little spirits directly was more fun.
Later in that campaign, the party paladin resurrected a murdered little girl Albedo with his Ultimate Mercy ability. For plot reasons, I had her awaken with heavens oracle powers granted by the goddess Desna. She had the wasted curse due to her receiving her powers while dead. Many levels later, a randomly-rolled disaster separated the souls of everyone in her village from their bodies, but since she was partly undead, she was still on her feet and able to request help from the PCs.
The escorted NPC Amaya in my Jade Regent campaign gained her oracle class at 3rd level from an artifact associated with her ancestors. I made her a time oracle rather than an ancestor oracle since the ancestor revelation did not fit her support role in the party. I gave her the tongues curse because I did not want her important during battles. I increased the difficulty of the tongues curse so that her language was time-jumbled rather than foreign to avoid the easy bypass of learning her exotic foreign language.
The notes on the NPC Renshii Meida said, "Renshii Meida was 20 years old when the spirits of her ancestors contacted her and whispered of her origins, and their desire to take vengeance on the imperial families who had erased all memory of them from Minkai." She was an ancestors oracle with haunted curse.
The notes on the NPC Casandalee said, "some [androids] lived to the end of their natural lifespan and achieved renewal, “reincarnating” with a new personality and new soul after their previous life came to its end. In the case of Casandalee, a strange fluke of fate saw the wakening of fragments of her previous lives within her newest incarnation." She was an ancestors oracle with custom-made shattered psyche curse. I made up notes on some past lives of Casandalee: two lives ago she had been buried at sea and had renewed as Bonnie Ann, a waves oracle haunted by sea spirits.
Out of 6 oracles, we had 5 ancestries (ancestor (2), battle, heavens, time, and waves) and 4 curses (haunted (3), wasted, tongues, shattered psyche).
Back in 2013, Bardess--who has been commenting in this oracle playtest subforum--made a thread How was your Oracle chosen? that discussed oracle origins.
I referenced Channeling the Cosmos: A guide to the Oracle by Sean FitzSimon while leveling up Amaya. It rated the curses as follows, on a scale of poor, mediocre, good, and excellent for character effectiveness. FitzSimon gave a reason for each rating.
Blackened - mediocre (HyperMissingno 2)
Clouded Vision - poor (HyperMissingno 2)
Consumed - good (HyperMissingno 3)
Deaf - good (HyperMissingno 4)
Haunted - exellent (HyperMissingno 6)
Lame - good (HyperMissingno 5)
Legalistic - excellent (HyperMissingno 4)
Tongues - good (HyperMissingno 4)
Wasting - good (HyperMissingno 6)
Wolfscarred - poor (HyperMissingno 3)
Wrecker - poor (HyperMissingno 1)