Ghosts are too weak. Please buff them.

[PowerOfKaishin]

So I was going through the game with an OpTm and I had gotten rings and spells to the point where I was no longer playing one of the worst races in the game, when all of a sudden around D:10 I get a message about the Bailey opening up. I quickly find the Bailey despite mashing autoexplore and decide to go into the Bailey, since D:10 OpTm with bonuses to AC and EV goes even with the orc knights and can fairly decently manage the orc fighters that commonly spawn in the Bailey, and so is ready for the Bailey. Upon entering the Bailey I don't get to see much of the Bailey before...

Lo and behold, a Formicid Fighter appears. This bad boy was armed to the teeth. Massive AC, massive EV, massive HP, and to top it off an executioner's axe and decent fighting skill (as evidenced by his accuracy at swinging said axe at my gelatinous and later icy form). The first thing I thought was "wow, what a tough opponent. I'll surely die if I try any strategy at all except immediately flee." I especially loved how its ability to fly meant that I couldn't use my race's natural advantage to escape, because it was undead I couldn't constrict it or use any of my extensive transmuter tools to bring it down, and because it was a player ghost it was generated awake so sneaking by it was a big no no since it can wander around and potentially reappear in a really bad spot.

Of course having some HP to burn I decided I'd swap to ice form and attack anyway to see what would happen. I fought valiantly but after 3 turns of grueling battle and 60% of my health, ol' undead Formy wouldn't even show me his HP bar, the pretentious prick, so I was forced to leave in search of other opponents who would. Jokes on it though, because that just saved me from having to make some sort of meaningful choice about exploring the Bailey when I actually run into the deadly orc knight. I quickly left through the portal while imaginarily flipping off the orc knights I never got to see.

So I thought about my amazing experience and figured I thought it might be neat to add it to D:1. Imagine, you're travelling through the dungeon, barely scathing through your chance encounter with an adder or jackal pack with the still beating hearts of your enemies in your hands (or if you're a troll or kobold, in your mouth) when you're unavoidably killed from full health after turning a corner by a centaur ghost with a bow.

Sometimes crawl even goes the extra length so I don't have to decide whether or not I want to suicide my character by generating ghosts that move faster than me and having them quickly chase me down and kill me. All of this thinking normally wracks my brain so that's kinda nice.

But let's not forget about my favorite ghost race: I always loved how draconian negative energy breath always took half of my health in one hit regardless of character, meaning I didn't have to waste any time deciding that the only thing I wanted to do was leave. Silly me, my brain doesn't work well so I sure am glad crawl decides this stuff for me.

Even the normal ghosts are still alright, despite being weaker. They stop me from simply autoexploring so I learn proper crawl tactics like repeatedly going up and back down different staircases 100s of times to avoid dangerous enemies. And these normal ghosts are practically unkillable as well, so even better! But occasionally I meet ghosts that give me free exp and that's a big no no. Too bad there's no way to spawn an appropriately leveled ghost for the floor so the player never gets that stuff for free and is always horribly outmatched. Unfortunately, full randomness does have a few downsides after all.

But let's make ghosts even better. Of course you're probably wondering the same thing as me: "How could this amazing design feature be made even more perfect?" That's easy, silly. We give them buffs!

What if every ghost could move as fast as Sp? Imagine, you're always scared of your impending death! No more Orb of Zot for anyone from now on unless they can manage to sneak their way past all of the lethal ghosts while still killing enough enemies to get the exp they need. You can only circumvent it by playing Sp or Ce, which... seems so simple, honestly. Normally it was so hard to decide on a preferred style of character I want to play so I'm glad crawl has my back. Huh... Thanks crawl!

But back on topic: why stop there? The invincible ghost with player level AC and EV already has all of the properties belonging to ghosts AND the ability to fly! Why not add to that as well? Let's throw on the ability to move through walls and an ashenzari-styled player-detection ability on top of even more resistances! Fire? Electricity? Corrosion!? Hell, let's go the extra mile and in addition to giving them all of these, tack on additional AC and EV on top of what the amazing amount the deceased player already had.

Man, no wonder this game is so hard. All of the random ghosts make it crazy difficult. That's part of the journey though! Learning and adapting! And there's a lot to adapt to with all of the randomness. Not sure why so much effort is spent towards making new, beautiful and interesting levels when all you have to do to add depth and difficulty is simply buff ghosts and make them even more numerous! You guys wrote a design philosophy for a reason after all.

[VeryAngryFelid]

For the record, I disagree with some parts of OP. Mainly with insults.

[BabyRage]

Can't tell if its a joke or you are just salty.

[Reptisaurus]

Most of the arguments against ghosts are "I pressed tab SIX TIMES and it didn't die!" Therefore they make the game faaarr too difficult and should be removed.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those.

[Leszczynek]

Spriggan/centaur ghosts with spells or draining weapons are the best things in Crawl. I wish we could have them more often. Much, much more often.

[Shard1697]

Most of the arguments against ghosts are "I pressed tab SIX TIMES and it didn't die!" Therefore they make the game faaarr too difficult and should be removed.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those.

People's complaints about ghosts have far less to do with them being "difficult"(they're not, because you can walk up the stairs), and far more to do with them being annoying and incentivizing looking up out-of-game information(morgues).

[Nino]

ghosts also can't drink, read, use wands, or make intelligent decisions. hopefully you are leveraging one of those to your advantage. if it is too overwhelming for you maybe you should not engage in honorable melee combat as an octopode.

[papilio]

Spriggan/centaur ghosts with spells or draining weapons are the best things in Crawl. I wish we could have them more often. Much, much more often.

No, distortion dagger/spear is much better!

Prior to 0.17, Spriggan ghosts with distortion quick blade + Singularity were the best. You would definitely enjoy them.


In CWZ, there is a player who is really eager to mass-produce Centaur ghosts with distortion weapons or L7+ Draconian ghosts (with nasty draining breath)

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/abyssthatjjthatgod.html

[tabstorm]

DCSS is just too interesting for OP.

[duvessa]

ghosts might be terrible design but lemme tell you, they are fantastic kissers

[yesno]

didn't read

[Cimanyd]

DCSS is just too interesting for OP.

ghosts might be terrible design but lemme tell you, they are fantastic kissers

didn't read

Look at the drop in quality of discussion you get when the mods move super serious suggestions like this from GDD to CYC. Such a shame. With that in mind, here's my relevant idea:


Everyone knows some of the most popular and flavorful features of the game are food, player ghosts and hungry ghosts. The lore of player ghosts, obviously, is that they are player characters that have died. This is the lore of hungry ghosts:

The undead form of someone who died of starvation. It drains sustenance from the bodies of its victims, hoping to inflict its own miserable fate on others.

This shows something that should already be happening according to the lore, and should therefore be added to the game: Player hungry ghosts!

Any player that dies of starvation should leave a player hungry ghost instead of a normal player ghost. Like non-player hungry ghosts, their melee attacks deal no damage, instead draining your food. Weapon brands should still work, of course; we can't have it stop them from banishing, draining, or electrocuting you, can we? They can still cast spells like normal player ghosts, but their spells come out of your food, applying their spell hunger to you. This adds extra incentive for players to train Spellcasting to reduce spell hunger.

Think of the way this will increase the community factor of the game on the online versions! When you encounter the rare player hungry ghosts, you can laugh at the players that were dumb enough to starve to death. When you're trying to make ghosts to annoy other players, you can intentionally starve yourself to death.

I think this feature would be as well-liked as the two it's inspired by. I'd go post this in its own thread in GDD, but I got lost following the thread when it moved and now I can't find my way out of CYC. Please help. This is all the mods' fault.

P.S. I've seen some complain that player draconian ghosts are OP. This problem would be solved by giving all player ghosts draining breath.

[dowan]

Any player that dies of starvation should leave a player hungry ghost instead of a normal player ghost.

If they implemented this, we probably wouldn't know for a very very long time, because someone would have to die of starvation.

[CypherZel]

Is there a TL;DR?

[DracheReborn]

Is there a TL;DR?

Sure. Remove player ghosts

[CypherZel]

Player ghosts are p good though

[Shard1697]

hm, they aren't though

[dowan]

Most of the arguments against ghosts are "I pressed tab SIX TIMES and it didn't die!" Therefore they make the game faaarr too difficult and should be removed.

I'm pretty sure this is one of those.

0% of the arguments against ghosts are what you quoted. This isn't gamefaqs, your argument should consist of more than "Git gud scrub", and ideally you would actually read the OP before posting.

[Cimanyd]

If they implemented this, we probably wouldn't know for a very very long time, because someone would have to die of starvation.

Extensive Sequell work shows that, contrary to popular belief, players do actually starve to death.

The 5 most recent "starved" deaths are:

• a level 4 HOFi that appears to have starved intentionally on D:3
• a level 27 OpFi^Gozag with 5 runes on D:10. Had been doing tomb; maybe heading back to get something? Don't know if YASD (can't call merchant while starving, I hear), gold and food mismanagement (call merchant too expensive?), or intentional.
• not one, not two, but THREE different deaths to hungry ghosts! a level 5 MiBe on D:3, a level 7 DsSk on D:4, and a level 11 GrBe while lignified on D:12! Hungry ghosts do indeed inflict their own miserable fate on others... so those others should do the same.

It is true, seeing a hungry player ghost would be very rare and exciting. Seeing any specific wizlab in any particular game is also very unlikely. If you thought the ghosts weren't common enough, you could fix that by intentionally starving characters to death repeatedly, and make other players' games on your server more interesting. (If you're trying to do this, starving a spriggan to death would be harder, for a corresponding better result. This feature has already been balanced before it's even been implemented!) (FR: another way to fix the draconian ghost problem: buff draconians enough so they never die)

Is there a TL;DR?

Player hungry ghosts!

Unless you mean the OP, in which case, the TL;DR is the thread title, I think. (I've forgotten what the post said by now)

[BabyRage]

I'm playing NaNe at the moment, and from D:3 to D:9 I've met 3 players ghosts (2 MiBe and FoAK). I can't kill them, I can't run away without taking massive damage. Really makes the game more fun and enjoyable!
I especially love it when some noob spams mibe ghosts when I'm playing.

[Shtopit]

Is there a reason why player ghosts cannot be put lower in the dungeon the stronger they are and higher if they are weaker?

[VeryAngryFelid]

Extensive Sequell work shows that, contrary to popular belief, players do actually starve to death.

Only lignification death was interesting (I was in a similar situation as berserking tree vs curse skull who summoned hungry ghost) and even then it had a known potion of cancellation. I wouldn't call death to normal speed monster when you have blinking, haste or 4 unknown scrolls of identification as death to starvation, it is just standard tactical/strategic mistake.
Op of Gozag should have trained more Necromancy/Transmutation and used lichform (or just go and win).

[tasonir]

Any player that dies of starvation should leave a player hungry ghost instead of a normal player ghost.

If they implemented this, we probably wouldn't know for a very very long time, because someone would have to die of starvation.

They did suggest replacing the ghost's normal damage with hunger damage instead, but if we did it in addition to the normal damage, I could see this being a trolling feature. Make a strong ghost, then intentionally starve, and if it succeeds in killing something, you now have 2 hungry ghosts on the server. This could then multiply over time until the server was swarmed with hungry ghosts, which even if a good player comes through and kills, it'll still tax their food supply, and seeing 10+ hungry ghosts could eventually cause them to wear down and starve normally!

We need this feature. Cause the hunger drain from hungry ghosts to be severe, please!

[Reptisaurus]

I'm playing NaNe at the moment, and from D:3 to D:9 I've met 3 players ghosts (2 MiBe and FoAK). I can't kill them, I can't run away without taking massive damage. Really makes the game more fun and enjoyable!
I especially love it when some noob spams mibe ghosts when I'm playing.

How often would control undead work? (I'd ballpark it around 25% of the time, but I've never won as a Necromancer.)

I sympathize, but when you're not playing a naga I think these multiple ghost situations are an interesting challenge.

[lethediver]

One of my best crawl memories is trying to escape sewer, a playerghost tengu EE peppering me with stone arrows as I slogged through shallow water.

So fun. Such fairness.

[stoneychips]

It appears that if you die while under the effects of a Potion of Resistance (doh), the ghost remains infused with all those resistances for....ever??

Or quite some time at least.