Prevent Banishment of Player Ghosts

[Davion Fuxa]

Been screwing around with Ogres for a while since I messed up in the Orb Chamber, and got to trying the Abyssal Knight Background recently on Webtiles. I've got to learning the values of Banishment, and noticed that it is quite powerful. Practically everything can be hit with Banishment in the Early Game - I even banished an Orc Warlord without much fuss.

I'm not against Banishment being a fairly powerful skill, but it seems far too powerful to me for those venturing around in the Early Game. There are some drawbacks such as what is lost when you banish the monster, that Trolls Hide or that Ogre's weapon, but then there are some targets where Banishment will has almost no drawbacks. One of the big ones with no real drawback being Player Ghosts.

My suggestion then to weaken the ability to bit is to make Player Ghosts immune to Banishment. They are stuck in the level in terms of not being able to use staircases or fall down shafts, and giving them immunity to being banished seems like it would thematically fit with them. This also weakens Banishment somewhat in that Player Ghosts are pretty dangerous and will give Abyssal Knights something to be concerned about in the Early Game when they happen upon them.

[njvack]

Most player ghosts are also vulnerable to walking away from them. They're dangerous, but generally no worse than uniques of the same depth. I don't think banishment is uniquely powerful against ghosts.

[Davion Fuxa]

It isn't really a question of how Unique's compare to Player Ghosts, but rather a question of how Banishment might be scaled down a bit so that it isn't so overpowered that it will get you out of every sticky situation you might get yourself into. Regardless of the threat in the Early Game, Banishment can usually dispatch of it. The point of making Player Ghosts immune is so that there will be one sure-fire threat that Banishment won't work on that will cause players to have to think up tactics to either avoid or kill in light of it.

[byrel]

I don't play Lugonu much, but if Banishment is too powerful, the piety cost could just be tweaked, right? Why try to rebalance by changing game mechanics with potential non-obvious repercussions?

[njvack]

Piety cost could be increased, or you could get no XP from banishment.

My gut says that it's no worse than other divine win buttons (*cough* Brothers in Arms *cough*).

[crate]

if AK is so good then how are you running into player ghosts anyway you have to die to make them you know

[njvack]

wait what does webtiles not get ghosts from other players somehow?

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't play Lugonu much, but if Banishment is too powerful, the piety cost could just be tweaked, right? Why try to rebalance by changing game mechanics with potential non-obvious repercussions?

I'm not against piety getting tweaked but gaining piety on Lugonu early on is pretty easy - and the Amulet of Faith speeds it up even more; later on things will also resist Banishment more and multiple casts will usually be necessary. The idea of rebalancing the game mechanics so that something is Banishment immune is more to balance it in regards other actions you could pursue. I picked Player Ghosts because people tend to die quite a bit in the early game and as njvack said - you can just run away from them to a different dungeon level.

Piety cost could be increased, or you could get no XP from banishment.

My gut says that it's no worse than other divine win buttons (*cough* Brothers in Arms *cough*).

I don't mind Trog having his powerful abilities because he has a serious drawback in regards to Spells for following him. Generally that is how it works for all God Abilities - the seriously powerful ones have drawbacks following them in some shape or form. Compared to Brothers in Arms, Banishment is just as powerful - though cheaper, and you can cast spells.

Edit:

I suppose another idea that could also work is making it so that you only have one shot of Banishment on a target, and then it gets a cooldown similar to what happens when you exit from the Abyss. if you failed to Banish the target, you would have to retreat and come back later if you want to try again; or avoid the target or kill the target.

[mikee]

Well Trog is just the most obvious example I think. You could also 'trivialize' ghosts with Elyvilon's pacification, TSO angels, Makhleb demons, Nemelex decks, Yred's pain mirror, etc., etc. And note the difference between Lugonu and these other situations: these other gods have a bunch of other abilities you can use all the time, but for Lugonu banishment is the only practical ability you can use a lot.

[jejorda2]

Really? Logunu, to me, is the "Early blink in heavy Armour" god.

[Lasty]

I agree with mikee. Many gods have kill buttons that make ghosts pointless; some even give full experience instead of half. Most of them remain useful into the late game, whereas Banishment's usefulness decreases as the game goes on and enemy MR gets higher. Brothers in Arms remains an effective kill tool against most everything throughout the game, for example.

I don't see a problem here, but even if there were a problem, this seems like the wrong solution: the change is an arbitrary and spoilery limitation based on the premise that player ghosts should present a unique type of threat to adherents of a certain god for a certain portion of the game.

[KoboldLord]

I don't see any reason to specifically screw over a starting background because they have an easy time dealing with an enemy that never spawns on a clean install. If this was really a problem, I'd rather remove player ghosts than stack them with a whole load more special snowflake immunities just so users can make sure their Lair 1 Fire Storm Spriggan Ghost is guaranteed to be maximally annoying no matter what character encounters it.

[rebthor]

Does a banished ghost count as dead or will it come back since it was never killed?

[Davion Fuxa]

Looking at my annotations I only see:

Annotations
Abyss Dowan, Erolcha, Gastronok, Harold, Prince Ribbit

Player Ghosts aren't showing up in this list so I'm assuming that they are destroyed destroyed upon being ported to the Abyss, since they get their annotations when you find them in he Dungeon normally.

[sanka]

I'm not sure if banishment needs a nerf or not, but I think what is counter-intuitive (for me) is that banishment do work on ghosts. Since the description of the ghosts says that they cannot leave the level, I assumed that they cannot be banished.

Of course if they are destroyed by banishment instead - then the description is correct, but the effect is still a little strange.

[ebarrett]

I propose banishing bad ideas to the Abyss, even though they're supposed to never leave GDD to cause havoc elsewhere

[tcjsavannah]

I propose banishing bad ideas to the Abyss, even though they're supposed to never leave GDD to cause havoc elsewhere

No, don't soil the sparkly clean new Abyss with them. Send 'em to the Mines. You wil never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.