Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?


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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 12:44

Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

I am relatively new to Dungeon Crawl and so far it is my favorite roguelike - there is, however, one disadvantage over similar roguelikes, f.e. Nethack: I have no gain from the player ghosts. Since I am mostly playing offline (when commuting by train), I am only playing with my ghosts and for that the risk/reward ratio is way too high. What incentive is there to keep me from cheating and regularly deleting my ghost files?
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 12:56

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

I don't understand why people delete their bone files in the 1st place. Ghosts are either free xp or nuisances that can be skipped. If you can't handle a ghost you can just leave the level. They can't follow you between levels, and if you win (or die) on a different level they are deleted.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 13:30

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

I've gained two levels at once before from killing a player ghost on D:3. It's good experience and a nice change of pace.

Online, it makes things more interesting because you never know exactly what abilities that ghost will have.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 14:15

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Their strength varies too much.
If the player was a Hunter, they are free XP(no weapon), if the player was a Draconian Transmuter, they can ranged-drain you and Mephitic Cloud you (how the hell do they cast Evaporate without material components?).
They make the game too easy for Necromancers (a couple casts of Dispel Undead) and too hard for MC users(immune to poison).
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Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 15:01

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

I actually wonder why hunter ghosts can't shoot at the player. It would be more interesting. Ghosts shouldn't be just free xp.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 16:25

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

LunarHarp wrote:I actually wonder why hunter ghosts can't shoot at the player. It would be more interesting. Ghosts shouldn't be just free xp.

Those would be far too strong - it's like running into extremely early Centaur that is also immune to Mephitic Cloud - players won't be able to run away from those. Hell, if AI is any good, they'd shoot and run just outside the range of Dispel Undead, so Necromancers are screwed too. And they can outrun Berserks.

In essense, they would be immune to every usual problem solver short of teleportation - and I'm quite sure they'd also be able to kill quite a few players that used that, too, due to teleport delay.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 18:34

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

I always delete my bones files because when I meet a ghost of mine it is usually the toughest thing on the level, because I was (almost) the toughest thing on that level when I died that time. (I play MDFi pretty much exclusively.) Meeting a player ghost is like meeting a unique for me, and uniques are hard enough and kill me often enough that I really don't want more hassle than Crawl already gives me.

Also consider that level-skipping is risky in the early game. If you have to skip from say DL 1 to DL 5 due to ghosts and uniques, you'll be facing orc priests and ogres without the resources to deal with them. Being XL 1 on DL 5 is hard times. And skipping down even farther only makes the problem worse.

I admit I like to clear levels completely though.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 19:48

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Deleting your bones files is not considered cheating as long as you do so consistently. If you delete your bones file without fail each and every time you die, you're basically playing with a clean install every game. Were it cheating to play a clean install it would be rather difficult to keep up with developments in trunk.

Deleting bones is only cheating if you do it selectively. If you delete the hard ghosts but leave the ones that are free sacks of xp behind, you probably shouldn't talk about your activities with other players.

Incidentally, the last big Crawl tournament had some rules that incentivized building up a powerful character to make a nigh-unbeatable griefer ghost. You got points for every character one of your ghosts killed, and you also got Jiyva's banner for dropping the Orb of Zot into magma, making the game unwinnable in the process. So if you were planning to collect the high-point banners for a full set, you might as well teach that particular spriggan Fire Storm and suicide on Lair 1 with a suit of golden dragon armor.

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mageykun

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 20:02

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

It is true that the concept of ghosts is somewhat metagamey and that the challenge varies wildly. However, If you carefully look at the challenges the game presents, then you find that there's not so many: out of depth monsters, vaults, sometimes problematic layouts. Plus ghosts. So we like ghosts because they present a thematic way to introduce something which can be a challenge on its own.
On the other hand, ghosts are cool in several ways: if you die, your ghosts can still keep up the killing spree. (On the servers, you can check your ghosts's performances.) Personally, I love their speech lines, it was one of the bits that drew me into the game.
Granted, ghosts are a lot more interesting on shared systems (like CDO and CAO). However, there is no reason why Nethack's hearse system couldn't be set up for Crawl, too. Just organise yourself and do it -- immediately you have a lot more interesting ghosts!

Snake Sneak

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Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 21:31

Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 22:46

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Is there anything in the code to prevent high level ghosts being unfairly generated on a lower level (just because you happened to die there)? Or are they generated 'depth appropriate'?
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 23:09

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

No, I don't think there's difficulty appropriateness check. I think the worst example I encountered was when I found the ghost of an endgame HEAE I got killed in the tomb while looking for the vaults. But I think that's just the fact that ghosts aren't constrained to the branch they died in messing up depth.

Out of curiosity, what's the encounter rate for ghosts online? On a local install, ghost frequency changes depending on how much you've died lately (when I was burning SpPas left and right trying to find a workable strategy I was up to my ears in ghosts. One every floor or two). I imagine on a server they average out more.

I would totally use crawl hearse, if anyone takes the time to develop it. Especially if it keeps track of your ghost's kills- hearing about that feature is the first thing that makes me regret not playing online.

Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 29th April 2011, 23:33

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Hmmmm .... seems like an implementation of a crawl hearse might encourage setting up powerful ghosts at low depth.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Sunday, 1st May 2011, 20:09

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

dpeg wrote:On the other hand, ghosts are cool in several ways: if you die, your ghosts can still keep up the killing spree. (On the servers, you can check your ghosts's performances.)

How do I see who my ghosts have killed or been killed by?

I've seen the a list on the scoreboard during the tournament, but how do you check outside of the tournament? Does it work the same for CAO or CDO?

hxy

Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 1st May 2011, 23:48

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Here's the ghost killer page for CAO
can't find one for CDO...

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 2nd May 2011, 01:31

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

that's for both cao and cdo

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 2nd May 2011, 20:34

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

It would be nice if the ghost killer page listed level, species, and class of the ghost and the player. The attack was that made the kill, too, like in the score listing at the end of the game, might also be interesting, along with timestamps. Links to the morgues? One name is pretty much the same as another.
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Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 2nd May 2011, 22:13

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Ghosts also teleport away if you get them down to more then 50% hitpoints and go up or down stairs. So even if you are forced to fight a ghost due to a open layout, you don't have to kill them.

Halls Hopper

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Post Monday, 2nd May 2011, 23:05

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

LunarHarp wrote:Ghosts also teleport away if you get them down to more then 50% hitpoints and go up or down stairs. So even if you are forced to fight a ghost due to a open layout, you don't have to kill them.


Oh, I have no doubt that in 9 out of 10 cases, player ghosts are easily avoidable obstacles. However, they have a disproportional chance of actually being an obstacle rather than the average monster I encounter on the same level. It just gives me an incentive to meddle with my ghost files or metagame my deaths (upon impending death, drop my weapon or forget a spell) which may be avoidable.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 3rd May 2011, 00:48

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

If you want to meta-game your deaths, there's a way better way to go about it that dropping your weapon or forgetting a spell as your last act to make your ghost weaker.

Quit. ctrl-Q, y-e-s, enter, boom. No death, no ghost. And, since you technically escaped alive, your score is slightly better than if you just died (I believe).

Not that I endorse this behavior, mind you. You should totally fight to the last. You never know- sometimes desperate last ditch risks pay off. People forget that Xom giveth as well asth taketh away. :ugeek: <-sanctimonious smiley

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Wednesday, 4th May 2011, 11:29

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Since 'cheating' player ghosts away is so trivial, there should be an option to switch them off completely.

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Swamp Slogger

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Post Thursday, 5th May 2011, 23:38

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

Silk wrote:What incentive is there to keep me from cheating and regularly deleting my ghost files?


XP for your pool. It's actually worth it to burn consumables to get rid of a ghost in most cases.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Friday, 6th May 2011, 00:13

Re: Player Ghosts - What's the incentive?

coolio wrote:Since 'cheating' player ghosts away is so trivial, there should be an option to switch them off completely.

Would have to be overridden or compiled out for online play, or at least tournament play, such as not to make it optimal to disable for competitive reasons.

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