Remove ghosts from the game (or let us disable them).

[Quazifuji]

Removing experience from ghosts doesn't entirely solve the stair-dancing problem. A dead ghost is less dangerous than a not-dead ghost, and a ghost that's dangerous enough that you need to strair dance to kill it safely is dangerous enough that you don't want to risk encountering it at an inopportune time and/or location far away from the stairs. Thus, even if ghosts gave no reward, stair-dancing them to death when possible would still be a good idea (and in my opinion, worthwhile in a significant an noticeable way, not worthwhile in a "it's incredibly unlikely but theoretically possible it could help you so technically it's optimal" sort of way).

There's also, of course, the case of all of the upstairs being bunched together or a ghost appearing at the entrance to a branch (I've stair-danced a dangerous ghost at the entrance to Lair before), where parking the ghost can be quite dangerous.

[ydeve]

Most ghosts that I encounter fall under the "stairdance necessary" category while also falling under the "speed 10 melee so walk away and it's harmless" category. If you're a little careful with exploring the ghost won't trap you, and skipping the rest of the level is also an option if things get tight.

[Quazifuji]

Speed 10 is only harmless in a vacuum. Sure, you can try to explore carefully to avoid ever getting cornered by the ghost, but why do that when you can safely stairdance it to death and remove any risk?

[ydeve]

The tedium isn't worth just swapping to another staircase (different region of the floor). By the time I run into the ghost again, the level is mostly explored anyway, so I just go downstairs.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Took a hiatus because this game was taking over my life. Came back after getting my priorities straight. Let me say that ghosts are bullshit, yet again. I went down to D:8 and ran into a Draconian ghost which for some odd reason the devs allowed to deal 40 damage per shot of breath. If I wasn't already going up the stairs when he decided to light me up with a nice burst of negative energy I would've died there. Instead, some gargoyle venom mage casted the level 1 spell at me for a "meh" amount of damage, putting it at the edge of LoS as I moved. Since I figured the thing was chasing me, I rounded a circle to get to the up stairs. Little did I know the AI decided to not work as intended and he ended up staying put, being within 3 tiles of me. I decided to bolt from the stairs, which is when he casted Olgreb's, dealing 6 damage a turn to a char that was already wounded. If I had known Olgreb's was capable of such lethality I would've used venom mage starts a long, long time ago. Anyway, I figured I'd chug curing and see what happens. Same level of poison, 3. I chugged healing this time and by a combination of its melee and Olgreb's I ended the turn with only 3 more HP than I started.

I had a scroll of tele that I didn't want to use because just olgreb's was something I could run away from (the stairs were 4 tiles away), but then it pulled out surprise melee skills, so I read it. I took another 20 damage and couldn't hold out long enough for it to proc. I couldn't quaff curing either since I only had one and a repoisoning was certain death. This is ridiculous. How am I supposed to know what these things are capable of? Why do I have to check a morgue?

"Just read tele right away."

I can't do this for every encounter, tyvm. I can't chug healing either, but I did anyway since it was the only way to get enough HP to do something else. Little did I know the venom mage was secretly a deadly gladiator.

Another promising character lost to bullshit. Almost all of the ghosts I run into are powerhouses of destruction. 2 out of 3 of the ghosts I ran into could've easily killed me, and my character was by no means weak or scrawny, being a level 10 Purple DrTm at D:7 and D:8. How can you guys say they are not lethal? Ghosts only go away when killed, which means natural selection ensures all but the strongest ones die. This is absolutely ridiculous. And both of these ghosts were by themselves, nevermind with other enemies.

I'm tired of being punished because other players decided to mess up. If anything else, this alone should be enough reason why ghosts should be gone. By nature of DCSS's gameplay design, random bullshit can come from the game that kills the player, and we have to accept that fact. However, besides that, the player should only be punished for bad reactions to the situations that pop up. You can say that's what happened to me, and you might be right, but it was absolutely ridiculous the kind of firepower this thing had and expecting me to expect that from all ghosts means that I'm going to be burning through consumables like no tomorrow.

I like online player ghosts, and would like them even more if they only got deleted from generation if they were killed (and not just skipped). At the very least, doing so temporarily would help to highlight where the minor balance issues with the system are that need to be tweaked.

This would help out substantially. Although I would prefer removal entirely, this would at least stop the natural selection aspect.

Ghosts are stronger than literally anything else that can pop up early game. With proper tactics my character was able to nuke a hoard of 7 or 8 killer bees, and yet these ghosts were both stronger than that entire pack.

I'm gonna cry now. Night guys.

Edit: How the heck do you guys stair dance a single enemy? Ghosts regenerate.

[duvessa]

Ghosts go away when loaded, not when killed. The only way a ghost can appear in more than one game is if you die with that ghost on your level (because then it will be saved in the same bones file as your own ghost). Death by quitting also won't produce bones.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Ghosts go away when loaded, not when killed. The only way a ghost can appear in more than one game is if you die with that ghost on your level (because then it will be saved in the same bones file as your own ghost). Death by quitting also won't produce bones.

Death by quitting won't stop me from running into (possibly literal) astral demigods of destruction. And what kind of crawler throws in the towel at all but the most hopeless points? This game is already hard enough. Puh-lease.

[duvessa]

I'm not giving you advice. I already said that ghosts are a terrible mechanic. I'm correcting "Ghosts only go away when killed", which is factually wrong.

[PowerOfKaishin]

Duvessa, who exactly is in charge of making a change like this? Is it possible for you to just go into the code and cast "Dispel Bullshit" and make all this go away?

[Kate]

This thread isn't going anywhere useful. See the GDD rules for guidelines on posting constructively.