Don't generate player ghosts in portals

[VeryAngryFelid]

It is extremely unfair when you enter a portal and get an overpowered player ghost with no exit in view. Also you cannot re-enter the portal so you lose your chance to get any loot/XP (and probably you spent some consumables trying to reach portal in time).
Please disable player ghost generation in portals, it is more annoying than fun and leads to unavoidable deaths more often than on normal floors.

[Moose]

Portals are not guaranteed, perhaps you can think of this as just another bad roll on portal generation? It's kinda like the vanishing shops (mimics).

Also, there are times when the pc entering the portal actually was the means (might, haste, wand, weapon, etc) to actually defeat the ghost, which is not only fun, but also gives a nice boost of early XP.

[Sar]

Hell no, if I actually died in a portal I sure want my ghost to haunt some unlucky adventurer! Booo!

[VeryAngryFelid]

The thread was expired by a post of another player.

Someone left a GrTm in a wizlab.

Max HP: 125
AC +++++ +++
EV +++++ ++
MR ++++

Only spell known is Vampiric Draining.

I put up a decent fight but stood no chance in the end, even with might quaffed. I couldn't run, because I could not leave the lab from where I entered and was a formicid. It was Wucad Mu's Monastery.

I recalled my own death of Mu of Chei who entered Bailey and found a ghost with sticky flame 1 tile away and made me wonder:

If we want to make portals more dangerous, we can put Ice Fiend, 2 Ice Dragons, Frost Giant AFTER player finds an exit... Do we really need to have another way of unavoidable deaths? It's worse than entering a Zig when you don't know what you will be up against, but in Zig you at least know where the exit is.

Edit. To make it clear I am not against generating random monsters in portals, Caustic Shrike or Iron Giant is fine in Ossuary, just don't generate it BEFORE player found an exit. Then players can learn and decide if they want to enter those portals again. Current situation teaches nothing IMHO.

[Sar]

or maybe we can put exists closer to entrances in those vaults if it really is that much of a problem

[VeryAngryFelid]

or maybe we can put exists closer to entrances in those vaults if it really is that much of a problem

Putting player right on exit would be good IMHO (assuming it does not look like my idea of disabling ghosts has much support). Then players can blame themselves for being reckless if they die.

[Blomdor]

I'd be fine with that, if ghosts must spawn in portals. The decision to risk character death for portal loot and XP is an interesting one and indeed a large part of what makes portals so exciting. Being forced into a fight that you know for a fact you cannot win is not interesting or exciting at all.

The thing that makes hilariously overpowered player ghosts bearable at all normally is that they are highly avoidable. They don't follow you through stairs. But their incredibly random nature and potential for being extremely overpowered compared to almost everything else on a given level does not mix well with situations where they are *not* so avoidable. It also just seems wrong to my mind to essentially punish random people on a server because someone decided to splat a draconian abyssal knight in the worst place possible, but that's an argument against ghosts in general I suppose. Just restricting them from generating in areas where they could force a player into an unwinnable fight, or guaranteeing an exit to a portal very close to where you enter it just in case, would be an improvement.

[adozu]

i once entered a relatively early ice cave and faced 2 ghosts that were closer to the exit than i was (and no blink scrolls available). i really don't see why they *should* generate.

[tabstorm]

just play on a server few people play on.

[WingedEspeon]

I agree with this because portals should already have a balanced risk vs reward and adding ghosts should upset that balance.

[Shard1697]

"Don't generate player ghosts" stopped reading, cosigned

[lethediver]

just play on a server few people play on.

Already on this. But thanks for screwing it up by encouraging more people to pollute.... uhh.... berotato... yeah thats it.

[yesno]

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