Player Ghosts, revisted


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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 01:16

Player Ghosts, revisted

So, I've had this issue several times, which has led me to make this post.

Ghost, in general, are something that I'm iffy about, and there are plenty of posts on that.

That said, I want to revisit a few of the top issues in the hopes that the devs and the players and the pro-ghosters and anti-ghosters can find middle ground.

First, I want to talk about some of the variables. Equipment specifically. I've had ghosts in some of my games appear with very powerful weaponry sometimes...and last game I ran into two draining wep ghosts before D:7. Ghosts like this are what I find troublesome -- some ghosts are just XP bags, while others are threats you can run from. Sometimes, though, things get much more annoying. There was one game where I was banished on D:3 from a single hit by a distortion wielding ghost. In a couple of recent games I was notably drained by ghosts who appeared amid combat and thus I had to tank a few hits...and those hits dropped all my skills. Things like this turn ghosts into a permanent hazard that is never worth facing (who wants to screw with draining?), but at the same time is a level-tied annoyance...so not really a kill condition, either (stairs always let you survive them/bypass them).

Solution: Keep the weapons used by ghosts unbranded.

Secondly, spells. Sometimes these are not a problem, but other times they certainly are. I remember meeting one ghost that is the most powerful I've seen in awhile. It was a cheibro worshipping gish (I forget the race/class), so it had super powerful offensives. I thought I could just outrun it, but it had CBlink. I was tanky, so I tried to fight it...it had summoning spells. I managed to get to stairs, but only after burning through most of my blinking scrolls and a number of potions. Other times I have had ghosts show up early game and cast spells like confusion on me repeatedly...and each time I cured/cancelled it with a potion I was just confused the very next turn once more.

Solution: Preferably remove spells from ghosts...or otherwise just limit the spell list to a certain selection.

Thirdly, the whole concept of being a ghost makes them immune to certain things right off the bat, which can be troublesome. For example, they fly, so anything terrain that slows you down they can ignore. Negative energy immunity can be troublesome for necromancy-heavy chars or pain-brand wielders. Unlike many other resistances that are based off of player equipment, these are freebies. Now, I've heard before that people oppose taking away the customized variances in ghosts because that would make them just a generic monster...but then if you want to "reflect the player that died" accurately, adding a bunch of small-but-useful bonuses seems illogical.

Solution: Make the ghost actually represent the dead player. None of this special stuff. OR make the ghost a ghost, more generically so, instead of trying to act like it is the player.

----------------------------------------------

Solution to everything, ofc, is just to turn ghosts into a nearly harmless popcorn enemy that offers almost no XP but also won't be a threat, and then add more ghosts. Not tons, but if the idea is to be "ahaha, my friend so-and-so died here!" then have more ghosts, or a ghost every level (if possible), but make them more like butterflies -- sure, you can kill them, but they don't actually post a threat.

Or just remove them, ofc.

---------------------------------------------

I, however, don't know the nuances of the game's coding or the behind-the-scenes stuff that many others do. So, the point of this threat, like I said, is for people to voice legitimate solutions to player ghost problems.

****If you want them removed, say that, but then offer a "2nd best" compromise solution since there seems to be resistance to the removal entirely. Vice-versa if you want them kept.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 01:54

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Ghosts have limited spells. I think Duvessa said that they can't learn e.g. Ignition. But they also spam their spells a lot, and probably should get some added limit. Teleport Other is horrid in their hands.

In general there's also a lot of odd cases in which monster and player have similarly named mechanics that work differently, and ghosts tend to count as monsters then, which isn't intuitive. So rF+++ makes a ghost immune to fire, unlike a player.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 02:30

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Shtopit wrote:Ghosts have limited spells. I think Duvessa said that they can't learn e.g. Ignition. But they also spam their spells a lot, and probably should get some added limit. Teleport Other is horrid in their hands.

In general there's also a lot of odd cases in which monster and player have similarly named mechanics that work differently, and ghosts tend to count as monsters then, which isn't intuitive. So rF+++ makes a ghost immune to fire, unlike a player.


Yes, I think that is a notable problem. 1) More spells need to be banned, simply because they cause havoc with a monster, and 2) They need limits. A player can only cast confusion back-to-back so many times...a ghost can sit there and do it infinitely. That D:2 Fire Elementalist has bottomless spells to pelt you with while you run for your life.

And yes, the "immunity" annoys me to. I think that touches on a general principle I don't like about the situation (Or monsters in general...seriously, why do players have different dynamics for otherwise identical things?). I remember there was one ghost I hit that had immunity to everything. Ghost, so immune to poison and negative energy. Immune to electricity. Immune to fire. Immune to Cold. If I remember correctly, I ended up just avoiding it because it wasn't really a threat, but it also was indestructible.

bel

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 05:11

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Alphaeus wrote:That said, I want to revisit a few of the top issues in the hopes that the devs and the players and the pro-ghosters and anti-ghosters can find middle ground.

I don't understand what you're aiming towards. What is your idea of what a ghost should be? Until this is clarified, there's no point in finding middle ground. My attitude is captured here:
KoboldLord wrote:The trouble with ghosts is that literally every single aspect of their design is bad.

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Alphaeus, duvessa, nago, Terrapin, VeryAngryFelid

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 08:46

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

If one parent wants to have a child and another parent does not want to have a child, there can no be middle ground, they can just go and find another partner.
For DCSS it means anti-ghost players are forced to play offline or hellcrawl which does not have ghosts.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 15:58

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

@Bel

My point is that I believe there may be a way to denature the concept to the point that it will be at least acceptable. Like I said, we could perhaps make them little more than harmless "flavor" not unlike the creatures that appear behind crystal walls in some starting areas or butterflies or plants. They don't "need" to be there, but can give flavor.

I personally agree they should be removed. My point is that there can be a second best. If you realize something is not going to happen, I like to try to get as close as I can to what I want.

Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 18:52

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

It may help this discussion to look over the proposals from the 0.21 dev plan here: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/wiki/0.21-Development-and-Release-Plan so you can see what specifically is on the table these days (these proposals already incorporate a ton of player feedback that resembles discussions in this thread, though of course more feedback is welcome). None of these made it into 0.21 but I think it's highly likely that one will be in 0.22. Right now probably the best candidate is ghost vaults, best simply because it's fully implemented in a branch right now (and other devs seem to be on board with the idea). This branch also incorporates a version of Lasty's proposal to normalize ghost creation rate.

Personally I'm in favor of the ghost vaults proposal (and have therefore spent a lot of time implementing it) because (i) it keeps flavor (and allows more via vault design), (ii) it (arguably) improves player agency about whether to engage with ghosts, and (iii) it allows a lot more flexibility in things like placement, rewards, giving ghosts buddies, balancing, etc., (iv) hopefully eliminates scumming/griefing issues. Probably (if it happens) this change will come with some further balancing of player ghosts that wouldn't be possible otherwise, for example I already let them use stairs in the branch. I also think the "HP/AC bag" variety of ghost is something that specifically needs to go.

It's also worth noting that 0.21 did already have some balancing changes: speed is normalized, ghosts don't generate in portals, and chaos brands are removed.

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bel

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Post Monday, 26th February 2018, 21:42

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

0.21 Dev plan wrote:Put Ghosts in Vaults (advil)

This idea would have ghost interaction be completely voluntary.

Like.

I would also suggest that ghosts be made somewhat difficult than the average unique for that level, so that there's no temptation to kill them for XP etc. (since many uniques are not strictly worth killing on a pure XP basis). If people still want to kill ghosts for fun or flavor, let them.

Snake Sneak

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Post Saturday, 3rd March 2018, 12:11

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Why not both? Nerf randomly appearing ghosts, and have the current style of ghosts in special vaults.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Saturday, 3rd March 2018, 13:14

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Related: brands. Does protection on a ghost work differently than protection on a PC?

Also, +1 for ghost vaults.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 4th March 2018, 01:07

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

bel wrote:I would also suggest that ghosts be made somewhat difficult than the average unique for that level, so that there's no temptation to kill them for XP etc. (since many uniques are not strictly worth killing on a pure XP basis). If people still want to kill ghosts for fun or flavor, let them.

Dude, No.

As long as travel to previously generated floors remains possible, depth-inappropriate challenges in Crawl only do one thing: Encourage backtracking.*

*(For players not savvy enough to ignore them and move on with their game, and for characters weak enough that players feel motivated to go back and eke out every minor advantage.†)

†(Anticipating the argument of: Well, let's make these things truly optional, zero reward whatsoever, then there's no minor advantage to be gained by backtracking; From a risk vs reward point of view, the reward [or at least an unknown credible chance of reward‡] *has to* be present, else players have zero reason to engage with whatever ghost mechanics you put into place. Escape methods are hyperabundant in Stone Soup, even if you tried to force engagements it would amount to a minor consumable tax to completely ignore your new mechanic, which seems to be an entirely different design direction from which Advil indicated a desire to go anyway.)

‡(And the devteam has been moving away from unknown risk/reward vaults in more recent versions anyway, with more extensive use of vaults where both the threats and items are visible from outside prior to entering.)


If disengaging from unfavorable combat encounters were made much more difficult, or if the dungeon layout were changed to make returning to previously-generated floors impossible, only then could highly depth-inappropriate challenges present a credible gameplay choice.

While neither of those remain true, such challenges only serve to disrupt gameflow.

Within Stone Soup's current ruleset, challenges should always be Depth-appropriate. (They aren't of course, and this is just one of many extant fundamental problems with Stone Soup's basic ruleset.)

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duvessa

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Post Sunday, 11th March 2018, 03:05

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

I don't really like the idea of these optional vaults - it just seems like it'll be mostly a trap for new players. It doesn't really make sense to me to have something in this game be "optional" - you're basically always going to weigh up whether to do something based on its risk reward ratio, not whether you think it should be in the game at all.

I think ghosts could be a cool way to do panlord style somewhat random uniques. So the game could generate a ghost of an appropriate power level, give it a pre-defined set of abilities based on a player class, some modifiers based on race and then give it the name and race of a similar character who died recently (or just something random if there's no-one appropriate). This would retain the flavour of running into dead players, while making it so that the game's difficulty doesn't change based on what server you're on and whether someone's intentionally griefing.

bel

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Post Sunday, 11th March 2018, 07:28

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Implojin wrote:
bel wrote:I would also suggest that ghosts be made somewhat difficult than the average unique for that level, so that there's no temptation to kill them for XP etc. (since many uniques are not strictly worth killing on a pure XP basis). If people still want to kill ghosts for fun or flavor, let them.

[...]
†(Anticipating the argument of: Well, let's make these things truly optional, zero reward whatsoever, then there's no minor advantage to be gained by backtracking; From a risk vs reward point of view, the reward [or at least an unknown credible chance of reward‡] *has to* be present, else players have zero reason to engage with whatever ghost mechanics you put into place. Escape methods are hyperabundant in Stone Soup, even if you tried to force engagements it would amount to a minor consumable tax to completely ignore your new mechanic, which seems to be an entirely different design direction from which Advil indicated a desire to go anyway.)

No, the reward does not have to be present. The idea, as I understand it, is that fighting ghosts would be voluntary and for flavor reasons. It would not be worth fighting them for XP. I wouldn't mind making the XP zero, but I don't mind a small amount of XP either (relative to its level).

Of course, my first choice would be remove ghosts completely.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 26th March 2018, 15:29

Re: Player Ghosts, revisted

Related to spells working different between player, monsters and ghosts: Ghost Stone Arrow is apparently OP. https://www.reddit.com/r/dcss/comments/ ... w_isnt_it/

https://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=stone+arrow
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