I like the new no ghost mode... this will be fun to play. However I'm asking this question... do we want our normal chars to live forever? Knowing that we have a ghost that will always fix the mistakes we make during normal gameplay removes a little of the excitement of the game IMHO. For PWMAngband, I've implemented the following to add more spice:
- when a character dies, it has (nblives * 10)% chance capped at 50% to permanently lose 1-5 points of CON (idea taken from ADOM's Necromancer race which has the power to avoid death at level 50, but with the drawback of losing half their CON in the process)
- when a character dies, it has (nblives)% chance of permanently dying... this gives everyone a freebie, is very low when you die the second time (1%) and increases until you have no other choice than permanently dying (you can die 100 times in theory...)
Tell me what you think about this...
Do you want to live forever?
We implemented a limited number of deaths in MAngband back in December (here). It was fantastically unpopular and led to much grief all round. It's since been removed. For what it's worth, I personally liked the idea of a limited number of resurrections.
Fink had many arguments against this, one was that all this does is punish the less experienced players. At a time when we're trying to make things easier for the less experienced.
In any case, this has been tried, removed and won't be coming back.
The no ghost mode was implemented as replacement. It lets the player choose, rather than forcing the issue one way or the other. So no one should get upset with it.
I agree with you that it makes things more exciting when death could be permanent. Were it up to me, I would turn ghosts off completely
Fink had many arguments against this, one was that all this does is punish the less experienced players. At a time when we're trying to make things easier for the less experienced.
In any case, this has been tried, removed and won't be coming back.
The no ghost mode was implemented as replacement. It lets the player choose, rather than forcing the issue one way or the other. So no one should get upset with it.
I agree with you that it makes things more exciting when death could be permanent. Were it up to me, I would turn ghosts off completely
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Crimson
- King Lich
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There is actually a very interesting Wikipedia article about Grinding that addresses a lot of the pros and cons about limitations in player lives, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind_%28gaming%29
I found this to be a very solid counterpoint to endless resurrections, and this was the basis for my stance against unlimited lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grind_%28gaming%29
I found this to be a very solid counterpoint to endless resurrections, and this was the basis for my stance against unlimited lives.
Are you not entertained?
Is this not what you came here for?
-- Maximus Decimus Meridias, The Gladiator
Is this not what you came here for?
-- Maximus Decimus Meridias, The Gladiator
This article raises another issue. In current version of MAngband, you can spend an infinite amount of time at quite shallow depth (around 2500ft) to gain experience for the last levels (45-50) and still get good rewards (experience + drops). High levels players shouldn't spend most of their time battling weak stuff that can be easily defeated in order to gain levels without risk (pack of Us come to mind here... the Balrog of Moria, in particular, is a guaranteed source of massive xp with his weak escort of usually 20-30 Us... that can be killed over and over if you keep the unique alive). I know TomeNET computes the xp from a kill not only from player and monster level, but also from dungeon level... so that a level 50 character will have to dive at 5k in order to get the full benefit from the kill. This would force people to take risks if they want to advance more quickly in power.
)But on the other hand if it were easy enough for a "regular player" to get to Morgoth in a week or so of playing, there'd be no incentive to get better than that. After you've killed Morgoth off as each race/class combo what would there be to do? As it is, it's liable to take years of playing for most people to get good enough to be a challenge to Morgoth, and that's one of the prerequisites to a good game.
It is fairly easy to learn to play well enough to make it to the middle 20s player level, and the scary parts of the dungeon between 2000 and 3500 feet are then semi-within reach... Though some of us are pretty hopeless, I've been playing Angband since it was Moria and only won once, I've been playing MAngband on and off since 0.5.0 and my best is up in the player level 40s... I feel like I've succeeded whenever I break 30, and I'm ecstatic if I break 40.
It is fairly easy to learn to play well enough to make it to the middle 20s player level, and the scary parts of the dungeon between 2000 and 3500 feet are then semi-within reach... Though some of us are pretty hopeless, I've been playing Angband since it was Moria and only won once, I've been playing MAngband on and off since 0.5.0 and my best is up in the player level 40s... I feel like I've succeeded whenever I break 30, and I'm ecstatic if I break 40.
I haven't been paying quite close enough attention, but I think the current plan is for ghosts to be a player chosen option (probably via the = interface) where if a player chooses to play without the possibility to convert to ghosthood on death they can achieve a higher overall score when they retire. Although there has been talk about making the number of death->ghost transitions configurable before true death, or a random chance of dying for real instead of ghosting I think those are liable to be variant fodder before they go into the base game, unless as a server option for 1.3.0 or later.