The easiest way to fix greifing

[Jakemith]

The easiest way to prevent greifing is to change the following:

1. Remove ghosts global sanity drain and change it to an area of effect sanity drain.
2. Remove the haunting option: as far as I see a ghost being allowed to haunt things offers no positive play or helpful play to the game, it seems that haunting is geared tword grefing wether its starting fires making spider queens and treeguards, or simply destroying crockpotted food
3. Have a "Ghost Timer" Players shouldnt be allowed to stay a ghost for longer than 2-3 minutes before being temp banned from that server for one day automatically (could be changed under world settings for private worlds, should be enforced and always used on dedicated servers)

[Luponius]

1st point - Endorsed.  Very much so.  It only makes sense.  We go insane when we're close to monsters, not whenever monsters are in the game (which would be always).  This should also be the case for player ghosts.  The closer they are the more sanity they'll drain.  I would personally like to see a bigger sanity drain than current when a ghost is basically right next to you, and no drain if you're a couple screens away from them.

 

2nd point - Disagree with removing the haunting option.  A ghost should have something to do, and haunting is the way to "harass" the living and make them pay attention.  I would much rather have the haunt option modified to the point that ghosts basically are against the player but in a fair and meaningful way.  So those who died can still "play" the game, and those who live can choose to either oppose the ghost and deny them or give in and revive them.  Examples of this would be:

 

• Sanity drain as already has been suggested, the closer the worse it is.
• Ability to use the Haunt option on various natural resources to either degrade the items or possibly spawn monsters.
• Monsters spawned in this fashion will reflect the resource that's been haunted.  For e.g. haunting trees spawns bats, boulders spawns spiders, ponds spawns mosquitoes which follow the ghost.
• These monsters spawned will reflect the ghost's power.  The longer a player remains as a ghost the more powerful they become (ideally the model / sprite should be indicative of how powerful a ghost is).  First few days only one creature may be summoned, and regardless of what it is, it can be easily killed (2/3 hits).  Later on, the same creatures will have a moderately larger health pool and multiple creatures can be summoned per ghost.

Now I understand Klei is usually against changes like these, since it's just completely new gameplay that comes out of the blue, but the truth is that nobody really cares about ghosts, it's just an annoyance that indicates bad players  and there's no depth to it.  "Haha he died - noob" kind of effect in DST.

 

Now remember that DST is a game about living and dying - the latter being a big part of what makes this game charming and great (maybe in a masochistic, sick sort of way, maybe not) - and this mechanic, while crucial to how the game plays is given little thought beyond death.  Which is why I suggest the ghosts that result from this are given simple tools that first off lets them still play, and secondly integrates them into the game properly to tell a better story.

 

3rd point - NO.  It's a multiplayer game, and don't starve isn't kind to new players.  Banning someone just because they're getting adjusted to the game is ridiculous and should never be allowed, giving them interesting and engaging gameplay elements which also drags in other players would make a lot more sense.  In fact, I would say "temp ban" the ghosts if they refuse to harass the other players, that way a ghost player would act as an actual ghost, vengeful against life, which needs to be redeemed and pulled back into the living by those still alive, or left to torment them to death.

 

I kinda thought of all this on the spot, but it seems to make a lot of sense to me looking on it.  That's either because it's genuinely a good idea, or more likely because it's late and I'm a bit drunk.

 

My 2 cents.

 

Edit: Emphasis, typos, grammar, and better explanations typed up.

[Brain]

The game is about NOT dying. Thus, there should be no gameplay features while dead. No Haunting, no Sanity, nothing. Absolutely no compromising death, respawning was already a huge concession. Give ghosts anything else to do is game breaking imho.

 

In almost all games ghosts can only respawn at fixed points (portal, touchstones, amulets, also graveyards would be fun), or be ressurected by a friend. And respawning at portals should be free too, the only cost being of course you are born again in a different location, naked, and will lose time running back and forth. That is also the reason why many games implement ghosts with triple movement speed, to make the running while dead less annoying.

 

Remember that it is always possible to make an "Afterlife" mod where all your ghosting wishes come true.