Ghost Ship: Introduce a little chaos

[Techwright]

Just finished getting the badge for the Ghost Ship.  I seem to recall a discussion on the forums not long back that noted the Ghost Ship was boring.  After dealing with 50 ghosts for the umpteenth time, I have to agree. 

 

Perhaps its the recent storm characters that have me thinking, but didn't the ship go down in a violent storm?  Fix the boredom by introducing chaos.  Have storm powers, water powers, even ice powers and dark powers appearing randomly around both the ship and its ghost crew attacking heroes and scattering NPCs. Not necessarily every power in each of these power sets, but definitely ones that can harm or impede heroes from taking out the ghosts. If the ship appears in the day, darken the sky, or at least use the dark powers to darken the area around it's journey.   

 

They perished in the storm, make the storm a part of the haunting. 

[SableShrike]

And make them con even just like the War In the Vale mobs do now!

Edited May 1, 2023 by SableShrike

[Rudra]

1 hour ago, SableShrike said:

And make them con even just like the War In the Vale mobs do now!

Given the spawn size of Ghost Ship spawns? No thanks. That would make it deadly for squishy characters not on teams trying to get the badge.

[Communistpenguin]

They should make the zones atmosphere go all DA and foggy. If nothing else, it would let people know the ship is in the zone.

[Rudra]

45 minutes ago, Communistpenguin said:

They should make the zones atmosphere go all DA and foggy. If nothing else, it would let people know the ship is in the zone.

Not saying that is a bad idea, but doesn't the event announcement do that? Also, if by foggy you mean Echo: Dark Astoria? Then good luck finding the ship.

[Vanden]

22 hours ago, Rudra said:

Given the spawn size of Ghost Ship spawns? No thanks. That would make it deadly for squishy characters not on teams trying to get the badge.

 

I don't think wiping out handfuls of harmless grey mobs is something that's really badgeworthy, myself.

[Rudra]

6 minutes ago, Vanden said:

 

I don't think wiping out handfuls of harmless grey mobs is something that's really badgeworthy, myself.

Then you must think a lot of hunt badges are not really badgeworthy either. Some players earn badges by fighting things at level or higher. Some players earn badges by going back and smacking things when they can crush them quickly to rack up the required count. Some players do a bit of both. If a player wants to tackle Ghost Ship spawns at or near level, they can do so while at or near level, or use Ouroboros to get to at or near level. If a player wants to just wipe out a bunch of grey mobs, get the badge done, and then get back to doing other things, they can do that too. Neither is right or wrong, they just are.

[Vanden]

5 minutes ago, Rudra said:

Then you must think a lot of hunt badges are not really badgeworthy either.

 

You'd be right!

[Arc-Mage]

I always bought the Villain side should have a pirate ship that moved around like the Hero side does

[Techwright]

1 hour ago, Arc-Mage said:

I always bought the Villain side should have a pirate ship that moved around like the Hero side does

 

That's not a bad idea and really fits with the Rogue Island theme, but do you really want a bunch of ghost pirates just standing around and putting up a very modest fight?

 

Now if they did it with ghost pirate ship canons blazing and ghost pirates storming the beaches with guns blazing and cutlasses swinging, that would be something.

[KaizenSoze]

I have a complete badger, except page 6, and two other plus 1500+ badgers.

 

I love this idea. So, many of the special defeat badges are very tedious and boring.

 

Anything that makes these badges more exciting by making them more dangerous sounds good to me.

[biostem]

There should be a ghost ship's captain GM that we fight, after defeating enough of the crew...

[Communistpenguin]

17 hours ago, Rudra said:

Not saying that is a bad idea, but doesn't the event announcement do that? Also, if by foggy you mean Echo: Dark Astoria? Then good luck finding the ship.

Yeah like echo DA. Maybe they could make it so the ghost ship is not hidden by the fog? Like it becomes a beacon in the zone? They should also make the ghosts leveless like Invasion mobs.

[Rudra]

15 minutes ago, Communistpenguin said:

Yeah like echo DA. Maybe they could make it so the ghost ship is not hidden by the fog? Like it becomes a beacon in the zone? They should also make the ghosts leveless like Invasion mobs.

I love Echo: Dark Astoria. Love the ambience. Love how it fits for a home for several of my characters. (Edit: Wish there was a way to create that kind of fog in a base. The current fog options don't even come close. Even layered vertically with several stacked on top of each other in a given space in the base. Though creepy is still very doable with existing options.) The problem arises in that the fog drastically reduces visual range. So I've faceplanted into a few buildings multiple times flying through the zone. I don't see a way (or reason) to make the Ghost Ship spawn under those conditions and still be visible at any useful distance. And given that there are multiple routes the ship can take through Talos Island and Independence Port, such an obscuring fog wouldn't do anything more than make the ship that much more annoying to find, as well as impede players who are looking for specific spawns other than the ghosts for their missions. (Edit: Especially since the ghosts don't spawn at the ship, they spawn further back along its route after the ship has passed.)

 

As for levelless ghosts, as I said earlier, I am against that because of the spawn sizes. If they go levelless, squishy characters will have no means of going after the ghosts when no one else wants to because they will be annihilated by the ghosts with their hazard zone size spawns. When an invasion starts, the mobs may be levelless, but they spawn near your character and only in groups of 1-3 depending on the event. So you can fight them solo or go find a team. Ghost Ship spawns don't spawn at player locations. They spawn at set locations along the ship's path. So they spawn in hazard zone size groups. I am against making them levelless.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Rudra

[kelika2]

Or just have it dock at some place, a captain saying its shore leave time and after a few waves come out, the GM-captain comes out

[Rudra]

Ghost ships don't have any docks to berth at. Their crew don't get shore leave and their passengers don't disembark. That's the point of ghost ships. They're cursed to forever sail with their doomed crew/passengers. The only times I know of that a ghost ship docked was when it was a real ship, just derelict or abandoned, and towed to the nearest port. (Edit: Usually though, they are just sunk if not needed for anything to clear the ship lane.) Stories about ghost ships say they can add passengers to their numbers, the unfortunate souls that find and board them only to die in often mysterious circumstances, but they never reach a destination. The ghosts left behind in the Ghost Ship's wake aren't technically disembarked. To the best of my knowledge, they are not on the actual ship model because the devs couldn't make it so that players could fight on the ship model, so the ghosts had to be spawned in its wake.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Rudra
Edited for incorrect word choice and add "say they".

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

I love Echo: Dark Astoria. Love the ambience. Love how it fits for a home for several of my characters. (Edit: Wish there was a way to create that kind of fog in a base. The current fog options don't even come close. Even layered vertically with several stacked on top of each other in a given space in the base. Though creepy is still very doable with existing options.) The problem arises in that the fog drastically reduces visual range.

 

I agree with you regarding DA fog, but how about the atmosphere used in that Halloween event?  The one with the 4 flags?  Dark, somewhat foggy, but more clearly visible.

[Rudra]

33 minutes ago, Techwright said:

 

I agree with you regarding DA fog, but how about the atmosphere used in that Halloween event?  The one with the 4 flags?  Dark, somewhat foggy, but more clearly visible.

That would be feasible. Eliminate the event sound effects (introduction music, howl, and thunder; as well as closure effects) so as to avoid possible confusion during the annual Halloween Banners event when it is launched, and those in zone that for any reason do not notice the Ghost Ship event notice in their chat window will still be very aware of the event if in the zone. Without compromising anyone's ability to do anything in the zone.

 

(I still want to be able to place Echo: Dark Astoria fog in some of my bases though.... Not to fill the entire base, just the sections where it is thematic, like my maze.)

[50caltech]

it always seems ridiculous why the ghost ship was a tanker and not a old school wooden sailing pirate ship like the Dutchman, and only in 2 heros zones, when it should be traveling around both sides and many zones, should be picking up or dropping off passengers from port oakes, nerva, croatoa , talos and indy port etc or any others with open ports for ship traffic,  would be kool if it could be improved, day time travel as tanker and night time as sailing ship?

[Rudra]

27 minutes ago, 50caltech said:

it always seems ridiculous why the ghost ship was a tanker and not a old school wooden sailing pirate ship like the Dutchman, and only in 2 heros zones, when it should be traveling around both sides and many zones, should be picking up or dropping off passengers from port oakes, nerva, croatoa , talos and indy port etc or any others with open ports for ship traffic,  would be kool if it could be improved, day time travel as tanker and night time as sailing ship?

The model is a tanker rather than an Age of Sail vessel because it was built in 1932. Well past the Age of Sail.

https://archive.paragonwiki.com/wiki/Paragon_Times/20041201

 

(For clarification, while ghost ships are normally attributed to Age of Sail vessels, they are not limited to such. Though stories about modern vessels are less well known than Age of Sail ones, they are available. You can find some with a quick online search. [Edit: Though modern ghost ship stories tend to be more mystery or weird breakdowns than ghostly.])

Edited May 3, 2023 by Rudra
Edited to correct missed capitalization.

[srmalloy]

3 hours ago, Rudra said:

The model is a tanker rather than an Age of Sail vessel because it was built in 1932. Well past the Age of Sail.

Despite its description in the paragonwiki page, the actual ship model is a Great Lakes bulk freighter, not a tanker, as are all of the large merchant vessels in the game; tankers wouldn't have the row of hatch covers over the cargo bays, and would have piping on the main deck to allow for loading and unloading their tanks. As a side note, the ship maps are inaccurate; bulk freighters have separate cargo compartments under each deck hatch to minimize how much shifting cargo can affect the trim of the ship, not the enormous empty bays that we see, and they're all separate watertight spaces to limit flooding.

[Hyperstrike]

17 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Despite its description in the paragonwiki page, the actual ship model is a Great Lakes bulk freighter, not a tanker, as are all of the large merchant vessels in the game; tankers wouldn't have the row of hatch covers over the cargo bays, and would have piping on the main deck to allow for loading and unloading their tanks. As a side note, the ship maps are inaccurate; bulk freighters have separate cargo compartments under each deck hatch to minimize how much shifting cargo can affect the trim of the ship, not the enormous empty bays that we see, and they're all separate watertight spaces to limit flooding.

You mean because it looks like THIS?

[Greycat]

22 hours ago, 50caltech said:

it always seems ridiculous why the ghost ship was a tanker and not a old school wooden sailing pirate ship like the Dutchman, and only in 2 heros zones, when it should be traveling around both sides and many zones, should be picking up or dropping off passengers from port oakes, nerva, croatoa , talos and indy port etc or any others with open ports for ship traffic,  would be kool if it could be improved, day time travel as tanker and night time as sailing ship?

 

The ship is the Moraine. There's lore about it in game. Quite a bit in Striga, as I recall, but a few other bits scattered around.

 

 

 

[Techwright]

18 hours ago, srmalloy said:

Despite its description in the paragonwiki page, the actual ship model is a Great Lakes bulk freighter, not a tanker, as are all of the large merchant vessels in the game;

 

So it's basically the game's version of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

[srmalloy]

10 hours ago, Hyperstrike said:

You mean because it looks like THIS?

No, because it looks like this:

See the difference in the deck arrangement?