Post by Shadowknight12 on May 27, 2012 12:06:17 GMT
I'm doing an LP of this game in a forum, and that has given me the opportunity to really look at Ghost Master from an in-depth perspective, and that has given me some ideas for that sequel that will never come, and some criticisms that could be implemented as well. I am fully aware that the sequel will most likely never materialise, but that doesn't mean I can't put my thoughts into writing. It kills time between updates, anyway.
Criticism
Puzzles
Yeah, the designers need to learn the differences between those hard puzzles that are hard because they require player skill and intelligence (which are rewarding), and those that are hard because either they rely almost entirely on luck or the solution is so obscure it would take the lovechild of Nostradamus and the Oracle of Delphi to figure out (which are frustrating and destroy fun).
Herding mortals should not be as frustrating as it is. I'm not saying that it should be easier, I'm saying that it should be handled differently. I handle mortal herding below in "ideas." Needless to say, something has to change. Some missions (Blair Wisp Project comes to mind, along with getting mortals to do one specific thing, like freeing Raindancer, Wavemasters, Blue Murder, Fingers, Tricia, Hogwash, Brigit and so on) are just physically painful to play because you have to get really lucky to get mortals where they need to go quick enough to get a Triple Pumpkin (and TPs, as any game award, should reward player skill, not luck).
There are some puzzles that are not luck-dependant, but just as frustrating, because they have some very obtuse logic behind them. Freeing Stormtalon and Banzai, for example, is a matter of sheer, raw chance. If you randomly decided to bring an Earth Elemental and bind them to the only Earth fetter in the whole police station (minus the two patches of ground way on the edges of the stage) then bam, you have Banzai. If that never occurred to you, you can only get him in a Ghostbreakers replay. And Stormtalon doesn't even get that chance. Unless you want to use weather to destroy Black Crow's shack or interfere with the summoning of the Dragoon, you'll never realise what you need to do to get him (and if you were using wind only to achieve those goals, you will also not get him, since you need a storm, which is high winds and rain).
Another thing that comes to mind is freeing Windwalker, which is quite a terrible design idea, because if you can't get him on your first try, he's lost forever. Your only clue as to how to release him is that the device that keeps him captive depends too much on cold. That you need to reverse the air flow and then cast Inferno and some strong winds outside never enters the equation. These are all just examples of how a poorly implemented design idea and some unintuitive puzzles can really damp a player's fun. The key to a fun puzzle game is to have puzzles that do not break the flow of the game and do not force the player to stare at a screen for over half an hour in confusion, while everything they try slowly drives them ever further to frustration and game abandonment.
A good puzzle is not one whose solution is unknown. A good puzzle makes it evident exactly what you need to do, but leaves it up to you how to accomplish it. A good example of such an idea is disabling astral wards and alarums. You already know that you must deal damage to the generators or the devices, but you're left wondering what's the best approach to do so. Sadly, this is when the game decides to ruin a good idea with a previously mentioned flaw and ensures that the only way you are ever going to solve that puzzle is through sheer luck. Invariably, most of the times you must disable astral wards, you have to trick a mortal into picking up a gift with ghosts inside and take it somewhere near the generators or the devices. Which is, as we all know, quite frustrating. The only time this was implemented even remotely successfully is on the Ghostbreakers stage, where disabling the wards is something you can do straight away, but requires skill and can be approached from different sides (you can whip up a storm and let lightning do its job, or you can use haunters with Blackout).
A good puzzle makes you go "Oooh I was so close! I bet I'll get it next time!", you know, the thing that makes you want to keep playing because it makes you feel like even if you fail, you understand how the puzzle works a little better. A good puzzle lets the player win a little even if they fail, so that they feel rewarded for their intelligence and want to keep trying. Again, in the Ghostbreakers stage, you feel rewarded when you shut down the power, because that rewards you with letting you bind ghosts in previously protected areas, so even if you failed at disabling everything before the power gets turned back on, you still feel like you accomplished something.
So, to sum up: Mortal herding needs to be remade, puzzles have to be approached from a better design standpoint and the priority should be to design non-frustrating puzzles that reward player intelligence and skill.
Wraiths
Wraiths are quite possibly the only family of ghosts in the game I can safely say are objectively bad. A lot of the others have varying usefulness depending on the stage, but there is not a single stage where wraiths actually get to be useful at all. Furthermore, I am personally disappointed at the design decisions made for this family, because I really like the way wraiths have been depicted in other media (and tabletop games or videogames) and so it makes me feel hugely disappointed that Ghost Master decided that wraiths were going to be electrically-themed (ew) and were going to be represented by an incredibly dull electrician and a slightly more interesting but still ultimately pointless death row inmate.
Now, the explanation on why Wraiths are objectively worse than any other family is plain old numbers. A wraith is basically a hybrid between a Spectre and a Gremlin, with the worst thing from Apparitions thrown in (their fetter) because why not make something already bad a little worse?
Having established that, a Wraith will always be worse than a Gremlin when it comes to the electrical side of their powers because Wraiths have the same fetter as a Gremlin (so we can't argue that it's like Shivers vs. Whirlweird, where Shivers's TK Storm costs twice as much as Whirlweird's because the latter has a hideously awful fetter) and their electrical powers have the same effects at an incredibly higher cost. Not to mention the cost of binding a Wraith is sky-high when compared to a Gremlin. Now granted, you'll tell me that a Wraith has all the scare potential of a Spectre with some utility from Gremlins thrown in and the third best fetter in the game (Electrical). Sounds great, right? Except no, it's actually the worst of both worlds. As established previously, you are never going to be using the electrical powers of a Wraith, because a Gremlin is just better at them. Why pay 240 plasm (plus binding cost) for Surge from Electrospasm when you can pay 120 (plus a much lower binding cost) for the same effect from Hogwash?
And if we take into consideration the smattering of Spectre powers, we realise they're not even that good at raw scares, because they lack the sheer PUNCH that Spectres bring to the table. A Spectre can really lay down the hurt on a group of mortals and generate a really great amount of Belief, so once you can afford them, they can instantly start paying for themselves in terms of Plasm, as they rapidly begin a vicious cycle of raising Belief to give their own powerful scares even more punch and generating more Plasm for higher power bands. Most Spectres can also learn to Possess others to get away from their otherwise uncomfortable fetters and really get their scares going. But even the stationary ones like Ghastly are good at what they do because all they need is a good opening (Paralyse, Dominate, Danse Macabre, another haunter's Frozen Stiff, Trap, Slow, Swallow or the like) and then they just rapidly unload all their horror powers on them for an incredibly powerful combo. A Wraith cannot do this because they lack any way to keep their victims nearby, leave their fetters or build massive amounts of Belief.
So all you get is a bunch of overpriced electricity powers that are rarely any good at giving appropriate Terror or Belief for their price (unlike Gremlins, where the small terror hit of Sparks is pretty much what you'd expect for that cost) and the only good power worth mentioning, Surge, gets horridly outclassed by Hogwash and Cogjammer. And on the other side, you get a bunch of scare powers without any form of synergy or the ability to REALLY drive a mortal's Terror through the roof like a Spectre.
And if you REALLY must have some punch and horror juice with your electricity? Why, it's not like you don't have Fire Elementals and Thunder Spirits that also have the same advantages at a much more reasonable price and much better powers as well. And in the case of Stormtalon, being able to be fettered Outside actually makes up for the fact that he's more expensive than a Gremlin, because Inside and Outside are the only two fetters that are better than Electrical, so giving him Electrical and Outside as fetters is actually an upgrade when compared to a Gremlin or Fire Elemental.
Which leaves Wraiths as complete and utter disappointments. If you're going to put a family in the Horror class, give us something that's actually worth the Plasm.
Lack of Differentiation Between Ghosts
I liked the effort presented in trying to make ghosts different and unique, but I have to say the efforts were sadly insufficient. There are a lot of haunters that resemble other ghosts a little too much, which is, in my opinion, the unfortunate side effect of wanting to give the player more ghosts than the list of powers feasibly allowed. It was a noble intention, so I can't really blame the designers for this one, but I really wished they had shown more restraint. For example, Stonewall and Banzai are practically identical, since they only have two or three powers that they can use to differentiate themselves (Tricia and Lady Rose have only TWO powers that differentiate them, and can easily end up being identical if you're not careful), and Gremlins will end up stepping on each other's toes no matter how different you want to make them (Spectres, Spooks, Apparitions, Wraiths and Phantoms suffer the same problem). Then we have cross-family toe-stepping, with Spooks grabbing a little something from everyone with little rhyme or reason, Wraiths being absolute hacks, Poltergeists borrowing their low-level bands from other families, Banshees fighting with Air Elementals over madness, noise and wind powers, or Shadows being Apparitions on insanity steroids. Tricksters being TOO good by having a lot of good things with the second best fetter in the game (Outside), was actually an idea that unbalanced the game quite a bit. It removed the one thing that made Fetches invaluable (gifts), the one thing that made Fetches unique (vessels) and then cribbed the best powers from Apparitions and other ghost families. They were actually very unfair to the rest of the haunters.
Hordes must be the only family where you can easily have three ghosts with the exact same powers but each of them feels completely different. They are definitely a good example of how to have their cake and eating it too (lots of ghosts but small power list), and I think ghosts would be much more unique, memorable and worth using if they had all been designed like they designed the Hordes. All it took was a change of fetters and horror flavour and bam, totally unique ghost. They did something similar with Manes, giving Arclight fire powers and Flash Jordan stench powers, but they were both unfortunately undermined by having the single worst fetter in the game and the presence of Fire Elementals and Phantoms/Wights, which do their job a hell of a lot better than them, from a much better fetter. Now granted, Manes are cheap and know Possess (their two saving graces), but their entire shtick depends on finding a mortal to ride on, which, as we all know, is very frustrating to accomplish. Which leaves one picking a Fire Elemental instead of Arclight and a Phantom or Wight instead of Flash Jordan (especially a Wight: Black Crow might be way more expensive than her but he's got a better fetter, the same ability to Possess and a host of very useful powers).
Personally, I would have cut the ghost roster in half quite easily. I would have got rid of ghosts within families that are not easy to differentiate (like Earth Elementals, Apparitions, Spooks and so on) and instead, I'd have focused on making the few families that had the potential to be different (Poltergeists, Banshees, the rest of the Elementals, etc.) more like Hordes, giving them each either unique powers (like the higher bands of Whirlweird versus Hardboiled) and toning down on the families that shamelessly steal from others (like Tricksters, Spooks, Wraiths, Shadows and the like).
Gender Equality
This one is a very minor, very negligible nitpick, but I would have honestly liked to see some more gender equality within the families, like male Banshees and Fetches, female Spectres and Phantoms and so on. I really dislike the idea that some ghost families only have members of a given gender (I'm ignoring families with a single member, like Wights, because I do not consider their members representative of the whole family, as well as non-humanoid families like Gremlins, Spooks, Hordes, Poltergeists, Fire Elementals and the like), so I would have really wished this nonexistent sequel worked on that. I mean, it's not impossible to imagine some vain supermodel guy who ended up trapped in a mirror after he died (great example of a male Fetch), Blue Murder could've worked as a Spectre just fine (or any other tough-as-nails woman), Brigit's story could have easily been the same if the genders had been swapped, and who's to say The Painter couldn't have been a woman? Or any other type of artist, like The Actress, The Writer or The Sculptress?
On a more positive note, I am glad that Manes and Tricksters are gender equal, and that Apparitions have Terroreyes to provide a male example.
New Ideas
Herding Mortals
My personal ideas on how to improve mortal herding would probably involve a lot of coding, but I think it would substantially improve gameplay. The very first thing I'd do would be to make mortals controllable when they're Possessed, Sleepwalking, and the like. Maybe we need a Band 7 power exclusive to Poltergeists that lets them take control of the child they're bound to. In the same vein, I think Band 7 vessel powers (Shapeshift and Clone) should also give the Ghost Master control of their ghosts. I even think a greater deal of micromanagement and direct ghost control would help ENORMOUSLY in making the game less frustrating. Being able to pick targets for powers, to physically move ghosts from place to place (those who can do so with fetters like Inside, Outside and Thoroughfare), to be able to control roaming ghosts and get them to use their powers at the right time and not whenever they darn please, all of that would be a significant boon to gameplay.
As for the powers, I have to say they are more or less adequate, but more finetuning is needed. We need powers to be more reliable. It's just frustrating to have a mortal under an Attraction power get to the haunter's fetter, and then immediately turn around and leave before you have a chance of doing anything. I think mortals under an Attraction power should be under a similar effect to Unearthly Calm (but not as powerful). That is, it works better on mortals with high Belief but has the downside of increasing the speed at which Terror decreases (which is bad for getting them to flee, sure, but it's great for wrangling mortals, as calmed mortals are easier to get from point A to point B). Unlike Unearthly Calm, you can still scare mortals (it will break the lure and send them running), but it's such a nice way to gain control of the situation.
Because that's what's ultimately missing from this game, regarding mortals. Control. You really feel like you're some old crazy cat person herding cats or a school teacher herding unruly children, and it just feels so frustrating and draining. One of the main philosophies regarding game design is that games should not feel like work. But if they must feel like work (example: grinding in RPGs), then let it feel like a painless job at least, not like being a school teacher on a field trip. I think that some powers (like Dominate and Danse Macabre, perhaps) could easily allow a Ghost Master to take very brief control of a mortal. That would make some puzzles (like Wavemaster's release) much better and less frustrating than they are. In fact, one could easily revamp Apparitions and give them the Spectre's ability to Possess or Dominate, remove their more overt horror or cold powers, and make them mortal-controlling machines, with their ability to bring mortals to their fetter and then take control of them. It would make them an extremely unique ghost family.
Customising the Ghost Master
Something I'd really like to see is the ability to make each Ghost Master unique. The easiest and most obvious way to do this is to have the Ghost Master pick which family they belong to and then giving them 10 Bands of powers that are all passive (except perhaps for their Band 10 power, which would work as a panic button). A lot of powers would be the same for all Ghost Masters, such as a reduction on the Plasm cost of binding members of the same family as them, Plasm discount on power use and a small bonus on Terror, Madness and Belief inflicted by the ghosts from their own families as well. That would mean that you can turn Sprites into cheap scaremongers or bring Horrors into the game more easily for a substantial bonus to their powers.
But that would only cover like 4 or 5 bands. The rest would be customised for every family and would feature two options, like most ghost powers you can teach. That way, even if you take two players who played a Ghost Master from the same family (say, Banshee), one of them chose the power that lets them begin a stage with a very light wind while the other chose the power that makes all Noise powers a bit louder.
And the Band 10 power would be the only one you can activate, and would take quite a long time to recharge. It would also not be something too powerful, or else you wouldn't need ghosts, but it could work as an emergency button to save a ghost from being banished, it might prevent a mortal from fleeing and ruining your stage, or it might be used at the end of a Terror combo to drive a mortal just that tiny bit over the edge and send them fleeing (that'd be a great one for a Ghost Master from the Spectre family). You know, not something that breaks the game but something tat makes it easier to play.
Silver Plasm
Something I also thought of would be to create a new type of Plasm to purchase certain things. Gold Plasm would be measured purely by fulfilled objectives and then multiplied by the Pumpkin rating, but all the optional stuff (Insanities, Screams, Faints, Paranoias and so on) would contribute instead to Silver Plasm. Gold Plasm would be used to purchase powers for ghosts, as usual, but Silver Plasm would be used to buy passive bonuses for individual ghosts. For example, you could spend Silver Plasm to make Sprites or Elementals more resistant to Banishment or a Holy Symbol Stun, or buy a given Fetch the ability to use their mirror powers while in Clone form if they enter a room with a mirror on it (also I would ensure more stages had mirrors in places other than bathrooms and bedrooms, dammit).
These benefits could be bought from a sort of "store" rather than from a ghost's menu (like ordinary powers) and could be applied to any ghost that fits the requirement (you cannot give a +1 bonus to wind speed generated to a ghost that cannot learn any wind powers), but they would be otherwise be entirely up to you whether you want to beef up your team equally or pile on gifts onto your favourite ghosts.
These gifts would also be used synergistically with the things that give you Silver Plasm in the first place. They would enhance your haunters' abilities to drive mortals insane, make them scream and faint, capitalise on their uncovered fears, help them uncover fears faster and so on. These are things that would not be necessary to complete the game but that definitely make you a skilled haunter.
Being Able to Call on Old Haunters
So I imagine this sequel would be eager to show you new ghosts, I think it would be a good idea to be able to exchange slots on your team for ghosts from the first game if you favoured them. They would come with the same number of available powers as the ghost you're exchanging them for, and would be otherwise exactly the same in terms of game balance.
Stage Interactivity
Something I'd like to see would be the ability to interact with the stage and cause changes in the terrain and layout. It would require a powerful engine, but it would be very useful (and would feature some of that "good kind of puzzle" I spoke about above) if one could do certain things to create/destroy fetters, alter the composition of the stage and make ghosts easier to move around (particularly those with troublesome fetters, like Manes). It would be good if one could, for example, shatter a fish tank and then direct the spilled water to create a Water fetter in another room, or destroy a sink/toilet to be able to flood a location and have water fetters everywhere. Or set things on fire with lightning/electricity/overturned candles or lamps and get fire fetters (I'd also remove Electrical as a fetter for Fire Elementals in order to make this more viable and interesting).
I'd also really like to be able to kill mortals (with enormous difficulty) to get Corpse/Murder/Violence fetters, but I doubt the designers will want to do that (what with the T rating they'd want to have).
Also I'd like for Emotional fetters to make sense. No more toilets or washing machines acting as an Emotional fetter, please, and no more "Oh hey I bet that photograph of a mortal's loved one is an Emotional fetter... what??? It isn't??? Ghost Master!" surprises. Also I'd just like more fetter coherence in general. It's not interesting or intriguing why a painting is a Murder fetter or a piano is a Violence fetter when we never get the story behind that. It just looks like arbitrary game design (which is bad), rather than coherence between story and gameplay (which is good).
More Powers, Less Ghosts
So yeah, in my priority list for the non-existent sequel, I'd prioritise expanding the power list before even daring to make new ghosts. Ideally, every single ghost should be unique, or at least easy to differentiate from others, particularly those from the same family. Hordes would be the best example here again, but something along the veins of Poltergeists, Manes and, to a lesser degree, Phantoms and Banshees. You can see that each Banshee, for example, has a speciality. Weatherwitch is all about the weather, Moonscream is about loud, horror-generating Noise powers and Brigit is all about Insanity and the generating thereof. You can blur the lines between them, as they can learn similar powers, but they remain ultimately unique because their themes are strongly reinforced by their unique powers.
And that's something I'd really like, for every ghost to have at least one unique power that makes them irreplaceable. It would be neat if Whirlweird was the only one with TK Storm, or if Weatherwitch was the only one with Typhoon, for example. Just something to keep in mind when designing powers. Also, a power that lets Fetches create temporary mirrors in rooms without one (like they can do with gifts). Because seriously. Fetches need some love.
Remaking Wraiths
I have the savegame editor and I heard there were unused models in the game, so I am strongly tempted to just remake Wraiths entirely. In the sequel that will never happen, I strongly hope they get completely remade. If nothing else from my wishlist comes true, then let this one be the one that makes it.
So I understand that each person has their own take on what a wraith should be, but to me, they should be something like a cross between the game's Banshee, Shadow and Wendigo families.
I would give them all the Cold powers and then I would make them team workers. Instead of giving them powers that cause direct Insanity, I'd give them those couple of powers that increase the Madness of an already half-insane mortal (Whisper and Wail, IIRC). Then I'd give them powers that generate MASSIVE amounts of Belief (like Dominate) and perhaps Paralyse to give them a good synergy with Frozen Stiff and Icy Touch. Their fetters would be Murder and Violence, which would make them somewhat like Spectres and Apparitions/Shadows, but they would remain distinct in the way that they would specialise in softening up mortals for other haunters to scare them.
Cold powers lower Willpower, which makes mortals more easy to drive into fleeing or insanity, and a couple of cold powers actually freeze mortals into place, which is invaluable for other haunters to pound on them with things that cause actual Terror and Insanity. Furthermore, powers that increase Insanity work wonders with those that generate it and building Belief is excellent for those that deal raw Terror.
I would make them go at least up to Band 9, if not Band 10 (for Frozen Stiff or Frostbite).
This would make Wraiths worth the Plasm cost, because their abilities are actually exceedingly good at making other haunters (particularly Horrors, Frighteners and Vapours) much more effective at what they do. The combination of two bad fetters and their inability to roam help offset their slightly too useful power set.
As for a way to differentiate them, I would make one of them more predisposed towards Madness buildup while the other one would be more geared towards generating mass amounts of Belief. Both would share the Cold powers.
Thematically, Wraiths would be a family of unique ghosts, those who were murdered with violence. They have developed a strong affinity for the chill of the grave, somewhat like their Apparition or Wendigo cousins, but they lack the Apparitions' allure and terror or the Wendigos' ability to control the weather or chase after mortals. They usually hold mortals in contempt and delight in wresting momentary control of their lives or driving them insane, sharing that bit of sadism with their Spectre cousins.
Oh whew. That was a lot. But now I think I've finally emptied my thoughts on this game, at least for the time being. Might make a revisit after I finish my LP.
Criticism
Puzzles
Yeah, the designers need to learn the differences between those hard puzzles that are hard because they require player skill and intelligence (which are rewarding), and those that are hard because either they rely almost entirely on luck or the solution is so obscure it would take the lovechild of Nostradamus and the Oracle of Delphi to figure out (which are frustrating and destroy fun).
Herding mortals should not be as frustrating as it is. I'm not saying that it should be easier, I'm saying that it should be handled differently. I handle mortal herding below in "ideas." Needless to say, something has to change. Some missions (Blair Wisp Project comes to mind, along with getting mortals to do one specific thing, like freeing Raindancer, Wavemasters, Blue Murder, Fingers, Tricia, Hogwash, Brigit and so on) are just physically painful to play because you have to get really lucky to get mortals where they need to go quick enough to get a Triple Pumpkin (and TPs, as any game award, should reward player skill, not luck).
There are some puzzles that are not luck-dependant, but just as frustrating, because they have some very obtuse logic behind them. Freeing Stormtalon and Banzai, for example, is a matter of sheer, raw chance. If you randomly decided to bring an Earth Elemental and bind them to the only Earth fetter in the whole police station (minus the two patches of ground way on the edges of the stage) then bam, you have Banzai. If that never occurred to you, you can only get him in a Ghostbreakers replay. And Stormtalon doesn't even get that chance. Unless you want to use weather to destroy Black Crow's shack or interfere with the summoning of the Dragoon, you'll never realise what you need to do to get him (and if you were using wind only to achieve those goals, you will also not get him, since you need a storm, which is high winds and rain).
Another thing that comes to mind is freeing Windwalker, which is quite a terrible design idea, because if you can't get him on your first try, he's lost forever. Your only clue as to how to release him is that the device that keeps him captive depends too much on cold. That you need to reverse the air flow and then cast Inferno and some strong winds outside never enters the equation. These are all just examples of how a poorly implemented design idea and some unintuitive puzzles can really damp a player's fun. The key to a fun puzzle game is to have puzzles that do not break the flow of the game and do not force the player to stare at a screen for over half an hour in confusion, while everything they try slowly drives them ever further to frustration and game abandonment.
A good puzzle is not one whose solution is unknown. A good puzzle makes it evident exactly what you need to do, but leaves it up to you how to accomplish it. A good example of such an idea is disabling astral wards and alarums. You already know that you must deal damage to the generators or the devices, but you're left wondering what's the best approach to do so. Sadly, this is when the game decides to ruin a good idea with a previously mentioned flaw and ensures that the only way you are ever going to solve that puzzle is through sheer luck. Invariably, most of the times you must disable astral wards, you have to trick a mortal into picking up a gift with ghosts inside and take it somewhere near the generators or the devices. Which is, as we all know, quite frustrating. The only time this was implemented even remotely successfully is on the Ghostbreakers stage, where disabling the wards is something you can do straight away, but requires skill and can be approached from different sides (you can whip up a storm and let lightning do its job, or you can use haunters with Blackout).
A good puzzle makes you go "Oooh I was so close! I bet I'll get it next time!", you know, the thing that makes you want to keep playing because it makes you feel like even if you fail, you understand how the puzzle works a little better. A good puzzle lets the player win a little even if they fail, so that they feel rewarded for their intelligence and want to keep trying. Again, in the Ghostbreakers stage, you feel rewarded when you shut down the power, because that rewards you with letting you bind ghosts in previously protected areas, so even if you failed at disabling everything before the power gets turned back on, you still feel like you accomplished something.
So, to sum up: Mortal herding needs to be remade, puzzles have to be approached from a better design standpoint and the priority should be to design non-frustrating puzzles that reward player intelligence and skill.
Wraiths
Wraiths are quite possibly the only family of ghosts in the game I can safely say are objectively bad. A lot of the others have varying usefulness depending on the stage, but there is not a single stage where wraiths actually get to be useful at all. Furthermore, I am personally disappointed at the design decisions made for this family, because I really like the way wraiths have been depicted in other media (and tabletop games or videogames) and so it makes me feel hugely disappointed that Ghost Master decided that wraiths were going to be electrically-themed (ew) and were going to be represented by an incredibly dull electrician and a slightly more interesting but still ultimately pointless death row inmate.
Now, the explanation on why Wraiths are objectively worse than any other family is plain old numbers. A wraith is basically a hybrid between a Spectre and a Gremlin, with the worst thing from Apparitions thrown in (their fetter) because why not make something already bad a little worse?
Having established that, a Wraith will always be worse than a Gremlin when it comes to the electrical side of their powers because Wraiths have the same fetter as a Gremlin (so we can't argue that it's like Shivers vs. Whirlweird, where Shivers's TK Storm costs twice as much as Whirlweird's because the latter has a hideously awful fetter) and their electrical powers have the same effects at an incredibly higher cost. Not to mention the cost of binding a Wraith is sky-high when compared to a Gremlin. Now granted, you'll tell me that a Wraith has all the scare potential of a Spectre with some utility from Gremlins thrown in and the third best fetter in the game (Electrical). Sounds great, right? Except no, it's actually the worst of both worlds. As established previously, you are never going to be using the electrical powers of a Wraith, because a Gremlin is just better at them. Why pay 240 plasm (plus binding cost) for Surge from Electrospasm when you can pay 120 (plus a much lower binding cost) for the same effect from Hogwash?
And if we take into consideration the smattering of Spectre powers, we realise they're not even that good at raw scares, because they lack the sheer PUNCH that Spectres bring to the table. A Spectre can really lay down the hurt on a group of mortals and generate a really great amount of Belief, so once you can afford them, they can instantly start paying for themselves in terms of Plasm, as they rapidly begin a vicious cycle of raising Belief to give their own powerful scares even more punch and generating more Plasm for higher power bands. Most Spectres can also learn to Possess others to get away from their otherwise uncomfortable fetters and really get their scares going. But even the stationary ones like Ghastly are good at what they do because all they need is a good opening (Paralyse, Dominate, Danse Macabre, another haunter's Frozen Stiff, Trap, Slow, Swallow or the like) and then they just rapidly unload all their horror powers on them for an incredibly powerful combo. A Wraith cannot do this because they lack any way to keep their victims nearby, leave their fetters or build massive amounts of Belief.
So all you get is a bunch of overpriced electricity powers that are rarely any good at giving appropriate Terror or Belief for their price (unlike Gremlins, where the small terror hit of Sparks is pretty much what you'd expect for that cost) and the only good power worth mentioning, Surge, gets horridly outclassed by Hogwash and Cogjammer. And on the other side, you get a bunch of scare powers without any form of synergy or the ability to REALLY drive a mortal's Terror through the roof like a Spectre.
And if you REALLY must have some punch and horror juice with your electricity? Why, it's not like you don't have Fire Elementals and Thunder Spirits that also have the same advantages at a much more reasonable price and much better powers as well. And in the case of Stormtalon, being able to be fettered Outside actually makes up for the fact that he's more expensive than a Gremlin, because Inside and Outside are the only two fetters that are better than Electrical, so giving him Electrical and Outside as fetters is actually an upgrade when compared to a Gremlin or Fire Elemental.
Which leaves Wraiths as complete and utter disappointments. If you're going to put a family in the Horror class, give us something that's actually worth the Plasm.
Lack of Differentiation Between Ghosts
I liked the effort presented in trying to make ghosts different and unique, but I have to say the efforts were sadly insufficient. There are a lot of haunters that resemble other ghosts a little too much, which is, in my opinion, the unfortunate side effect of wanting to give the player more ghosts than the list of powers feasibly allowed. It was a noble intention, so I can't really blame the designers for this one, but I really wished they had shown more restraint. For example, Stonewall and Banzai are practically identical, since they only have two or three powers that they can use to differentiate themselves (Tricia and Lady Rose have only TWO powers that differentiate them, and can easily end up being identical if you're not careful), and Gremlins will end up stepping on each other's toes no matter how different you want to make them (Spectres, Spooks, Apparitions, Wraiths and Phantoms suffer the same problem). Then we have cross-family toe-stepping, with Spooks grabbing a little something from everyone with little rhyme or reason, Wraiths being absolute hacks, Poltergeists borrowing their low-level bands from other families, Banshees fighting with Air Elementals over madness, noise and wind powers, or Shadows being Apparitions on insanity steroids. Tricksters being TOO good by having a lot of good things with the second best fetter in the game (Outside), was actually an idea that unbalanced the game quite a bit. It removed the one thing that made Fetches invaluable (gifts), the one thing that made Fetches unique (vessels) and then cribbed the best powers from Apparitions and other ghost families. They were actually very unfair to the rest of the haunters.
Hordes must be the only family where you can easily have three ghosts with the exact same powers but each of them feels completely different. They are definitely a good example of how to have their cake and eating it too (lots of ghosts but small power list), and I think ghosts would be much more unique, memorable and worth using if they had all been designed like they designed the Hordes. All it took was a change of fetters and horror flavour and bam, totally unique ghost. They did something similar with Manes, giving Arclight fire powers and Flash Jordan stench powers, but they were both unfortunately undermined by having the single worst fetter in the game and the presence of Fire Elementals and Phantoms/Wights, which do their job a hell of a lot better than them, from a much better fetter. Now granted, Manes are cheap and know Possess (their two saving graces), but their entire shtick depends on finding a mortal to ride on, which, as we all know, is very frustrating to accomplish. Which leaves one picking a Fire Elemental instead of Arclight and a Phantom or Wight instead of Flash Jordan (especially a Wight: Black Crow might be way more expensive than her but he's got a better fetter, the same ability to Possess and a host of very useful powers).
Personally, I would have cut the ghost roster in half quite easily. I would have got rid of ghosts within families that are not easy to differentiate (like Earth Elementals, Apparitions, Spooks and so on) and instead, I'd have focused on making the few families that had the potential to be different (Poltergeists, Banshees, the rest of the Elementals, etc.) more like Hordes, giving them each either unique powers (like the higher bands of Whirlweird versus Hardboiled) and toning down on the families that shamelessly steal from others (like Tricksters, Spooks, Wraiths, Shadows and the like).
Gender Equality
This one is a very minor, very negligible nitpick, but I would have honestly liked to see some more gender equality within the families, like male Banshees and Fetches, female Spectres and Phantoms and so on. I really dislike the idea that some ghost families only have members of a given gender (I'm ignoring families with a single member, like Wights, because I do not consider their members representative of the whole family, as well as non-humanoid families like Gremlins, Spooks, Hordes, Poltergeists, Fire Elementals and the like), so I would have really wished this nonexistent sequel worked on that. I mean, it's not impossible to imagine some vain supermodel guy who ended up trapped in a mirror after he died (great example of a male Fetch), Blue Murder could've worked as a Spectre just fine (or any other tough-as-nails woman), Brigit's story could have easily been the same if the genders had been swapped, and who's to say The Painter couldn't have been a woman? Or any other type of artist, like The Actress, The Writer or The Sculptress?
On a more positive note, I am glad that Manes and Tricksters are gender equal, and that Apparitions have Terroreyes to provide a male example.
New Ideas
Herding Mortals
My personal ideas on how to improve mortal herding would probably involve a lot of coding, but I think it would substantially improve gameplay. The very first thing I'd do would be to make mortals controllable when they're Possessed, Sleepwalking, and the like. Maybe we need a Band 7 power exclusive to Poltergeists that lets them take control of the child they're bound to. In the same vein, I think Band 7 vessel powers (Shapeshift and Clone) should also give the Ghost Master control of their ghosts. I even think a greater deal of micromanagement and direct ghost control would help ENORMOUSLY in making the game less frustrating. Being able to pick targets for powers, to physically move ghosts from place to place (those who can do so with fetters like Inside, Outside and Thoroughfare), to be able to control roaming ghosts and get them to use their powers at the right time and not whenever they darn please, all of that would be a significant boon to gameplay.
As for the powers, I have to say they are more or less adequate, but more finetuning is needed. We need powers to be more reliable. It's just frustrating to have a mortal under an Attraction power get to the haunter's fetter, and then immediately turn around and leave before you have a chance of doing anything. I think mortals under an Attraction power should be under a similar effect to Unearthly Calm (but not as powerful). That is, it works better on mortals with high Belief but has the downside of increasing the speed at which Terror decreases (which is bad for getting them to flee, sure, but it's great for wrangling mortals, as calmed mortals are easier to get from point A to point B). Unlike Unearthly Calm, you can still scare mortals (it will break the lure and send them running), but it's such a nice way to gain control of the situation.
Because that's what's ultimately missing from this game, regarding mortals. Control. You really feel like you're some old crazy cat person herding cats or a school teacher herding unruly children, and it just feels so frustrating and draining. One of the main philosophies regarding game design is that games should not feel like work. But if they must feel like work (example: grinding in RPGs), then let it feel like a painless job at least, not like being a school teacher on a field trip. I think that some powers (like Dominate and Danse Macabre, perhaps) could easily allow a Ghost Master to take very brief control of a mortal. That would make some puzzles (like Wavemaster's release) much better and less frustrating than they are. In fact, one could easily revamp Apparitions and give them the Spectre's ability to Possess or Dominate, remove their more overt horror or cold powers, and make them mortal-controlling machines, with their ability to bring mortals to their fetter and then take control of them. It would make them an extremely unique ghost family.
Customising the Ghost Master
Something I'd really like to see is the ability to make each Ghost Master unique. The easiest and most obvious way to do this is to have the Ghost Master pick which family they belong to and then giving them 10 Bands of powers that are all passive (except perhaps for their Band 10 power, which would work as a panic button). A lot of powers would be the same for all Ghost Masters, such as a reduction on the Plasm cost of binding members of the same family as them, Plasm discount on power use and a small bonus on Terror, Madness and Belief inflicted by the ghosts from their own families as well. That would mean that you can turn Sprites into cheap scaremongers or bring Horrors into the game more easily for a substantial bonus to their powers.
But that would only cover like 4 or 5 bands. The rest would be customised for every family and would feature two options, like most ghost powers you can teach. That way, even if you take two players who played a Ghost Master from the same family (say, Banshee), one of them chose the power that lets them begin a stage with a very light wind while the other chose the power that makes all Noise powers a bit louder.
And the Band 10 power would be the only one you can activate, and would take quite a long time to recharge. It would also not be something too powerful, or else you wouldn't need ghosts, but it could work as an emergency button to save a ghost from being banished, it might prevent a mortal from fleeing and ruining your stage, or it might be used at the end of a Terror combo to drive a mortal just that tiny bit over the edge and send them fleeing (that'd be a great one for a Ghost Master from the Spectre family). You know, not something that breaks the game but something tat makes it easier to play.
Silver Plasm
Something I also thought of would be to create a new type of Plasm to purchase certain things. Gold Plasm would be measured purely by fulfilled objectives and then multiplied by the Pumpkin rating, but all the optional stuff (Insanities, Screams, Faints, Paranoias and so on) would contribute instead to Silver Plasm. Gold Plasm would be used to purchase powers for ghosts, as usual, but Silver Plasm would be used to buy passive bonuses for individual ghosts. For example, you could spend Silver Plasm to make Sprites or Elementals more resistant to Banishment or a Holy Symbol Stun, or buy a given Fetch the ability to use their mirror powers while in Clone form if they enter a room with a mirror on it (also I would ensure more stages had mirrors in places other than bathrooms and bedrooms, dammit).
These benefits could be bought from a sort of "store" rather than from a ghost's menu (like ordinary powers) and could be applied to any ghost that fits the requirement (you cannot give a +1 bonus to wind speed generated to a ghost that cannot learn any wind powers), but they would be otherwise be entirely up to you whether you want to beef up your team equally or pile on gifts onto your favourite ghosts.
These gifts would also be used synergistically with the things that give you Silver Plasm in the first place. They would enhance your haunters' abilities to drive mortals insane, make them scream and faint, capitalise on their uncovered fears, help them uncover fears faster and so on. These are things that would not be necessary to complete the game but that definitely make you a skilled haunter.
Being Able to Call on Old Haunters
So I imagine this sequel would be eager to show you new ghosts, I think it would be a good idea to be able to exchange slots on your team for ghosts from the first game if you favoured them. They would come with the same number of available powers as the ghost you're exchanging them for, and would be otherwise exactly the same in terms of game balance.
Stage Interactivity
Something I'd like to see would be the ability to interact with the stage and cause changes in the terrain and layout. It would require a powerful engine, but it would be very useful (and would feature some of that "good kind of puzzle" I spoke about above) if one could do certain things to create/destroy fetters, alter the composition of the stage and make ghosts easier to move around (particularly those with troublesome fetters, like Manes). It would be good if one could, for example, shatter a fish tank and then direct the spilled water to create a Water fetter in another room, or destroy a sink/toilet to be able to flood a location and have water fetters everywhere. Or set things on fire with lightning/electricity/overturned candles or lamps and get fire fetters (I'd also remove Electrical as a fetter for Fire Elementals in order to make this more viable and interesting).
I'd also really like to be able to kill mortals (with enormous difficulty) to get Corpse/Murder/Violence fetters, but I doubt the designers will want to do that (what with the T rating they'd want to have).
Also I'd like for Emotional fetters to make sense. No more toilets or washing machines acting as an Emotional fetter, please, and no more "Oh hey I bet that photograph of a mortal's loved one is an Emotional fetter... what??? It isn't??? Ghost Master!" surprises. Also I'd just like more fetter coherence in general. It's not interesting or intriguing why a painting is a Murder fetter or a piano is a Violence fetter when we never get the story behind that. It just looks like arbitrary game design (which is bad), rather than coherence between story and gameplay (which is good).
More Powers, Less Ghosts
So yeah, in my priority list for the non-existent sequel, I'd prioritise expanding the power list before even daring to make new ghosts. Ideally, every single ghost should be unique, or at least easy to differentiate from others, particularly those from the same family. Hordes would be the best example here again, but something along the veins of Poltergeists, Manes and, to a lesser degree, Phantoms and Banshees. You can see that each Banshee, for example, has a speciality. Weatherwitch is all about the weather, Moonscream is about loud, horror-generating Noise powers and Brigit is all about Insanity and the generating thereof. You can blur the lines between them, as they can learn similar powers, but they remain ultimately unique because their themes are strongly reinforced by their unique powers.
And that's something I'd really like, for every ghost to have at least one unique power that makes them irreplaceable. It would be neat if Whirlweird was the only one with TK Storm, or if Weatherwitch was the only one with Typhoon, for example. Just something to keep in mind when designing powers. Also, a power that lets Fetches create temporary mirrors in rooms without one (like they can do with gifts). Because seriously. Fetches need some love.
Remaking Wraiths
I have the savegame editor and I heard there were unused models in the game, so I am strongly tempted to just remake Wraiths entirely. In the sequel that will never happen, I strongly hope they get completely remade. If nothing else from my wishlist comes true, then let this one be the one that makes it.
So I understand that each person has their own take on what a wraith should be, but to me, they should be something like a cross between the game's Banshee, Shadow and Wendigo families.
I would give them all the Cold powers and then I would make them team workers. Instead of giving them powers that cause direct Insanity, I'd give them those couple of powers that increase the Madness of an already half-insane mortal (Whisper and Wail, IIRC). Then I'd give them powers that generate MASSIVE amounts of Belief (like Dominate) and perhaps Paralyse to give them a good synergy with Frozen Stiff and Icy Touch. Their fetters would be Murder and Violence, which would make them somewhat like Spectres and Apparitions/Shadows, but they would remain distinct in the way that they would specialise in softening up mortals for other haunters to scare them.
Cold powers lower Willpower, which makes mortals more easy to drive into fleeing or insanity, and a couple of cold powers actually freeze mortals into place, which is invaluable for other haunters to pound on them with things that cause actual Terror and Insanity. Furthermore, powers that increase Insanity work wonders with those that generate it and building Belief is excellent for those that deal raw Terror.
I would make them go at least up to Band 9, if not Band 10 (for Frozen Stiff or Frostbite).
This would make Wraiths worth the Plasm cost, because their abilities are actually exceedingly good at making other haunters (particularly Horrors, Frighteners and Vapours) much more effective at what they do. The combination of two bad fetters and their inability to roam help offset their slightly too useful power set.
As for a way to differentiate them, I would make one of them more predisposed towards Madness buildup while the other one would be more geared towards generating mass amounts of Belief. Both would share the Cold powers.
Thematically, Wraiths would be a family of unique ghosts, those who were murdered with violence. They have developed a strong affinity for the chill of the grave, somewhat like their Apparition or Wendigo cousins, but they lack the Apparitions' allure and terror or the Wendigos' ability to control the weather or chase after mortals. They usually hold mortals in contempt and delight in wresting momentary control of their lives or driving them insane, sharing that bit of sadism with their Spectre cousins.
Oh whew. That was a lot. But now I think I've finally emptied my thoughts on this game, at least for the time being. Might make a revisit after I finish my LP.
