We’ve heard some people voicing frustration about long walks back to bosses and such after dying. This is a bit more of a problem in GD than in TQ as we do not have checkpoints.
A possible easily solution is to allow portals to remain open after death as they did in D2. Currently they do not because we wanted to discourage people from “grave rushing” where you defeat enemies by just repeatedly dying, respawning and throwing yourself at the boss again. The long trips back we felt would make people play more cautiously and provide a bit of a time-out to rethink their approach, look for better gear, etc. However, perhaps this is just too long and punishing in some places and the xp penalty on death is enough. What say you?
I say yes, but I think that along with this maybe you should implement a “dead zone” out to a certain radius from where bosses spawn. The dead zone would prevent you from using your portal device, so people can’t just drop their portal in the middle of a boss fight if it suddenly isn’t going their way. It would make people think ahead, “I better drop my portal now before I charge blindly at this boss monster, in case I die…”
You could also work it into the lore by saying these powerful enemies can block the aetherial energies that let the riftgate device function.
I agree with this, except that I think bosses should be returned to full health upon player death.
If combat has been initiated with a boss, opening portals should be temporarily disabled until the boss is killed or the player dies and is respawned. This will force the player to open the portal prior to entering the boss’ engagement radius.
I’m one of the yes’. Mainly since the disappearing makes the portable ones seem pointless.
If rebalancing is needed for that maybe make the bosses have at least half their health once the player comes back… Or half the health that was taken returned. Sound significant in my head at least.
Well, Diablo 2 had a winning format.
(So, Crate should follow that same route.)
Blizzard could have made a great Diablo 3 game by just upgrading the graphics and adding few more characters and it would still have sold millions of copies.
What do you have against placing the portal next to the boss it gives you no benefit except that if you die you don’t have to walk back.
The life of the bosses isn’t even affected upon death or if you leave their aggro range what is for my play style beneficial because i play glass canon and kite the bosses if they’d reset everytime i’m out of range or die, i could throw the fight, because at most times two to three spells or hits mean death to me, it makes kiting thrilling :p.
But if it would be possible only to reset the boss if you die and/or leave via Portal, i’d had no problem.
And it is at this point, I’m going to disagree with you. Certainly, this is a problem within grim dawn, but as a fan of Titan Quest (the spiritual ancestor of th Grim Dawn), I do not think that a “death portal” is needed. I’ve died once (forgot to pot xD), and I personally prefer re-navigating to where I died. Grim Dawn should keep to its roots instead of trying to follow Diablo 2’s format.
What blizzard did to Diablo 3 should concern very little with how Grim Dawn is progressing. As much as looking at Grim Dawn’s respective competition to gain influence, changing the game into the “theoretical Diablo 3 that fans wanted” doesn’t change a thing.
As a designer, i personally don’t think that would work with the… atmosphere of the game.
Another thought… TQ had rebirth shrines/fountains placed in locations relatively close to the boss fights. If you died in combat, you would be revived at the closest one, which was generally a rather short walk away. Wouldn’t this alleviate the issue? It also uses a mechanic that already know will work in this game engine.
I think there should be punishment for dying to a boss. I can understand that people get annoyed be the long running but I think just dropping a portal next to him is too easy. If the portal stays open after you die the boss should regenerate to at least 75% hp if not full. You should defeat the boss not suffocate him in corpses to win.
Maybe a one-use scroll you can buy from vendors, has to be VERY expensive, that opens a portal that will stay open if you die? I dont think a portal that stays open every time is a good idea. Penalty for dying is long walk back.
Gotta second that, specially the bold part.
For me one of the things the genre really need to do is rethink how they threat boss fights. Corpse Run is a bad thing, even if xp loss is present.
I think the best solution is:
i. Portals remain opened after death.
ii. Monster heal when you die.
I don’t see the need to make players run all the way back on a long path to a boss. Why punish them even more for dying? They’ve already lost some XP.
As for those suggesting the bosses be returned to full health - No… just, no. Blizz tried that, and it was such a terrible experience that they patched it OUT of the game. I really don’t understand the people who think this way… you can “graveyard rush” a boss RIGHT NOW in the game… it just takes a bit longer because of the distance.
Let me ask you this - what is impacted by removing the long run? Answer? Player enjoyment. What a terrible thing to want to increase!
I think portals should exist through death… but here is what I would do
Portals can not be cast while in combat - this will stop people from placing it right beside the boss or using it in an “oh shit” moment.
maybe increase the aggro radius of the boss - to ensure that the portals aren’t placed right beside him - OR - as Druthers suggests, place a “dead zone” around the boss where personal portals can’t be used.
If the designers at Crate feel that they need to punish a player more or want to discourage “graveyard runs” - make us lose some iron ontop of XP. How? Well, you can’t make it a portion of the iron you are carrying, as people will just portal to town and put all their iron in their stash before fighting a boss. Instead, what about applying a debuff to the player that can only be removed in town by a healer? The debuff doesn’t do anything to your stats or abilities… and it should have a limit to how many time it can stack (5 stacks for example) but each stack of the debuff costs a certain amount of iron to remove.
You might be saying “if the debuff doesn’t debilitate my character at all, then why would I remove it?” make it so that once the debuff is at full stack count, you can no longer use your personal portal (although, other portals will still work). You can say that because you’ve died you’ve have kind of soul sickness… and that once it has stacked to “5 times” it is no longer safe to use the “experimental” personal portal (although, regular portals are more stable and cause less interference/have less risk).
Want to use the shortcut? Then pay to have the debuff removed. (but again, I stress, i really don’t think anything additional is needed beyond the XP loss we already have).
Those of you who don’t want to “suffocate the boss to win”… you can continue to do that. You don’t HAVE to drop your portal near the boss at all. You can continue to play the way you want to - that’s the thing about the personal portal - using it is totally optional.
I like the larger impact of death, but I think that interest was born in the days of gaming where the current system would have been considered incredibly lenient.
shrug It’s not something that will greatly effect me either way, so I’m on board with whatever people like more.
At the current setup - you have to run all the way back (warden boss) but he does not reset health… kinda pointless (you will kill him eventually)
what I am proposing ;
Place a portal a room before boss and disable personal portal from opening.
If you die in combat , let the boss reset health. (you reset health, boss should too)
Also, I think the radius of the player regenerating life is too close to your target.
I suggest a screen away before you regenerate life is better. I kite a lot of boss this way and it feels like I am breaking the game.
having bosses reset completely when you die feels too much like hardcore, if that’s what you want just play hardcore. portals should be allowed but i do agree the boss should regen 50% (or whatever) of the life they lost since your last death.
if you are kiting properly you shouldn’t be taking damage anyway so the regen is pointless. all it does is save you a pot for the occasional mistake, and they’re cheap enough considering they heal your entire hp pool.