I’ve seen some discussion about how it is sometimes too long between riftgates. I’d like to get feedback in this thread about whether or not you agree with this assessment and which places in particular you feel are too long if certain locations stand out as being especially bad.
Thanks!
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the first few times I died I was like wtf its so far!!, but once I got used to the game I just rushed through to get them all quickly, then back tracked
Only place that I could see the use of a riftgate would be the abandoned waterfront in which case if a riftgate were to be put in their somewhere, it would need to be a respectful distance from the other two riftgates (village/cellar), essentially right next to the water.
It would also be interesting if their were active riftgates with enemies defending them and spawning out of them where you need to destroy the enemies (mini boss perhaps as well) and then spend a few seconds channeling a “take over” of the riftgate without taking damage. The riftgate would then be yours but it becomes unstable and does two things:
1: Higher chance of sending you to the void (random area filled with monsters that you’d have to kill in order to proceed to your destination) when traveling to or from the riftgate.
2: Once your play session is done and you exit the game the riftgate can fall out of your control and go back into being in the enemies control. This would make the riftgate more useful during your play session. Perhaps your character could use scrap material and aetherial crystals to make the chance of it losing control less likely to happen (but you can’t totally stop it from happening).
Another thing about this subject is that it seems that some people are used to more of a linear game where it’s really easy to find the next save point (kinda like TQ). However if people remember Diablo 2, that game had it’s moments where finding the next waypoint was rather frustrating as well and the chances of skipping a waypoint were higher in D2 then in GD (depending on act).
So far I think GD is fine when it comes to riftgates, just that people need to learn how to adapt to having a larger environment and that they don’t have to re-explore everything they’ve been through when they start up the game again. Exploring everything is fine for one go but continually doing that won’t get you very far if you aren’t playing for awhile, sometimes you have to accept the fact that you may need to skip previously explored areas in order to get to new unknown areas and perhaps find the riftgate itself.
I’m quite sure that when people get used to the game and become used to the rather static positioning of the riftgates themselves, the complaints will eventually lessen.
I think the riftgate spacing is fairly decent. It can take awhile to reach Hallowed Hill if I get a bad configuration of roadblocks, but otherwise I’ve had no trouble getting around.
There is basicly one riftgate in every level, this seems reasonable and standard for an arpg. After a couple of play throughs I was thoroughly familiar with the layout of the maps and my progress between riftgates takes no more than 10 to 15 min. I do not believe this is too far between gates. Any less than this and it will feel like we are being spoon fed.
If for some reason I am called away from the game while I am between gates and I don’t wish to loose the progress I just pause and minimize the game window and open it back up when i return, simple.
The only resourse that is being used while the game is in this state is ram space, I run 12 GB triple channel on my main rig and with the game minimized like this it only registers about 28% ram usage .
Most people are running at least 8 GB of ram, the price of 16 GB dual channel makes it a readily accessible option, so i don’t think leaving the game minimized creates much of a performance concern.
I even have a rig that runs a single stick of 4 GB ram and an SSD and i can still minimize the game and surf the web and have a download running in the background without any real loss if performance.
Thus I don’t think the need for convenience figures into the riftgate discussion.
Someone who is not prepared to sit and play for couple of hours on the first play though is obviously more casual in there gaming habits than this game is aimed at. Those who have completed the alpha should know what to expect, and be able to traverse the distance between gates in 15 to 20 min easily. Once you have the gate you can always come back and explore the area.
Furthermore we have the convenience of the personal riftgate which is received very early in the game. So exploration doesn’t mean a long trek back to the nearest gate.
Hmm yeah, abandoned waterfront might be a good location for one, especially if we worked in some sort of quest and / or optional dungeon that would give people more reason to go there. Conversely though, if we make it too appealing to head to the abandoned waterfront, it will effectively eliminate the choice of going the other way… Ah design decision…
We talked about having secure riftgates in the past and I’d still like to do it, we just haven’t found the time yet. One of our past discussions involved having to stand near riftgates until you had captured them while Aetherials continued to spawn from it trying to kill you or force you to run.
The only problem I have with the current rift gate frequency is with short game sessions. You need to allot a big chunk of time to make any real progress since it can sometimes take up to 30 minutes to get to the next rift gate. I found this issue most noticeable between the Burrwitch Village and Warden’s Cellar rift gates because of map randomization and not knowing in which direction the next gate was.
The gate distance never really concerned me after a death because it gave me a moment to prepare and pick up items I missed on the way to my last battle.
You still have Hallowed Hill in the other direction which is also a nice “dungeon” so adding a riftgate for Abandoned Waterfront wouldn’t completely destroy the point of using the Burrwitch Village Riftgate. And if you add more areas to the alpha (like fixing bridges and whatnot) in the future (either an expansion or when you have time) you could give even more purpose to explore and use the Burrwitch Village Riftgate.
As for a Quest, Dungeon, or merely extending Abandoned Waterfront a bit I’ll give a few ideas for fun:
Quest: Combine Quest with a Dungeon. Have a large ship run aground on the beach with part of it’s hull ripped open (entrance) and when you get their you find a dying sailor who tells you that their are passengers inside and he and some other sailors tried to escape and find help (dead sailor corpses lying about for enjoyable effect lol). Sailor then dies and your character then proceeds through the ship (either one level or multiple levels) and finally rescues the passengers and you send them to Devil’s Crossing where you get a reward or perhaps an npc who gives quests or does something unique.
Dungeon: Shipwreck idea, perhaps have a slight path on the edge of the waterfront that goes north to the shipwreck (hidden dungeon). Otherwise obviously their could be cellars with destructible walls where you gain entrance to the actual dungeon.
As for the second part of the discussion: Securing Riftgates.
You could always add that to some later expansion where you add not only a new large area but other small areas to the pre-expansion game where you can find these new riftgates. Perhaps the Aetherials or Cthonic entities decide to send more creatures to Cairn due to your hero messing things up.
Otherwise the idea of enemies coming out of riftgates and you having to capture them would lend a lot of weight the feel to the world since Cairn was invaded this would support that idea visually (rather then just reading about it).
Edit: I also agree with sunandsteel71
^^This^^
The distance between the riftgates is fine. The two in Burrwitch Road and The Flooded Passage are actually too close to each other.
I find it a bit implausible, that riftgates are often near the main road or at the beginning of an area. You could of course come up with a rational or some lore to explain this. But if you relocate some portals and assign a second one to some areas, then the net of riftgates will cover of the world better and might look more natural at the same time:
[li]Burrwitch Village: Move the existing one into the big swamp behind the first buildings - that’s close enough to the Waterfront and River Passage / Hallowed Hill.[/li]
[li]Estates and Warden’s Cellar: If you placed another riftgate in the Estates, then you could move the one in the Cellar away from the entrance.[/li]
[li]Underground Transit: Could use a second riftgate in some remote corner - this would be helpful for people who got lost here and need to interrupt their playing.[/li]
[li]Hidden Laboratory: ditto[/li][/LIST]
I don’t mind having to fight near the riftgates, but my frame rate drops significantly around them. An intense fight in these places might suffer from poor performance.
I truly don’t see what the problem is with Rift Gates. I personally clear an area when I need to do any thing and drop a Rift Travel, go back to Devil’s Crossing , and hit pause. I have even been known on occasions to do that and leave the computer on and go to bed. I think there fine as they are.
I too agree that they are fine how they are atm. No need to change them imo.
Personally, I think as ‘respawn’ points I find them to be to far apart but as Teleports they’re pretty good. When I need to stop playing I will keep going untill I reach the next respawn point and then stop. I hate backtracking to cover places I skipped to get to a ‘save’ point, and I also dislike having to reclear areas when I am trying to move on to a new spot.
However when I think of them as a teleport or a invasion beachhead, I think, as with others, that they are overall fairly good, but they could maybe be shifted slightly to reflect a more strategic placing of attack points. Eisprinzessin’s idea would fit well here overall I’d say.
My personal suggestion would be to have your personal riftgate drop when exiting and stay till you return, that you don’t have to re-clear areas, or sprint to the next gate when you want to stop (if your like me), but you also haven’t riddled the world with gates willynilly. If you don’t like want to go there you can easily teleport elsewhere still and you could tie it in with an exit text such as "You teleport back to base for some rest - explaining why you appear there when you start up again.
On the Waterfront ideas, I like DeMasked’s idea, have a quest giver in the area, and I’d say a single reward, ie item/stat point, that way you have the option of going there but its not a requirement. If you explore, it will you find the quest, and if you don’t you wont miss out on a significant reward. The Necklace quest in TQ is an example, if you took the short cut through the hills to the left, you never would’ve seen him and could skip it as it wasn’t a very important or usefull reward.
Also with the discussion on differing size/importance gates, I’d leave the major unexplored gates visible on the big map as they are now, this give some direction for people to find their way. However make the out the way gates that you don’t need to find, hidden until you activate them. Ie the waterfront gate is not a must pass, so it can be smaller. Whereas the main quest gates suchas Burwich village are more major and is a must pass, so it should be bigger and visible to help direct players.
At first I found the Rift Gates were too far apart but as I found my feet in the game I had no problems with their spacing.
I was part of that initial discussion and back then said I’d measure how long it takes me to get from one Rift Gate to the next. New character, self-found gear, clearing the entire area before activating the next Rift Gate (so if I come across it while clearing the area, I keep clearing the area instead of activating it, until I have cleared the area and then return to it, to move to the next area).
I did skip the high level areas however, as you would not (or cannot, like the Sanctuary) enter when you first reach the area.
As they might be of interest for this dicsussion, here are the results
Lower Crossing : 15 min
Wightmire : 30 min
Burrwich Road : 45 min
Flooded Passage : 20 min
Burrwich Outskirts : 20 min
Burrwich Village : 55 min
Warden’s Cellar : 70 min
Underground Transit : 30 min
Warden’s Laboratory : 45 min
So the most glaring one is from Burrwich Village to the Warden Cellar. Having an additional Rift Gate at the Waterfront to me would clearly be beneficial.
From Burrwich Outskirts to Village is also relatively long, due to it being a wide, open area. Not sure there is a good choke point to place a Rift Gate though.
The third Outlier is Burrwich Road, anything up to 30 minutes is probably ok (with 20 minutes being what I would really like I guess…). Same here though, it is a wide open area, so it takes longer to clear and there is not really an obvious point to place one in between.
Warden’s Laboratory is long-ish, but as it leads to a boss, that is probably ok, plus there is a lot you do not need to actually clear for runs…
I found with the first couple of chars the distance between Burrwich Village and the Warden’s Cellar seemed far too long, but once I got to know the area it seems fine now.
I think the idea of one by the waterfront would help the new player until they get to know their way around.
These results are rather slanted though with the whole “clear everywhere before activating the riftgate” because not every area is supposed to be the same size.
Perhaps do other tests like just running from riftgate to riftgate or fighting from riftgate to riftgate, etc…
Although adding a riftgate at the Abandoned Waterfront might be nice, it really isn’t necessary when the players can simply adapt to the game. Usually a player might clear every area one their first playthrough (and later ones) but perhaps later on they’ll simply skip content in order to get on with the story and later zones.
So really the question should be: Should distances between riftgates be rather similar or should some areas be larger and thus add to the differentiation of the game in make that area more unique and challenging.
I have started a new character today - got me two hours to get to Flooded Passage riftgate completing all quests available before this point (including sewers) and killing every single monster in every area.
Ah, and I don’t use stash for this character as it is intended for a kind of experiment.
I’ve already spoken up about my unhappiness with the lack of waypoints in the game on other threads. The riftgates themselves are well placed, it’s the lack of waypoints between them that is the problem for me.
I consider myself a casual player because a) I only play a few RPG games because most of them I don’t like and b) because I play so few I don’t have the wider experience of others who are hardcore. But against that I do have thousands and thousands of hours on TQ which is my favourite and number one game.
Against mamba’s timing I can tell you that I can only clear the southern half of the map area between Lower Crossing and Wightmere in the same timescale. The same is true for Wightmere to Burrwitch Road, only half the map can be cleared. Burrwitch Village to the Warden’s Cellar is a 2 hour plus run. I know because I did it the other day, got as far as the Inventor’s Apprentice and then died exactly 2 hours after I’d started that session. So it takes me longer to clear those areas and I don’t always have time to do that so have to stop and come back to the game at a later day/time. I don’t re-run areas I’ve already cleared, but it can be annoying having to fight through to get back to where I stopped. I like the bigger map areas in GD and I don’t want the game made more linear. I would just like to be able to start at where I finished and not have this Diablo clone system of starting back in town, teleporting to the nearest riftgate and then running back.
People arguing that you don’t need to clear all the map areas seem to miss the point that the quickest and easiest way to level up is to do exactly that, particularly in Normal difficulty. On a straight playthrough of TQ I gain 40 levels in Normal as against 21 in Epic/Legendary combined (my toons finish at level 61) and that’s clearing all areas on all difficulties. Do I really want to lose that advantage by just running from riftgate to riftgate? No, I don’t. My toon wouldn’t be able to cope with Epic and Legendary if I just did the main and side quests of the game in Normal. And if I don’t go off exploring, then I could miss some side quests too; not something I want to do when trying to make my toon the best he/she can be.
I can understand not wanting to put the waypoints back, although I do feel places like the Warden’s Cellar and Hidden Lab need them in the same way that you had them in the Great Pyramid and Hades’ Palace in TQ. But if the personal riftgate could be made to stay in place when you exit the game then the necessity to fight your way back to where you should be would be eliminated. If there was a waypoint somewhere in the Cellar and Lab areas you wouldn’t need to use the personal riftgate for respawning/restarting.
For open areas:
Go up to next riftgate. Then clear down and to the left. If time, start clearing down and right. If you have to stop, then stop.
Resume at the best riftgate. travel to the lowest un-cleared area to the right by first moving to the right enough to be out of the previously cleared area as marked on the map. This is usually not a large area to cross.
If you have more time and know the area, clear more area as you are moving up to the next rift gate.
Clearing all of the area below a partial barrier like a stream has the benefit of not having to fight through a previously cleared opening on a resume. There are usually an opening on the left or right, so only half has to be done. Usually there are more than one opening on either side, so you could try for that.
When going up to Burrwich it is usually best to cover one side of the road, usually the left and see if the way is open. Since you know there is a close barrier and covered area below, one could leave some of that uncleared for when you go right, but it isn’t that large an area. Theoretically, the developers have to leave some slack in the balance so that you can save and return later. And, you might want to see what is there on your first pass.
Usually, you want to cover left and right before going too far up. That could be a bit confusing or cause some retraversal on the first play-through.
One feature of Grim Dawn feature is a more open feel. So far, you can cover areas without sticking to the road in order to stay within the story line.
of course the area (and caves etc. within it) influence the time it takes. Many people progress from rift gate to rift gate and do not want to backtrack in order to clear an area, same as in TQ from fountain to fountain.
So they only progress past it / can stop and resume later once they cleared the area. This is what this ‘test’ was for, not for people who already know where to find it, run to it and don’t mind backtracking, those never have an issue with rift gate distances 
Perhaps do other tests like just running from riftgate to riftgate or fighting from riftgate to riftgate, etc…
Perhaps, but people who play this way don’t have an issue with rift gate distance, so not quite sure what the point is
Obviously if you know where it is and you choose the shortest way, it takes maybe 10 - 20 minutes, depending on the gate.
Although adding a riftgate at the Abandoned Waterfront might be nice, it really isn’t necessary when the players can simply adapt to the game.
the whole point of this discussion is to see if the game should be changed to suit the players / play styles, not to see whether players can tolerate / adapt to the current rift gates
So really the question should be: Should distances between riftgates be rather similar or should some areas be larger and thus add to the differentiation of the game in make that area more unique and challenging.
No, that was not the question, but to answer it, from my perspective areas should be similar in size and rift gates more frequent (i.e. by clearing an area you should still progress to the next one in 20 minutes, 30 at most) 