Should portals remain open after death?

[medierra]

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?

[skip1ron]

Knowing that I had a long run ahead of me was the worst part of dying.

[Ragnar]

Why not make small HP regen for bosses every time player dies, or over time?

[Druthers]

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.

[Kardiophylax]

Originally Posted by Ragnar

Why not make small HP regen for bosses every time player dies, or over time?

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.

[Keysmash]

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.

[DeMasked]

Originally Posted by Kardiophylax

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 also agree with this.

[Assassin]

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.

[rustymo]

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 .
But if it would be possible only to reset the boss if you die and/or leave via Portal, i'd had no problem.

[Nero119]

Originally Posted by Assassin

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.

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.