Defeat and death

[eisprinzessin]

Table of Contents

• Death and resurrection
• Death in Normal difficulty
• Death in higher difficulties

[eisprinzessin]

When you die in battle, you always respawn back in Devil's Crossing but can then take a riftgate (portal) to wherever you want to go. [1, 2] In the future if there are multiple "full-service" towns the game might enable you to switch the spawn location. [3]

You lose experience if you die and a tombstone appears at the site of your death, from which you can reclaim part of the lost experience points. [4, 5] Normal difficulty in Grim Dawn will be much as it is Titan Quest with virtually no experience loss and just the walk back from the respawn. The escalating experience penalty based on level and difficulty mode was created with both the casual and hardcore player in mind. [6] That is unless you play hardcore mode, where your character's death will be permanent. [7]

The developers generally do not like death penalties that require you to do anything before you can resume playing. That's just like an invitation for people to stop playing the game. They don't even like making people run back through the level but some bare minimum of that is necessary for balancing. If you don't have that, when you die to a boss you just end up throwing yourself at it repeatedly until it dies - why bother stepping back and trying to think of a new strategy when you can just kill it with the power of infinite resurrections? What happens if you sneak ahead to some higher-level area that you shouldn't really be and end up getting killed somewhere that you can't escape from? To overcome the problems introduced by a spawn-where-you-died system, they'd have to introduce other awkward mechanisms like "5 seconds of invulnerability when you respawn" and other such nonsense. Being removed from the site of your death has positive psychological aspects in that it makes you feel the impact of your death more, even if there is no real penalty, and it allows you to take a step back and rethink your strategy and why you died. [8]
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1. Some questions... Feb 2011
2. Level Paths and Dynamic Barriers May 2012
3. Portal system Jul 2010
4. Old School Design Mar 2012
5. Tombs? Feb 2010
6. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
7. Just discovered Grim Dawn Apr 2012
8. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009

[eisprinzessin]

The developers have no plans to significantly change the way death works in Normal difficulty as it caters to the casual audience. They are fully aware that most casual players have an innate aversion to dying in games even if there is no consequence. [1]

The experience loss should remain negligible in the early game. [2] Casual players tend to be more intimidated by challenge and there won't be more penalty for them. Dying in itself is enough. [3]
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1. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
2. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
3. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009

[eisprinzessin]

The experience penalty for high-level deaths will be greater than in Titan Quest. [1, 2] Once you get to Legendary difficulty, the gloves come off. At that point it will be a real challenge to actually complete the final difficulty and level-out a character. [2]

The developers want a penalty that ramps up for players who are more hardcore but just not hardcore enough for hardcore mode. It's for those players who like a challenge but are not up for hardcore mode just because it requires an extreme level of discipline and concentration that they aren't always willing to put in. [3] Crate wants something one step down from hardcore and currently that doesn't exist. [4]

Therefore at the highest levels, experience loss from death also becomes much more significant, so that it will take some skill at avoiding death making good progress. [5] Defeating the game on softcore-legendary needs to be a little more of a challenge than just investing time. And beyond that - instead of taking long hours of grinding experience, the level-cap could be accomplished much more quickly if you were able to avoid death. [3]
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1. I hope this game will not cater to... Apr 2012
2. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
3. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
4. external Bigger penalties for dying Nov 2009
5. Few informations. Apr 2012