Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

[raveharu]

Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

I am not very pleased with the majority of D2LOD players, especially in the difficulties like NM and Hell, those lazy bastards only want to be spoonfed with wps and tps, and it has become quite a "habit" that people have adopted. :steam:

Of course the game's exploits and bugs are to be partly blamed but portal scrolls should not be treated like garbage, they provide hell lots of convenience to us players, but it has also made many of them very very VERY lazy.:thumbsdown:

It's about time to make us, the players, pay a price for having this form of convenience. :devil:

Final Verdict:

1) Get NPCs to sell portal scroll for a high amount of gold, since gold will be the main currency in the game. Beginners should not even think about obtaining them, they should play the game the HARD way.Yes, WALK, for god sake. Monsters/Bosses should NOT drop them. High levels will also be made to think twice before helping low levels at the expense of spending tons of gold on TPs unless they are immensely rich.

2) It would also be interesting to have a different variety of portal scrolls available, where factors like distance, level, climate and the type of map plays a role. A much simplier solution would be to have different time duration for different portals. (EG. A 100k TP lasts for 15 secs, 200k 30 secs and so on)

3) Portal scrolls should not work near to Boss maps, it's quite ridiculous that you can fight the Prime Evils halfway, then go back to town to heal, and resume the fight again... :scratchhead:

 

[Kiroptus]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

You seem to want to nerf TPs in D3. Thats just too nice, I say remove them. Have something that function as a portal shrine in the middle of the dungeon (between the last wp and the next) so players can have a visit to buy/sell stuff and thats all.

Dont worry, if potions were greatly nerfed you can expect that TP will have the same fate.

 

[raveharu]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

You seem to want to nerf TPs in D3. Thats just too nice, I say remove them. Have something that function as a portal shrine in the middle of the dungeon (between the last wp and the next) so players can have a visit to buy/sell stuff and thats all.

Dont worry, if potions were greatly nerfed you can expect that TP will have the same fate.

Removing it from the game is too cruel lol :nono:.

I think my suggestion is better, as not only will it be efficient in exterminating that annoyingly lazy habit of old D2 players, it would also be a good way of making gold more valuable in the game.

D3 being a fast-paced RPG, we as the players will definitely want some form of convenience, but it should come with a price.
Having some form of luxury in the game never hurts

Edit: Oh yes, I forgot to add that town portals should not be tradeable.

 

[Orphan]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Town portals were removed initially, but I think Blizzard are still playing around with some ideas. Jay Wilson commented on them awhile ago in a German interview:

The idea of town portals we wanted to reject, since from the viewpoint of being in the middle of a fight, it’s very easy to abuse, simply disappearing. It just goes back to being the kind of thing we don’t want. Players often go back to town more when they really need to. But if you give players the opportunity every two minutes to town portal, they’ll take advantage of that and carry every last piece of loot, even worthless things, back to town effortlessly, which isn’t very fun.

That’s why we wanted to move away from that. We also looked back on the original Diablo to get a feel for dungeons being difficult to escape from, but Diablo 2 never balanced this very well like we have now. We want the player not to be stuck in a dungeon forever, we want to provide intervals where they can go back. We don’t want players to have to keep dropping items, but we also don’t want them to be able to go back as often as they want like in Diablo 2.

There are a lot of pros and cons and we’re currently balancing it all. The removal of town portals is beginning to feel bad, because everyone was accustomed to it, but we’re trying our best to find the right way to do this so that the game doesn’t suffer for it

I suspect town portals are going to be in the game, and I agree that with their current state in D2 they are easily abused, and it looks like Blizzard is thinking the same thing.

 

[Kiroptus]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

we want to provide intervals where they can go back

Thats the idea I thought about. I hope they think something like that. The thing is, if players have control of when they can portal back to town, they will abuse it, thats for sure.

Ah and yes, Portal disabled from boss fights. Its supposed to be an epic battle against evil and TPs take that out as saying to them : "excuse me, let me go back to town and return refilled!".

No wonder the most challenging battle of the game (before uber tristam was added) were the ancients, where (tadda!) TPs cant be abused.

 

[play]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

they could introduce a cooldown system to limit players use of tps.

the cooldown period could increase in nightmare/hell difficulties

 

[jacobgold]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

You could just remove TP scrolls from vendors so they are drop only.

 

[TheDarkSide]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Speaking of the Ancients , how about at a boss fight the Boss regains its entire health if a TP is used . Or better yet the TP doesnt function at a certain point of a Dungeon that leads to a Boss area ..

Im torn on the issue really . Id like to see some form of escape from a battle but not like the current TP system functions . I was excited about the last WP thing they were talking about early on but havent heard much more about that ..

That said , I sometime need to get out of the battle and tend to the kids or need a break and not being able to do that for extended periods of time might be a bummer .

 

[Orphan]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Speaking of the Ancients , how about at a boss fight the Boss regains its entire health if a TP is used . Or better yet the TP doesnt function at a certain point of a Dungeon that leads to a Boss area

That's pretty much what uber tristram did, which might be something they consider. Essentially town portals won't work in the area.

Im torn on the issue really . Id like to see some form of escape from a battle but not like the current TP system functions .

A good form of escape is the good old fashioned run-away until you're far enough to feel safe :thumbup:

 

[Mad Mantis]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

As long as they give me the ability to actually gather stuff during these longer runs I don't mind them removing the TP's. In DII, thanks to things like charms, tomes and other crap you don't have a lot of room to spare for dropped loot. I'm TP-ing regularly because I want to make more room for more loot. Having to drop it all because Blizz wants to "keep me in the action" is not something I'm looking forward to.

A good form of escape is the good old fashioned run-away until you're far enough to feel safe :thumbup:

Duriel doesn't allow that. Really annoying.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

The type of "portal abuse" is really a problem with the player. They abuse it, it's their choice. And I'm hard pressed to believe anyone finds the game less fun because of that. If there is any hope of creating a game that will not contain features that can eventually be abused by players, that will be a fool's hope.

Frankly I see no problem with town portals. I find them very convenient. I don't want to have to retrace my steps every time I need to go to town, neither I feel it much fun having to redo part of a dungeon every time I come back from town. Meanwhile, have I abused town portals before to escape in the middle of a battle? Yes! Have I lost my appreciation for the game because of that? No. Do I abuse them often? No.

 

[Chorkstain]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Getting rid of town portals may increase the popularity of defensive abilities.

 

[Transistor EMF]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Speaking of the Ancients , how about at a boss fight the Boss regains its entire health if a TP is used . Or better yet the TP doesnt function at a certain point of a Dungeon that leads to a Boss area ..

IMO this is the best option. Let all mini bosses (eg.Thousand Pounder) have an instant heal on TP cast & let all major bosses have no TP, inescapable domains (duriel style). Maybe TP allowed in normal diff only...

 

[Knight_Wolf]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

If there is any hope of creating a game that will not contain features that can eventually be abused by players, that will be a fool's hope.

But it's also equally foolish to leave a feature that is very susceptible to abuse, Blizz has to do whatever it can to remove all the clearly abusable features (and they are doing a good job with that) and after they do their best no one can blame them if some case nut found a way to abuse the game.

But leaving out abusable features in the game becasue "there is no hope to create an unabusable game" is a big NO NO .

Frankly I see no problem with town portals. I find them very convenient.

Ahm ahm .... that's the problem actually .. they are too convenient :yes:

I don't want to have to retrace my steps every time I need to go to town
neither I feel it much fun having to redo part of a dungeon every time I come back from town.

There are already many changes in the game that will
-first reduce the need to go to town every five minute.
-second there will be many checkpoints at each dungeon to ensure you don't need to replay a large portion of the game.

Meanwhile, have I abused town portals before to escape in the middle of a battle? Yes! Have I lost my appreciation for the game because of that? No. Do I abuse them often? No.

You might not have abused them too often but others did and will do in D3 if TPs usage method didn't change.

Personally i think TPs water down the game greatly more than any of the other things people has been complaining about around here ... so yes i lost a large part of my appreciation for the game because of it .. and i'm pretty sure many others feel the same way.

TPs were there as part of the design of D2th and in order to cover for the many flaws in D2 design .. but if those specific flaws are gone or fixed then there is no need or reason for TPs to stay the same way.


---------------------------------------------------------------

TPs could be fixed in one or more of those ways IMO:
-Giving them a slow cool down timer.
Or -Making them Drop-only items .. can't be purchased.
Or -Removing them and replacing them with more fixed portals around dungeons (that will fix the boss battle problem since boss battle arenas won't have those portals)


Hope Blizz figures out how to round up that TP's thing in a good way.

 

[Krugar]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

The issue I have with the removal of this feature is that TPs are kind of a Diablo institution. An hallmark of the games, and a very distinct feature since D1. So discussing the removal of such a game feature based on player behavior (which is in itself not that detrimental to the game or its appreciation) seems to me the wrong move.

Adding limitations to how they work, should be alright however. And things like monster respawn and recover seem to me relatively good options. A cool down factor seems alright also. But I'd rather have it affect only the ability for the player to use their skills and not their ability to move.

It's clear to me I'm against the removal of TPs or reducing their use to small portions of the game. The consequences, even if not so obvious now, is that sometime shortly after the game is released everyone will be complaining how much walking they are doing. And D3 is not going to be a short game. This much we know already.

 

[skipdog]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Here is the problem: Part of what makes Diablo fun is all the loot. We want to pick up the loot and deal with it. If you remove town portals, there either has to be less loot or massive inventories where you would never fill up between say 2 waypoints. The last thing any player would want in their game experience is to have to leave loot behind or make extended loot runs that involve a lot of running to/from waypoints.

The rationale of "its abused" needs more explanation. It is abused because it is a feature we use often? It is abused because when we join a new game we immediately want to be killing monsters with our party? It is abused because we can escape a fight easily(I could see a different solution for this, only allow use of town portals when no monsters are within X yards, so one would have to run away or "win" a fight to town portal)?

I'm just not sure how the game would be more fun by having less control over where you want to go with your character. If you don't want to "abuse them", then don't. Why should convenience be a feature that we would want removed?

Sorry, I don't understand the people who say "Diablo was less fun for me because of TPs". I STILL love and play diablo and the freedom to go to town whenever I want and have my friends join me instantly is one of the reasons this game is great.

 

[play]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

blizz has said (somewhere) that they want players to be able to 'join in the action' as soon as they enter a game, without the need to trek through a level to join friends. i think they eluded to a summon function to eliminate this need for tps.

with the new bag system, individual drops, fewer potions, and no charms (as far as im aware) the need to return to town for loot purposes will also be reduced.

the main concern would be tps to escape from boss/dangerous situations. im sure blizz will find a solution

 

[JITBxvx]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Would it be better to replace the TP mechanic with a summoning/sending mechanic?

I.e. You could shop at long distance after completing a certain quest, but it's not automatic...you summon a bird, sprite, whatever, that runs back to town for you to sell(at a reduced rate) and buy (at slightly inflated prices) for you? Might take approx. 30 seconds - 2 min depending on skill? Maybe more money summons better carrier?

That way you can keep up the adventure without having to run back to town for everything, but if you found a really high-value (storage worthy) item, you could take it back to town at a waypoint? Obviously, this is just to reduce the TP dependancy, maybe not eliminate it.

Or maybe TP are only one way? In other words, back to town instantly, but going back requires a waypoint or some other sacrifice (gold, XP, item)?

 

[tyren]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Here is the problem: Part of what makes Diablo fun is all the loot. We want to pick up the loot and deal with it. If you remove town portals, there either has to be less loot or massive inventories where you would never fill up between say 2 waypoints. The last thing any player would want in their game experience is to have to leave loot behind or make extended loot runs that involve a lot of running to/from waypoints.

The rationale of "its abused" needs more explanation. It is abused because it is a feature we use often? It is abused because when we join a new game we immediately want to be killing monsters with our party? It is abused because we can escape a fight easily(I could see a different solution for this, only allow use of town portals when no monsters are within X yards, so one would have to run away or "win" a fight to town portal)?

I'm just not sure how the game would be more fun by having less control over where you want to go with your character. If you don't want to "abuse them", then don't. Why should convenience be a feature that we would want removed?

Sorry, I don't understand the people who say "Diablo was less fun for me because of TPs". I STILL love and play diablo and the freedom to go to town whenever I want and have my friends join me instantly is one of the reasons this game is great.

Agreed completely with everything. Also beeing out of range to use the portals could work quite well with some bosses since they are usually quite persistant and such. Duriel in D2 comes to mind, good luck setting up at TP if you needed distance to do it with him.

 

[LaZeR]

Re: Town Portal abuse - it's time to end it.

Main issue agreed. However, I've spotted some difficulties with some of the solutions offered:

1. Droppable only TPs- Maybe I'm fixed on D2 economic, but I'm sure that TPs will be quickly tradable as Els. However, I love this idea the best since it gives some tectical point to TPs and makes you face a question whether you want to use the only TP you have left or not.
2. Remove TPs- With no other idea in mind, I dn't see how people will "get into the action right away" without TPs. Also the fact that you do need breaks from time to time, even in the middle of boss battle (who's calling when I'm fighting Baal?), is unavoidable.

My sugggestion is just make every monster Ancient like, meaning every TP will heal it back up. This way you could take a break anytime you want to but still not loose the epic sense of battle.