47 replies to this topic

[Ion Cannon!]

I don't know if many of you have heard of this, been following it or even intended to buy it, so I'll assume you don't.

Torchlight 2 is an ARPG from the creators of Diablo 2, building on the success of Torchlight 1 which granted, had its problems. Thankfully those problems have all been adressed - the game supports 6 player coop for example.

I've now seen lots of game footage and have been following the game extensively so I can say for a fact that Torchlight 2 >>> Diablo 3.

For example, Torchlight 2 isn't always online and has a full singleplayer mode, you can start the game on one of 4 difficulty levels (easy, normal, veteran, elite) and then you can play through NG+ and NG++ to level 100 if desired, essentially the game isn't a cakewalk for the first 20 hours

Being from the developers behind Diablo 2 it shares much of the same loot conventions, loot is varied, fun and interesting. You will get upgrades frequently, you will find cool rares/uniques ect from an early stage. There is also a lot of replayability because the levels are actually random ( D3 was random my arse...) But most importantly the game just looks like sheer fun to play.

Therefore those of you who bought D3 and were disappointed, I would heavily advise you look into Torchlight 2.

Here is a very lengthy video, if you have 4hrs to kill it's worth a look. Or you could always just watch a bit of it. http://www.twitch.tv...uit/b/332317471 (skip to 4 mins)

Oh yes the game also supports modding from day 1 and all the other PC good stuff

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 17 September 2012 - 16:36.

[Raven]

I got torchlight1 from the last steam sale and only installed it recently. It really did blew me away. Its a lot of fun and I agree with most of the things you said. The only thing that I failed it is getting the high res texture pack installed properly.

[Chyros]

Does it have a skill tree? I.e. a D2-like system where you can sink multiple points into the same skill, which supports different builds? This was my main complaint with D3: their new pre-built skill system was extremely boring and didn't offer any variation at all, especially as "builds" were effectively removed from the game.

[Ion Cannon!]

That would be a yes, each character has 3 skill trees, each tree has 7 skills I believe and 3 passives, you can sink 15 points into each. With every 5 points the skill gains an additional effect in addition to the +X% damage/ radius ect every level.

[Chyros]

Excellent. Might just give this a try - it looks pretty good.

[Ion Cannon!]

I should also point out that your stat/skill points are completely unallocated, you decide what to do with them, not the game designers. You get 500 stat points over the 100 levels and 200 skill points over the 100 levels, the additional 100 are gained via fame rank - which is derived from killing bosses/ rare monsters. There may also be other ways to get more skill points via quests, but so far in act 1 I don't think that was the case.

Oh yes, it's also very cheap £14.99

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 17 September 2012 - 18:03.

[Camille]

i have heard almost nothing but good about this, might actually give it a go

it'll be my first dungeon crawler, even.

[Raven]

oh don't forget your pet... the pet can be teleported to the town above to sell your excess loot while you battle underground which i found to be very good. Also you can mutate your pet by feeding it with fish

[Alias]

Torchlight 1 was nice, but as you said it did have some flaws. It was a great play-an-hour every week sort of thing. I never could really invest too much time into it.

I played through the beta of this a while back, while it was an improvement of Torchlight, there were still areas that I thought it was still lacking. The loot was alright, but really beyond that it was unfortunately pretty generic.

Edited by Alias, 18 September 2012 - 04:12.

[Soul]

Who here pre-purchased it and already own the first game and now have an extra copy?

[Raven]

Torchlight 1 is part of the Humble Indie Bundle this time if anyone is interested. I already have most of the games except Rochard.

[Ion Cannon!]

I wouldn't judge torchlight 2 by the standards of torchlight 1, they have similar concepts and a similar graphics style but the first game is very bare bones. Runic built the game engine and then the entire of torchlight 1 in 9 months, they've been working on Torchlight 2 for 2 years. The first is very much a dungeon crawler, in the vein of diablo 1, you start in a town and descend the dungeons beneath the town to rid it of the evil. Torchlight 2 is funnily enough very similar to Diablo 2, hence it fucking rocks.

[Alias]

Ion Cannon!, on 19 September 2012 - 09:35, said:

I wouldn't judge torchlight 2 by the standards of torchlight 1, they have similar concepts and a similar graphics style but the first game is very bare bones. Runic built the game engine and then the entire of torchlight 1 in 9 months, they've been working on Torchlight 2 for 2 years. The first is very much a dungeon crawler, in the vein of diablo 1, you start in a town and descend the dungeons beneath the town to rid it of the evil. Torchlight 2 is funnily enough very similar to Diablo 2, hence it fucking rocks.

I'm not.

I played the beta of Torchlight 2, and it is as I said. While it will have changed from the beta, I don't think it would have changed sufficiently from my initial impressions. Part of the reason Diablo 2 was good was a solid, immersive storyline combined with the best ARPG gameplay that there has been. Torchlight 2 doesn't have very much of a storyline, and the gameplay, while closer than most to Diablo 2, it is still far enough off from achieving greatness.

Edited by Alias, 19 September 2012 - 09:48.

[Ion Cannon!]

The storyline in Diablo 2 was dark, but likewise almost non existant, the lore was cool as was the setting, but the story was really very much a non event. Now granted I haven't played torchlight 2 myself, but from what I have seen the hack and slash of torchlight 2 looks to be the best ever. Besides you have to remember diablo 2 was patched to introduce more items and skill synergys, similar stuff may happen with T2.

[Alias]

Ion Cannon!, on 19 September 2012 - 10:49, said:

The storyline in Diablo 2 was dark, but likewise almost non existant, the lore was cool as was the setting, but the story was really very much a non event. Now granted I haven't played torchlight 2 myself, but from what I have seen the hack and slash of torchlight 2 looks to be the best ever. Besides you have to remember diablo 2 was patched to introduce more items and skill synergys, similar stuff may happen with T2.

I'd disagree with the fact that it was non-existent, sure it was less fleshed out than something like Planescape Torment, but it still provided valuable links between each of the acts and you felt that you were actually progressing through something not just grinding through the same thing for 15 hours (like Diablo I and Torchlight I were, and to extent Torchlight II was when I played it).

The hack and slash looks good, just like the hack and slash in Diablo III looked good, unfortunately when you actually play with it you get to notice all the flaws rather quickly. I'm not saying it's bad (far from it, but it isn't exactly some messiah that has arrived into the genre. There is (or at least, was when I played it) less abilities than Diablo II (and even less than Diablo III) and while you get to opportunity to allocate things everywhere you still end up usually going for one build into one or two abilities that are way better than the others (like how Torchlight I had the laser-obliteration beam that you pretty much had to use 95% of the time to get anything done). This is the reason why Diablo III had fixed skill trees.

If Chyros ends up getting it, I probably will too – if only to have something to play. It should be worth the $20 if it has had some sufficient development since the beta.

[Ion Cannon!]

Maybe so, but I suppose what I meant was that you don't play a hack and slash for the story, it's merely another form of progression, like you yourself said.

As for skills, I can't remember the actual number of active skills you had in D2 tbh, however what I do remember is that different trees had varying amounts of passives and active skills, with T2 it's a little more set in stone, each class has 3 trees, each with 7 active skills and 3 passives. In regards to D3, sure that had loads of skills, and lots of runes, but because you had access to everything you only ever used the best thing, as Chyros noted there were effectively no builds. Further to that they then punished you for changing skills in combat via a cooldown, effectively making it not worthwhile to do so, and because they all but removed auto attack it became a process of use skill A to build resource A, when resource A is high, use skill B, repeat. In D2 as a sorc I would be consistently changing skills in combat, either rebuffing passives, using defensive attacks or changing my primary nuke to reflect the immunities of the monster I was fighting. All this variation, and part of what made the combat fun was lost in D3, I think Torchlight 2 brings a good deal of that back.

[SquigPie]

Real men play Path of Exile.

[Ion Cannon!]

Oh I have, and some of the ideas and mechanics are bloody wonderful, but the combat seemed a bit lacklustre to me. I think it has great potential though so I am following its development, played in 2 of the stress weekends so far and every time it's getting better.

Also this may be old news to some, but I hadn't heard of this before, and I think people should know about it. http://www.incgamers...evik-interview/ TLDR - D3 development team are horrible people who can't take any criticism of their work, even from the creator of D1/D2.

That just makes me even more sure of my decision to uninstall D3, tell everyone I know to stay away from it (admittedly a bit late for most) and never play it again.

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 20 September 2012 - 03:04.

[SquigPie]

Yeah, the combat in PoE is a little repetive, but the build possibilities are amazing.

Played TL2 during the stress test, was pretty damn good, didn't like the artstyle though. Too cartoonish for a Diablo followup.

[Ion Cannon!]

So having now beaten the first act I can happily say that this game is what I have been waiting for since Diablo 2. I'm playing a 2h engineer and the combat is simply a joy, gaining charge during auto attacks and then unleashing it all with a huge hammerblast, immolating the groud and sending many pulses of targeted fiery energy into large groups of enemies. And thats just one ability

It took me 5hrs on veteran to complete act 1, and that involved exploring everything (as far as I am aware anyway) though my experience will differ from others because of the random nature of the game, I know some people got optional puzzles in some dungeons for example.

As for the difficulty, for the most part I found veteran fairly straight forward, I did wonder if I was going to complete it without dying, but some nasty boss battles put paid to that. Honestly though, despite dying few times the difficulty felt good, death is certainly a fixture if you're not paying attention to what you're doing and you can easily be overwhelmed. Though for my next character I'll try elite.

I am a little suprised at how quickly I beat act 1, I thought it would take me a good 10hrs. One reason for this may simply be that I am rather good at ARPG's, secondly I was basing this on what reviewers who had press code said or played, and in my experience most reviewers aren't actually that great. Interesting though, at the time of writing I am within the 1% of people to beat act 1, going by steam achievements anyway.

I think it's quite simple wether or not you buy this. If you don't like the art style - don't buy it. If you don't mind the art style and like ARPG/ HnS, do Sure it's not revolutionary, nobody expected it to be, but it is damn good fun and I can forsee this eating up as much time as D2 did.

Edited by Ion Cannon!, 21 September 2012 - 02:41.

[SquigPie]

I'll probably get it when it gets on sale sometime.

[Ion Cannon!]

There is a demo out, so people can try it before deciding if they want to buy it.

I've played several hours of act 2 now and the difficulty is noticably higher, certain champion mobs rip melee to shreds, have to be very careful not to get stuck in a corner and be ready to chug pots like no tomorrow - excellent

[Soul]

I got to lvl 8 in about an hour on the demo XD. Playing it on normal btw.

[Ion Cannon!]

I've got a level 53 engineer now, just completed the game as well as the secret bosses area.

Summary of the difficulty on veteran, My playtime is 21hrs.

Act 1 isn't that hard on veteran, but some of the bosses hit very hard.
Act 2 starts off in a similar manner but the latter dungeons can be extremely nasty.
Act 3 brings the pain. I died left right and centre and I had to make very extensive use of my abilities as well as playing smart.
Act 4 - seemed a little easier, but I had gotten some very nice drops and certain mobs could still kill you very very quickly.

One thing that is important to note is that at times, you will feel OP - due to drops and the like, however a few levels later or a new dungeon later you may suddenly find you're getting your arse handed to you, somewhat like it was in D2.
Starting NG+ now

[BeefJeRKy]

I will be getting this game at some point. Gotta see how I'll fit it in though