[PC] Torchlight 2 (Review on pp5)

[Zarkon]

Anyone doing a 4-pack of this? 

[Lockdown]

Playing the demo to make sure my resolution is supported (2560x1440).  It is - and it looks sweet.

Both Outlander and Ember Mage are fun as hell right out of the gate.  Can't comment on others yet.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Follow-up question, Mr. Dragon.

If I play Torchlight 2, will Torchlight 1 become unplayable do to improved interface, etc?

Oooh....yes, probably.   Hard to go back. 

[Arclight]

playing an Outlander, loving how fast she moves.  had trouble deciding which pet to pick at the beginning: ended up with the bulldog but was tempted by the Papillon and the hawk.

Yep, I went with the Bully as well. Gave him a fish that changed him into some beastie type dog, this fish gives the pet a permanant change until you catch another fish that can change him back. At least what he changed into is a tank type pet...

[ATB]

I'm still not clear on how best to use a pet.  I've fed exactly 0 fish to my pet in TL 1.

They seem to do pretty good damage in their normal state and I don't like the fishing minigame. Am I missing out on a big component?

[skystride]

If I play Torchlight 2, will Torchlight 1 become unplayable do to improved interface, etc?

I don't think the interface is the big difference.  I was familiar with TL2 controls right away because it's so similar to TL1.  The big change is the map/environment.  I got bored of TL1 because it just had one underground map that you kept going down.  Also I made the mistake of starting on Normal mode which provides no challenge at all.

So with TL2, I started with the berserker and didn't like her skill tree/animations too much so I switched to engineer.  Really fun class so far and looks like there are lots of ways to build her.  I haven't tried the other 2 classes yet.

[CeeKay]

freakin' loving the Outlander.  the glaive throw and shadowling ammo are evil so far

[EngineNo9]

I'm still not clear on how best to use a pet.  I've fed exactly 0 fish to my pet in TL 1.

They seem to do pretty good damage in their normal state and I don't like the fishing minigame. Am I missing out on a big component?

Mainly they are used as a second inventory and an easy way to sell junk when you send them back to town and you keep going in a dungeon.

[CeeKay]

I'm still not clear on how best to use a pet.  I've fed exactly 0 fish to my pet in TL 1.

They seem to do pretty good damage in their normal state and I don't like the fishing minigame. Am I missing out on a big component?

Mainly they are used as a second inventory and an easy way to sell junk when you send them back to town and you keep going in a dungeon.

plus now they have a shopping list, which you can tell them to bring back certain potions and scrolls when they return from town.

[whiteboyskim]

I've played several levels now with all four classes and I'm in love. I'm not too impressed with the class skills available for the Berserker, but throwing some Wolverine style claws on him is awesome. My Outlander just rips stuff up as well, and the fact that you can level the weapon from Krull is hilarious to me.

Didn't play much with the embermage, but I loooove the engineer. So many ways to bring death and I can't wait to get the mechs later on. This game, put simply, is the best $20 buy out there. Totally worth every penny and I'm never touching the Diablo franchise again. This game is fast paced, gorgeous to look at, chock full of awesome loot, and genuinely fun to play.

[Nonnahob]

Agreed on the games aesthetics. So much color, the game doesn't take itself too serious like I feel d3 does. Plus, it feels so good to have loot drop for my character that I can actually use!

[morlac]

Agreed on the games aesthetics. So much color, the game doesn't take itself too serious like I feel d3 does. Plus, it feels so good to have loot drop for my character that I can actually use!

Yea no shit.  I've had a set piece and a sweet unique drop by level 8.  Blizzard take notes.  Hell I am getting loot drops that I am not even high enough level to use.  That's a complete 180 from D3.  It's borderline too much loot.....nevermind that's crazy talk.

[Blackjack]

I must say, the cannons give me too much of an SWTOR and (before Cryptic changed the assault rifle designs later) STO.  This is my engineer and my pet panther Molly.

So far I'm enjoying it, got a couple characters to near L10. I do recommend following the Difficulty choice directions. Most people here are veterans at this genre game and would probably be better off with one of the two hardest difficulty choices. So far my limited sample suggests getting a decent fight here and there (2nd hardest difficulty), sometimes needing to retreat and run around a bit, without feeling like I'm getting my face dunked in the mud.

[CeeKay]

It's borderline too much loot.....nevermind that's crazy talk.

that's how I feel- getting so much magical drops there's times I just throw my hands up in the air and just send them back to town with Lulu the bulldog with only a passing glance.  can't shake the Diablo vibe though, especially with the music at times.

[morlac]

It's borderline too much loot.....nevermind that's crazy talk.

that's how I feel- getting so much magical drops there's times I just throw my hands up in the air and just send them back to town with Lulu the bulldog with only a passing glance.  can't shake the Diablo vibe though, especially with the music at times.

Those locked chest spew out items and gold for like 30 seconds it seems .  I want to yell jackpot every time I get one.

[Nonnahob]

I just can't believe a company can make a game with the options in skill trees like this and a game in dev for 10 years like D3 can't come close in terms of customization. I am blown away at how many ways I can spec my character AT LEVEL 15. So far nothing but praise for this game from me. I've been doing everything on veteran so far, too. Normal feels like steamrolling.

[Zinfan]

The loot drops seem quite toned down at the harder difficulty level.  I've fought a couple purple mobs and one gold one and each only dropped one green item.  I did get to use the very handy shopping list so my pet could get me refills on health potions. On normal my guy had 53 potions but the next difficulty lvl up had me downing them like 4 loco.

[morlac]

The loot drops seem quite toned down at the harder difficulty level.  I've fought a couple purple mobs and one gold one and each only dropped one green item.  I did get to use the very handy shopping list so my pet could get me refills on health potions. On normal my guy had 53 potions but the next difficulty lvl up had me downing them like 4 loco.

I'm playing on Vet and by level 11 I had 3 purple set pieces overall (2 that matched) and an unique.  Perfect diffulculty level for me soo far.  Two near deaths through 11 levels, generous use of potions.

[Hotfreak]

On Vet in my mid teens with 2 different characters (Outlander and Engineer).  The engineer is MUCH easier.  Much less often in dire straits with, admittedly, more of a tank build, but still able to dish out similar damage.

Engineer specced most heavily in the construction tree.  Outlander specced in the (I forget the name) spell tree.

One tip.  Go into your settings and turn on Verbose for the floating text.  This makes it a lot easier to tell your damage and differentiate damage types.

[EddieA]

I've been (pleasantly) surprised by how different TL2 feels from Torchlight.  I love the faster pace, actual quests (rather than "Kill <random name> on Floor <#> of the dungeon"), and the little surprises like the phase beast challenge.  My only concern is that I'm three hours in and I feel extremely overpowered, even on Veteran difficulty.  Powerful loot pops out like candy from a pinata and I'm just decimating everything.  I hope it gets harder as it goes.

[Razgon]

By all accounts, that changes around lvl 30 for many people. I hope they get to balance it out a bit more. So far, playing on Veteran myself to lvl 10-12 with 3 different characters, Its been rather easy. Embermage is clearly my favorite. Randomly teleporting and hurting people who hit me is way too much fun!

This is a pretty great game! Has anyone tried it Co-op and has any input on how fun that is?

[Blackjack]

By all accounts, that changes around lvl 30 for many people. I hope they get to balance it out a bit more. So far, playing on Veteran myself to lvl 10-12 with 3 different characters, Its been rather easy. Embermage is clearly my favorite. Randomly teleporting and hurting people who hit me is way too much fun!

This is a pretty great game! Has anyone tried it Co-op and has any input on how fun that is?

I got my Outlander (pistol and shotgun focused, but a couple of the more magical type abilities have been lifesavers against bossess and large swarms) to L20, and completed Act I.

I can tell you the Veteran mode definitely got to be challenging at times later in Act 1. It's fun as hell wading through swarms and giant enemies etc. though. One particular boss in Act 1 required me to rez at the entrance maybe a dozen times last night to finish. Now it could be my points distribution, or I just suck.   But I'll take that over D3's "start from scratch if you leave the instance and the boss isn't dead yet."

I'm not sure if the boss's HP goes back to full if you choose to revive in town -- I chose not to find out.   You can of course send your pet off for potions, but this particular boss seemed able to toss things as far as the respawn point.
========================
I played hours of co-op with an overseas Steam pal, and it worked beautifully. Narry a drop or slowdown in sight. It was fun, and the game did seem to appropriately scale up the baddy-intensity.

-The Steam friends list integration seemed to work at least a bit for me, and it's really easy to add Steam pals to the Runic game browser (by e-mail or SteamID).
-You can password protect games, and choose to only see Friends' games on the list.
-There's a checkbox option to randomize stuff. I think maybe that means if you're hosting a game you already started in, it'll randomize some things when you start the game online, something like that.

-Text chat's in a decent size window in the lower left that you can one-click to remove (it fades if nobody chats for a bit, and comes back when someone does).
-Caption bubbles! Nice caption bubbles (I think it's sort of brown text over a light color background) for text chat.

I need to see if you can link item descriptions in at least a game's text chat.

[Blackjack]

Saw this cool thread at the forums. Could be spoiler-ish in terms of discovering enemies and stuff in later acts, but doesn't seem to detail quests per se.

Tiny details in game that make you feel "Oooo that's neat!"
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=36579
A few more general kudos there:

the difficulty of co-op elite mode
I like that it makes me want to reduce the difficulty
as compared to being too easy once everyone is well equipped
...
1) All four attributes in the game are useful for EVERYONE.
4) Boss fights aren't just HP sponges with abilities that take 50% of your life right away. Their abilities are dodgeable (but hurt), but the farther into the game you go, the more unique the bosses feel.
...
To be honest... The entire open world feeling of the game. It isn't linear in the slightest and I find myself doing all the events and exploring more then finishing all the quests :S
...
Monsters sleeping at camps only to get woken up by the raiding "adventurer". This one was great because it never made sense that mobs don't sleep in other games.

The time of day change in Act II as I progressed through it [this happens in Act I too - very cool - BJ]. I loved this.
...
Not just because they deliver way better content quality over D3 and TL1 and D2 put together

but because they actually really paid close attention to those really little thins in the World animation, Fight animation, Skills & Spell animation

the fluid movement of everything combined, and the transparent attacks and transition from casting spell to fighting and reversal, the fighting is just so fluid and fun

it's simply Fantastic, like a Dream come true.
...

So, if you're wondering if Torchlight 2 is worth our $20, I think the answer from most, including me, is "Yes!"   But mostly, just because it's very fun. I don't think I ever stopped smiling when I was playing it, not even that boss that killed me like 12 times in a row.  

[Eel Snave]

You jerks are going to make me buy this.

[Hotfreak]

You jerks are going to make me buy this.

Don't buy it.  Sure, it's fun, interesting and extremely addictive, but who wants that?  Pleasure is overrated.  You should work more and spend your money on cough syrup.

edit:

I've been (pleasantly) surprised by how different TL2 feels from Torchlight.  I love the faster pace, actual quests (rather than "Kill <random name> on Floor <#> of the dungeon"), and the little surprises like the phase beast challenge.  My only concern is that I'm three hours in and I feel extremely overpowered, even on Veteran difficulty.  Powerful loot pops out like candy from a pinata and I'm just decimating everything.  I hope it gets harder as it goes.

I managed to make some builds that got rolled in Veteran.  My more educated builds (all around 20) seem to be able to easily avoid death.  Still, you can't charge into everything like I imagine you can on the lower difficutly settings.

[CeeKay]

You jerks are going to make me buy this.

yes, and that's Mister Jerk to you.

[rittchard]

I just can't believe a company can make a game with the options in skill trees like this and a game in dev for 10 years like D3 can't come close in terms of customization. I am blown away at how many ways I can spec my character AT LEVEL 15. So far nothing but praise for this game from me.

It's pretty maddening isn't it?  TL2 really captures the feel of D2 (and maybe takes it even further?) from the customization/specialization standpoint.  Thanks to Runic for acknowleding that ARPG players do indeed like the process of building/designing their own characters and making choices that matter for their designs.

[EddieA]

You jerks are going to make me buy this.

Assuming this code still works, you can get it for $15.99 at Gamefly PC.

[whiteboyskim]

I encountered the necro-thrall quest last night and loved it. Not going into spoilers for those who havent made it yet, but getting to fight those "particular" monsters with the glaive from Krull gave me a nerd boner so hard it punched through my desk. This game is awesome and hilarious too. Theres even a Silence of the Lambs joke that results in an awesome helmet/mask. This is just great.

[Blackjack]

So the game is great, but I am not. I misread the gem NPCs. Was trying to destroy the socketable in my rare helm (it's reward from Act 1 finale, I think). Instead... The NPC destroyed my helm. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!   Now my toon feels crippled. I seem to have a hard time finding good helms, and generally burning all my gold on potions (L26).

It did finally spur me to log out and try the XCOM demo, about 4 hours later than planned.  

[Blackjack]

Since you can't fully respec (only any of the last 3 points distributed), the Skill Calculators like at The Torchlight 2 Armory may be useful:

Torchlight 2 Armory Skill Calculator
*I think this is limited to each class's "primary" skills tree (Blitz Skill Tree for Beserker, Combat Skill Tree for Outlander etc.). Or at least, I don't see how to pull up the other two trees you get to choose from?

*My Outlander's taking a beating in Act 2 in the mid 20s, so it seems like I might have to start trying some more defensive/blinding stuff.

[Blackjack]

I'd normally breathlessly chase interesting official forum posts via the dev tracker, but the link seems to have not worked on occasions probably due to overwhelming traffic. It's working now, so here's some stuff... 

What's Next? (they don't - knock on wood - currently plan to charge for any content/equipment etc. updates)

We would like to create a some additional goodies just for fun to add to the game for a while. Things like new pets, new maps, maybe some new weapons/armor, new phase beast rooms, maybe a new dungeon type. Things like that. Oh and yes, mac version and some translations.

Names of Fame (maybe spoiler-ish, if you don't want to know your "fame nicknames" later in the game)

Spoiler for Hiden:

According to Runic's Perin:
Unrecognized
Barely Known
Recognized
Tolerated
Acknowledged
Respected
Well-Known
Liked
Memorable
Honored
Prominent
Local Hero
Widely Known
Remarkable
Ascendant
Distinguished
Prestigious
Eminent
Folk Hero
Famous
Acclaimed
Local Legend
Illustrious
Renowned
Celebrated
Lionized
Glorious
Legendary
Exalted
Fabled
Mythic
Immortal
Demigod
Unattainable

granted they take exponentially longer to get... therefore the last one is "Unattainable"

[ATB]

Finding a dungeon that replicated the treasure cave of the Goonies has cemented this game into my heart and I'm only a couple hours in.

Pure win.

(we still say that right?)

[Blackjack]

Had a "duh" revelation after reading some tips at the Torchlight Armory fan site's forums, and put points into more defensive/buff stuff on my Outlander, like:
*Sigil>Stone Pact (1400 hp recovery over 3 secs, +16% to armor for 3 secs, just from 1 pt.)
*Lore>Dodge Mastery (4% just from the 1 pt.)
*Lore>Share the Wealth (share 20% of charge benefits to pets/allies w/i 16 meters, and gain same % as a self-bonus, from 1 pt.)

All that made a huge difference in my Outlander's effectiveness/survivability, as well as the pet's.
 

[Blackjack]

Aaaand another tip (I'd seen this at forums suggested by Runic itself, and Penny Arcade's Tycho mentioned it today too): if you don't like the difficulty you're playing -- I'd recommend at least Veteran mode for most experienced hack'n'slash players -- you can change the difficulty by starting up a LAN game and choosing a different difficulty mode. Then, apparently, next time you're in single player mode it'll be the mode you chose in LAN.

My engineer found Normal mode as boring as Diablo 3's first couple difficulty modes, so I'm definitely using this trick.

[Eel Snave]

Yeah, I'm playing as an engineer in Veteran mode, and I enjoy it a ton. You guys suck for forcing me to buy this. You all literally grabbed my hand, held it over the mouse, and forced me to click the button to buy it. Bunch of jerks, wanting me to enjoy myself.

[CeeKay]

Yeah, I'm playing as an engineer in Veteran mode, and I enjoy it a ton. You guys suck for forcing me to buy this. You all literally grabbed my hand, held it over the mouse, and forced me to click the button to buy it. Bunch of jerks, wanting me to enjoy myself.

hey, we're pretty sure you were enjoying yourself before Razgon grabbed your hand.  as a matter of fact he hasn't stopped cleaning his hands since.....

[Eel Snave]

[Eel Snave]

Absolutely loving this game so far. I started as an Engineer, and he was too slow and dull for my tastes. I restarted with a Berzerker, and now I'm having a blast. Some games just have that special quality. Torchlight 2 has it.

[Soulchilde]

You jerks are going to make me buy this.

I was waiting for a sale, but I bit last night...  Borderlands 2 still has it hooks into me, but I did play my Engineer to the first main hub.  I see I will need to spend some time with this as I can spec this guy several ways.