[Victrix]

words

Torchlight suffered from the same problems

The skill trees are just really slapdash, with tons of activated abilities, so you can end up with a bar full of abilities, each of which has a relatively minimal effect. On top of that, universal spells, filling up even more brain and bar space (I'll just pretend the inability to bind keys was somehow a-ok in a game you needed your entire hotbar and then some to play, text file editing ahoy)

I suppose the idea is that you pick a handful that you like, then pump just those and passives, which, given the breadth that appears to be available in TL2 is probably a wise idea

Health and mana potions are archaic, as are identify and town portal scrolls, I don't know if they kept them just for traditions sake or what (only a good idea if the 'tradition' was a good one to begin with). That said, your pet being able to buy them renders the hassle of town trips very minimal, and basic magic items are id'd, so at least you only id the 'cool' items, or 'figure out' what they are over time.

Mana problems might go away later in the game, I don't know, but I'm already sick of chugging them constantly as a Berserker so that I can use my skills to fight with!

The fact that this game is moddable might mean that someone can hack in a regenerating resource system - the very excellent Torchlight Overhaul Mod (http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=16521) did exactly that, and added some sanity to the skill tree, so perhaps we'll see the same thing this time around.

Same story on respecs. Free up until level 10. Whut? Go modders.

This may simply be inexperience, but in TL1 I found the screen was quickly covered in giant text numbers, critical hit indicators, explosions, and bright colors, on top of all the enemies. I could rarely tell what the hell was going on. So far, I'm having the same problem in TL2 - once I'm in the middle of a scrum, I can't reliably pick out key targets, too many effects going off.

Anyway, all that aside - the game looks beautiful, and my complaints about targeting difficulty are rendered mostly moot if you're playing a lower difficulty than Elite (or a ranged class).

The music is also beautiful, backgrounds are wonderful, and combat (visibility aside) is a glorious riot of chaos and gibs (finally! some gibs again!), with some nice meaty impact to the skills and even cool basic attacks (smashing fools with a two handed hammer was gratifying)

Whatever my complaints, this game is $20 and moddable, and those two factors together make it easily worth buying, even on the threshold of hell's gates as we are.

[99%]

Thanks for that write up krameriffic and victrix.

Kind of makes me regret my preorder though, but maybe they can fix it. Just seems like it still has some of the issues of the first one (lazy skills and trees).

How does the combat feel compared to D3? Is nice and heavy?

[FieryBalrog]

Thanks for that write up krameriffic and victrix. Kind of makes me regret my preorder though, but maybe they can fix it. Just seems like it still has some of the issues of the first one (lazy skills and trees). How does the combat feel compared to D3? Is nice and heavy?

It's good. Not so much cool ragdolling and physics and destructible terrain obviously, there are some things money can buy. But death animations are usually pretty good, especially on skeletons (they have a nice "coming to life" animation too). Weapon & skill sounds and effects are very satisfying, the combat flows nicely, etc.

The skill trees are better than the TL1. Now they're not perfect, and there's still way too many boring passives that I'm expected to dump my points into instead of fun stuff, but at least there aren't the very very dull shared passives of TL1.

The no respec thing I don't get at all, I brought it up and Runic said they're still working on the final system. But it's moddable anyway.

I suppose it depends which difficulty you choose. The difficulty mechanics are different in this than Diablo. I had a lot of trouble as a melee class against the first boss, but that's a combination of being on the highest difficulty against a boss that is very poorly designed because of its EXTREME unfriendliness to melee. Blizzard learned not to do this over its years of WoW development, but Runic has not. Being a melee against a melee boss who does 3/4 of your health in one hit is just fucking stupid.

I find the game way harder on melee too. Engineer makes Berserker look like a joke, part of this is because of the super high default run speed that makes auto-attack kiting possible forever. Add to that a giant cannon that knockbacks and stuns, and...

Mana on a strength based melee class basically means "you get to use your regular attack all the time" because your skills consume WAY too much mana and mana leech items are not particularly common (at least in the early stages of the game). The skill system in Diablo 3 at least has you constantly using skills, whether they be resource builders or spenders, or simply abilities that cost so little that they never deplete your resource (like on the WD).

Yup, I had the exact same issue with mana on my Berserker. On Engineer it doesn't matter as much because the cannon autoattack is so powerful and kiting is so easy that it doesn't feel bad to use autoattack, though it does get a little repetitive.

[vaelic]

so I entered my beta key and installed the game , an hour later its done and i click PLAY and its asking for my key but i forget it now and they didnt email me confirmation........ where can i find it again?

[mysocksarepink]

hey guys :) I got my key from mmorpg earlier today


couple questions.

In TL1, there was a hub and dungeons.. that's it, right?


this game is open world, correct? I've been playing it and it seems VASTLY different from tl1


is it a large world?

[Adnor]

so I entered my beta key and installed the game , an hour later its done and i click PLAY and its asking for my key but i forget it now and they didnt email me confirmation........ where can i find it again?

https://secure.runicgames.com/
It's in "View my product keys"

[FieryBalrog]

hey guys :) I got my key from mmorpg earlier today couple questions. In TL1, there was a hub and dungeons.. that's it, right? this game is open world, correct? I've been playing it and it seems VASTLY different from tl1 is it a large world?

TL was a single dungeon and a small town, exactly like D1.

TL2 is kinda like D2, a few towns and large open world areas with quests in them. It's a very similar change as that from D1 to D2.

[mysocksarepink]

TL was a single dungeon and a small town, exactly like D1. TL2 is kinda like D2, a few towns and large open world areas with quests in them. It's a very similar change as that from D1 to D2.

awesome :) thanks

what was the price point rumored to be ? 30?

[evlcookie]

awesome :) thanks what was the price point rumored to be ? 30?

It's already on steam for pre-purchase at $20. Along with other DD sites.

[mysocksarepink]

It's already on steam for pre-purchase at $20. Along with other DD sites.

*buys*


hey, I just created a game "GAF" join up suckaz

[Easy_D]

hey guys :) I got my key from mmorpg earlier today couple questions. In TL1, there was a hub and dungeons.. that's it, right? this game is open world, correct? I've been playing it and it seems VASTLY different from tl1 is it a large world?

Ever play Diablo 2? It's like that. Semi-open worlds split up into acts.

[krameriffic]

Thanks for that write up krameriffic and victrix. Kind of makes me regret my preorder though, but maybe they can fix it. Just seems like it still has some of the issues of the first one (lazy skills and trees). How does the combat feel compared to D3? Is nice and heavy?

It feels very good when you can get in there and kill some stuff, but I spend too much time out of mana and quaffing potions to get it back to do this consistently. Plus, the Berserker is not tanky at all. Trying to go into a group of mobs on the hardest difficult is suicide. Luckily he does have a good skill that jumps you around while dealing damage, sort of a blinkstrike. It is fun to use to get in and out of fights, but it does very little damage and you basically play a hit and run style. Jump in, attack once or twice and jump out.

Let me just say that the game is by no means bad. I made that post for the sake of pointing out everything that I didn't like, but most everything else is solid and competent. It's more flavorful and fun than PoE in my opinion, which just felt bland across the board. Some people might really relish the difficulty I was experiencing, and maybe it's less frustrating and annoying on the lower settings, but a lot of it just feels like there's not much I can do to change how it plays, specifically the mana issues. Maybe it's intentional, at least early on, to have mana be something that's constantly holding you back. I found a few items that had +mana on hit, but they were all fairly small figure (+5-10) and when your skills used 20-30 mana a cast and you only have a pool of about 100, it doesn't make a huge difference.

[The Grim Heaper]

Missed the giveaway again, damn it.

Yup, same here. ;;

But hey, I missed it because I saw the Avengers and that was awesome. So I'm not too sad about it!

[Weenerz]

Anyone able to get an extra key?

[moop1167]

If someone has a key they don't need I'll gift you a game on steam that is $10 or less.

[Miletius]

So it turns out the cannons are short range weapons. Gah! Playing the engineer HC Elite might just give me a heart attack. I wanted to go down the middle tree and play a long ranger but I think it might be safer to go sword and board since apparently Engineers don't work with ranged weapons.

I'm finding it rather tough to stay on pace with levels as I'm exploring new areas too. I need to gain a few more before I'm comfortable hopping into one of the optional dungeons. I did the first one as soon as I can and came close to death more than once.

[Ettie]

Crap crap crap. Why do I have to be traveling this weekend?!?!


Hope they start doing larger giveaways, I have to get two...

[19 & 21]

*buys* hey, I just created a game "GAF" join up suckaz

I'm in there. You've been standing in place for 15 minutes.

[Balehead]

Well it seems my firewall or something is blocking me from multiplayer, I can't join most games and the in the one I joined the host was AFK so who knows. Hosting a game atm just in case, but no one's joined in 15 minutes so far. Not that big of a deal really, the hosted SP is still nice and all.

[Morokh]

Also, as far as game design goes, you don't really start to appreciate the different resource systems in Diablo 3 until you play a game that doesn't have them. Mana on a strength based melee class basically means "you get to use your regular attack all the time" because your skills consume WAY too much mana and mana leech items are not particularly common (at least in the early stages of the game). The skill system in Diablo 3 at least has you constantly using skills, whether they be resource builders or spenders, or simply abilities that cost so little that they never deplete your resource (like on the WD). In this system, the bread and butter attacks consume a hefty chunk (~10-15% of my mana per use), and my utility skills consume about 30-50% of it. In fairness, Diablo 2 had weird mana scaling issues early on as well, but with the benefit of 12 years of hindsight, Runic should not have made the same mistake.

The thing is the charge bars encourage you to use your normal attacks a lot for a reason, because it's the fastest way to charge them and improve the effectiveness of the your special attacks, where you can make the most out of it with your limited mana pool.

There is a idea of resource management there that just completely disappeared with Diablo 3, because with their system you can pretty much spam everything but the higher mana cost spells. It's certainly more fun to play but in a way it almost becomes brainless button mashing.

I don't look at any of the skills in these trees and say "yes, I understand what that is, why it's good, and when to use it"

With Diablo 3 I had the same feeling about skills, but the opposite way when playing my barbarian.

'I know what it does but which weapon do I use to get the most of it, and what makes it better that this other ability ?'
It's obvious when it's a single target vs multiple target skills but everything just felt so effective that it seemed it did not even matter.

where skills give huge immobilize or stun durations, large heals, huge damage reduction. This makes them appealing to use over standard skills, which is the opposite of what they are now.

In torchlight 2 you already played on Veteran/Elite whereas if you played the Diablo 3 Beta you played 'Normal mode' (well I could say very-easy mode ... xD ) just remember that in the higher difficulties those immobilize/stun skills will be less effective than what their tooltip indicates, so you may en up with similar results.
But I too trust Blizzard to balance that a little better, since we're not talking about the same amount of resources/people working on the game.


Talking about skill trees it clearly shares some of the concerns of the first game, but they also seem way more consistent, and viable when you pick skills only in one tree from what we have so far, and seem different enough so that you can play multiple characters without playing the same way twice.

Concerning the respec system they have in the game now, it is a temporary thing, they haven't decided how they'll do that in the final game, but in the end whatever they end up doing, modders will take care of that no matter what.

[StevePharma]

Wow this is the PERFECT Diablo substitute for me.

Been in both betas and this feels so FAST. I love it.

Also runs smooth as butter on very high.

[krameriffic]

The thing is the charge bars encourage you to use your normal attacks a lot for a reason, because it's the fastest way to charge them and improve the effectiveness of the your special attacks, where you can make the most out of it with your limited mana pool. There is a idea of resource management there that just completely disappeared with Diablo 3, because with their system you can pretty much spam everything but the higher mana cost spells. It's certainly more fun to play but in a way it almost becomes brainless button mashing. With Diablo 3 I had the same feeling about skills, but the opposite way when playing my barbarian. 'I know what it does but which weapon do I use to get the most of it, and what makes it better that this other ability ?' It's obvious when it's a single target vs multiple target skills but everything just felt so effective that it seemed it did not even matter.

Hilariously, the more I have played it, the more I have come to understand that the skills on the berserker in particular are completely broken for one simple reason: -armor on hit. I've stacked up a pair of Beatdown unique fist weapons, each of which attacks insanely fast and apply -44 armor per hit. This stacks up to the point where each of my attacks is hitting literally 10 times harder than normal (~1k damage per hit at .4 second speed), as well as buffing up everybody else's attacks in the party by the same factor.

Attack speed does not extend to special skills, so I actually don't use them anymore at all since they can't stack the -armor as high. If I could respec my character, I would respec entirely out of them and into the passives instead. I would leave a point or two in my dash strike and my cleave (since fist weapons don't have built-in cleave) and that's it. It's so completely broken it's funny, but it really highlights the problems with the active skill design.

[Victrix]

Mana is a terrible resource concept, it's exceedingly binary - you use your abilities freely until, oops, you're out, no more abilities, mash potion button!

The stupid thing is that with time limited mana potion usage that regenerates instead of instantly refilling, what you have is a continuous resource system, just with the repetitive task of mash mana butan constantly, and with a gold fee tacked on to your ability usage - they could simply give you static regen and charge you in gold for ability usage and it'd boil down to the same system they have in place now (and how much fun does that sound? not very!)

At least it's moddable though, that can get tossed soon after release for something more elegant

[markot]

bbbetaaa

[19 & 21]

Hilariously, the more I have played it, the more I have come to understand that the skills on the berserker in particular are completely broken for one simple reason: -armor on hit. I've stacked up a pair of Beatdown unique fist weapons, each of which attacks insanely fast and apply -44 armor per hit. This stacks up to the point where each of my attacks is hitting literally 10 times harder than normal (~1k damage per hit at .4 second speed), as well as buffing up everybody else's attacks in the party by the same factor. Attack speed does not extend to special skills, so I actually don't use them anymore at all since they can't stack the -armor as high. If I could respec my character, I would respec entirely out of them and into the passives instead. I would leave a point or two in my dash strike and my cleave (since fist weapons don't have built-in cleave) and that's it. It's so completely broken it's funny, but it really highlights the problems with the active skill design.

But all of this could be solved by not allowing -armor to stack or at least forcing it to stack far less. Not a tough issue to crack.

[duncandun]

Alot of you complaining(not without reason) about the lack of mana should hold out on your judgement till you get a character to max level(in the beta) which is 21.


I had issues on my embermage from start to around level 14, and at this point I rarely quaff potions. Not that mana is endless, it's just in combination with mana leach and my charge I only run out maybe once in a fight. Most likely not though.

Considering this is supposed to be 1/4th of act 1 I would withhold judgement on how the gameplay will work through the majority of the game. levels 1-15ish are your newb levels. Your characters are still relatively weak and you won't be able to find the best gear possible.

This isn't really any different from the Diablo 3 beta, which I found to be extravagantly boring and stupid easy. I could just brush it aside based on those two things since it made it very not-fun for me, but I realize it was the beginning of the game and it's probably going to be easy until inferno mode.(which is just something of a legacy of Diablo 2, which was also not hard until hell mode)


that brings up another point, I LOVE having the option to turn up the difficulty from the start. Elite mode is hard. Elite mode on hardcore is unforgiving. I've gone through 5 characters so far, and made my last (embermage, still on elite diff though) non-hardcore just so I could play to the end of the beta content and not worry about it.


Also, I found quite a few of my abilities to be useful. On my emebermage I use tempest, prismatic spray, the bouncing ray one, and flame pillar(which is all i have unlocked at the moment) and I'm sure theres lots of other viable options and combinations too.

With berserker, I used the shadow dash skill, the curse that links damage across all cursed monsters, the frost howl thing and the starting bleed/damage arc thing. I only got my berserker to level 7 before I died though so I didn't get to try many of the other skills.


I feel the complaints about the skill trees are a little overstated. Perhaps more out of ignorance of the game mechanics and how it will perform in the majority of the game than anything else.

~

[Morokh]

Considering this is supposed to be 1/4th of act 1

Beta is ALL of act 1.

Played my Berserker again after reading krameriffic's post and I found a nice combination of skills too.

Take the shadow dash, and combine it with the skill that increases the way your rage bar increases, and increases it's duration, add to that the passive that heals you when you crit.

As soon as you find yourself two very fast attack speed claws, you just have to dash to heal/dodge big hits, charge your rage bar on the smallest creatures and when it's full you pretty much destroy everything while healing yourself constantly.

With that champions are just a joke compared to my Engineer, and bosses are not that hard if you dodge their big hits and are the only time i ever chug a potion or two.

Looking closer at the skill trees it seems that they are designed more in terms of synergy, than having a BIG skill destroying everything.

[duncandun]

Beta is ALL of act 1.

really? I read it was only a portion of act 1. I need to find some official statement on it...


With that said, what difficulty are you playing on?

[rCIZZLE]

Preordered it earlier and spent a couple hours last night playing through the first one. I'm really digging it so far. The floors reminds me a lot of disgaea which is a good thing. The pets are awesome too... I'm normally not a fan of cutsy type stuff in games like this but they made it work. I can see myself alternating between this and D3 when the latter drops and I can't wait for 2 and all the multiplayer goodness.

[Morokh]

really? I read it was only a portion of act 1. I need to find some official statement on it... With that said, what difficulty are you playing on?

There are some devs that are streaming and giving beta keys (you should find the link at the beginning of this topic) they stated that several times.

Berserker Veteran playthrough finished !
That was fun ! only died once, frost wielding creatures are my worst ennemies :P

Someone joined me at the end with a sword and board engineer, man that seemed powerful xD

But is there a way to link loot for others to see ? i dropped some items on the ground to show him but he did not seem to see them :o and linking in the chat Wow style does not work.

[FieryBalrog]

Mana is a terrible resource concept, it's exceedingly binary - you use your abilities freely until, oops, you're out, no more abilities, mash potion button! The stupid thing is that with time limited mana potion usage that regenerates instead of instantly refilling, what you have is a continuous resource system, just with the repetitive task of mash mana butan constantly, and with a gold fee tacked on to your ability usage - they could simply give you static regen and charge you in gold for ability usage and it'd boil down to the same system they have in place now (and how much fun does that sound? not very!)

A lot of the game seems balanced around gold, which is actually kinda dumb. I beat almost every boss on Veteran by spamming skills and potions until I ran out, sending my pet to buy more, then running in circles for 2 minutes with all the enemies chasing me while my pet returned. This is actually worse than TP-pot chugging of Diablo 2 because it's so boring, and the only check on it is how much gold you have for potions.

Once I was at like 5% health when I sent my pet out but simply running in a circle I never got hit. The default run speed is so fast you can just do this, despite packs and packs of adds being with the boss, and unless the boss has some aoe slowing skill, I don't see how they're going to stop you.

The bosses also have like 1 million HP each and are just tedious to fight. The rest of the game is way more fun.

[StevePharma]

Just played a bit in the GAF room. Got to about lvl 20 and I defeated a boss with someone else. (19&21 was that you?)

Anyway, the game is crazy fun and in some aspects I prefer it to D3. Pets ftw.

This will be a great companion to D3.

[Tendo]

I still can't download the installer. I just don't get it. It just times out. Tried ie and chrome. Nothing.

[Morokh]

The bosses also have like 1 million HP each and are just tedious to fight. The rest of the game is way more fun.

Well ..when you have a character that can't sustain the boss damage the fight just lasts forever, but actually on my Berserker playthrough, every time I was fully charged i could easily sustain any boss (exception made of Grell and his hand-cannon) and boy they went down fast, wayyyy faster than with my engineer.

I'm curious of how that will be done in D3, cause with the noob-level of difficulty they put in the beta Leoric was such a piece of cake that it was a real joke.

[MiloFoxburr]

I still can't download the installer. I just don't get it. It just times out. Tried ie and chrome. Nothing.

Plexirvones posted Mediafire links yesterday for the full client. You'll probably have more luck with them.

if anybody is still stuck on the download or having slow speeds heres mediafire links Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 just extract and open tl2.beta.launcher.exe

[mysocksarepink]

lol GAF game still going :P I left the game going all night

[Taffer]

lol GAF game still going :P I left the game going all night

I joined for about half an hour last night before bed but didn't do much, I was marvelling at all the new things. Best so far: It loads so fast I can't even read the tooltips and my massive hammer feels massive.
I'll have a proper go later but I was definitely impressed.

[FollowSmoke]

I pre-ordered this on Steam yesterday only to receive Torchlight 1 for free without even realizing it. A delightful surprise!

[ksimm]

Wow I rolled an Embermage as I wasn't really feeling the outlander, huge difference for me. I was able to slaughter General Grell so easily, and 3 levels earlier. I died so many times trying to kill him last time!
I don't know whether it was down to lack of experience with a gun equipped character or what, but I feel much more at home with my mage.

I'm really enjoying it, and can see this as a great companion game to Diablo 3. Guild Wars 2 stress test tomorrow, Diablo 3 at 11pm tomorrow, this is an amazing time for loot lovers. :]

[Deadbeat]

Does increasing focus also increase the damage from my special abilities as a berserker? I assume so because my abilities use mp so they should receive the damage bonus, but I havent really noticed. Its the double hit with two same weapons equipped that has my interest.

I was trying to play berserker with a shield but it seems that berserker is all about damage per second. I actually like this as the last time I played a game like this it was Nox and I was always the wizard because it was so stupidly overpowered NOT to be a wizard. Outlander is way too weak and the guns do not have the range I find acceptable for a range class. I might dabble into engineer but I think I found my class for retail.

[vaelic]

really? I read it was only a portion of act 1. I need to find some official statement on it... With that said, what difficulty are you playing on?

Consider this your official statement

[Nabs]

Wow, I'm liking this so much more than TL1. The beta sold me.

[duncandun]

Beta is ALL of act 1. Played my Berserker again after reading krameriffic's post and I found a nice combination of skills too. Take the shadow dash, and combine it with the skill that increases the way your rage bar increases, and increases it's duration, add to that the passive that heals you when you crit. As soon as you find yourself two very fast attack speed claws, you just have to dash to heal/dodge big hits, charge your rage bar on the smallest creatures and when it's full you pretty much destroy everything while healing yourself constantly. With that champions are just a joke compared to my Engineer, and bosses are not that hard if you dodge their big hits and are the only time i ever chug a potion or two. Looking closer at the skill trees it seems that they are designed more in terms of synergy, than having a BIG skill destroying everything.

cool. You should try on elite:) its a different game really.

[prodystopian]

Is there a way to combine stones in the beta? I could only find the guys that destroy or recover embers within items but not anyone that combines them to make the bigger ones.

[Shadowhaxor]

lol GAF game still going :P I left the game going all night

Good game today. I was the Embermage, Chaosstryker. Definitely preordered 2 copies, one for me and one for the family PC. What's amazing is I'm actually more psyched to play this than I am for Diablo 3 (Oh course I'm still getting D3, I'm not stupid).

[atomsk]

Hit max level and explored all the possible content, quite the meaty beta.

Dunno if I want to reroll, would like to save it for the retail release probably

[Kalnos]

Elite difficulty seems absurd for one player. The challenge seems to be having enough gold...

[Jira]

Elite difficulty seems absurd for one player. The challenge seems to be having enough gold...

The economy balance on Veteran and Elite is a serious issue. Considering you have to chug potions to stay alive or use skills, you're kinda SOL and forced to run in circles.

As a whole Path of Exile handles the potions thing better, but D3 goes all the way by eliminating them entirely and giving every class a unique mechanic. I don't think Mana should exist as a mechanic in gaming anymore.

[TxdoHawk]

The "official" stream is giving out beta keys again. 2 hour intervals or when the guy dies. Next timed giveaway is at 4am EST. I need to go sleep, work tomorrow, but maybe somebody else on GAF can win themselves some keys.

[Davedough]

It's a little bit of a wait, but a small blog I write for has a scant 15 keys to give away in a contest located here: http://justpressstart.net/?p=9075

Yes, this is self promotion, I was told that entering the official thread and doing a post is acceptable, but doing a thread about it is not. So, if you'd like to enter, all you have to do is comment. Winners will be picked at random on after the deadline Wednesday May 16th.