Torchlight 2 Open Beta +Small review

[GoGoFrenzy]

Couldn't disagree more with the OP as far as combat. It's my favorite feature of the game so far!!

It is fantastic and actually has been rated the best when compared to Path of Exile (expected cause that is clunky as heck) and even Diablo 3.

Love how the shift and control keys affect combat.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Well I won't go into great detail on comparisons but Torchlight 2 feels like it was made by the Diablo devs

Well it is...

Anyway, I think it's fantastic. Fixes all the problems of T1, which I liked, although it was far to easy and repetitive

I can't wait for the game, so freaking fun.

 

[General Twinkletoes]

Sounds like it suffers the same problems as the original as its a good game but still too easy. Damnit! I'm actually really upset about that.

It's not very easy. I played on veteran and some of the boss fights were really hard. On elite I think it'd be very very hard.

 

[Cavan]

Can I point out to the OP and anybody else that while you do get a crap ton of potions, you actually cannot chain drink them at 10 pps(potions per second), there's about a 10 second delay before you can again.

 

[Smooth Operator]

From what I've seen, they are both very similar to WoW's design with Diablo 2 mechanics.

I have to say, I absolutely hate the toony design in both of them. They make me feel like playing Titans Quest and Diablo 2.

Well Torchlight might share the colorful nature but the designs don't really resemble, meanwhile D3 feels very close to WoW, the animations, model style and writing bring me right back to to my WoW binge years, not to mention the whole MMO system surrounding it.

But anyway it's true that these aren't very grim-dark games, there is however a third contender called Path of Exile that is far more grim and it does need lots of love now that it's been completely overshadowed by the big names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuPwHYlrHCA

 

[romanator0]

Having been in the beta for several days now and completing it on 3 of the 4 classes on 2 of the difficulties I have to say that Torchlight 2 is one of the funnest action rpgs and one of the funnest games I've played in a while.

As far as isometric action rpgs go I have only ever played the original Torchlight, Titan Quest, Bastion and a bit of time in the Path of Exile beta and I've put more time in Torchlight than the others. Comparing Torchlight 2 to the original I would say that Torchlight 2 upon Torchlight 1 in every way.

The gameplay in Torchlight 2 is faster than the first game and the combat feels crunchier. Basic attacks in Torchlight 2 have a good amount of impact and the skills feel really satisfying to use. Every weapon type works differently than the others in some way and adds a dimension to making your playstyle as you have to decide whether or not you prefer the mid-range arc of a shotgonne to the long-range shots of a crossbow or whether you prefer the quick armor-ignoring strikes of claws to the slow wide arcs of a hammer. In Torchlight 2 you can equip any non class-specific piece of gear as long as you reach either a level requirement or certain statistical requirements.

Like in Torchlight 1 there are 4 stats in Torchlight 2: Strength, Focus, Dexterity and Vitality. Unlike Torchlight 1 every stat is useful for every class in number 2. Strength increases your attack and critical damage, Dexterity increases your dodge and critical hit chance, Focus increases your maximum mana points, increases your magic damage and also increases your chance to execute which is when you strike with both weapons at once if you are dual-wielding 2 of the same weapon type. Vitality increases your health pool and your armor rating.

The classes in Torchlight 2 have a good deal more uniqueness to them than the ones in the first game did. They each have their own passive charge bar which affects their playstyle in some way. They also have a lot more active skills compared to Torchlight 1 and what passive skills they do have are unique to the classes and aren't shared between them. There are a few balance issues with a few of the skills and certain builds in the beta, and the skill trees are also going to be changing in some ways before launch but the changes won't be in the beta so I can't comment on that.

The 4 classes in Torchlight 2 consists of the Berserker, the Outlander, the Embermage and the Engineer.

The Berserker is my favorite class of the 4. The Berserker focuses more on dual-wielding and getting critical hits, although using 2-handed weapons is perfectly viable. The Berserker's charge bar fills up every time you hit an enemy and when it's full you enter a Frenzy state in which you gain increased movement speed and all of your attacks are critical hits. The Berserker can put points into either the Hunter, Tundra or Shadow trees. The hunter tree is focused more on melee skills and hitting hard. The tundra tree is focused more on ice damage and magical type attacks. The shadow tree is focused more on bypassing armor, hitting groups of enemies and life-leeching.

The Engineer is more of a tankey type class than any of the others. The Engineer's charge bar consists of 5 pips which fill up when you attack enemies. Certain skills use the pips on the charge bar to become more powerful. The Engineer can put points into either the Blitz, Construction or Aegis trees. The Blitz tree focuses more on using 2-handed melee weapons and fighting groups of enemies. The Construction tree focuses on using mechanical-eque skills like summoning a turret or heal bot or lobbing a grenade. The Aegis tree focuses on using a shield in combat and protecting your allies by tanking blows.

The Embermage is your standard mage class. The Embermage's charge bar is rather simple, when it's full your magic attacks are 25% more powerful and consume no mana. The Embermage can put points into either the Inferno, Frost or Storm trees. The Inferno tree is focused on hard-hitting fire attacks, whether they hit a large area or only a single target. The Frost tree isn't as damage focused as the Inferno tree but puts more emphasis on crowd-control with slowing and immobilizing skills. The Storm tree is based around short-range electric damage and causing knockback and explosions on death.

I can't speak very much on the Outlander as I have only played it once and I haven't played it all the way through the beta. The Outlander's charge bar gives them a variety of stat boosts as it fills up. They get improved cast speed, chance to dodge and get critical hits and improved attack speed. They can put points into either their Warfare, Lore or Sigil trees. The Warfare tree is focused on using ranged weapons such as bows, crossbows, shotgonnes and pistols. The Lore tree is focused on keeping enemies away by using the Outlander's glaive. The Sigil tree seems to be focused around using curse type attacks on your enemies.

The world of Torchlight 2 is also done much better than in Torchlight 1. Whereas in Torchlight 1 you only had a single town and 1 long dungeon that got a bit samey after a while, the beta for Torchlight 2 had a single town with several over-world areas, each with at least 1 dungeon in them. There were 2 rather large and open main areas that had several dungeons each in them. These areas also had several different kinds of monsters in different areas that helped make the areas actually feel like a world. There were also a couple of "transition" areas that connected the larger areas to the town. These were smaller and more linear than the other zones and only had 1 dungeon each in them. The 2 larger zones also had waypoints near the entrances that connected to the town so you wouldn't have to run through the transition zones constantly to get back to town. The areas are also randomized much better than in Torchlight 1. Unlike in Torchlight 1 where the areas started to feel samey, areas in Torchlight 2 are randomized with many more set-pieces and in a much more varied way so the same areas don't always seem like the same places.

I've played both by myself and in groups of random people and the game is fun in both single and multiplayer. Playing singleplayer allows you to take your time more and analyze things better whereas playing in a group of random strangers, while still extremely fun and more challenging due to the scaling of monsters, felt just a bit frantic and like I was constantly rushing everywhere. I'm sure if you were playing with a group of friends or family the pacing will probably be different.

The difficulty of Torchlight 2 is higher than the original game and playing with other people makes the monsters scale up in damage and health and the game becomes even more difficult. I haven't been able to do any multiplayer on Veteran difficulty but in Normal mode some bosses were able to nearly one-shot some of my characters and it made have to actually be careful.

As far as the length of the game goes it has been extremely varied for me. The beta consists of the full Act 1 of the game and when going everywhere and seeing everything I could on 4 characters I have found that it has taken me sometimes just under 6 hours on some characters and sometimes just under 12 on others. Acts 2 and 3 are supposed to be even bigger than the first and there is supposed to be a fourth act after that.

All-in-all I would say that Torchlight 2 is one of the funnest action rpgs I've ever played and is already well worth the $20 that I'll be spending on it.

 

[romanator0]

How are you making the Berseker work?

Wouldn't mind knowing this as well, although I've attempted to make a lifestealing mostly shadow beserker (lifesteal from hunters tree, which lifesteals on crits then shadow abilities) which whilst I'm not getting loads of crits right now, I'm sure later on with loads of vitality it would be much more viable. As of now I'm having to be fairly careful and can't just dive into everything.

A lot of it comes down to what gear you're using. If you're dual-wielding you should try to use 2 weapons of the same type so you can land plenty of execute attacks. Focusing your skill points on Frenzy Mastery, Blood Hunger and Executioner are good if you want to focus on building your charge and life-leeching, it's also good to put the majority of your stat points in strength if you want to hit hard. That particular build is rather squishy when you're not in frenzy mode but when you are you clear out groups of enemies very quickly. It's also best to put at least 1 point in shadow burst so you can regenerate health while staying mobile.

Another build I used was using 2-handed weapons with putting points in Raze and Shadow Burst and pumping up Cold Steel Mastery to help increase my damage output. Frost Breath and Storm Claw help a bit too but they don't last long and not many points are needed in those skills.

 

[Nazulu]

From what I've seen, they are both very similar to WoW's design with Diablo 2 mechanics.

I have to say, I absolutely hate the toony design in both of them. They make me feel like playing Titans Quest and Diablo 2.

Well Torchlight might share the colorful nature but the designs don't really resemble, meanwhile D3 feels very close to WoW, the animations, model style and writing bring me right back to to my WoW binge years, not to mention the whole MMO system surrounding it.

But anyway it's true that these aren't very grim-dark games, there is however a third contender called Path of Exile that is far more grim and it does need lots of love now that it's been completely overshadowed by the big names.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuPwHYlrHCA

You Beauty! Thanks for sharing that, I may have a game to look forward to now

From what I saw in the vid it's pretty basic, but hopefully with the more research I do the more it will interest me.

 

[Fappy]

Just finished the TL2 beta. As far as I can tell it is only Act 1 and I have got to say, it was a lot of fun. Berserkers are OP as shit.

Really? I just made one, got him to level 6 and he can't take a freakin' hit despite the 10 points I pumped into his vitality and his moderately good armor. And his knuckles do crappy damage too, even though they have 25 strength attribute points backing them up on top of their 50-ish damage.

How are you making the Berseker work?

A few posts down from your own someone details it pretty well. Attribute-wise I emphasized Strength + Dex over Vitality and Focus, though I did put a decent amount of points into everything. Strength for damage, vitality for tankiness, Dex for crit and Focus for Execute chance. I focus almost entirely on the Hunter tree and dipped in the passives from the other two (which are really good). I pumped up "Executioner" and "Blood Hunger" so that that I would enrage more often and be damn near unkillable while raging. High execute chance + "Raze" means you are going to be raging very, very often. Raze is a must and is totally insane.

While fighting a lot of mobs my usual rotation looks like (auto-attacks are thrown in there too of course): "Wolfstrike"->"Howl"->"Eviscerate"->"Raze" anyone who is almost dead.

Against bosses you want to keep your bleed dots/debuffs from eviscerate and howl up and you pretty much want to spam raze. Having MP steal on one of your weapons helps with this a lot. In boss battles you should be raging at least 60-70% of the fight since you can generate charge against bosses super easily.

Hope that helped!

 

[careful]

Compare it to Diablo 3 (if you have it), what do you like or dislike compare to it?

Why? Its like comparing Bioshock to HalfLife just because they are both FPS. Just like Bioshock and HalfLife show, games in the same genre with the same general mechanics can offer a very different experience. I think there's a good way to test how different they are: play D3 for a while until your sick of it and have to stop. Then start playing TL2. Does that fatigue persist? If yes then immediately switch to an entirely different game that you know you like. If that fatigue persists still, then you prolly just need a break from your game session. If you can think of a better way to test the difference (in gameplay experience) then be sure to let me know.

Graphics
The skills of both games are "colorful/flashy" and you can distinguish each skill from each other.

Yeah that's a good consideration. Insofar as I've played I would agree with that.

Story/Quest
Comparing it to D3, I'd say TL2 has more sub-quests, but they tend to be similar, aka go fetch something or kill this, get to pick your item reward. What I've noticed as well is that the NPC's don't interact as much (so far in the game) as in D3; were for example you wanted to rescue the Blacksmiths wife, and he ran with you and open the basement door and came down with you.
I presume it's the AI engines limitation...

It might not be a limitation of the AI module though, it could have been a gameplay decision made right from the start. But the path finding in the beta so far hasn't been flawless. So you might be right here.

I played on Veteran which is the second highest out of four difficult levels. Dying is almost non-existant due to chucking down health potions.

That's why you play on elite, which is, however, unfortunately still too easy. I'll wait for a mod that increases difficulty

Basically I felt that there was no challenge in the game.

Agreed, I think this was a criticism of TL1 too. I'd say just wait for a mod that overhauls the gameplay difficulty.

Skill system
Putting point in one skill will increase it's efficient, however I don't like that you can increase one skill 15(!) points. For me it feels too much.

Fine with me. It seems to fit with the leveling & character building orientation of the game.

There is no restriction on where to put the points if you have access to the skills, so if get to level 14 and unlock new skills, I can put points in tree 2 fresh lvl 14 skill, even if I have no points whatsoever in that tree. So basically you skip out on the bad ones and cherry pick the ones you think are best.

Well I'm guessing by bad you mean less effective (in dmg output or duration etc.). I'm not sure what you mean here though, bcuz everything scales with level and current weapon DPS? I don't know how you can say one skill is superior over another. The shared properties of two given skills may vary quantitatively, meaning one might do more dmg then the other, but it seems that each skill has multiple properties, some of which are unique, that ultimately differentiate it in more then one way with any other skill.

There are also waaaay too may passive skills in each skill trees.

Some ppl like passives no? It allows you to further enhance a certain play style when you have decided on a set of active skills.

In the end I'm just using one maybe two skills and then auto attacking the rest of the time.
Why? Because a lot of skills offers less then 100% of weapon damage, so why bother using skills when you do more damage auto-attacking? In the loot section further down splash dmg will be covered.

I think in higher levels you eventually set a skill as your regular attack, like in TL1, but I don't know if it will ever exceed 100% dps.

Comparison to D3, you have way more chooses to make when it comes to skill. You don't get the option to hand pick which skill you want, but with the runes changing a skill, Diablo 3 offers more customization then TL2.

I don't disagree here, but your not taking into consideration the modding community. Its pretty much a guarantee that a mod team will make a skill overhaul. I wouldn't accuse Runic Games for relying on user made content, but you can be sure that there will be good mods to further expand on customizability.

As of stats D3 doesn't allow you to customize your stat points as they are automatically assigned to you, but you don't really have alot of real choices in TL2 (like in D2) unless you want to gimp your character.

Well maybe. But its always easy to point out boundaries ignoring the size of the bounded space.

The biggest issue I have and which irks me a lot, is that weapons do splash damage.
For melee it's every weapon, like sword, polearm, mace etc, ( except claws, but they ignore armor instead .)
For ranged the ones with splash weapon is shotgun and cannon. As I mentioned before; I was auto-attacking my way through the game due to this.

There are pros and cons to this though. But again, I think a user made mod can take advantage of this to tweak the gameplay to get something harder and also fun.

Pets got a upgrade from TL 1. You can use it to sell items and now buy potions and scrolls from town, which frankly is awesome.

Agreed, that is awesome.

It boils down to how good the editor will be though,

Technically, I would have to disagree with this. Let me reformulate your statement so we're on common ground here. I'm guessing that you are saying "The quality (replayability, technical integrity, fun factor, etc.) of any given user made mod will depend on the workflow of the editor." Workflow is the umbrella term that factors in everything like efficiency, ease of use, accessibility, functionality, extensibility, etc (Poor workflow means its hard to work with). I would agree with that, but I wouldn't say that this is the primary dependency. I think the community mod quality standards are more directly related to how much documentation Runic Games releases. The editor can be a suped up Ferrari, but if Runic doesn't tell anyone how to use it, then its not going to be used to its full potential. This was the primary shortcoming of the editor for TL1, there was almost no way to learn how to use it. People just reverse engineered the features, and the only ppl who became successful moders where people who already had a background in CG and gameplay scripting. Which means people who had good ideas but no technical skill could not implement their ideas.

 

[Syzygy23]

Just finished the TL2 beta. As far as I can tell it is only Act 1 and I have got to say, it was a lot of fun. Berserkers are OP as shit.

Really? I just made one, got him to level 6 and he can't take a freakin' hit despite the 10 points I pumped into his vitality and his moderately good armor. And his knuckles do crappy damage too, even though they have 25 strength attribute points backing them up on top of their 50-ish damage.

How are you making the Berseker work?

A few posts down from your own someone details it pretty well. Attribute-wise I emphasized Strength + Dex over Vitality and Focus, though I did put a decent amount of points into everything. Strength for damage, vitality for tankiness, Dex for crit and Focus for Execute chance. I focus almost entirely on the Hunter tree and dipped in the passives from the other two (which are really good). I pumped up "Executioner" and "Blood Hunger" so that that I would enrage more often and be damn near unkillable while raging. High execute chance + "Raze" means you are going to be raging very, very often. Raze is a must and is totally insane.

While fighting a lot of mobs my usual rotation looks like (auto-attacks are thrown in there too of course): "Wolfstrike"->"Howl"->"Eviscerate"->"Raze" anyone who is almost dead.

Against bosses you want to keep your bleed dots/debuffs from eviscerate and howl up and you pretty much want to spam raze. Having MP steal on one of your weapons helps with this a lot. In boss battles you should be raging at least 60-70% of the fight since you can generate charge against bosses super easily.

Hope that helped!

Thanks, now maybe my berserker won't feel like he's made of wet tissue paper and hit about as hard. Now all I have to do is find the perfect ratio of Strength/Dex-to-Vitality/focus...

 

[romanator0]

Just finished the TL2 beta. As far as I can tell it is only Act 1 and I have got to say, it was a lot of fun. Berserkers are OP as shit.

Really? I just made one, got him to level 6 and he can't take a freakin' hit despite the 10 points I pumped into his vitality and his moderately good armor. And his knuckles do crappy damage too, even though they have 25 strength attribute points backing them up on top of their 50-ish damage.

How are you making the Berseker work?

A few posts down from your own someone details it pretty well. Attribute-wise I emphasized Strength + Dex over Vitality and Focus, though I did put a decent amount of points into everything. Strength for damage, vitality for tankiness, Dex for crit and Focus for Execute chance. I focus almost entirely on the Hunter tree and dipped in the passives from the other two (which are really good). I pumped up "Executioner" and "Blood Hunger" so that that I would enrage more often and be damn near unkillable while raging. High execute chance + "Raze" means you are going to be raging very, very often. Raze is a must and is totally insane.

While fighting a lot of mobs my usual rotation looks like (auto-attacks are thrown in there too of course): "Wolfstrike"->"Howl"->"Eviscerate"->"Raze" anyone who is almost dead.

Against bosses you want to keep your bleed dots/debuffs from eviscerate and howl up and you pretty much want to spam raze. Having MP steal on one of your weapons helps with this a lot. In boss battles you should be raging at least 60-70% of the fight since you can generate charge against bosses super easily.

Hope that helped!

Thanks, now maybe my berserker won't feel like he's made of wet tissue paper and hit about as hard. Now all I have to do is find the perfect ratio of Strength/Dex-to-Vitality/focus...

My level 21 Berserker who is built around dual-wielding has ended up with 92 strength, 36 dexterity, 20 focus and 27 vitality. That build clears mobs pretty quickly.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

Berserker is my fave class so far. I love the Shadow tree but pick and choose according to your play style. I used Savage Rush a lot to repeatedly harm large numbers of mobs without them being able to touch me at all. Also spam Howl when you are beating up on mobs. Shadow Burst through them to heal and disrupt boss attacks. Also use passives like Frenzy. Passives help a lot.

I started out dual wielding then switched to slow two handers once I tried one. Making mobs explode on contact makes me chuckle. lol

I emphasized Strength then Dexterity over everything else. Put a bit into Vitality once in a while. But this was a normal play through. Haven't played Berserker in Veteran yet but I definitely use more Vitality right away for my Embermage (not surprising) and Outlander because the mobs hit so much harder.

I have watched the devs stream themselves playing elite hardcore runs and they seemed to pump up Vitality over everything right away.

 

[GoGoFrenzy]

Sounds like it suffers the same problems as the original as its a good game but still too easy. Damnit! I'm actually really upset about that.

You are very wrong. I suggest you try it before jumping to conclusions.