Thyroid

Torchlight II

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It kinda made me realize I hate desert settings in general. If a desert gets used as a sort of gauntlet to get through, that's fine, but once it's put into an open-area exploration use, it's just bland as shit. I mean, to the credit of Runic Games they were able to fill the desert areas with more interesting things and unique features at least. The relation to Diablo 2 is one thing, but earlier this year I was playing WoW in earnest and ended up doing a lot of desert and Indiana Jones temple type stuff. So I'm a little overloaded with that theme and setting. I feel like deserts can only really be one thing thematically, whereas anything else can at least have more robust variations.

My mouse's connection points for clicking being super busted has finally made me lose my shit, I'm tired of trying to endure it. 24 houred myself a new mouse so that I can actually play this game without difficulty.

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I feel exactly the same way Henroid. I find them really dull. I don't know if it's because they haven't been made interesting yet or if I just had to play through so much of it in Diablo 2 that I genuinely dislike it. I love a lot of architecture from places like Pakistan and India though, so I'm pretty ok with the urban settings of a desert like environment, but roaming around in rock and sand doesn't do it for me.... but haven't played Journey yet, that looked interesting because they did something with sand dune.

Also, thanks for pointing out that thematic context(???) forests can have a variety of different styles, weather, even in the first area of Torchlight, it's essentially the same deciduous forest but eventual transits into snow... I wonder if act 2 will do something like that. There's just usually a lot more going on in terms of shapes and colour as well in a forest than a desert or arctic but I think we need to issue a challenge to game designers to figure it out, it's a made up fantasy world after all.

Also if act 3 is a god damn jungle I'll be a little annoyed, but thankful I'm out of the god damn desert.

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Act 1 is less of a foresty area and more of the base of a mountain, leading up to actual mountain range.

Act 3 is

an actual forest, like trees lining as walls and such and it's dark and scary.

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I'm convinced that I found either a bug or hidden property to Blood Hunger, the passive for Berserkers (available at level 1) that grants healing on crits.

I started a new Berserker today, with an emphasis on actives to begin with rather than building on passives right away. I've also decided to wait on Blood Hunger until my crit chances are higher later in the game. But in waiting on taking it up, I've noticed that I'm living way easier and not encountering any near-death experiences (which is a typical constant for me as a Berserker). It's not that I'm killing things faster - I've literally just sat there with a pack of mobs wailing on me and my health decayed gradually, rather than the usual sharp spiking down that I'm used to seeing.

I'm pretty sure that Blood Hunger is bugged or has the passive trait of nullifying your armor and probably your element shielding too. I'll give it a more direct test later today, but my survivability suddenly being that of a tank can't be any sort of coincidence.

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I will say, after spending some time in their desert, they have done a good job at making it feel less empty and more varied... it is still a desert.

At some point I went through a phase portal and was stuck for at least 45 minutes shooting 3 massive goos that spawned smaller goos. I was stunning and knocking back so I could last nearly indefinitely but just wasn't doing enough damage to them....

I eventually emerged 3 levels higher and now just destroying anything in the desert... so I've hit a bit of a lull. I may need to switch weapons just to make it interesting.

Also the transmuter can officially be the new shitty wizard, because that piece of shit raccoon sucks. If I put in 3 pretty decent gems I should get 1 really kick ass gem. instead, I get one shit gem.

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Some content spoilers for the desert / Act 2, based on what you just said about the desert Murdoc.

When I hit the second half of Act 2 (being able to exit the town on the north side) I suddenly went from being a little over-leveled to a little under-leveled for content. At least by the portal recommendations. It didn't last though, because level gains sky-rocketed for me in this portion of the game.

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While I've been really enjoying the character progression and loot elements of this game, I had gotten to the point around level 30 or so of an engineer that I was finding the combat rather uninteresting. Click on enemy, click on other enemy, use skill, guzzle potion, et cetera...

One thing that did sort of spice up the game for me was pretending that I was playing on hardcore mode. Something about really focusing on not dying ever made the combat feel a little more strategic to me. It's also possible that I just specced my character in a really boring direction (mostly down the construction tree).

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I used a respec potion on my mid-40's Engineer, and found myself regretting it pretty much immediately. My build is now 'better', but I feel a bit more detached from my character now that I don't have all of those skill points in odd places that don't usually make sense. I'm tempted to spec back into my stupid I-don't-know-where-to-put-any-of-these-points build so that it feels a little more natural.

On the bright side, playing a ranged Embermage after a melee-focused Engineer is a fresh of breath air. The only downside being that I've now leveled my wizard up to Act II, which is a bit too familiar to be appealing to me right now.

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Decided to start a veteran hardcore Outlander named Milo. His panther is named Otis. I'm afraid of everything.

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Wow, Act 3 is really substantial. I was worried about it for a bit because of the first dungeon being really bland regarding the types of enemies fought, but everything past that has been so cool to look at. I even managed to die while being wowed by something.

There's little critters in the first outdoor area, the swamp, that lash you with their tongue and pull you in Scorpion-style. I came up to an NPC with a quest, standing right next to the entrance, and one of these things was just on the other side of her. Plus, there was a swamp troll nearby - the first I'd seen this model outside the boss in the goblin mine from Act 1. Those things are big, and this one just so happened to be a champion. So I got pulled in by the tongue lash from pretty far, immediately thinking, "Wow, they reach that far, and that troll thing is huge." While I was being reeled in, the troll was picking up its scythe, and I wasn't really able to finish the thought process before said scythe hacked directly down on the spot I was pulled to, doing almost 2000 damage and killing me in a single shot. There was no delay on my part in any of this. It was just some fucked up, perfectly executed 1-2 hit I had no chance of getting out of.

My first thought after "OH GOD" was "Torchlight 2's roguelike face finally showed itself to me, and taught me to respect the game."

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I just met the Djinni and I believe that over half of my play time now has been Act 2. This game really is huge, much much bigger than I expected. I am getting a bit bored with the desert setting though, so I'm really looking forward to Act 3!

Also, is it normal for me to only just now find a healing spell? I rarely get spells drop (maybe because I'm an Outlander?) and I finally found a healing spell from a vendor. This should save me thousands of gold on potions now.

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I've played most of the way through the demo with all of the classes, and I still can't decide which one to play when I get the full game. Loving the Outlander's DPS options and speed, but the Engineer's robot control and spells seem like they could be really cool over time...

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Spell drops are kinda haphazard tankadillo. I usually find one once in a great while, or I find a few within a few minutes of each other in the same great-while.

So I beat the game today. Seeing how great Act 3 was pushed me into overdrive and I really ran at the game hard, and soon enough I was fighting the Alchemist and everything. I actually wasn't aware of how far along I was in the game until I was told to go get him directly. Anyway, time for some spoiler type stuff, regarding what happens when you beat the game and all.

The map works is a pretty great place. It's a very nice centralized hub of everything you need if you're running random dungeons for gear. The maps you pick come with great bonuses, like some will apply buffs or debuffs to you plus your pet and minions, and/or the monsters therein. My first pick involved me having a reading comprehension failure; it noted that I would do 200% more damage and my cast speed and attack speed would be reduced by 50%. Turns out, it actually meant reduced speed, so I was swinging my staff to break urns and casting magic in a god awful time warp.

One thing I'm disappointed with in this game is how much it parallels Diablo 2. I'm talking like lifting the design docs and putting a new face on everything. All the acts of the two games line up; act one is grasslands and mountainous region; act 2 is a desert; act 3 is a forest (jungle) and bog; act 4 is a fire pit. And the stories are the same goddamn thing too. Hero from previous game is corrupted, go get him. Only I guess the story from Lord of Destruction, the Diablo 2 expansion, got wrapped up into it too (breaking a barrier to hell / the netherworld). Not that story is something that drives why I play this game. But it was almost like they didn't try on that front. At least with the setting similarities they really pushed to have their own atmosphere, and I'm admittedly generalizing in that sense. Act 3 had a very halloween (as in the holiday) feel to it, vs. the jungles of Diablo 2.

I will say I'm pleased as punch about the prominence of steampunk in this game vs. part 1. It helps shape the game with its own face / character.

Anyway, serious spoiler talk aside, I came across an easter egg but I'll tag it too in case people like to discover this sorta thing. Though this is randomly found.

tl2easteregg1.png

U BUY SOJ?

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Wow, you guys were right about Act 3 being really good. I've only just started and all of the encounters so far feel much more substantial than Act 1 or 2. Also, on the first day of October I get a bunch of masks drop. Coincidence? (I hate it when my coolest looking armor has the lowest stats.)

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I'm convinced that I found either a bug or hidden property to Blood Hunger

You might be on to something. My survivability has dropped farther and farther it seems the more points I put into that skill. I thought it was just a bad build vs. ever increasing difficulty, but yeah, the amount of damage spikes I get is through the roof now after 12 points in that skill, and I can't seem to ever have enough armor / resistances.

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I've been leveling up my outlander's shadowling ammo skill a lot lately, and my favorite thing in this game now is that the bugs you can squish are able to spawn shadowlings. My guy is running around stomping cockroaches and making their ghosts fight for him.

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Stomping on critters triggers any of your "on kill" procs, it's fucking great. I've stepped on bugs and triggered my staff's 2% chance on kill to heal completely.

First balancing patch has come out. Prismatic Bolt got nerfed, sorta, it's still super strong. Glaive Throw got nerfed too (and WoW mentalities have struck as a result). Battle Standard got fixed so you don't have infinite mana with it. Lots of other stuff. Those are the biggest changes though.

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I've been leveling up my outlander's shadowling ammo skill a lot lately, and my favorite thing in this game now is that the bugs you can squish are able to spawn shadowlings. My guy is running around stomping cockroaches and making their ghosts fight for him.

Couldn't agree more. Conjuring up an army of Nazghul wannabees is strangely satisfying. I can't help but utter a quiet "get em, my pretties" every now and then.

That being said (and I haven't finished the game yet), is it just me or does this game feel substantially different from the first outing? It's still good, but it's almost as if part of the charme is gone and something is missing. That may be the shitty wizard, but I can't quite put my finger on it yet.

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I'm not very in yet (I just beat the first "chapter" boss and moved out of that area) but I feel like the observation made on the thumbscast is spot on. It doesn't feel as intimate. I really feel like the art, presentation, and style have been "kicked up a notch" from the first game. To me the charm is really stronger then it ever has been before.

Is it just me or does something about this feel oddly unfinished for a game that's been delayed so much? Stuff like not being able to change your difficulty from the menu systems seems oddly lacking. I'm also not the biggest fan of having to sign up for yet another account. I wish Ruinic had just purely used steamworks so I didn't have to deal with that (if there is a way to link them or something so I can stop signing in someone PLEASE let me know!).

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I know it is a zillion years later, but I recently started playing this game and really enjoyed your points from the past.

 

 

Same! I read through the entire thread, you all had such good points to make about Torchlight and ARPGs in general. I've had a massive torchlight II binge yesterday and today, using the Necromancer (from the Synergies mod) to swamp my enemies with chittering fiends and then pummel them to bits. FUN 

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How funny, the wife and I just started playing this over the weekend.  I had thought I might be done with ARPGs after completely bouncing off Diablo 3, but so far I'm loving T2.  Punching things with the Berserker is soooo good.  We need to turn the difficulty up though, not enough stuff to kill on Normal.

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I think I'll make the berserker my next class, I like the sound of getting stuck in, swinging away with claws and getting lots of crits. Can I add you on Steam, Bjorn? Would be up for some co-op.

And give Synergies a whirl if you want more baddies to bash. There are *thousands*

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Add away, my profile name is bjorndadwarf.  I'd be up for doing some co-op with it, though you may be far outleveling us.  I think our characters are only level 11 (we just played for a couple of hours).  I did make another character to mess around with, but don't know how much I'll play without my wife.  On past games, I've ended up burning myself out on a game before we finished it together because I wanted to play more often than she did.

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While my PC is still busted, just before it did, I got back into the game again and was trying to poke around at mods. I still can't imagine playing the game without the passive-skill tiers mod, and I found a better mod for unlocking all hairstyles / colors / faces for all character classes. Unfortunately it has a built-in expand-your-inventory mod, which feels rather unnecessary.

 

I also stumbled upon a couple mods that add more random room designs, but without access to my computer I couldn't tell you what their names are.

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