Torchlight - Runic Games

[Sjofn]

Feel free to hurl the same ranting at Lantyssa and Sjofn for sharing the same opinion on respec as I do though. Like that'll happen.  

I got scolded for wanting pants (again), what more could you want. :(

Plus I bought the game, so there!

And I don't understand why I can't be a girl for all the classes.  Would that have been so hard?

I'm always amazed that this simple lack of choice during character creation becomes a show stopper for my wife, regardless of how fun the rest of the game is or could be. This one even teased her with it's choice of dog or cat pet from level 0, which I thought would have made the sale. Some things I'll just never understand. /shrug

I find myself having less and less patience with it, myself. The game has to really tickle my fancy for me to forgive it these days. Luckily for Torchlight, it does. :D

[Sjofn]

I guess I should add it doesn't really bother me too much in first person view games like Portal (although I did get to be a lady for that and the game is too fucking awesome to not play anyway) or TF2. I'd LIKE to be a giant girl heavy in TF2, but because I never see myself, it's not as big a deal.

[Signe]

I bought it, too.  The gender/class choice bothers me a lot but I'll still play.  Even if they only have the three character choices, being able to pick a class would be a vast improvement.  Of course, it probably doesn't matter all that much after you start leveling your stats and skills.  I guess.

[Malakili]

I bought it, too.  The gender/class choice bothers me a lot but I'll still play.  Even if they only have the three character choices, being able to pick a class would be a vast improvement.  Of course, it probably doesn't matter all that much after you start leveling your stats and skills.  I guess.

I was reading a dev diary type thing about how they went about creating the three characters, and they had the idea of choosing your gender/class first, but the short cuts they had to take in order to make the art/animation reasonable within their development cycle ended up making them look really bland, so they cut that idea and went with 3 unique looking classes and were done with it.  I'll see if I can dig it up, but they had some screenshots, and the current iteration looks SOOO much better, even if it limits choice.


ETA:
Full article on development of art direction in the game: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4123/from_the_ashes_of_mythos_the_art_.php

[Signe]

Why couldn't they just use the exact same look and let you choose the class?  I don't care what they say, they could have done something else.  The way they limited it sucks.

[Malakili]

Why couldn't they just use the exact same look and let you choose the class?  I don't care what they say, they could have done something else.  The way they limited it sucks.

Animations, I assume.  I guess after the Diablo games just having the one option per class doesn't really bother me. *shrugs*

[Hawkbit]

I have my first complaint, even though it's ultimately my fault. 

I took a quest to kill a boss on level 5, killed the boss and then went to read the quest.  Then I clicked 'Abandon' instead of the X on the side, thinking that it was the close window button.  It deleted the quest so I went back to town to get it again, but it just gave me the level 6 quest instead.  I'm guessing I didn't miss out on much all around, but the loss of fame kinda stinks. 

Would be nice if they had a confirm quest deletion window.  For that matter, who wants to delete quests in a game like this?

Overall though, this was a quality purchase.

[Lantyssa]

Why couldn't they just use the exact same look and let you choose the class?  I don't care what they say, they could have done something else.  The way they limited it sucks.

Animations, I assume.  I guess after the Diablo games just having the one option per class doesn't really bother me. *shrugs*

It bugged me in Diablo, too.

Thankfully Diablo 3 is fixing this problem.

[Xanthippe]

Bought this, and LOVE IT.

I have no idea how to back up my characters.

I have a level 8 or something Vanquisher on normal and started a hard alchemist.  Found Brink but he's not following me, he's just sort of wandering.  Seems like a bug?

Hate that I can't be a chick on every class, hope they fix that one.

Does hard mode do anything besides make the mobs more difficult?  Is the loot table the same?

[Sjofn]

Brink seems tempermental about actually following you, he's been about 50/50 on following me properly. Luckily, in the cut scene when you find who you're after, you can hit escape and move the game forward. HOWEVER if you want to know what the hell is going on, you need Brink to deign to follow you. I never figured out a way to get him to follow me if he didn't want to, though. :(

[Kageh]

Does hard mode do anything besides make the mobs more difficult?  Is the loot table the same?

Loot-wise, I think it just increases the percentages for magic drops.

A few things I'd like handled differently regarding loot:

A magic item is generated by rolling mods and required stats on a regular item, and it seems the required stats are totally random. I wish I'd stop getting plate armor requiring 80 magic and having +30 str as a bonus on it.

There's also no balance between green/blue/gold item design. In Diablo, a blue item had fewer modifiers than a yellow one, but the range for the modifiers was higher. So for example, if you wanted the bestest +damage +speed sword - for minmaxing, you could look for a blue one that was better than a gold one or uniques. In TL - very WoW-like - color rules.

Funny "feature" (it's pretty much an exploit I think, but it's a single player game, so hey, no harm done): the best items  I've got were made chain enchanting stuff at the town enchanter. I've made way better weapons than all the uniques that I found. There's a chance that he'll wipe stuff and it's also too costly for armors usually. But weapons, I've got quite a few awesome ones. For yellow armor, you can just pay very hard money at the town enchanter, or save them for enchanting at the shrines in dungeons. This kind of needs balancing for multiplayer, or everyone is going to run around with uber uniques.

Set items are just "blue" ones with random modifiers and grouped to a set. The set part determines the bonuses. You can have the same piece with totally different stats. Sets should be more distinctive.

[Signe]

We love our loot!

[Fordel]

I bought this game simply because of it's system requirements in the end. It seriously could run on a toaster and look great. That's worth supporting!

[Kageh]

I love the art style. I found some unique shoulders with a eagle head design which are so WH 40k, it's absolutely kickass 

[Ironwood]

Played the demo to fuck and now considering a copy for the wife and I.

Some of this is good, but some is so limited and a little silly.

The whole 'dragging spells into your inventory' for a five fingered discount seems odd.  Also, I can do the same with Gems, but oddly, not if I don't have enough money.  If I do, it doesn't take my money, but if I don't have the money I can't steal.

It's like being a Republican.

Not convinced about the loot yet either.  Got a Gold gun that was the bees fucking knees until, well, five minuters later when I'm getting glancing blows all over the shop.  Shame.  Also, suffers from the same 'I can't aim to shoot as well as the guy with two frigging swords' problem that Diablo had.  I can't think of a solution tho, so I'm not going to blame the devs too much !

[Fordel]

I have the opposite problem, Mouse movement and Melee breaks my brain for whatever reason.

[Kageh]

Hehe, gotta love random name generators!

[Malakili]

Hehe, gotta love random name generators!

When you get towards the end of the game you start getting the next set of gear, sort of like exceptional gear in Diablo, and basically they use the same item names, but tack on "Epic" to the front.

Epic Modly Staff, Epic copper ring, Epic X

Yeah, its clownshoes.

[schild]

Eh, it gets the point across though. I mean, it's lazy. But whatever. I'd just not have a prefix at all. I don't like prefixes that mean nothing in the long run.

[Kageh]

Yes, I know, I was merely contemplating the utter epicness of the name there. Because seriously, what is more likely to make you feel epic than you own rusty sword? 

I just now finished Ordrak or whathescalled on hard difficulty with the Destroyer, and boy was that a boring fight. I have no idea how many HP he has, but it took me literally 15 minutes of non-stop whacking and I was hitting him for 800-1500 a pop. On the upside, with my boring tank build, I never came close to dying as long as I was paying attention to my cooldowns. I think he must've summoned close to a thousand of those dragons and I don't know how many skeletons.
I think Frozen Shield is really a match winner if you don't bother the constant recasting. I got that at rank 10 now, and it's an incredible 54% mitigation of *everything*. I also stacked all block that I could get, I'm at 50% now with Shadow Armor rank 4 and the block passive at rank 10. I just need something to kill stuff faster now 

[Malakili]

Set items are just "blue" ones with random modifiers and grouped to a set. The set part determines the bonuses. You can have the same piece with totally different stats. Sets should be more distinctive.

There are some unique set items as well.  They have their own quality, in addition to set, I think.  I know i definitely have some of both in my shard stash right now anyway.

I kind of like "blue" sets though, variation within in a set adds a little interesting twist rather than everyone having the exact same stats with the exact same sets.  Not that it really matters in a single player game anyway.

[trias_e]

Fuck the fucking trees that breathe poison.

Other than that, lots of fun so far.  Level 20 melee alchemist.  Ember Shock+Fast Cast items+Elemental Overload is an 'I Win' button, at least so far on hard difficulty.

[Nerf]

Forgot to open a portal on level 42 of the shadow vault, looks like a good time to retire and start over.

[Pennilenko]

Its been a while since i could play a game and start over then not be bored with it.

[Gunzwei]

Did 3 runs through on a Destroyer and then my toon got fubared by some bug. Thankfully being fixed next patch.

Awesome game and very well worth the 20$. Looking forward to editor tools.

[Tebonas]

Tried the demo, realized that I love it, and bought the full game. It even keeps the demo character, which I find nice. Of course I'm stuck in hardcore mode for the first playthrough now, but knowing how much time I sank into Fate thats a good thing. I will return to Borderlands once my Destroyer finds an untimely end.

[Xuri]

My Alchemist on normal difficulty is now 20-something levels. Can't remember the exact level. He's got a magic beam that cuts through everything in front of him like a hot lightsaber cuts through butter/wood/battle-drones.

I've also lost two Vanquishers at level 10 on Very Hard + Hardcore mode, and one Destroyer on lvl 11 on the same difficulty. The latter I lost by not paying attention to what was going on after I went down some stairs. While I was stretching and yawning in front of the computer, my Destroyer was ganked by a group of mobs in the immediate vincinity of the stairs. -_-

[Nerf]

very hard is definitely worth it if you want to chase teh shiny items, I'm getting noticeably more drops than on hard.

Also, retiring an item doesn't lower its level reqs, my ~2800 dps, +220% crit damage, +20 other things obscene pistol isn't available for use til 55 :(

[Fordel]

What is the level cap, if there is one?

[Malakili]

What is the level cap, if there is one?

100

[schild]

very hard is definitely worth it if you want to chase teh shiny items, I'm getting noticeably more drops than on hard.

Also, retiring an item doesn't lower its level reqs, my ~2800 dps, +220% crit damage, +20 other things obscene pistol isn't available for use til 55 :(

There is absolutely no difference in loot drops between normal, hard, and vhard. It's just coincidence.

[Nerf]

Maybe retiring to a new game generates more/better drops then?  I'm only level 9 and already gotten 2 yellows and an inventory full of blues, the only +magic find I have on is stuff thats dropped in the new game.

[Fordel]

Maybe retiring to a new game generates more/better drops then?  I'm only level 9 and already gotten 2 yellows and an inventory full of blues, the only +magic find I have on is stuff thats dropped in the new game.

I had like 3 yellows on my level 7 demo character before I got the full game. Random is Random.

[tazelbain]

This thing is awesome.  I bought this thinking this was Diablo-like.  It is Diablo updated for 2009.

[schild]

Maybe retiring to a new game generates more/better drops then?  I'm only level 9 and already gotten 2 yellows and an inventory full of blues, the only +magic find I have on is stuff thats dropped in the new game.

Neg. Luck is all that's happening to you.