Torchlight II (not the MMO)

[Merusk]

Y'know.. I think this is the first time I've prepurchased a game on Steam.  I now understand the twitchy anxiety that comes from having the game sitting there, waiting, but not unlocked.

[Setanta]

Y'know.. I think this is the first time I've prepurchased a game on Steam.  I now understand the twitchy anxiety that comes from having the game sitting there, waiting, but not unlocked.

10 hours to go... if I get up at 3am I'll be able to play this. It's sad, I'm more excited about this game than I was about Diablo 3... couldn't they just move the release forward 10 hours?

[Merusk]

3am? No, 1pm, sure.  Release time is 1pm est.. I was disappointed I couldn't play a bit before heading to work this morning.  Curses.

[Lucas]

Three hours to go

[Setanta]

3am? No, 1pm, sure.  Release time is 1pm est.. I was disappointed I couldn't play a bit before heading to work this morning.  Curses.

<--- Aussie

[Rokal]

Within the first hour of playing I had:

-made interesting decisions about how to spec my character
-made interesting decisions about what loot to use
-collected a few pieces of set gear that made me want to rerun the dungeon they came from to complete it
-picked from a surprisingly large list of pets, skins, and character options
-picked a starting difficulty that matched the experience I wanted from the game
-was able to start the game immediately (offline play) even though the login servers were getting slammed

These guys get it.

One last thing that I love about this game.

[Amaron]

Finally got the chance to start it up but I'm confused.  None of the classes really look visually like what I remember in the previews.  Did they cut some classes or completely change the models?

[Lucas]

Delicious game 

[schild]

I want the settings and items from Torchlight, with the look and feel of Diablo 3.

[Abelian75]

I want the settings and items from Torchlight, with the look and feel of Diablo 3.

Yeah.

I'm liking the game, but damn, do I ever miss the incredibly satisfying sense of impact from my attacks that was in D3.  In T2 I can't really tell what monsters I'm hitting with some of my attacks.  Alas.

[schild]

Yea, there's absolutely no ferocity to your attacks in this. It's just lines hitting boxes as far as I'm concerned. I'm going back to Borderlands 2 for now where at least when you hit something people say things like OW OW OW OW OW OW and MY BALLS.

[Threash]

I felt the same about path of exile, i liked everything about it except the actual gameplay.

[Rokal]

I'm liking the game, but damn, do I ever miss the incredibly satisfying sense of impact from my attacks that was in D3.  In T2 I can't really tell what monsters I'm hitting with some of my attacks.  Alas.

I'm not having this problem on my 2H engineer. Attacks feel like they have a surprising amount of weight. D3 does it better, but Torchlight 2 combat feels pretty good too.

[Tannhauser]

My 2H engineer has that 'impact' feel.  Loving the game, especially, especially the loot always showing up! Plus I can actually use the loot that drops.

Runic's beating Blizzard at its own game. 

[Malakili]

Runic'sOld Blizzard beating Current Blizzard at their own game. 

[Fabricated]

Yea, there's absolutely no ferocity to your attacks in this. It's just lines hitting boxes as far as I'm concerned. I'm going back to Borderlands 2 for now where at least when you hit something people say things like OW OW OW OW OW OW and MY BALLS.

I slightly disagree with this; after you get some points in a few skills it feels pretty weighty as an engineer or berserker. Embermage in the beta just felt like shooting sparklies everywhere then stuff sorta died. I didn't really get the "I'm blowing shit up" feeling despite covering half the screen in fire after getting a few of the fire spells. The outlander class is a bit of a mess honestly and is like, "welp, we give up trying to figure out a real distinctive idea for the sneaky ranged/daggery/dark class and ninjas are kinda played out so you're a rogu~...outlander!".

Everything else about the game is everything I liked from D2 and wanted in D3 but didn't get. It's a bit weird how fast you are compared to D3/Path of Exile/Borderlands. You haul some ass in this game.

[Soulflame]

I've played embermage a bit, and I'm a tiny bit underwhelmed.  I'll try an engineer next.

[Xuri]

The Embermage seems kinda on the opposite end of the awesome-scale compared to the Ember Lance-wielding Alchemist in Torchlight 1 :P At least in the first few levels. Then again, you didn't get access to the Ember Lance in Torchlight 1 until level 10. Hmmmmm.

[Ratman_tf]

It's been an expensive day, and Torchlight 2 dropped on top of that.  Thank god I had an overtime paycheck. 

Only played a bit, but I'm liking it so far. I went straight for veteran hardcore. I've come to appreciate hardcore mode after doing it a fair bit in D3.

[Tebonas]

This game is wickedly fun. My Level 11 engineer is mowing down enemies with a unique cannon that looks like a lightning gatling, which I could equip almost as soon as it dropped.

You actually feel like playing a game and not climbing a mountain of shit while the developers stand at the top and piss at you. Fuck you Blizzard, for all intents and purposes this is Diablo 3.

[Signe]

It's too cute.  It makes me giggle insanely.

[Merusk]

The Embermage seems kinda on the opposite end of the awesome-scale compared to the Ember Lance-wielding Alchemist in Torchlight 1 :P At least in the first few levels. Then again, you didn't get access to the Ember Lance in Torchlight 1 until level 10. Hmmmmm.

Low levels have sucked. I hit 14 last night before hitting the hay and the later skills were more impressive.  The problem is the meteor you start off with is as impressive as a default attack, which means isn't very impressive.  I want to try out prismatic spray and the 3rd ice skill but there's so many nice passives, too.

I'm clearly going to have a problem of not picking a few skills and maxing them the fuck out.

The game is a lot more fun than D3, though.  Probably because I'm getting shitloads of loot.  It's loot overload and I feel bad sometimes when I get an upgrade because, "aw.. I just upgraded that.."  A tiny, cynical part of me wonders how much of that is because D3 came out first and they saw the failure there.

Came across the enchanter before I logged off.  It's much improved over the 1st Torchlight in that the upgrades it adds are much smaller for a lot more money.  Plus it's not in town , taunting you to blow all your gold on it.

[Fabricated]

You can rescue an enchanter that returns to town at least in the first act but they can usually only add a single enchantment. Also, enchanters you find in the wild can have specializations; like I found one that only adds fire enchantments.

It's also nice to be able to find unique items, sets, and the sorta pseudo-set items right off rather than you know...having to literally get to cap to find anything nice.

[Lucas]

Just in case some of you is still undecided, you can now download the demo, either from Steam or the official  website.

[Ironwood]

Ooooo.  You can ?

Fucking awesome.  I'll be in my bunk.

[trias_e]

The game is fun.  They do a great job with loot which is a nice contrast from that other game.

My shotgun outlander is pretty boring skill-wise though.  I'm level 20 and I've finished act 1.  I'm really, really hoping that the next tier of skills gives me something more fun to play with.  I may have just made a poor choice for my first character.  If the next few skills aren't fun I may reroll, no big loss.

[Xuri]

I love the fact that I during normal gameplay can actually find loot that is at or above my current level.

[MrHat]

It's also nice to be able to find unique items, sets, and the sorta pseudo-set items right off rather than you know...having to literally get to cap to find anything nice.

Yes, this!

I got two gold items (unique) in the first 20 minutes and felt like something was wrong.

[Lucas]

The loot overload is almost...unbearable!!!  I'm only in the Temple Steppes and piles of stuff keep dropping, but beasts are everywhere and I DON'T HAVE TIME TO CHECK MY INVENTORY 

I agree about a certain lack of the feel of "impact" (compared to the awesomeness of the Monk or Barbarian in D3), but I only tried the Berserk so far, and only up to level 9 (but first impressions are important).

Good when you are doing criticals (as it should be) but otherwise not really satisfying, especially if you consider that you can already meet a high number of mobs that early in the game. I also acquired that "shadow wolf" ability but it seems boring to me (yeah, useful for the healing but otherwise pretty meh). I'll see what happens with the other classes; but the gameplay is very addictive: they got it just right 

[Fabricated]

I got my berserker using stormstrike (makes your hits arc electric damage to 2/3/4 enemies), the cleave/bleed thing, and howl. Put up stormstrike, charge in and alternate clickspam with the cleave/regular hits while keeping the roar debuff up. Big groups of exploding mobs.

[apocrypha]

Level 21 Embermage, just into act 2.

Likes:

• Loot - plenty of it, lots of uniques & sets, and it doesn't soul-bind so your alts are gonna be twinked.
• Skill trees - lots of variety.
• Environments - again very varied and not bad looking for such a low-tech engine.
• Side quests - things like Phase Beast Challenges and mini-dungeons with a quest giver outside.
• Pets - transforming with fishes and sending them to town to loot. Very nice.
• Addictive - distribution of quests and dungeons is just right to keep you going "I'll just do this one more thing..."

Dislikes:

• Still can't do multiplayer. Something borked when I linked my Steam account and now I can't log in and the password reset email never gets sent. Hopefully they'll sort it soon.
• Combat feels lacklustre. It's very unresponsive, almost like playing with heavy lag but not quite.
• No monster health bars. Needs a mod to enable this.
• Art style. Not my cup of tea, just personal preference. Looks cheap to my eyes.
• FIshing is a bit zzzzzZZzzZz. Easy enough to ignore though.
• Identify scrolls. Stupid and pointless mechanic, especially at 200g each - more than the item sells for most times.
• No stat changes listed on item comparison tooltips. Minor, but annoying omission.

My dislikes are mostly minor, temporary or easily modded I hope. Personally I strongly disagree that this is what Diablo 3 should have been. I think it gets some things right that D3 got wrong, but it's unlikely to have the longevity for me that I suspect D3 is going to have. I can see me playing this for a couple of weeks probably. D3 I think I'll be going back to for short bursts every now and again for years.

You may now commence with metaphorically burning me at a stake for heresy.  

[Hutch]

Dislikes:

• No monster health bars. Needs a mod to enable this.

I downloaded this overnight, and got to play for just a few minutes this morning, but, I seem to recall seeing health bars, at least on enemies that lasted longer than a couple attacks.

Or do you want the health bars to be visible all the time, not just on mouseover?

[Rokal]

For those complaining about combat feedback and not knowing whether attacks hit, try changing Combat Text to Normal from the default (sparse).

Edit: looks like Steam account linking is now working, at least until people break it again.

[schild]

Monster Health bars are at the top of the screen on mouseover. There doesn't seem to be an option to have them in the world, which is a little weird.

[Mattemeo]

Played for an hour or so today; got back home too late last night to really do much besides look at the char creation options before the need to GW2 set in.

First impressions:

While the game doesn't seem much higher tech than the first iteration, it's so pretty! High res cartoon textures on low polys really is a win-win situation, everything has a chunky charm to it and it all feels hand painted. Lovely.
I rolled an Outlander first as it seemed the closest to Vanquisher and for the most part, it is, really. It's missing the outrageous out of the box overpoweredness but the general style of play is pretty similar. Going to try all four classes of course but remains to be seen which is stickiest.
Targetting is iffy. I could really, really do with a reticule when I mouse-over a mob; half the time I seem to be missing even when I'm directly aiming and the range during the early game is hard to guage. I end up running into big packs of mobs because the game doesn't register my aim.
Loot pinata - I got a decent gold rare within about 15 minutes of play but it took another 45 to be able to wear the damn thing, heh. I like that ember is now plug and play; though part of me might end up missing the save and combine game. Yet to find an enchanter.