Torchlight II (not the MMO)

[Amaron]

So apparently some numbers have been crunched, and it's been found that skills that use flat damage that scales up as you level as opposed to scaling off of weapon DPS can easily eclipse weapon-scaling skills in damage, even with shitty gear.

http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=38358

What do you mean even with shitty gear?  Isn't it always the case that flat damage skills outperform weapon scaling with crappy gear?

[koro]

I meant to say even with good gear.

[apocrypha]

Yeah I was getting a feel for that when I was playing with console-command leveled test Outlanders, which is why I ended up going with Glaive Throw. As far as I could work out (just by eyeballing the numbers coming off of the test dummy in town) the only things that made any difference to GT damage were character level, GT rank and things like +% poison damage/all damage.

I think the numbers and balance in this game are probably way out of whack, with things like Outlander Glaive Throw and Embermage Prismatic Bolts being head and shoulders more effective than anything else, but at the end of the day who cares? There's no RMAH, it's a super-casual game, all classes are capable enough to complete the game and the higher difficulty settings make no difference to loot or XP.

[Lemming]

I think the numbers and balance in this game are probably way out of whack, with things like Outlander Glaive Throw and Embermage Prismatic Bolts being head and shoulders more effective than anything else, but at the end of the day who cares? There's no RMAH, it's a super-casual game, all classes are capable enough to complete the game and the higher difficulty settings make no difference to loot or XP.

Don't forget the infinite summon time spider mines(a bug) for engies which keeps me from having to lift a finger if that's what I want to do.  What it boils down to is that it isn't balanced around anything - and I'm having fun with it.

[Ironwood]

So much of this game is utter fucking WIN.

[Fabricated]

So much of this game is utter fucking WIN.

It kinda makes Borderlands 2 look pitiful as a game honestly. I practically had to force myself to start BL2 up again a bit ago and I quit after doing like 2 missions since I sorta wanna start my other characters in TL2. I think I might play a bit more Borderlands here in a minute though and hope it gets more interesting.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I get that people loved borderlands but I couldn't beat the first one, it just felt like an mmo except without all the people.  maybe multiplayer is more fun? didn't feel right solo.

[Fabricated]

Looks like there's a gambling bug that's incredibly tempting to abuse:

1. Grab an item from the gambling pane (you need to have enough money to buy it to drag any item from a vendor)
2. Drag it over to the buyback window and carefully click the tab (accidentally bought an item and dropped it into my pet's inventory a couple times)
3. Drop the item on a free space in the buyback tab. This doesn't buy the item, but it identifies it, and you can buy it for the buyback price.

Tested it with rings since those are sorta low-impact items and yeah it works. Got like 4-5 unique rings. I think I won't abuse it further but that's kind of a headslapper.

[Ironwood]

Odd, that doesn't work for me.  Clicking on the buyback tab clears the item...

EDIT :  Ah.  Hold the button.  That worked.  And gave me unique gloves.  I'm NOT gonna use that ever again.  Game breaking methinks.

[apocrypha]

Gambling in general is a bit broken. You can use the fact that items show a red X on them before being identified to increase your unique hit-rate significantly. Just gamble with a class other than the one you want the item for.

[Fabricated]

Yeah, the item really should only roll up when you buy it. Wonder why they have unidentified items in both the gambler and the world itself rolled before you identify them?

[Segoris]

So much of this game is utter fucking WIN.

It kinda makes Borderlands 2 look pitiful as a game honestly. I practically had to force myself to start BL2 up again a bit ago and I quit after doing like 2 missions since I sorta wanna start my other characters in TL2. I think I might play a bit more Borderlands here in a minute though and hope it gets more interesting.

I have to say, I'm the complete opposite and don't think TL2 makes BL2 look any better or worse on a whole. If it did anything it made BL2's loot seem weak and TL2's combat mechanics seem really, REALLY fucking dated which I'll call a wash between the two.

What I do think TL2 did is it made D3 look like D3 had combat responsiveness and controls were done right while everything else in D3 looks to be done poorly now even more so than before (name loot and skills). However, in TL2 I'm bored and forced myself to try a 2nd character to make sure it wasn't just the character I didn't like (for reference: 1st was an Outlander 2nd was a Berserker). I think TL2 has loot right (arguably too much loot right from the beginning even) and I still love the pet system, and the skill system is ok (I'm also someone who's torn on stats being tied to loot, it's fun when it doesn't go against your desired stats to use the best weapon you have in your inventory which bugs me). Beyond those things I was just bored to a point where I didn't even care about how much I wanted to play with the skills at later levels and how fun that could be potentially, and controls and responsiveness had a big part of that (such short range on guns also doesn't really help when there's so many damn jars and no damage numbers from mobs from regular melee attacks made the Berserker feel really weird but that could be a UI setting I didn't have set)

I guess TL;DR would be it's better than D3 as long as combat isn't someone's main draw to a game, and it would be equal to BL2 depending on the type of loot whore mob slaughtering a player wanted to do.

[Ingmar]

I got to the end of the demo and didn't come to any new conclusions - pretty much all it made me think was, 'too bad D3 doesn't have this loot style'. Might get it on sale later, it's certainly not a bad game.

[Mattemeo]

Game still needs to add a reticule graphic on the cursor when I'm hovering it over mobs so I can tell if I'm actually fucking shooting/hitting it.

Game also needs a setting between Normal and Veteran. Normal is far too easy (I've died once, from simply not paying attention); Veteran is ludicrous if you don't have a shit-ton of super gear stashed to ease the pain. Starting a Berserker on Veteran is basically how you teach small children about death and its horrible inevitability without needing to buy and feed hamsters etc.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Veteran is ludicrous if you don't have a shit-ton of super gear stashed to ease the pain. Starting a Berserker on Veteran is basically how you teach small children about death and its horrible inevitability without needing to buy and feed hamsters etc.

Really? I admit that all of my Veteran Hardcore dudes have died, eventually, but my latest Berserker got to level 30 or so before that happened, without significant twinking (my previous highest had only made level 20 and died with all the good stuff, as is Right & Proper.)

I do like the dual-tiering of items (level and stats) but it also tempts me too much to put stats in stuff I don't necessarily need, and the lack of Vitality might have something to do with all these Hardcore deaths...

[Ironwood]

Strangely, Wife and I are at 38-42 level range.  Her embermage is getting fucked up almost every time while my Engineer seems utterly invulnerable.  It's really a stark contrast - She has the exact same health as me, oddly, and her resistances, while lower, don't suck the root so we're a bit confused as to what's going on.  I suspect the mushroom forest is just doing for her with poison and that my automatic engineer shield is helping out a ton.

For those who haven't tried the Engy yet, he's massively fun.  Especially once you get the just unbelievable overpowered spider mines.

[amiable]

Strangely, Wife and I are at 38-42 level range.  Her embermage is getting fucked up almost every time while my Engineer seems utterly invulnerable.  It's really a stark contrast - She has the exact same health as me, oddly, and her resistances, while lower, don't suck the root so we're a bit confused as to what's going on.  I suspect the mushroom forest is just doing for her with poison and that my automatic engineer shield is helping out a ton.

For those who haven't tried the Engy yet, he's massively fun.  Especially once you get the just unbelievable overpowered spider mines.

I've made it up to 24 on my Elite/Hardcore Engineer...  The thing I love about Engy's is there are just so many ways to go...

Currently my hardcore build focuses on pets for damage (lol spiders with + minion damage gear!) with everything else being sunk into defensive and support abilities.  I split stats between dex and vit and run a pistol/shield build (1 point in into shield bash to get out of trouble if I am stupid and get swarmed). 

[Ironwood]

Pistol and shield.

That hadn't even occurred to me.  I was still stuck in 'shield or two handed' head mode, even though I know they have skills for big guns in there.

See, this is the thing - If I wanted a mage running around with GUNS, I could.  Awesome stuff.  Even Wife unit had some pretty pointed things to say about this vs Diablo III.

I still haven't quite 'got' the Outlander yet tho.  He's not really working for me no matter what I do.  The Embermage I'm running just shoves points into magic Missile (prismatic bolts) and pumps up the elemntal passives to help.  It's great.

[Fabricated]

I've started an outlander and I think I'm going pistols on this run despite the fact I have like a baker's dozen of unique shotguns. Maybe I'll sneak myself a respec potion once I start getting in the range of the first unique shotty stat-wise since I played a pistol Vanquisher in the first game.

[amiable]

Pistol and shield.

That hadn't even occurred to me.  I was still stuck in 'shield or two handed' head mode, even though I know they have skills for big guns in there.

See, this is the thing - If I wanted a mage running around with GUNS, I could.  Awesome stuff.  Even Wife unit had some pretty pointed things to say about this vs Diablo III.

I still haven't quite 'got' the Outlander yet tho.  He's not really working for me no matter what I do.  The Embermage I'm running just shoves points into magic Missile (prismatic bolts) and pumps up the elemntal passives to help.  It's great.

You can also go for a shield bash build splitting points between focus/vit and wielding a wand.  Little known fact:  shield bash gets its modifier from focus, so you will do a ton more damage than a strength/vit shield bash build.  The problem you run into is that shields have strength requirements which locks you out of the good shields until you level into them.

[Tebonas]

My Outlander goes with Shotgonne. Wickedly fun, with Rapid-Fire for Bossfights damage output.

Changed my Engineer from Big Cannon (which was easy mode) to Two-handed Tank (different easy mode) because he was too similar to my Outlander otherwise.

I love that I can replay each of my characters with completely differen skills. Looking forward to it.

[apocrypha]

Finished first playthrough with Outlander and had a bit of a play with the dungeon generator thing.

Don't have any urge to continue, either with subsequent playthroughs or alts. I dunno, it's fun and all but I'm not getting the same awesome robot Jesus vibe some of you guys are. I think the loot is a bit boring tbh. Yeah, there's lots of it, but rares & uniques don't feel particularly special. They just have more stats on them. There's nothing game-changing about anything I've found. Even complete sets give mediocre bonuses, there's no flavour for want of a better word.

I'm not entirely pleased with any of the 3 recent lootaholic games we've had released. Torchlight 2 has tons of rare/unique/set loot but it's all really dull. Borderlands 2 has tons of white/green loot which is 99.9% useless and almost no rare/legendary loot. Diablo 3 has the same issue as Borderlands 2, but was kind of ameliorated with the AH until the RMAH and rampant botting destroyed those as a source of decent loot. None of them have a story worth a shit, although Borderlands 2 is at least funny and full of superb characters. TL2 has no story at all, Diablo 3 has the worst story & writing EVER.

Out of them all I think D3 is the one most likely to get eventually patched to a state where it has some longevity and TL2 the least likely to reach that point.

[eldaec]

I probably won't play it all that much more either.

But I have never understood why people expect these dungeon crawlers to last more than a few weeks and maybe replay every now and again. This doesn't mean I haven't had fun.

It isn't really a very deep genre.

You were all much younger when you played D2.

[Tebonas]

I'm also completely fine with a game providing me just a few weeks of enjoyment, especially at that price.

Too many games to play to worry if one of them will still provide me with fun in years.

[Fabricated]

There isn't much you could do to D3 to get me to play it again. Borderlands has no real randomness to it outside of the loot so it likely won't get past a single playthrough with a couple characters with me. I feel I've more than gotten my money out of BL2 however, so I'm satisfied with it whereas D3 I still feel pretty ripped off.

[eldaec]

Playing an embermage now and oh god engineer was easy mode by comparison.

[koro]

So, mucking about with skills, apparently the only skills that activate Staff Mastery's armor debuff are:

Magma Spear
Magma Mace
Icy Blast
Shockbolts

Which is kind of disappointing since the way Staff Mastery's tooltip is worded suggests that any skill that does damage based on Weapon DPS would activate it.

And the only Embermage skills that build Charge are:

Magma Spear
Blazing Pillar
Infernal Collapse (HUGE Charge, can almost max out the bar in one shot)
Icy Blast
Frost Wave
Prismatic Bolts

Just thought that'd be nice info to have in one spot.

[caladein]

If anyone's on the fence, I have a couple copies sitting at 4-pack price ($15 USD), just toss me a PM if interested.

[Ironwood]

My Embermage just uses Prismatic Bolt and the elemental boosts thus far.  Apart from one point in frost teleport, haven't needed anything else.

Wife is still getting one shotted.  It's a little sillly.

[Tannhauser]

So your embermage is doing OK but not your wife's?  Sorry, only played Eng. so far so don't know the problems of the 'lesser' classes. 

[Ironwood]

Well, in fairness, mine is level 25 or so, and she's up at 41.  When we play together, I'm an Engineer who seems almost utterly unstoppable. 

But when the mobs turn their attention to her, she gets utterly sodomised.  It's very strange.

[Reg]

Don't be mean Ironwood. Give her one of your respec potions!

[Ironwood]

I did, but what do you respec into ?  I don't think there are any real survive skills for the embermage ?

[Reg]

I don't know about embermages. I guess she could look it up but that takes the fun out of it, IMO.  I just messed around with my Berserker until I had a survivable build that could live through the Salt Barrens in Act 2. Before I found that build I'd gimped myself so badly (by spreading skill points into far too many skills)  that I probbly would have had to grind myself up to 35 before I could do it.

[Fabricated]

You pretty much have to stick to a few skills and pump the hell out of passives that work well with them to be powerful so far from my experience.

My Berserker pretty much only uses the charge, cleave, Battle Standard, and stormstrike skills. Charge to get in/out, cleave to lay out bleeds or kill stuff right next to me, stormstrike to blow up chains of minions and smaller mobs outside of melee range. Battle Standard is just nice, but particularly for huge mobs and bosses so you can resist their stupid knockbacks. Works pretty well actually. The armor-stealing passive is pretty obscene with fast weapons as I mentioned; I could see you getting into the thousands of armor against bosses with it maxed out.

I did waste some points on howl however; don't do that. Howl is pretty nice but it doesn't last long enough IMO to be worth it.