Torchlight 2

[Ravelle]

Played a while with the berzerker as well, the way you punch people and explode is so satisfying, satisfying combat in general as well.

Pets can now also buy items, genius!

[Tei]

Played today a few hours.

One word: Satisfying.

The game is fun to play. Surprising after T1, that was repetitive. But on this one something has "clicked".

[cosmicolor]

All the talk about active-versus-passive skills is interesting to me. In theory, more active skills sounds like the more entertaining option, but in practice I consistently find that route to be less useful for a few reasons.

1. Active skills often become outdated by later skills, and it's not obvious (without extensive out-of-game research) how many points, if any, you should invest in them to achieve a workable build. This was a problem in Diablo II.

2. Setting aside point 1, it's difficult to know whether an active skill is useful or not. Unlike (most) passive skills, active skills are frequently situational. Sometimes more skill points and/or upgrades will turn a skill from a seeming waste to an outrageously powerful weapon, and other times will just make it even more of a waste. This was a problem in Titan Quest.

3. Too many choices can be overwhelming, in terms of making an initial choice, remembering that the abilities are available to you, and making a useful UI and/or control scheme. This was a problem in Dungeon Siege III.

Any thoughts on these points?

1)Yeah, I agree you have a point, active skills can become outdated through time, but perhaps you could argue that respecs are there to (partially) solve that issue, although I recognise that not all these games have such a feature. I feel that Blizzard are making an attempt to avoid the issue of skills becoming outdated with D3, but time will tell how well it ends up working.

2)You find that out through trying it. That or reading the description of the skill, which would usually be detailed enough to let you know if it would be something really specific. Even if it's not so useful, it's a lesson learned for the next runthrough or respec, and still another thing you can do in combat. Besides, unless you're playing on a really hard difficulty, there probably won't be much reason to have to worry about a point misspent.

3)Perhaps the solution is to trickle skills gradually, but giving more active skills than passives, such as, again, what D3 does, although I would argue that D3 should give things a little faster than it seems to do, but that's just my personal preference.

[shaydeeadi]

In relation to TL2 though, the active skills are tied to weapon DPS and they increase with character level too. So I can see the skills in this being much more viable at later levels. You can always focus and have one ability as godlike if you want but could also spread them about and have a bit of fun with all of them.

[Rauten]

Just played for a while, until I died in a god forsaken tomb on the way to the water temple to an undead ambush. So far, so very good!

[byteCrunch]

Been playing for the last few hours as an Engineer on veteran, very much enjoying it so far.

[cosmicolor]

So who is currently playing and what are your account names? Mine is cosmicolor if anyone wants to add me, what about the rest of you?

[Bankrotas]

I can't imagine my luck picking first time berserker and finding it so much fun. If first Torchlight felt like it was a bit on weed, this one feels like it's on amphetamine (note, I don't use drugs).
So feel urge to play through with other classes too, but turning into giant spectral purple wolf and running like there's no tomorrow was too fun. Comparing D3 and TL2 beta's, D3 didn't give me the satisfactory factor and all round feeling was "meh" this reminded me of my first play through of Diablo 2, I had no idea what I was doing, I had that "I wonder what this skill will do" feeling and then you right click become a purple spectral wolf dashing in one direction damaging all in your path while you glee.
I love, that you can't take time with bosses as more and more adds spawn and on veteran level you can be overwhelmed as melee class. And even if you take out big bosses, doesn't mean purple guys won't give you hard time. Minotaurs aka slashers are so hard to deal in mass :/


Edit: I just want them to add turn in character creation screen !

So who is currently playing and what are your account names? Mine is cosmicolor if anyone wants to add me, what about the rest of you?

Bankrotas.

[cosmicolor]

I added you and I see you playing, how do I join you?

[shaydeeadi]

You can filter servers by friends only, probably easiest way

[Bankrotas]

Here's second issue with creating games, I've played so much, it autocreates a world with crappy random "asfsdgtwrq32rwas" name I put in. Ok, it goes away when you relog. Created game named Bankrotas

[shaydeeadi]

Nooo, left to make a level 1 and it filled up :(

[cosmicolor]

I just caught that post and see it's filled up too :P I'm gonna make a game called cosmicolor, come join it if you can.

edit: It's up now.

[shaydeeadi]

won't show up in browser for me, I'll refresh for a bit.

[cosmicolor]

Guuh, I wonder what's up? Does it need port forwarding? If so, what ports do I need to forward?

[Bankrotas]

Hmm, if you leave host and people are still in, game doesn't close and you can still rejoin.
If there are people still not in, created new game Bankrotas RPS with password: RPS

[shaydeeadi]

Got in and once we were playing it was pretty dang smooth, even with Bankrotas hosting from Lithuania. Pleased with that. Also, the host migration or whatever it does is seamless.

[pakoito]

It works in my netbook. That's instant prepuerchase. Celeron 1.2GHz, Intel 64MB. Fucksake and it still looks better that lots of games that just won't run.

Anyway I specced incorrectly but that happens your first time. I am playing engineer and after summoning the turrets my only active skill is the cannon overload. It is just too good to be missed. Cannon feels godlike in this game.

[b0rsuk]

I can't put my finger on it, but... Both Diablo III and Torchlight 2 are very cartoony in style. Yet where Diablo III is pompous and pretentious, TL2 seems playful and whimsical. D3 gives me that American superhero comic vibe I find obnoxious.

[Bankrotas]

Got in and once we were playing it was pretty dang smooth, even with Bankrotas hosting from Lithuania. Pleased with that. Also, the host migration or whatever it does is seamless.

I do think they use their own servers to hold games.