When it comes to RPGs, I am more of a dabbler. I like to play them for a bit, but rarely stick it out to a conclusion. Well, I can now say I have finally completed a RPG - Torchlight (the original). I initially tried this game because it arrived a few years ago with quite the positive praise. I didn't expect to stick with it long...boy was I wrong! I mean, from the first few moments of the demo I was hooked (I knew I had a problem when the "thanks for trying the demo" message popped up and I found my hand reaching for my wallet before I even knew what I was doing! LOL!). The game just had a wonderfully lighthearted and breezy style to it that really kept me hooked right through its 25-hour or so campaign (32 hours with side quests - not bad for a $20 game!).
Having completed it, I realized that I needed a new action RPG fix in my life...NOW! ;D With that in mind, I decided to switch gears and try a different ARPG - the much anticipated Diablo 3. I expected to be hooked by this game too...but I guess I was wrong. After trying the Diablo 3 "starter edition", I have to say that I found the gameplay of D3 to be quite inferior to that of Torchlight 1. Here's why:
1) The Rigid Classes: One of the things I loved about Torchlight was the fact that you could take each of the game's three classes in any direction you wanted. For example, I played the Destroyer class - your basic melee tank - in my campaign. Despite this class being initially suited to swords and pole-arms, I was free to use any equipment I saw fit, from an Alchemist's (magic class) enchanted staffs, to a Vanquisher's (ranged class) firearms. And even though my skill trees (three of them) largely consisted of skills suited to melee combat, there were just enough generic class skills to make me formidable in all the different modes of combat. This is why during the course of the campaign I found my character going from swords, to staffs, to firearms, and back to melee weapons. This kept combat fresh and interesting as I was constantly learning to use different weapons.
Compare this to D3 where you are prevented from using weapons outside of your class. I was shocked to see how my Demon Hunter was completely unable to equip any weapons outside of its ranged category, such as swords and magic staffs. How limiting! It seems like a design decision made for the soul reason of forcing you to play the game again as a different class to see what you might have missed.
2) No Say in Leveling Up: In Torchlight, when you level up, you are free to assign your new skill points, and unlock new skills, in any order or fashion you see fit. This fits with the game's open classes in that you can buff skills that might be outside of your normal skill set. So, for example, when I started carrying around a firearm, I could choose to add skill points to the stat that boosts ranged damage.
I was really disappointed in D3 to see my character level up and have the new skill points auto-assigned for me. WTH? I was looking around for the assign point button but couldn't find it! :D Instead, I saw that D3 assigned them for me. >:( Likewise, not having control over which skills I could choose to unlock was equally disappointing (occasionally I would get to choose one new skill from a selection of two, but that is nowhere like having three full skill trees to choose from like in T1).
3) Strange Graphical Style: Torchlight had bright, colorful and crisp - if cartoony - graphics (and I grew to appreciate the cartoony aspect). D3, on the other hand, is...murky? Blurry? Gauzy? I have never encountered such a bizarre artistic direction. It felt like I was trying to play the game while looking through cheesecloth. And it really took a toll on my eyes as I got a bad headache shortly after playing the game. Even the text was strangely blurred.
I also found the actual character graphics to be strangely dated, like I was playing a game designed for a 256mb video card. I thought maybe the game had defaulted to low graphics when I installed the demo, but according to the settings they were actually set to "high". I would never have known it. It really looked 'low' to me. Ick!
4) Useless loot: There will always be tons of useless loot in games like this, but I think D3 is quite inferior to T1 in how it handles it...or doesn't handle it, as the case may be with D3. I found myself mostly throwing all the useless stuff on the floor as there wasn't much point to carrying it around - not that you could if you wanted to because of limited storage. T1 solves this problem in a wonderfully simplistic way: your pet! Besides being a combat buddy, your pet has his own storage that you can use to store all the useless gear you plan on selling. In fact, you don't even have to wait to return to a town to sell it because with a click of a button you can send you pet off to sell it for you while you keep exploring and fighting (and I understand that in T2 you can even tell your pet to buy stuff while in town and bring it back to you). Nothing goes to waste. Contrast that to the piles of loot I had to leave on the floor of D3's levels. :'(
I also think the loot in T1 was far more interesting than that in D3. In Torchlight, most magical loot seemed to be a bit different from other similar loot, even if it only came down to a buff in a single category (e.g., +1 strength buff, or +1 poison damage, or +1 ice damage). So even though you might not need it, it still was interesting to see how the game mixed and matched these random stats. D3's loot just seemed to be tons of identical non-magical gear, with most magical gear only differing in DPS for the most part. I didn't find myself saying "well, this is interesting" as much as I did in T1. Boring. Again, might be a limitation of the demo, but still (more than likely it is another effect of the rigid class system).
5) Always Online DRM: Okay, this has never really been a problem for me, but given the choice between a game that has it and doesn't, well...I think the choice is clear. :) Having said that, though, I can see how Blizzard is trying to make D3 into a SP/MMO hybrid. Over the long term, that could be interesting.
So, overall, I am really disappointed in D3. I thought it was going to blow me away, but I found it boring and unimaginative compared to a game 1/3 its cost. In fact, the demo is already off my HDD. Since then I have installed the Torchlight 2 demo and I am having far more fun with it than I did with the D3 demo. There is just something magical (ahem) to Runic's formula for ARPGs and I will most definitely be buying the game (this is one of those "please, take my money because you earned it!" purchases).
Anyhoo...just thought I post this here for anyone who might be thinking about trying an ARPG. Bigger and pricier is not always better. This time, the underdog wins.
Trailer for Torchlight 2:
I've had more enjoyment out of Torchlight 2 than D3, also.
It's hard to believe someone who was so into the first Torchlight hasn't picked up the second one yet. There's just more .. of everything. It's much better in every way. Hell, I see the thing on sale for half-price ($10) sometimes but it's easily worth the $20 they ask regularly.
So, yeah.. when I feel like an ARPG these days, the first one I fire up is Torchlight 2. I haven't bothered with the others ever since, although I'll probably play Din's Curse again sometime in the future.
The Torchlight games are inexpensive, easy access fun. I highly recommend them.
I guess I'm just a ARPG whore. I like D2, D3, TL, TL2, Dins Curse, Depths of Peril and a few others for different reasons.
Quote from: Nefaro on March 17, 2013, 02:51:57 AM
It's hard to believe someone who was so into the first Torchlight hasn't picked up the second one yet. There's just more .. of everything. It's much better in every way. Hell, I see the thing on sale for half-price ($10) sometimes but it's easily worth the $20 they ask regularly.
I wanted to finish the original before I moved on to the sequel. That is the only reason I haven't picked it up yet. :)
I also want to try Path of Exile: http://www.pathofexile.com/
This is supposed to be a good F2P ARPG as well. Anybody try it?
If I ever get tired of Guild Wars 2, I'll have to give Torchlight a try.
I tried Path of Exile, no character creation, I played for 20 minutes and deleted it, too much like D3 nothing but click, click, click.
Quote from: RooksBailey on March 17, 2013, 05:00:46 PM
Quote from: Nefaro on March 17, 2013, 02:51:57 AM
It's hard to believe someone who was so into the first Torchlight hasn't picked up the second one yet. There's just more .. of everything. It's much better in every way. Hell, I see the thing on sale for half-price ($10) sometimes but it's easily worth the $20 they ask regularly.
I wanted to finish the original before I moved on to the sequel. That is the only reason I haven't picked it up yet. :)
I also want to try Path of Exile: http://www.pathofexile.com/
This is supposed to be a good F2P ARPG as well. Anybody try it?
Path of Exile was interesting for it's use of gem slotting for skills, and how the gems themselves levelled up. It's also nice for being F2P.
However, it doesn't seem to have much in the way of monster variety in the first 10 or 12 character levels. Seemed rather bland for that and other reasons. :-[ It also tends to make my video card want to heat up much more than usual, despite my framerate being far over the limit of my monitor, and I couldn't stop it from blasting the vid card fan after turning on Vsync, even.
I
highly recommend you pick up Torchlight 2 if you want to ARPG with something that's good all-around.
I bought Din's Curse because Bison likes it. If I am disappointed I will blame him but he won't care.
If I like it I will say something nice. Win/win.
Quote from: Longdan on March 18, 2013, 03:01:02 PM
I bought Din's Curse because Bison likes it. If I am disappointed I will blame him but he won't care.
If I like it I will say something nice. Win/win.
Din's Curse is a fun and very indie ARPG of the very randomized sort. It's one that I tend to play in short stretches but it's always on the hard drive.
I like the wide variety of mix & match classes and skills although there are definite powerhouse and lame skills to be sorted through. The "I Win" skill is generally one of the numerous AOE skills that allow you to blast numerous enemies per shot because the default settings will generally spam you with lots of foes. However! There are settings to adjust various things.. including one that will spawn fewer, more powerful, monsters. So it has a good bit of flexibility too.
It still needs more monster types IMO, but it's not too bad in that department either since you get some variation and a few tricks. Pales in comparison to all the bosses, mini-bosses, and specials in Torchlight 2, however.
I like it.
Just a heads up:
GameFly - formerly Direct2Drive - has Torchlight 2 for 75% off (that's $7!). If you are looking for a great ARPG, or just were disgusted with Diablo 3 as I was, I highly recommend this game.
http://www.gamefly.com/Download-Torchlight-II/5004159/
Glad I waited the week before buying. :D
Quote from: RooksBailey on March 20, 2013, 06:51:27 PM
Just a heads up:
GameFly - formerly Direct2Drive - has Torchlight 2 for 75% off (that's $7!). If you are looking for a great ARPG, or just were disgusted with Diablo 3 as I was, I highly recommend this game.
http://www.gamefly.com/Download-Torchlight-II/5004159/
Glad I waited the week before buying. :D
Hory Crap! That's cheap!
Does Gamefly have it's own client that's required (like Steam) or does it have a real installer file download option?
I already have Torchlight 2 but was just curious as to how their system works, because I've never bought anything there.
Quote from: Nefaro on March 20, 2013, 07:09:49 PM
Quote from: RooksBailey on March 20, 2013, 06:51:27 PM
Just a heads up:
GameFly - formerly Direct2Drive - has Torchlight 2 for 75% off (that's $7!). If you are looking for a great ARPG, or just were disgusted with Diablo 3 as I was, I highly recommend this game.
http://www.gamefly.com/Download-Torchlight-II/5004159/
Glad I waited the week before buying. :D
Hory Crap! That's cheap!
Does Gamefly have it's own client that's required (like Steam) or does it have a real installer file download option?
I already have Torchlight 2 but was just curious as to how their system works, because I've never bought anything there.
I got grandfathered into GameFly as I purchased two games via D2D. How it works now is that you can buy a game right through the website, but must then download their own client to actually download the game. This is where it gets into Rube Goldberg territory with Torchlight 2: You have to install the GameFly client to get your game keycode...which you then need to plug into Steam. ::) Sort of begs the question...WHY?!?
I understand why these other companies are creating their own clients to compete with Steam - I mean, Steam was getting real close to a de facto monopoly, but it sort of undermines their entire purpose when you wind up having to use Steam anyway. Silly.
Quote from: RooksBailey on March 20, 2013, 08:51:09 PM
I understand why these other companies are creating their own clients to compete with Steam - I mean, Steam was getting real close to a de facto monopoly, but it sort of undermines their entire purpose when you wind up having to use Steam anyway. Silly.
Ha! No kidding!
I'd rather have a setup like Desura's: Have the Client option for all those who just want their updates, etc, all done for them
and provide completely self-contained installers for those who don't want to use it. I actually use both routes with them so it's very convenient. Some games I use their client for (especially if they're in beta with lots of regular updates) and some I just d/l the installer package, burn a copy or two, and use that on either computer I want it on. Everyone's happy! :D
Torchlight 2 is 50% Off this week. Ten bucks!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/200710/
I noticed an update went in this evening.. they've added the Steam Workshop mod-browsing/enabling software (one of Steam's nice features) along with free new content.
Quote
The Steam Workshop is Now Available for Torchlight II and to celebrate the game is on sale for 50% off!*
A new launcher synchronizes any mods you have subscribed to, and lets you customize their activation state and loading priority. In addition, when playing Internet games in the lobby, you will be able to filter modded games by mod combination, and with a single button click, subscribe to those mods. Torchlight II will then restart, synchronize them, and activate them before returning you to the game.
The Steam Workshop is also fully integrated with GUTS, the in-house editor for Torchlight II. You can publish directly to Steam Workshop when you compile your mod, making it available immediately for others to play. Mods that have already been made with GUTS can also be quickly imported into the Steam Workshop.
The Workshop launch also introduces new content into the base game, including:
The NetherRealm tileset - new NetherRealm dungeons can be found via portals throughout the world
New Monsters
New armor sets
New weapons
New pets - including the Headcrab!
New endgame map content
Some additional new dungeons in New Game plus modes in large overworld areas
*Offer ends April 8th at 2 PM Pacific Time
Quote from: Nefaro on April 01, 2013, 08:54:32 PM
Torchlight 2 is 50% Off this week....
You can get
Torchlight II from the publisher (http://www.torchlight2game.com/) for $9.99 as well.