Current state of the game?

[Dreaguh]

Curious if the game is in a decent state now since before I heard nothing but negative things.

[Katie]

Originally posted by Rotdhizon:

I'm not one that cares about graphics or customization, I care about progression and that's where this game falls short. If you scroll far enough back to before when this game completely died in the west, you can see how bad it is.

The endgame is 100% revolved around getting specific drops to boost your build. The problem is that they unbelievably screwed up the loot pools. They made it so that the critical items most people need for their builds are only possible to obtain in the absolute hardest encounters and those encounters are so difficult that most people can't beat them without cheesing them with a broken build. There is practically 0 progression in that mid-endgame area and the devs have acknowledged this time and time again. They know that there is a huge gap in progression and have said they will try to work on it but so far it is still pretty bad. In the current state of the game, you are practically required to use whatever broken/OP builds that are found if you want to do the hardest content.

The loot was more focused around crafting and flame elementium farming for the trade house in Season 2. But from what I gather, this has changed considerably in Season 3. I don't think anyone is far enough in season 3 to really comment on this yet. They changed so much from Season 2, I think I need to really dig deep into it to come to a proper conclusion again.

Regardless, Path of Exile is really similar to this as well. You don't get good loot drops there either, and there is a big emphasis on either no-lifing or trading in that game as well.

In fact, I'd say games like Diablo 3 and Path of Exile are very much split on this issue. Diablo 3 has predictable loot systems in place and thus feels different. Even Diablo 2 did not have predictable loot, especially at the start of ladder where your character had garbage gear. It takes a long time to SSF up a proper gear setup in Diablo 2 as well.

If this problem hasn't been changed, I would want the devs to consider an SSF mode with boosted drop rates but with the trade house disabled.

[Revelationz]

Originally posted by Katie:

OP, you can play and assess the game yourself, or believe the trolls or people with ulterior agendas. It's really up to you. I don't know what else to say. You can either believe claims without evidence, or use your own judgement :/

If you had to choose one of the torch games to play, which one would you go with?

[Scrangos]

Originally posted by Revelationz:

If you had to choose one of the torch games to play, which one would you go with?

The torchlight games should probably not be spoken about in a group, they have the same name but not the same developers or philosophy. Could say that they're not remotely spiritual successors of eachother after torchlight 2.

Don't even consider 3, it was meant to be a live service game that got scrapped hastily into a single player game. I did like the class ideas, but the stuff trying to make it live service just made it bad.

TL1 is an indie lightweight arpg, had good mod support and plenty of mods (my favorite was the dancer class). The mods are kinda hard to find now adays I think. It wasn't a super elaborate game but what it had was super solid. It is an older game though, and the genre has grown since then.

TL2 expands on TL1, also had good modding support. More classes, multiplayer etc. This is where the original torchlight legacy ends.

Infinite is a decent game, but its at best shoehorning the word torchlight in there. I'd just treat it as its own modern arpg and forget the torchlight name part.

I'd suggest trying one of the first two games if you want to see what got the torchlight name some fame.

[Katie]

Originally posted by Revelationz:

Originally posted by Katie:

OP, you can play and assess the game yourself, or believe the trolls or people with ulterior agendas. It's really up to you. I don't know what else to say. You can either believe claims without evidence, or use your own judgement :/

If you had to choose one of the torch games to play, which one would you go with?

It's hard to say, as game design has changed a lot. Torchlight 2 is strictly better than the first game, but it's not perfect. I played torchlight 2 again recently and some negatives I noticed:

1. Big, open areas with not a whole lot going on in them. There are dungeons and points of interest on the map, but combing through them is kind of tedious and exhausting. And because it's so big and open at times, there is a lot of backtracking to and from locations when the enemies are already killed from previous visits. I hate this, and Torchlight Infinite's maps are a lot better designed.

2. No way to respec stats legitimately in Torchlight 2. On console, there is a way to respec all of your skills - you can craft potions to do this. I think you need a mod to do this on PC. I personally dislike this design. In Torchlight Infinite, you can respec to your heart's content until level 80 - it's very accessible to experimentation without having to restart from the beginning. Getting more respecs is also pretty inexpensive at the trade house after level 80.

3. The game has poor sound effects, which means if you have poor vision, you will not have good cues as to what is going on. I find eye tracking to be pretty difficult in Torchlight 2 since I can only see out of one eye. Torchlight Infinite can put your health/mana bars in the center of the screen, eliminating this eye tracking issue.

4. Mana issues at the beginning of the game are painful. Modern RPGs have ways of giving resources so you can actually use your skills, like in D3, Path of Exile, etc. Torchlight 2 is really painful and is a lot closer to Diablo 2's design in this respect. Torchlight Infinite has many ways to resolve these mana issues.

5. Audio mixing is done really poorly in Torchlight 2. Cutscenes are really loud, while the rest of the game is not so loud. I also think the voice acting is too low. As far as I can tell, there are no audio mixing issues like this in Infinite.

The story in all of these games is fairly poor as well, but I'd say at least Torchlight Infinite has the most coherent story and the highest production values. It doesn't feel like Infinite is connected to the past games though, but to be honest, it really doesn't matter to me personally since I never played this series for the story in the first place.

I also think the graphics are the best out of any of the Torchlight games. I really enjoy the skill system in Infinite as opposed to fixed class trees. The talent trees also add a lot more depth and customization than the older Torchlight game's stat point system. I also think combat feels better, and the boss design is certainly better as well in Infinite.

I played Torchlight 1 and 2 a lot - most of my time is on Xbox though - but I think Infinite is a better game in most areas unless you really like the lower quality of life aspects, such as having no respecs, having mana issues in the beginning, and stuff like that. Some players like that - I don't.

[Alekero]

Originally posted by Dreaguh:

Current state of the game

Boring mobile ♥♥♥♥ for sht eaters (who loved this "game") and definitely can cause eyes bleed from completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥ UI\UX.