Noob question: what’s the point of the game if mob and boss health doesn’t reset when you die? Where is the challenge?

[SwordOS]

This is my first hack and slash diablo like rpg, so maybe I’m missing something obvious.

Where’s the challenge if you can go to a dungeon that can be 5 levels above you, die repeatedly without paying attention and then respawn with mobs already killed and bosses that retain the same amount of health you left to them? I mean where’s the challenge.

I’m not the type of person who like to self-impose rules like “try not to take damage in this dungeon” just for the sake of it.

Did I buy the wrong game? Is there something that makes death a thing you want to avoid later on?

[potterman28wxcv]

There are two possible gameplay styles in Torchlight 2.

You can play it Hardcore. Meaning that you try to beat the game without dying.

Or you can play it Softcore (not hardcore): in that case, you allow yourself to die.

Torchlight 2 is not a roguelike, so yes you can corpserun: die, then come back and finish the fight.

I would not say Torchlight 2 has been designed on any specific challenge in mind. It's a RPG : you create a character, then you watch it evolve and deal with bosses more or less easily.

Dying has a penalty : either gold/XP/fame or time (takes time to go back to town). Even though it is technically possible to beat the game dealing dmg then dying then coming back, it is not a fun thing to do. It is also not optimal : all the time you spend dying and coming back, you could have spent it leveling or farming instead.

However, if you want challenges, here are a couple of challenges you can impose yourself :
- Play Hardcore - this one is implemented in the game
- Force yourself to not corpserun. If you die, start a new game in LAN and reroll the map.
- Try to beat the game as fast as you can

My point is that you should see TL2 (and all games of the genre) a bit like a sandbox simulator but one that is quite linear. You control a character, you evolve it, you make choices on your character - and eventually that's what the game is about. While you may try to defeat this or that boss without dying (and it's a feat to be proud of, especially on the harder fights!), it's not the whole point of the game.

By the way, there are some mods out there that have tried to tackle the virtual lack of death penalty. I'm thinking in particular of this one
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=138734488

There is also that one
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921708134

Steffire probably has some other mods too :)

Achievements are not disabled while using mods, so unless you want to play MP, feel free to try those. Probably it can fine tune your experience to something closer to your expectations.

[steffire3]

Originally posted by RotP potterman28wxcv:

Steffire probably has some other mods too :)

Here's the difficulty mod list I have although I would say that the ones recommended above are better for making killed penalties much more punishing.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/200710/discussions/0/152391285465587271/

[potterman28wxcv]

On the talk of challenges in ARPGs, i might add my own experience on Diablo 1.

There are a lot of ways to play Diablo 1. It's a game where you can just stack on as many pots as you can, kill some fellas, go back to town, replenish all your pots, then go back in.

But I find this to be not really fun - i like challenges. So whenever I go down in the dungeon, i try to last as long as i can without drinking pots : i will really try to minimize the damage i take, picking carefully the enemies, using Staff of Healing to avoid drinking pots, etc..

Some people like to play ARPGs the quickest possible - some others will try to conserve as many resources as they can, drinking pots only occasionally - some others will play it very thoroughly, exploring every part of the game, selling every single item on the ground, talking to every NPC etc.. In the end of the day it's all about playing the game how you want it to.

By not having any challenge set on stone, the game gives you that freedom: you can do your best to not do any corpserun. Or, if there is a particular fight you don't want to get stuck in, you can corpserun. It's all up to you.