Why you should play Torchlight II (and comparison with Diablo III)

[in.meinem.turm.]

Originally Posted by wdroberts

Also, I get that you can change your active skills or runes with characters in Diablo III, but there's still no such thing as a "build" anymore - it's now a "set of currently selected skills". This is probably better for the casual player in the long run.

Yeah that really soured my day. Experimenting with character builds was really great in Diablo 2. Can you make it through with a melee sorceress? The Assassin could be played so many ways and all were fun but you had to distribute points differently. Here you get one character build and have no choice at all if you want more energy or more dex.
My Sorcerer in the beta was out of mana fast and there was nothing much I could do to counter it because I could not choose to put more points into Energy.
It's nice to try out every skill without risks but then again there aren't too many of them after all. They will hopefully not take years to balance and re-balance them then.

[salbahis]

torch light 1 was a decent game, but for me it lacked a bit, on stuff like: -bosses that felt more like nomal mode champions then bosses.
-items didnt feel special and a bit boring.
-the maps were to much the same, feelt like i was doing the same map over and over.
-no hardcore mode, its what i love the most from diablo2.
-no multiplayer, dont like playing games like this solo.
-just feels to simple, i wanted a more complex game.
so il wait for release and see if it tempts me, before deciding to buy the game.
i hope multiplayer will be on dedicated servers, and not modable.
i feel when people add their stuff and bend the rules it doesnt feel right.

[in.meinem.turm.]

Originally Posted by salbahis

-no hardcore mode, its what i love the most from diablo2.

Torchlight has a hardcore mode. There are even achievements for it.

Originally Posted by salbahis

-the maps were to much the same, feelt like i was doing the same map over and over.

Show me an ARPG where that is not the case.

Originally Posted by salbahis

i hope multiplayer will be on dedicated servers, and not modable. I feel when people add their stuff and bend the rules it doesnt feel right.

I kind of agree and I kind of don't. Really depends on the mod.

[salbahis]

Torchlight has a hardcore mode. There are even achievements for it.

-sorry, i guess its a long time since i playd it and my memory isnt that great .


Show me an ARPG where that is not the case.

-titan quest and diablo2 didnt feel as copy past as tl1, guess i just expected more from it.


I kind of agree and I kind of don't. Really depends on the mod.

-some mods is cool, but when you play co-op and your partner cheats and pretends like he doesnt.
stuff like that just is not cool.

[nuR421]

Originally Posted by wdroberts

Torchlight II adds multiplayer and several other features (see below), and is due for release this summer (and is now available for a $19.99 pre-order).

This. Thorchlight is looking the same as Torchlight II to me. It's boring. I'll probably get Torchlight 2 at some point but it's not fascinating at all to me right now.

Character Customization

Torchlight II has four playable classes with three unique skill trees per class. You can also customize the gender, appearance, and facial features of the classes. Diablo III has five playable classes (possibly six in the final release), but none of these classes are customizable. One blogger put it this way (blablabla)

Classes are customizable in Diablo 3 as well. Especially with runes. They're also dynamic as you can quickly swap runes and skills. Diablo 3 has one class more anyways. Both approaches are interesting.
And who needs facial customization? If you want to get a facial you need to look somewhere else... not play a dungeon crawler.

Connection Requirements

Torchlight II lets you play without an Internet connection for single player or LAN modes. Diablo III requires a connection for all game types, and has no LAN mode. This means that if a server-side error occurs (one out of your control), you could lose items, experience, or quest progress since the server last saved your data.

While this is true it's probably also true that torchlight 2 will be plagued by hacks, dupes and end up as a copy & paste endgame. A game that resolves around aquiring items and puts no stop to copying and distributing them? I can't see people enjoying it for a long time.

Music

Matt Uelmen, who composed the music for Diablo, Diablo II, Lord of Destruction, StarCraft, and Torchlight has also composed the music for Torchlight II. Diablo III's music was composed by Russell Brower, who worked on StarCraft II and the majority of the World of Warcraft titles.

I liked the Music in Diablo 3 and if I want other music I simply play it. Soundtracks can be bought anyways so if you wanted to you could easily play the Torchlight 2 soundtrack while playing...

Graphical Style

The Torchlight series takes a comic-book approach to graphical style, which allows the game to run on a wider range of hardware. Diablo III, on the other hand, is a mix between bright and cartoonish like World of Warcraft and dark and gothic like the former Diablo games. The video performance of Diablo III could be an issue for those without powerful systems.

Diablo 3 runs fine even on a gameboy color.

Price

Like Torchlight, Torchlight II will be $20 when released. Diablo III will likely cost $60.

I bought mine for 45€ including shipping from Amazon on pre-order. And Torchlight 2 is basically like Torchlight 1. So most people, who bought both, will end up around the same price.
I'm not sure about the quality and overall polish but well... I don't think that Torchlight 2 really has the complexity and backbone infrastructure of Diablo 3 so I believe the prices are balanced.

Voice Acting

Torchlight's voice acting featured Lani Minella, who is a well-known voice actor in the video game community and has also worked on Torchlight II. Diablo III still has Michael Gough as Deckard Cain.

The Diablo 3 voice acting is great. Not sure what the names are but to be honest I don't care. They're doing an awesome job.

Opinion: The dialogue in the Diablo III is rather cheesy. For example, the Skeleton King's line before his boss fight is "You will never defeat me!", which seems more fitting for a World of Warcraft title than a Diablo title.

Diablo 3 will be 10 times harder than Torchlight 2, especially for hardcore players. The difficulty isn't always as easy as the beta was. I also don't think it's cheesy as it fit's the general mood in the game.

Pets

Torchlight II has seven pets to choose from. Pets help fight enemies, and can also make runs back into town to sell items for you (so you can spend more time playing and less time traveling to town).

In Diablo 3 you don't just sell but also crush items for materials. Not sure if a pet really helps. Personally I like both approaches. But there's enough clutter on the screen as is.

Modding API

Torchlight II will come with TorchED, the official modding toolkit for Torchlight, making it easier to create, share, and install mods.

You're right about that. But I don't like mods. I like good games that don't require mods. It only splits the playerbase as everyone uses different mods. It also leads to "cheating". Item copy and paste, uber chars etc.
I just want to boot up a game and play it. Not browse the web continuously for new mods, updates and whatnot.
Also please keep in mind that there are other good games out there. Also it's summer. Go out and ride a bike, go surfing or whatever. As for me I don't depend on modding but it's good to have such possibilities.

Social Environment

Torchlight II will support 4 to 8 players by default (currently not specified), but mods will allow games with an arbitrary number of concurrent players (16, 32, 64, you name it). Torchlight II will also allow directly trading items with other players, and will also include a moddable PVP component. Diablo III caps games at four concurrent players, and the auction house could reduce the amount of direct bartering, trading, and communication between players. Their PVP will take place in an 'arena' environment.

That's one thing that I don't like about d3. But the experiences in the beta have shown that their system works. 4 players is just about right currently as it means you can still kill stuff if you're alone but mostly people stick together. In D2 this was only the case in baals throne room...

As for trading... you can trade directly in D3. Just right click and select trade...
Also there is no money auction house for hardcore players as far as I know in d3.

What does Diablo III have that Torchlight II doesn't?

Diablo III's lore is much more rich than Torchlight's story, which was very thin in Torchlight (though this could be improved in Torchlight II). Diablo III also has a "Cash For Items" shop called the "Real Money Auction House", along with the larger support and community that you would expect from a Blizzard title (though I don't see support or community size being an issue for Torchlight II).

I believe it has much more. But both games are alright. As for me I will play D3 and take a look at how Torchlight 2 is progressing. Currently I don't have much hope. I believe it will end up like Diablo 2 open Battle net - with everyone copying and pasting, cheating like hell and hacks even worse than closed was ever plagued with.
I'll play through D3 with a few contacts and try to beat the game on all difficulties. After that it's probably time to move on to another game anyways since that'll probably take half a year or so the way it looks currently.

[in.meinem.turm.]

Originally Posted by nuR421

Diablo 3 runs fine even on a gameboy color.

No it doesn't. Because a GB Colour cannot connect to Battle.net. And even on a new alienware machine it might lag if your internetconnection is crap or you dare to download something while you are playing SinglePlayer. Or both. You know like me. I tried the beta while downloading The Witcher 2 and while not because D3 was unplayable in SINGLEPlayer when I did. Serverlag in Singleplayer leading to connection-loss and progress-loss is not exceptable. You can't tell me it is.

[Kenokam]

You know, I don't really get why people have such hang-ups on modding. Yes, baddies will always find a way to cheat, but that's no reason to give up on community-created content. Sure beats waiting for a developer (not directed at anyone specific) to crank out new content or fix what's broken.

[{RR}Kumquat.]

The original Torchlight had its problems, mainly due to lack of content. Voice acting was minimal, all environments were indoor, most of the creatures were very similar acting (although they looked difference), and there were no quests.

It was basically a pure dungeon crawler with a single main quest.

I recently played the Diablo 3 beta (open weekend) and just re-played/finished Torchlight 1.

I liked Diablo 3 in that it had some decent quests, didn't feel like you were alone in the world, had companions, and each character class was dramatically different. I enjoyed the randomness of the dungeons and the dark look. As for equipment, I found I was having to make more of a role decision than I did with Torchlight. Do I take armor of 6 but with +100 health, or the 15 armor + electrical damage? I didn't like the lack of character customization/skill trees. Yes, there's the runes, but the beta was so short there wasn't enough variety to see much difference. Basically ANY rune was better than none. I also noticed that when in combat, it was much easier to navigate. I think the characters/enemies are thinner and it just seemed less confusing/cluttered. Or it was doing a bit of "auto aiming" for me. Lastly, beta is beta and all, but the servers were down a lot. And then I'd need to redo a quest. And get lag.

In Torchlight 1, I liked the traditional nature of it. It was pretty fun through Floor ~22-24ish and then it started to get stale. It was much more of a crowd control/mob issue than working with any skill. Or if there was, that single entity was surrounded by the mob, and they needed to be weeded out. And when in the middle of the mob, things got lost easily. There are times I couldn't find the mouse cursor to click on an enemy, and I'd only move over a little instead of killing them.

One thing that Torchlight did MUCH better than Diablo 3 beta was indicating which character skills improved what. In Diablo, different magical items can give you +2 Vitality or +2 Strength, etc., but it's never expressed what your character likes to have. Only by digging through the details (which Blizzard has been wanting to hide) can you find out. And then it's a HUGE list of stats and numbers. You go from nice and simple to hardcore stats.

Looking at the previews for Torchlight 2, they seemed to have corrected most any faults I've had with Torchlight 1. Random maps, random interactions, good quests, more variety in environments, more characters, more skills, etc. etc.

And looking at the price. With a group of friends, Torchlight 2 can be had for $15. That's a steal for the content it has. That's a launching game for the price of something that's 2 years old during Steam's Holiday Sales. Honestly, I'm surprised it's so cheap. And for that price, it's worth a chance.

I do plan to purchase both, but not until prices get to be reasonable. Diablo 3 pre-order is a full $60. I'm sure it'll be a great game, but I'll wait for it to go on sale while I'm playing through T2.

[nuR421]

Originally Posted by in.meinem.turm.

No it doesn't. Because a GB Colour cannot connect to Battle.net. And even on a new alienware machine it might lag if your internetconnection is crap or you dare to download something while you are playing SinglePlayer. Or both. You know like me. I tried the beta while downloading The Witcher 2 and while not because D3 was unplayable in SINGLEPlayer when I did. Serverlag in Singleplayer leading to connection-loss and progress-loss is not exceptable. You can't tell me it is.

There's an extremely long lag grace in single player. If you experience lags of over 5 seconds then you can't download anyways without corrupting even that download.
I have a 2mbps connection, which is almost the lowest you can get aside from modems etc., and I can download even torrents (which I did) while playing without any lag.

Maybe you tried the open beta weekend and didn't download it fully so it had to download content while you were playing. But generally Diablo 3 runs VERY well on all hardware and it does NOT require a fast internet connection at all...

If you experienced it otherwise it's defininately your system setup.

I don't like the fact that I have to be online. True. But then again... Playing these games in single player is not my main focus. I will NEVER play this game alone. I will always have at least my girlfriend or friends playing with me. For anyone who's only playing single player this might be an issue but then again: these games have like 0 story. Yes there is a story but it's a joke really. A few speech bubbles here and there, cheesy deamon fantasy blabber - hell, I don't give a damn.
If you want a good story read a book - these games are simply for farming and relaxing dungeon crawling. I would never waste my time and sit there and hack through that stuff alone.

[wdroberts]

Originally Posted by nuR421

Classes are customizable in Diablo 3 as well. Especially with runes. They're also dynamic as you can quickly swap runes and skills. Diablo 3 has one class more anyways.

Diablo III's classes are not customizable, and I mentioned in the original post that Diablo III has more classes (did you read it?). You can change your currently selected skills. There's not much more to say about this topic; see the several other posts in this thread on the subject for clarification.

Originally Posted by nuR421

While this is true it's probably also true that torchlight 2 will be plagued by hacks, dupes and end up as a copy & paste endgame. A game that resolves around aquiring items and puts no stop to copying and distributing them? I can't see people enjoying it for a long time.
I believe it will end up like Diablo 2 open Battle net - with everyone copying and pasting, cheating like hell and hacks even worse than closed was ever plagued with.

How much can you tell me about the server-side configuration of Torchlight II's closed servers? The game isn't out yet, and your prediction seems very inaccurate. I would bet that Torchlight II will have both closed and open servers, just like Diablo II, to allow modders to play online as well.

Originally Posted by nuR421

Diablo 3 runs fine even on a gameboy color.

Since you don't seem very knowledgeable regarding computer hardware, I'll give a real world example. Most laptops and netbooks with integrated graphics do not run Diablo III at all, or can only run it at very choppy framerates. The Torchlight games (and OGRE-based games in general) run well on almost all hardware.

Originally Posted by nuR421

Torchlight 2 is basically like Torchlight 1. ... I don't think that Torchlight 2 really has the complexity and backbone infrastructure of Diablo 3 ...
Diablo 3 will be 10 times harder than Torchlight 2, especially for hardcore players.

Neither game is out yet, so this prediction is impossible to accurately make. And if Torchlight II is moddable, it's completely impossible that Diablo III will be more difficult.

Originally Posted by nuR421

I also don't think [the voice acting is] cheesy as it fit's the general mood in the game.

Sure, if the general mood of the game is cheesy.

Originally Posted by nuR421

In Diablo 3 you don't just sell but also crush items for materials. Not sure if a pet really helps. There's enough clutter on the screen as is.

The primary benefit of pets is the ability to sell items without leaving a dungeon. This will become increasingly useful in multiplayer, since players don't have to take breaks to go back to town nearly as often. If you don't like clutter on the screen, you can completely customize your UI in Torchlight II with a mod. You also may want to buy a higher-resolution monitor if your display is cluttered.

Originally Posted by nuR421

As for trading... you can trade directly in D3. Just right click and select trade...

I think everyone knows this. If you read the original post more closely, you'll notice that I said the presence of the auction house will reduce the frequency of in-game trading. Does that necessitate further explanation?

Originally Posted by nuR421

I like good games that don't require mods. It only splits the playerbase as everyone uses different mods. I just want to boot up a game and play it. Not browse the web continuously for new mods, updates and whatnot.
I liked the Music in Diablo 3 and if I want other music I simply play it. Soundtracks can be bought anyways so if you wanted to you could easily play the Torchlight 2 soundtrack while playing...
And who needs facial customization? If you want to get a facial you need to look somewhere else... not play a dungeon crawler.
If you want a good story read a book ...

A large number of players want modding APIs, enjoyable music, customization features, and decent lore in their games. If this bothers you, there isn't much I can do to explain how the world works, and that you aren't the only person in it. You seem to be bashing the fact that these things are well-done in certain games by calling them unnecessary. If you would like to make that argument, please note that the existence of games themselves is also unnecessary.

I don't intend to install any Torchlight II mods (as I don't use mods myself, in any game), but I still think it will be a better game than Diablo III (personal opinion). Since mods are optional, you don't have to "continuously" download new mods, and you have to update every game, so that's another senseless argument. A closed server model would prevent all of the problems you associate with modding.

I may have just wasted a decent chunk of time by responding to these points, but illogical arguments have no place in a factual comparison of Torchlight II and Diablo III.

Originally Posted by {RR}Kumquat

The original Torchlight had its problems, mainly due to lack of content. Voice acting was minimal, all environments were indoor, most of the creatures were very similar acting (although they looked difference), and there were no quests. It was basically a pure dungeon crawler with a single main quest.

There were actually multiple quest givers in Torchlight. In addition to the main quest there were side quests and the procedurally-generated "endless dungeon" (can't remember the official title), which will also be present in Torchlight II. Also, I'm glad that you're planning to play Torchlight II, and that you're not assuming it will have the same problems as Torchlight!

[Neriot]

Originally Posted by wdroberts

How much can you tell me about the server-side configuration of Torchlight II's closed servers? The game isn't out yet, and your prediction seems very inaccurate. I would bet that Torchlight II will have both closed and open servers, just like Diablo II, to allow modders to play online as well.

Unfortunately he's right regarding online play, wdroberts. Character files are stored locally, making it incredibly easy to cheat yourself to glory.

Runic simply don't have the resources to host a secure network of servers, although they have mentioned potentially releasing dedicated server files if there was enough of a demand for them.

Play with friends or otherwise make sure you moderate your game aggressively.

[OmegaDL50]

When Diablo 2 first released it also did not have a closed network option. It was only after a few years which Blizzard accrued enough money did they upgrade Battle.net and integrate a closed network option via a patch update.

What I mean to say is, Torchlight II could very well start off the same way, start off with only a LAN network option, and once they build up enough money they could later integrate a closed networking option.

In fact Runic is still planning to develop the Torchlight MMO, so if they get confident enough to the point to be able do full MMO with many players at once, I figure that point they could link up Torchlight II's netplay option to work on a closed network architecture.

It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility. It's just a matter of time and money and doing several networking stress tests.

[Neriot]

Originally Posted by OmegaDL50

When Diablo 2 first released it also did not have a closed network option. It was only after a few years which Blizzard accrued enough money did they upgrade Battle.net and integrate a closed network option via a patch update.

That was the original Diablo. Diablo 2 has always had secure Battle.net servers.

Secure Battle.net.. is that an oxymoron?

[OmegaDL50]

Ah, your right! I just loaded up Diablo 2 unpatched and on the menu it has an option for both Open and Closed Battle net.

Well maybe when Runic releases the Torchlight MMO they can reserve some of it's server data to incorporate a client-server mode for Torchlight II.

[BlueTrin]

Am I the only one who was massively disappointed by D3 beta ?
The game felt very bland to me.