The Gaming Den

Shrapnel and I played it local a few times yesterday, and I played it solo a bit before that.

I really liked it, although the story of Shadow over Mystara is rather incomprehensible at times (the games, however, are consistently fun.)

As much as I will speak ill of Diablo 2 and its clones, I grabbed Torchlight 2. It's a lot of fun. It helps that it's brighter and a bit more cartoony, and the classes seem to have more variety in their abilities. A wider world area, the cool pets... plenty of fun things. And a bonus point for letting anyone (with the right level or stats) equip any gear, it's nice that you can just use a wand if that's what you want to do. Or a cannon. Currently at level 10-ish with a... okay I forget their names. "Gun Mage" and "Engineer".

Obviously there are bad points which are basically inherited from D2:

• Level up! Place 5 points into attributes. Maybe this will hurt you later, maybe it won't!
• Putting ranks into the abilities you get so that you have to keep boosting the one Attack Power, then decide if you really want to get the new available one at rank 1 or just keep going with the old one, and can't splash about with a big pool of abilities.
• Only four classes. Yes, I've been spoiled.

Koumei wrote:[*]Level up! Place 5 points into attributes. Maybe this will hurt you later, maybe it won't!

I find saving up your points unspent for like AGES and then only spending them when you find an item you want to equip that needs it works out surprisingly well.

[*]Putting ranks into the abilities you get so that you have to keep boosting the one Attack Power, then decide if you really want to get the new available one at rank 1 or just keep going with the old one, and can't splash about with a big pool of abilities.

Yeah, that annoys me. It was basically a nasty piece of reactionary bullshit put in because the massive backlash against Diablo 3 was in part misplaced hatred of the whole idea that you didn't do that and you just got your abilities with level up and could mix and match effectively hot swapping your respec of your character build really easy.

So they basically made respecing really hard. Which combined with the annoying "multiple points investment" stuff meant, yeah you are actively encouraged to invest in a few abilities a lot. Caps on investment "help" or perhaps just annoy you by FORCING split investment especially if you get the exact order wrong or don't just wait multiple levels with unspent points.

Respecing can only be done on the last I think 2? points you spent which is a bitch since what it actually encourages you to do is spend all your points on passives and crap, spend your last 2 points on active low level crap to "keep you going", constantly go back and respec out of those whenever you level up, invest more in passives, spec back into the NEW last 2 points of actives you don't-want-in-the-long-term and then EVENTUALLY you hit a level where you can flat out invest in the actives you actually want.

It really doesn't help that the same classes, even the same supposedly matching "skill groups" or whatever will have like crapper (or better) lower level actives in them that fill seemingly pretty much the same role as later ones.

[*]Only four classes. Yes, I've been spoiled.[/list]

editOh yeah... and unlike Diablo 3 and such... they built modding capability right into the game at release. I haven't messed with it, but quess what one of the main things people seem to be adding with mods is? Yep. Classes.

There is a fair potential for dramatically different builds in them though. Especially if you do a lot of annoying dry humping of the respec guy in town.

You CAN even build a sword using outlander or mage (sort of). It's silly but, hell whatever, you can respec hump the few abilities that don't depend on guns or wands and have a relatively viable character.

One of my favorite builds so far has been a technicolor mage, that over invested into he multi-element bolt low level spell as their main big thing active spell, then just collected EVERY elemental status/damage boosting passive from all the elemental skill sets, and eventually that thing where you get reverse healing/mana restoring energy bolts on kills. Its a technicolour mult-elemental nightmare and surprisingly effective for a weirdo build.

But still the MAIN thing that is awesome about Torchlight 2. you get fucking items. You get UNIQUE items, you get cool items that upgrade when you shoot 30 skeletons with them, you get fucking SET items, and you get them starting almost immediately, and you get better ones later, and you get them all the time and you get things you can DEFINITELY use including uniques and set items and bullshit as QUEST REWARDS.

Which after Diablo 3's "Fuck you go buy it with real money auction house or have items 10 levels behind or worse and be borderline unplayable FOREVER" was a wonderland of fun and games in comparison.

Oh definitely, and the bit where I can tell it to go offline if I want to take the laptop into a different room (see: no Wifi) is awesome, and another reason why Diablo 3 can go fuck itself if it pleases.

I think it took only half an hour of play to actually get a full set of 3/3 for one of the various types. Then getting weird crap like "the other eye", finding that Lucky chap who enchants items... the whole "equipment" part of the game actually feels more fun (discovering new weird crap) and rewarding (finding part A of a set, saying "I am going to complete this set!" and then doing so) more than a chore. And they didn't put Item Durability in, because that can fuck right off.

So I really am happy with this game.

Koumei wrote:Oh definitely, and the bit where I can tell it to go offline if I want to take the laptop into a different room (see: no Wifi) is awesome, and another reason why Diablo 3 can go fuck itself if it pleases.

I'll tell you this though the bit where you "can" run it on a LAN without internet... you can... and it's awesome.

But if anyone has the Steam Version... it might not work right and they may well desync like a fucking bitch time and again. Apparently this has been a problem pretty much since launch, last I checked and it was AGES after release, it was not fixed. That pissed me the hell off and made me shake my fist and go "Steeeeeaaaam!".

The unfortunate solution to that desynching is then for every sucker to go online anyway. Which is not good.

Koumei, you might interested in this mod. It adds a necromancer class (three other ones are in development), adds respec potions and different tiers of enemies for more variety. Its pretty sweet.

The respec potions are already in the code, but not attainable, there are mods that add only the potion if you don't want other stuff to come with it.

Now playing one of each. Decided to go the Prismatic Spray +ALL THE ELEMENTS option for the Embermage. Actually swapping between dual wands and single staff rather than going "Fuck changing, ONE OPTION FOREVER" as I normally do.

It's hilarious the way the pet runs off and murders groups of enemies, even champions, and I level up before even reaching them. Am I correct in assuming the only differences between any two pets (before eating fish) is "the appearance"?

Also, one of the game tips said to use slottable items as soon as you can, don't save up, because "you'll get more, and the ability to refine them into better kinds is a lost art". Ignoring that in act 2 you totally can combine them to make (random) new ones... could you do that in TL1, or is that a direct jab at Diablo 2?

Koumei wrote:Now playing one of each. Decided to go the Prismatic Spray +ALL THE ELEMENTS option for the Embermage. Actually swapping between dual wands and single staff rather than going "Fuck changing, ONE OPTION FOREVER" as I normally do.

I went dual wands early on my prismatic spray embermage, now I slightly regret it, because since I have the death bolts self recharging thing I don't really ever use wands or indeed ANYTHING but prismatic spray+the death bolts recharge thing, and I barely even use the bonus charge rate passive with the free casting junk. But fair enough, that is ages away game play wise.

It's hilarious the way the pet runs off and murders groups of enemies, even champions, and I level up before even reaching them. Am I correct in assuming the only differences between any two pets (before eating fish) is "the appearance"?

Try teaching your pet spells. I taught a lama to heal me, cast whirlwind to make itself super fast movement/attack, summon and ether imp and shoot fireballs.

Also, one of the game tips said to use slottable items as soon as you can, don't save up, because "you'll get more, and the ability to refine them into better kinds is a lost art".

I am... unsure... but I think it's sorta true. When you trade in the three gems by the means I recall you get a different gem, of a random "rarer" type but I THINK it's of the same TIER of value as the gems you trade in. So yeah, it's probably better to have like a blood ember speck than several fire and ice specks, but its not like you got a larger size of gem.

Koumei wrote:Ignoring that in act 2 you totally can combine them to make (random) new ones... could you do that in TL1, or is that a direct jab at Diablo 2?

You could merge them together in T1... and I basically sat on them until they could be merged for better ones as a result.

Oh yeah and the fact that there is totally a dude who will explode your items for you to salvage back your gems means there really is little or no reason not to use them a lot, though really, all the basic elemental gems, for me, go in weapons or nothing, I don't NEED "12 fire armour" thank you

Oh, I do socket/combine gems all the time, then smash things apart when necessary. I just wanted to know if they were referring to stuff you could do in the first game or poking fun at Diablo 2 (Horadric Cube). I guess it was the former then.

Downloaded Synergies, and started up with a Necromancer... and taught my undead pet how to shout. It's tempting to also teach it to summon more undead, but that's sounding like a "yo dawg" image macro.

Installed Dragon Nest (on the grounds that it's free and it apparently blends fighting game mechanics into it), but much like about two thirds of steam users, I can't get the game to run. There seem to be many possible solutions, but none of them has worked so far.

http://chipandironicus.com/videos/mgr/

My favorite LP updated, with glorious mariachi outfit action. And gratuitous debates about U.S. student loan debt!

http://indiegames.com/2013/07/linden_la ... ibuti.html

Kind of interesting news. Maybe Desura will get a more user-friendly website design sometime.

Managed to beat TL2 with the Ember Mage. I was enjoying the dual-wand-wielding (what with a ranged basic attack rather than the melee of the staff, and sinking a fair amount into the wand randomness ability), but some time in act 2 I swapped to the staff because of the various missile-deflecting enemies, and just... stuck with it. It just seemed to do more damage in general, and then adding just a few points of Staff mastery...

I was going for a very offensive build, as usual. Chucking a buff or two on then immediately letting loose. The good thing about playing a glass cannon in that respect is you can't just sit there and hold the right mouse button down, you do actually have to pay attention and move out of the way of attacks, adding that action element to it. Good fun.

And I still can't believe how fun this is despite A) being all about battling and B) basically being Diablo 2, which was shit. Even cosmetic things like the shape and colour of portals, the 4 energy types being Fire, Electric, Ice, Poison, the slottables being Diablo-style... it's as though they both made the same game, but then the last step was a little switch you could set to "fun" or "shit".

I think next I'll rampage through with the Outlander or Engineer, and leave the Barbarian to last. With Synergies, I've been making slower progress because there are many more monsters and distractions and things - it's bad enough being anal-retentive about exploring the entire map.

I got Heroes Of Might And Magic 6 today.

After about fifteen minutes, I uninstalled it without reaching the main menu. Also, I hate Ubisoft very badly.

Kinda interesting: http://www.fortressofdoors.com/2013/04/ ... lving.html

And now, Outlander win! Very occasionally, I switch to the cannon - never found a shotgun that is as awesome as the cannons I happen to have at the time. Higher-level could really do with a pump-action or semi-auto shotgun (that is of course "a shotgun, but with a faster rate of fire") to put it in the midpoint between pistols and cannons. But mostly I wield two pistols with all the embers and enchantments and fancy stuff, and use the mana-steal aspect to basically recharge between bursts of glaivicide.

Main skills are the "throw an exploding fire glaive", "throw a bouncing glaive" and "sweep the glaive around" ones, though I keep the passive "kill things to make imps" and "summoned crap is stronger" ones at maximum. Also starting on the shadowy doom breath, and will eventually grab the "rotating fire glaives" and "summon big fuck-off monster". THERE WILL BE ALL THE MINIONS.

And all this talk about glaives has reminded me of something I must take to Annoying Questions.

I'm having fun with T2 as well, it being one of the few newer games that doesn't make my laptop overheat. The prismatic bolt embermage build must be really popular, since even before seeing this thread I decided to do the same thing. What with the elemental brands/charge mastery, and eventually staff mastery/magma spear to get rid of resistances, it looks really straightforward, which I guess is much of the appeal to noobs like me.

Currently going Engineer, and ditched the hammer completely. Shame about the skill points invested, but cannoneering is so much fun, and combos well with Stomp.

name_here wrote:I got Heroes Of Might And Magic 6 today.

After about fifteen minutes, I uninstalled it without reaching the main menu. Also, I hate Ubisoft very badly.

I am so sorry. That game is a war crime. Deserves its own thread about how shitty it is.

-Username17

True - still, at least he didn't get to play* it. All in all, that is better than getting to see the game in action - even if you paid and never got it to run.

*as much as the various bugs and issues allow to do that (of course the biggest one is that the game isn't fun and is the greatest disgrace to the franchise ever made)

The last Heroes of Might and Magic I played was the second one. With sprites, dragon colours being a case of rank not alignment, and an awesome map editor*. Have there been any good HoMM games since then?

*I made a huge map once, vaguely real-world shaped, and basically divided it up like Risk. It took about 17 years to beat.

Three was pretty good. That's the only one I've played more than a cursory amount.

Five is pretty good, actually- there are some weird changes but nothing too drastic, and having the camera swoop around your fully animated cities is mad cool.