Torchlight II and Borderlands 2 - What the hell went wrong?

[jpoon]

I still like Torchlight 2, it was a great little game. It was worth $20 I thought.

 

[rob_simple]

My only problem with Borderlands 2 was the ridiculously overpowered enemies. Granted I was playing solo, but I did the same in Borderlands one and only really struggled once I started to fight the Crimson Lance.

In Borderlands 2 I was getting fucking destroyed left, right and center by just about everything, but the absolute nadir was those giant robots that can one hit kill you even if you're the same level as them or a few above. I can see how they would be easier to fight in a group, but it felt like this time around the devs didn't ever really adjust for people playing the game on their own.

There were also a lot of cheap attacks that weren't just impossible to dodge, but pretty much impossible to see coming. I'm sure I remember reading an enemy description for the repair drones that said 'you will find these very annoying' which was funny to begin with, but after a while --with them and other enemies like the sewer rats-- it felt like they'd been specifically designed to piss you off.

That being said I still enjoyed it enough to play through it four times (twice on TVHM, which took years off me.)

 

[-Dragmire-]

Compare that to Diablo 3 where I have to replay the entire campaign on normal if I just want to play something challenging. It's bullshit! And Diablo 3's 'normal' difficulty is so damned easy and boring I don't think I died a single time while playing the game till the final chapter, and what's more it was a cheap death that got me where the game took control away from me. So like hell I'm making any new characters and slogging my way through that boring mess all over again, it's not like the story is worth it. Torchlight 2 doesn't really bother much with the story, which is definitely a bit disappointing. But Diablo 3 shoves its story in your face and what's worse, it's BAD. Like really cringe-worthy bad. It's like some little todler you don't even know constantly jumping up in your face to show off his latest scribble drawing: Entertaining at first but before long you're wondering where the hell this kids parents are so he'll go away.

Come on, Diablo 3's story is endearingly awful. I couldn't take it seriously at all(I tried at first), I was in tears at the end.

OT: Try modding Torchlight 2 for a slightly better drop rate, there should be something out there that retains a challenge while giving decent drops once in a while.

 

[The Madman]

Come on, Diablo 3's story is endearingly awful. I couldn't take it seriously at all(I tried at first), I was in tears at the end.

I wish. It's not like I have some sort of vendetta against Blizzard, I actually really like Starcraft 2's campaigns so far in all their corny gloriousness! I love that sort of B grade popcorn flick stuff, I watch those sorts of movies all the time. Big Trouble in Little China I consider one of my all time favourites while Kurt Russell and Bruce Campbell are my gods, I don't think there's a single movie that features either of those actors I don't love for one reason or another.

But for whatever reason Diablo 3's story wasn't even that, it was just... bad. I couldn't even get a wry chuckle out of it and even the lavish cinematics I found boring, which is probably a first for Blizzard.

 

[ThriKreen]

My main problems with Borderlands 2 were that there wasn't a dedicated melee character at launch, and that all the shotguns are shit.

Sounds like you need a Conference Call shotgun, or look for a Hulk Torgue shotgun (lots of pellets, decent damage). Couple it with a relic that has higher damage and reload speed.

UVHM though is a broken joke.

Well it is supposed to be "ultimate" after all I just wish Verm was easier to spawn. And Terramorphous didn't have his lame "I knock you off the ledge no matter what" ability.

In Borderlands 2 I was getting fucking destroyed left, right and center by just about everything, but the absolute nadir was those giant robots that can one hit kill you even if you're the same level as them or a few above. I can see how they would be easier to fight in a group, but it felt like this time around the devs didn't ever really adjust for people playing the game on their own.

Hmm, you might need to get a better shield then? A turtle one with high capacity, a fast recharge delay and resistance to something might go a long way towards your survivability.

Heck, I run around with a Bee and even with it's low capacity, I rarely go down in one hit, unless I get caught out in the open as a Constructor fires a swarm of missiles.

There were also a lot of cheap attacks that weren't just impossible to dodge, but pretty much impossible to see coming. I'm sure I remember reading an enemy description for the repair drones that said 'you will find these very annoying' which was funny to begin with, but after a while --with them and other enemies like the sewer rats-- it felt like they'd been specifically designed to piss you off.

The survey drones have easy flight patterns, when they do their bombing run on you, just lead and fire. And of course, focus on taking them out first since they can repair the other loaders. And yes, they are designed to annoy the hell out of you, since their attack is shock-based, meaning they're trying to negate your shields - leaving you vulnerable to everything else. Which might explain how you're getting one-shotted.

The other thing I've noticed against loaders is that it's much, much easier to get a sniper rifle and aim for their joints, and focus on blowing off their limbs - you take off 20-40% of their health with each limb removal, instead of chipping away as normal or crit hits on their eye. And of course, make it a corrosive-based weapon. Once they're limbless, they resort to using a shock blast from their eye, but they have to pause and charge up for that attack, leaving them vulnerable to a well-placed sniper shot to the eye for their last critical spot. Or just revert to regular damage, as usually at that point they're at 20% health and can be easily killed that way.

I find a lot of the difficulty for the higher levels in BL2 requires you to juggle your weapon effects a lot - basically have at least one of each type for your four slots and do the slag then shock if needed, then corrosive or fire depending on the enemy's armour type. It's challenging having to have that kind of battlefield awareness, something I don't recall BL1 needing, but keeps you on your toes.

Obviously having a partner helps since you can have one person focus on keeping shock and slag, to keep then vulnerable, and other using corrosive and fire.

A (longbow) slag singularity grenade helps a lot as well.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Come on, Diablo 3's story is endearingly awful. I couldn't take it seriously at all(I tried at first), I was in tears at the end.

I wish. It's not like I have some sort of vendetta against Blizzard, I actually really like Starcraft 2's campaigns so far in all their corny gloriousness! I love that sort of B grade popcorn flick stuff, I watch those sorts of movies all the time. Big Trouble in Little China I consider one of my all time favourites while Kurt Russell and Bruce Campbell are my gods, I don't think there's a single movie that features either of those actors I don't love for one reason or another.

But for whatever reason Diablo 3's story wasn't even that, it was just... bad. I couldn't even get a wry chuckle out of it and even the lavish cinematics I found boring, which is probably a first for Blizzard.

I wasn't talking that kind of bad. Every scene I was just waiting for characters to get even more stupid.

Spoiler: d3 spoiler stuff

Good bits were how the good team were constantly screwed till the antagonists told them what to do(when they wanted to achieve the same goal, not goad the protagonists into getting it for them) cutscene let them win afterward, naturally.

King of liars is figured out by everyone involved.(was hoping it was misdirection but all well...)

It leads up to the MASTER STRATEGIST OF HELL using the strategy of attack fortified keep with all troops even though he has a gigantic amount of burrowing and flying creatures at his disposal that he could just skip it. He announces every. single. tactic he's using to his enemies via holo-skype to the point where you wonder how heaven ever had trouble with him(till you get there and realize everyone's equal in the wiffle bat war).

Since normal is piss easy I killed some of the generals hench people before his taunts were done which added to the hilarity.

Ending cut scene has almost nothing to do with the player character(which I find funny), just "Mr. I'm going to stay with Douchebag Angel even though I just told you the only way to heal him is kill Diablo, K bye" monologuing to himself as the undestroyable black crystal falls somewhere.

There's more but I can't remember right now.

I can see how people were dissatisfied with the story but... I don't know, I couldn't help but laugh.

 

[rob_simple]

Snip

That all makes sense, but it kind of goes against the whole random loot thing when you have to start searching for specific guns and shields just so you don't get your shit ruined against a couple of particularly over-powered enemies.

I still love the game, though, I just don't think it was as free-flowing with the combat as the first game; you pretty much need to have the specific weapons for a specific situation to have any chance of getting through in one piece whereas in Borderlands 1 you could just wing it and still survive most of the time.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Ok, some of your point made no sense whatsoever and others are highly dependent on your personal point of view but lets get started.

Torchlight 2 drop rate: I find this one just plain odd as I tend to get either a set-piece or a rare every 1/2 an hour to an hour. (Single Player, Veteran difficulty with mods that don't affect drop rate).

Don't play multiplayer so I can't comment on it.

Torchlight 2 Environments: Much more subjective, I personally liked the different mobs in the various areas of the map.

Torchlight 2 Story: I agree, the TL2 story is balls.

Torchlight 2 difficulty level: What? I've done multiple Veteran runs and most deaths were due to me entering areas above my level or stupidity (and one spectacular case where my forceshield died just before a troll smashed me).


Borderlands 2 environment: Err you like backtracking?

Borderlands 2 enemies: They can be spongy, but using elemental damage helps.

It's funny how the issues I mentioned keep overlapping one another, in this case the drop rates crash with the enemy problem. Elemental damage helps, but not much if I'm trying to take down a super badass loader with a green-rated caustic SMG I might have gotten like 5 levels ago.

I have to stress how much the environment issue with BL2 confuses even me, since I literally said out loud multiple times that if only the first had had more variety in that regard, I would've held it as a perfect game. But I still stand by my words: BL2 felt like pissing away potential by crafting tons of unique and interesting locations, used them for like 1 or 2 missions, and then forgot about them altogether. Like the (correct me if I remember falsely) Friendship Gulag, which was a whole area of its own, and you have exactly one mission to do there in the whole game. That brings up another issue I forgot to mention in my post: the amount of missions compared to how fast you level up. This was already a minor issue in BL1, but in the second I had a dozen missions from like level 12 when I was at 22, some of which took place entirely in locations specifically designed for the missions in question. They didn't offer any challenge, experience rewards or worthwhile gear, so I just skipped them entirely on my further playthroughs, missing out on the locations.

 

[Benpasko]

I've played a millionbillion hours of Borderlands 1, and I loved it. I thought BL2 was terrible, I didn't even finish it. I think it was the side quests, in BL1 if you did every side quest in the game you'd be on-level for the main storyline, but BL2 had like three times as many as you needed. I also think the guns felt way worse in BL2, what happened to my TMP pistols and heavy machine guns? For the first ten hours of BL2 every single assault rifle I found was semi-auto and I eventually just gave up. Plus the game was brick to the head retarded, and it felt grating to play because of all the annoying characters constantly saying 'funny' things at me.

 

[DoPo]

was one of several things that prevented my from enjoying TL2. Normal was a an absolute insult, to the point that I think I got to the first elemental spirit without spending any skill points at all, and beat the entire first chapter with only basic attacks. But once I turned it up to veteran I suddenly found myself ineffectively plinking away at the most basic of mobs, who all seemed to have had several zeros bolted onto their health, which absolute kills the pace of combat, and made bosses a massive chore.

Wait, did you finish Act 1 and then ramped up the difficulty? If so, that's your problem - Act 1 is pretty much a tutorial, difficulty shoots up a bit afterwards and you also raised it yourself, so you would get a larger dose of challenge increase.

 

[DrOswald]

These 2 games just puzzle me. They're both sequels to games I absolutely love, have been hopelessly hooked to, and improved on their predecessors in every way I could have wanted. Yet they both make a peculiar case of me having neither played nor liked either of them nearly as much as I loved the first ones, and peculiarly for almost exactly the same reasons. How should this be even possible?

Well, I know a few reasons.

Spoiler: Borderlands 2

- The exact problem with loot from Torchlight 2 can be placed here word for word, just replace Torchlight 2 with Borderlands 2.

- The environments. This is probably the most baffling of all, since this was IMO the only major flaw of Borderlands 1. But in the first one you spent quite a lot of time and questing in the same environments, i.e. Fyrestone, New Haven and such, even occasionally returning to them for late-game quests. At least for me it helped to establish a sense of setting and place. But in the second one the environments rarely feature more than a few quests and are then instantly forgotten about. It felt like wasting the environments: why make these huge, colourful sprawling levels if I'm only going to visit there once, never to return?

- The difficulty. With the aforementioned crap loot, and enemies (especially tougher ones) having way way way WAY too much health for their own good, many times I just found myself cowardly sitting in a corner somewhre slowly peddling away at the enemies' health. It didn't feel challenging, it felt like a war of attrition.

Woah, that was a lot of text. Anyways, have any of you had similar feelings for these games? Or experiences where you should have loved a game but didn't?

I don't play torchlight II enough to comment on that, but I can comment on Borderlands 2 a little.

Loot problems: I do not see it at all. It is true that you have a better chance of getting a good loot drop on multiplayer, but that is because you have to split it 2-4 ways. And the guns are not actually better, there are just more rare ones. In any case I really think that the loot drops do enable you to go through the later difficulties just fine. My wife made it through true vault hunter mode twice and she is, quite frankly, bad at video games. If she can get though it, pretty much any normal gamer should be able to. I mean, yes, it can be hard but that is what hard mode is for. And especially during the first play you replace your gear very rapidly. It is almost a problem when you find an amazing gun and know it is going to be worthless after a couple hours of play.

The environments: I really can't see why this is a bad thing. You spend around 2-4 hour in each major area if you do all the quests. And many of the larger areas are used throughout the game. In any case, the reason they made the large colorful and unique areas then only used them for a few hours each is for replay value. If someone go through the game multiple times no one area gets over used so replays will feel less like grinding.

The difficulty: Like I said before, even my wife who really sucks at games got all the way though true vault hunter mode without too many problems. Are you sure your strategy isn't just bad? Maybe you need to try a new build or different styles of guns.

So what went wrong? I honestly can't tell you. Maybe you expected too much? I personally really didn't like borderlands the first. It was a good proof of concept but the game got boring very quickly due to the repetitiveness of the environments and quest structure. I wanted borderlands 2 to be good, but I knew it would be easy to repeat the mistakes of the first. I think they knocked it out of the park.

 

[rob_simple]

Snip

That all makes sense, but it kind of goes against the whole random loot thing when you have to start searching for specific guns and shields just so you don't get your shit ruined against a couple of particularly over-powered enemies.

There are plenty of ways to build a general-use build that sort of minimizes how much gun/shield swapping you have to do. Siren's cataclysm tree, building Axton for turtle shields and bullet/explosive general damage, speccing gunzerker to simply refuse to die, etc.

Basically you can build so that you don't really hit anything's weak point, but they don't hit yours either, and just wear them down from there. If you just wanna shoot things and have them die, anyhow. If you actually want to feel like you're defeating the game easily you'll probably have to stick with just having like four different element weapons and an elemental shield and living with the fact that you won't have all four fully updated at all times.

Actually, now you mention it, once I'd got a reasonably powered up Gunzerker I did have a much easier time than with my first run as Axton, but those robots could still take me out in one hit, as could certain types of those giant worms.

I just feel that part of the game was a bit poorly designed for single player runs is all, there were times were my shield would just evaporate instantly before I even knew what was going on, no matter what level I was or how strong I was. It was obviously designed to make use of the last stand system and if I'd had a partner to pick me up it wouldn;t have been a problem, but on a solo playthrough there were times when it was just unfair.

It also didn't help that occasionally going into last stand mode would make my character start spinning around wildly in a circle, making it impossible to hit anything.

 

[WoW Killer]

I'm a big fan of both Borderlands games. I'm never too sure which I prefer though. I mean the second one is generally better all round, but there's just one or two little things I prefer about the first one. I think tying legendaries to specific NPCs was a mistake. You can't so much go loot hunting with how it is, you have to pick out what you want and then hunt for that and that only until you get it. That means you're never surprised by the loot; you either get what you came for, or you're unhappy.

Also, why on earth haven't they put some kind of crafting system in there? Stripping weapons down into parts, swapping accessories around, that sort of thing. The loot system would lend itself really well to something like that. Could serve as a gold sink too.

I just wish Verm was easier to spawn.

There's actually a glitch you can use for that. His spawn rate is based on the number of players in game; you'll have very little chance in single player. But you can trick the game into thinking there's four players by spawning certain raid bosses like Hyperius. All you need to do is walk up to his door in Washburne Refinery; so long as you see him spawn it should work. You can tell right away in single player, because you'll be able to pick up ammo even when you're full up, and the game won't pause when you're in a menu; just like multiplayer. Also, the game gets a lot harder xD

 

[major_chaos]

Wait, did you finish Act 1 and then ramped up the difficulty? If so, that's your problem - Act 1 is pretty much a tutorial, difficulty shoots up a bit afterwards and you also raised it yourself, so you would get a larger dose of challenge increase.

I played act 1 on normal in one file then again on veteran in another. I wouldn't even say I found veteran "hard" as I still didn't die much, the problem was that even in act 1 I never felt like I was doing any damage, which made normal mobs a pain and bosses an absolute slog.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Borderlands 2 - Well, I still play it, so they did something right, but it still has issues:

Spoiler: Story

The story was the exact same as the first. Four Vault hunters show up and Pandora in search of the Vault. Turns out one of the corporations is also trying to beat you to the Vault, and they steal the key from Tannis. Angel ends up tricking you and the Vault isn't full of loot, but is actually a monster. You then kill the monster. I wasn't expecting much from the story, but the exact same thing with the same twists? Come on.

The loot drops suck.

Spoiler: Guns

The guns were just crap this time around. SMG's were really ruined. With them being my favorite type of gun, it was really annoying in this game.

Hyperion - Reverse accuracy? Really? It is ok for shotguns, but with snipers and SMG's, it is a waste of ammo at the beginning of the mag.

Torgue - Some of these are decent, like shotguns and the Unkempt Harold, but with the slow speed and lower accuracy of the explosive rounds, they are really only good for close quarters. Not too bad, though.

Bandit - Slow reload and slow fire rate. Fast fire rate and reload speed are the top things I look for in guns.

Dahl - Burst fire when zoomed is annoying, especially with SMG's. Seriously? Who the hell would make a burst fire SMG!?

Vladof - Their guns are bullet hoses, right? If they are all about fast fire rates, then why don't they make SMG's? That is kind of what SMG's are about.

Maliwan - I just thing their guns are rather ugly.

Tediore - I almost blow myself up half the time I reload them.

 

[ThriKreen]

There's actually a glitch you can use for that. His spawn rate is based on the number of players in game; you'll have very little chance in single player. But you can trick the game into thinking there's four players by spawning certain raid bosses like Hyperius.

Oh I know all the tricks - according to this [http://borderlands.wikia.com/wiki/Vermivorous_The_Invincible], it's an increase from 0.4% to 1.6% - It's still a pain in the ass though.

 

[Ravinoff]

You know, I think I've figured out what my problem with the loot in Borderlands 2 is, thanks to severe boredom leading me to play the first again. The problem is that as neat as the manufacturer system is, it tends to make finding practical guns incredibly difficult. Take, for example, sniper rifles. The only sniper rifles you can rely on as staple weapons are Jakobs and maybe Hyperion. You might be able to get away with a Vladof if you've got a quick trigger finger to keep it from going full-auto. Maliwan and Dahl sniper rifles are worthless thanks to the "consumes 2 ammo per shot" and burst when zoomed functions, you'll burn through ammo extremely quickly and spend more time reloading than shooting. Then there's the issues with the apparent love of shotguns with extraneous barrels to burn through even more ammo, not to mention the question of why the hell I can't get a belt-fed Hyperion AR, their unique feature would be great for something like the S&S machine guns in 1.

 

[Lunar Templar]

I really like TL2 over D3, hell, i've been meaning to go back to TL2 to play around with my hand of death ... er ... Embermage >.> <.< or was it my summoner Engineer, both tended to slaughter everything that looked at em funny

 

[KungFuJazzHands]

I'm sure I'll get just as many hours out of Borderlands 2 as I did the first one, but I'm going to do it grudgingly. The difficulty difference between single-player and co-op -- especially in TVHM -- is jarring, as is the difference in drop quality. Dropped items in single-player just plain suck, that's all there is to it.

After over a hundred hours in B2, I just finally found my first orange non-boss item drop; in B1, rares were still hard to find, but the game handled the process reasonably. B2, on the other hand, limits the game's best item drops exclusively to the game's hardest bosses, thereby making "randomness" an illusion. The overall suckiness of the weapon tables doesn't help matters either -- there's no wild variety to any of the guns. I treasure that fire/acid/shock pearlescent SMG my Siren found in the original Borderlands all the more because of the lack of creative weaponization in B2.


I really can't comment on Torchlight 2. I've played it multiple times with multiple characters, and each time I quit shortly after getting into Act III. I simply get bored with it at that point, and I don't know why.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Can't really comment on TL2 but for Borderlands 2:

Loot -I've played through one character (my assassin) exclusively as single-player and I got plenty of great loot. Did I have to farm a couple of bosses? Ya but not as much as you'd think. The Warrior almost always seems to drop something good and so does Terra. Hunter Helquist also seems to have a pretty high drop rate of The Bee and it's very easy to farm him quickly. Maybe I'm just lucky but I always seem to find a nice shiny new weapon to replace my old favourite just when things start to get rough.

Environments -I personally loved the variety but I guess that's just a preference thing. BTW, for any of the bigger areas, there are at least 4-5 quests in each of them. Not sure what you mean by never returning (unless you're talking about just story missions).

Difficulty -Honestly, I find this game pretty easy. This is coming from someone who is almost through UVHM as the squishiest character. I'm sure you know this but certain weapon types make certain enemies much easier. I try to have one of each weapon element in my inventory so that I'm always prepared for any situation (it's not that hard to find one of each) and I always slag my enemies. The only non-raid boss fight I found to be truly frustrating was the Badassarus. No Boss fight in a shooter game should take place in an arena with no cover when the boss reflects your own bullets back at you (ya I fought him the hard way, not the hide terrified behind the entrance area way).

Anyway, you can probably tell that I don't really think anything went wrong with this game. This and Dishonored were my two favourite games of last year.