2681

I found the caves and tombs unconvincing as a whole, and a lot of the ruins had the feel and quality of randomized dungeons, so I didn’t know what the point was of even making them so square and uninteresting and unnecessarily maze-like.

Outside though… awesome, although Act V felt like you were being dragged through an endless redwood forest. Blah.

2682

My only reason for going through the tombs, caves and ruins was for whatever chests might be in there. But yes, certainly they are an unnecesessary trip, typically in order for about half of them to fulfil a sidequest. And of course, the long trek through the Sandswept caverns from Epic difficulty on to fight the Manticore. The more I analyse why I play this game, the more I see it is merely a switch in my brain that has the eternal optimism of “I hope there is some good shit in this chest.” Sad but true.

2683

So far Act 3 is very pretty. Plus it’s a LOT harder than Act 2. Definitely a big spike in difficulty as soon as you get to Act 3.

I’ve reached the point where I now have at least a point in all the skills I want to invest in for my archer (w/ Dream Mastery). And now, each point I put into a skill only promises to increase the skill’s advantages by a few points. So for example, I could invest in a skill that might give me 6% movement speed increase instead of 5%. Or 6% attack speed increase with the bow/spear instead of 5% increase. Or a 3% increase in offensive and defensive ability.

It all just seems really, really unexciting. It looks like character development from now is going to be a game of really minor changes. On the other hand, unlike Diablo 2, every time you level up you get 3 skill points, not just 1. So maybe the game is purposely creating the impression that all the changes are smaller than what you’re capable of doing. It might look like a small change, but if I put all 3 points into the same skill, then it’s not that small an increase. So maybe I should be looking at it that way instead.

Still, what a bizarre choice. To actually make the player feel like each point doesn’t do that much. Whereas in Diablo 2, it felt like every point in most of the really good skills made a bigger difference (even though it was probably equal in both games thanks to 1 skill point vs 3 skill points).

2684

I don’t recall skills that lost their effectiveness with more points…

but now that I check it, you’re right. Still, the game relies heavily on your gear, so that’s really a point of major advancement right there, and the extra skill points allow you to either get a new skill entirely or increase one skill noticeably.

And I getting new skills is very much a bonus. Lots of skills give a nice initial boost to percentages which are very noticeable in game, and in many cases skills are worth it to get those percentage boosts even if you don’t like the skill or don’t plan on using it.

2685

One thing I like about the skill system is that it takes away the emphasis on one skill being maxed. Diablo II addressed that in part with the synergies, however going through the game, well, as a sorc I would merely spam frozen orb for maximal effectiveness, or as a bowazon, it would come down to either multishot or strafe depending on whichever felt more comfortable. Still, with Titan Quest the small percentagewise increments can be fairly silly, and pointless, but with all the characters I’m playing with in Titan Quest, they all rely on a fairly good spread of both passive and active skills. I’m guessing that is what Iron Lore were aiming for. That is where I think the 1vs3 skill points help, to spread the skill points around.

With Act III, remember that spears and arrows do pierce damage, and are just as effective against you as you might be with a spear or arrow.

Also, for some reason I had some major troubles stability wise with Act 3. I’m running the latest V1.17 of the fanpatch which seemed to greatly improve performance with regard to the rubberbanding etc. Yet, especially when running around the great wall in paticular I’ll get a random crash to desktop. The only solution for me is to drop all graphics to low, despite the game running fine stability wise on all the other acts with highest graphics settings, especially act V where I would have thought it would be more graphic intensive. Also, this is a legit copy running with CD in the drive. It isn’t a major problem, easily fixed, but just wondering if anyone else noticed this drop in performance?

And finally, in the hunting tree, I would recommend maxing the study prey and flush out skills. They give a solid bonus with each increment, and are well worth making the most of. Call to the Hunt, and the associated Exploit Weakness is the skill I use when in a tight spot so to speak. I love it when coming across a campsite of beastmen like the Satyr, hitting the Call to the Hunt and clearing the whole section out in no time. Fun skill, especially with the battlemarker buff.

2686

Keep in mind that the backbone of a percentage based skill is really the gear you have. As your gear progresses, those points in percentages start meaning more than they do at the beginning of the game.

2687

I’m having a blast playing through this. The game is a killer on my loot/quest OCD though, as I feel compelled to look in every cave, every ruin and every corner of the map. The good thing is that this usually pays off with at least a couple of quality chests if not a magnificent one (which tend to yeild green and blue items).

One thing that annoys me though is the fact that you pretty much need to finish a quest or reach the next town before quitting the game or you can look forward to killing the same horde of monsters all over again next session. On the other hand, more xp and loot isn’t really a bad thing.

Based on the advice in this thread I started over a few days ago. I hadn’t even made it to Delphi at that point and wanted to respec my character and build skills differently with an eye towards Dual Weild and eventually Dream. My warrior is much more effective now, and my quest/loot OCD has him outfitted in weapons and armor far better than anything the store has to offer. I especially enjoy collecting the little monster and god relic bits and fusing them together. Some of those add some pretty impressive bonus stats to weapons and armor.

2688

The “goalposts” of light that you pass frequently have a rebirth fountain nearby. Get near the fountain and it will light up, signifying a quicksave-type of location. If you quit the game, you will pop back up at the rebirth fountain.

2689

I encountered my first boss monster that wiped the floor with me repeated. I just got pwned, which is an appropriate term for what happened here. And it wasn’t even one of the main bosses of the game!!! It was just a sidequest on a mountainside in Act 3!

But it was such a brutal combo. First he’d stun me, and then bring meteors down on my location while I couldn’t move. The one-two combo. Bam, bam. Dead every single time. After about 5 deaths, I woke up finally. I said “Ok, they’re really serious about this. This guy is like the Act bosses in Diablo 2. I have to pay attention or I’m dead every single time.”

I beat him, and it felt good.

2690

That guy is definitely rough, one mistake and you are dead. Never understood why some of the bosses in that game were so ridiculously hard, and then the rest were just a matter of running in and spamming attack of your choice.

2691

Yeah, it is bizarre. None of the other bosses have been like this. Heck, even Diablo 2 never had a boss who was a “one mistake and you’re dead” type boss. Still, it felt a lot more exciting than anything else I’ve done in the game so far.

2692

I started playing a while back, and fizzled halfway through act1; I fired it up again a few days ago, and am making my way through act 2 at this point. I’m playing with the xmax mod, which makes for some chaotic fights – in particular, a couple of the triple-boss fights were utterly brutal.

2693

Is that Diablo 2 as seen through your exclusively co-op filter? Because Duriel was an infamous one-hit, one-kill boss in Diablo 2. You didn’t even have a chance to react due to slow area loading when you entered his little abode. Titan Quest has nothing that’s quite as bad.

2694

So I picked this up when it was really cheap on Steam, and I’m enjoying it almost despite myself. Boy howdy is it long - I’ve been hacking away forever and I’m only about halfway through act 1. My guy is level 11 and a harbinger, as a bit of build research suggested he might be fun. At the moment I’m not really feeling it though; a lot of my gear kind of sucks, and I don’t have any skills to use in combat to speak of. To be fair, I think this is due to an emphasis on passive skills early in the build I’m using and the fact I’m basically still in an extended tutorial (on my way to see the Oracle), so as he gets a bit further in he might be more fun. At the moment he just runs up and auto-hacks stuff to death with his axe and sword, glugging the occasional potion. Not exactly riveting, but I expect it to improve. It’s pretty too, which helps.

Apologies if this has already been answered in this uber-thread, but I didn’t see it anywhere: How do farming and carrying on at a higher difficulty work in this? When I visit a previously cleared area it’s still showing the destruction I wrought earlier. I guess it’s probably a case of it being revealed as I progress, but I was just wondering - particularly if I’ll have to slog my way through this stodgy start every time I raise the difficulty or make a new character.

2695

Not exclusively no. I played mostly Co-op, but I played plenty of characters on my own to try to “catch up” with my friends when my main character who I was playing with them died. You have to remember that Diablo 2 had rejuv potions, which were instant cures. I did die to Duriel as a hardcore Amazon a couple of times, and discovered never to go in there alone. So there were a few solutions to that in Diablo 2 with the Amazon:

  1. Go in with a Valkyrie. But this wasn’t liable on normal difficulty, since you couldn’t get to level 30 when a Valkyrie becomes available as a skill.
  2. Go in with a Mercenary (we used to call them slaves).

If you can keep your distance, Duriel concentrates mostly on the second person in there. If it’s a Valkyrie, you can keep summoning a new one while gulping down mana potions. One lasts a while, even to Duriel. If you don’t have a Valkyrie yet, you can keep your mercenary alive by feeding him potions while you kill Duriel. If you can give your slave a weapon that can slow down Duriel or stun him, it helps a lot.

If you’re in with a Necro that can summon, it’s no problem at all, you can keep Duriel occupied forever. If you’re in with a sorceress, you have to rely on the merc again, but he doesn’t have to last as long as he does with the Amazon, since the sorceress deals so much damage with Static field, and other spells, she can get him down to nothing in no time flat. If you’re in with a Druid, again a merc or wolf summons will do the job of distracting him. Barbarian can handle him no problem by himself, as can the Paladin. Assassin might need the help of the merc, depending on what type of Assassin you made.

Once he is distracted and hitting someone else, you can create a portal in his chamber and get out if you need to go get more potions or something like that. By that point you can even create rejuv potions if you run out, since you have the Horadric cube.

As for slow loading: I don’t really understand what you mean. If it loads slowly, you won’t have to deal with him until it finishes loading, right? Or are you talking about playing on Battle.net? I’ve never played on Battle.net for that reason. I just can’t deal with lag and other such issues. It’s too much when you already have to worry about not getting your hardcore character killed.

Nevertheless, you’re right. Duriel in Act 2 Normal difficulty comes closest to this sidequest boss in Titan Quest in terms of how fast he can finish off a player. I suppose Diablo himself could do it too, if you didn’t invest in enough Vitality, but since I only play hardcore, I’ve never had a character reach Diablo without having lots and lots of Vitality. Certainly enough to survive a couple of attacks by Diablo that he’d make before you had a chance to run away and regroup. Plus again, the Rejuv potions make a difference.

It will be interesting now that Diablo 3 won’t have rejuv potions. Without instant healing, they’ll have to balance their tougher fights a little differently I think.

2696

No, in the initial Diablo 2 release Duriel would actually charge you before his level had finished loading! As in, you were dead before your character would respond to keyboard input because the game was still busy with disk access. I believe they toned him down in later patches.

2697

TQ doesn’t progress in skills all that quickly. You may have picked a mastery that has more early passive skills than active.

Enemies respawn after you re-enter the game. With most masteries, and with any decent luck in getting gearl, you’ll never have to “farm.”

2698

Well it certainly felt that way when I played it.

I remember thinking, “FINALLY, almost finished with this game”… only to just arrive at Egypt. An hour or so into Egypt and I just quit.

I really wanted to like the game, the skill/class and item upgrade systems were pretty cool and I like the graphics engine but it was just too dull and tedious.

I think the game would have been greatly improved if enemies moved and attacked much faster and in larger groups. As it is the game is too easy and not very exciting.

Another thing that would have helped pacing: reducing drop rates to something like 60% - seriously, I spent half the time reviewing and selling loot.

2699

xmax mod, posted earlier in this thread.

2700

It depends on the boss. I think the idea with side quest bosses was that they could be real tests of your uber-ness and your build because you could always just walk away, but the bosses on the main story quest all had to be doable so that everyone could complete the game.

Except patched Typhon, who sucks for everyone.