Compare to TL2

Torchlight 2 is a joke... Played it for 4-5 hours and got bored as hell. Nothing could kill me on the max difficulty. Here i'm glad i'm not playing the hardcore league 'cuz i'd be starting over every 2-3 hours :-D... Though i am considering of starting in the hardcore when the game releases or goes in open beta :-)

I really enjoyed one play through of TL2 and it coincided with the patch on POE when map drops were even shittier than they are now so it was good to have something else to play but had no real desire to play through the game again.

Path of Exile is at least one class better than Torchlight 1 or 2.
You just cannot compare them, Torchlight is a joke.

Yea, I bought TL2 and stopped playing after 30 minutes, it's just way too boring compared to PoE (and even D3 in my opinion).

What TL2 did wrong:

-Too much loot, have to sort through 30+ items every 5 minutes breaks gameflow

-All over the place stat mods. Hard to compare if item A would be better for you than item B. Repeat 30 times every 5 minutes.

-Structured area layout makes game boring ---> Each act has 2 large outdoor areas which contain 2-3 dungeons, 1 locked gold chest, 1 bird carrying the key to said chest. Each area is connected by 1 corridor, which also contains 1 dungeon.

-Somehow the quests are boring, uninteresting to read

-The quality of the audio is really bad, it sounds like 64kbit mp3. Maybe an engine thing since it was like that in TL1

-Enemies have very little to distinguish themselves. They mostly feel like HP pillows

-The damage works off integer armor reduction (instead of armor ratings equations). This makes for the worst scaling ever between 2h and 1h weapons, and skills that deal "30% dps damage" end up causing 0 damage because your damage can be below the armor value of the monster

-having to spend all my money on potions, unless I play normal (boring) mode

So the comparison to PoE is simple, PoE doesn't use crap design like I described above for TL2 :)

Ouch. So much Torchlight hate on this forum.
I'm very satisfied with T2 so far. It captures the Diablo feel perfectly. It's everything I wanted from an ARPG. You may not like the "cartoony" graphics, but they don't bother me. T1 was cartoony too, what did you expect?
People also complain about all the cheats and stuff. Personally, if you don't like it, don't use it. Play single player or multi with friends via Lan or something.
Some of the other complaints here are pretty ridiculous too.
Like churning up potions. Again, what did you expect? It's a Diablo clone. Give me stacks of potions everyday, instead of some lame health globes.
Game not hard enough for you? Guess what, not everyone is a hardcore player. I find elite challenging enough.
Too much loot? You have an option to turn off certain loot from showing on the ground (like white items for example). Besides, I find PoE system equal to T2. There is too much to take into account - defense, energy shield, evasion, sockets, mods, it's a mess.

TL;DR - Tochlight 2 is a wonderful ARPG, it fixed everything that was wrong with the first one. I can't wait for an expansion or some DLC.

THE GOOD:
-randomization: without doubt, the game has the best randomization of areas that I saw in a diablo style game so far. Best thing is that it doesn't even feel random.

-fun to explore: there are a lot of things that you can find in dungeons, in open areas,sometimes minibosses, small events, or new dungeons that can be there or not depending from randomization.

-area design: two words, quantity and quality. Acts feel totally different, and unique.

-monster design: same as above.

-boss fights: now, there are a lot of bosses, and a lot of them are very similar (for me the whole act 1 has similar bosses), but there are some that are really nicely designed, with stages, like the djinn fight, or the dragon that on beginning is flying and spreading fire, or the witch, where you need to kill her summoned golem thing to get vulnerable. They are all nice little changes that make bosse feel different. Also most of bosses have ton of skill that they use.

-special challenges and unique dungeon design:this : The phase beast challenges are really great addition to game where they have really nice atmosphere (arena where you need to survive, and crowds that is watching you, start jumping to join the fight),or just some simple mechanic (like poison the spider nest so spiders don't come from it anymore, or stay close to totem to win the challenge) . Some dungeons like in act 1 that has the puzzle, or end of act 2 where you need to stay in light (and it is the best design dungeon I played ever in this type of game, even if it is very linear) makes a nice different feel and adds to diversity. The only bad thing is that there are only few of them. Ohh, the game hase few simple puzzles, fucking love them.

-uniques:there are some really nice ones, with interesting PROC skills, and the game feels really rewording for getting them. Also, gems can be uniques, and can even give you skills that can proc if you socket them in items. Love that you can make builds around some uniques.

THE BAD:
-story and characters: I really don't care about story, but I cannot lie, it is bad. But biger "problem" for me is that characters are just forgettable. The biggest disappointment is the fight against the alchemist, you kill him, and nothing, he says nothing thru whole or on end of the fight. Runic could add some dialog to add some character to the alchemist, after all some of us played him in TL1

-uniques: the games has a lot of unique items, and that is great. The problem is because of so many uniques, it is hard to make everyone of them feel different and well unique.A lot of uniques are just magical with different color, and lot of them have same PROC skills. Sometimes less is more.

-new game+:this is a small thing, but I expected new game+ and higher to not only scale level of monsters, and new items, but also increase the number of monster and champions, make them more aggressive , move faster, champions to have more mods, generally something similar like in d2 or PoE. It would make new game+ even more different compared to normal first playthrough.


THE UGLY:
-bugs and balance problems: while there are no ground breaking bugs (except maybe problem with saves for people that use steam),there are a lot of small bugs, unbalanced skills and thing like that, that are more or less standard for games like this

-armor and resist: the way armor and resist work in game are that they are fix flat number reduction and not percentages. Because items can have stats that lower the dmg for %,it means that generally if your gonna play on harder diff, armor and res becomes useless, because only thing you will be searching for are items that give you dmg reduction so you do not get 1 shotted.

But, this game is not for people that want to have a "MMO" experience with economy, trade and competition.

I actually really liked TL2 , but in a modern Online world, to not offer any form of a closed realm with a economy of any sorts, was a huge turn off for me. D2 floated my boat for 12 years due to the online economical fun that could be had.

Sure there was cheats , dupes , w/e, but the bottom line is , there was something much more fun about it than no realm whatsoever.

So far, 12 years later, the only game i have seen that pushes the envelope and delivers something new , and maintains the good of the old, is POE.

~One mans opinion.

TL2 is a casual single player game that has optional multiplayer, that you play through once and then only rarely pick it up again. POE is designed to be competitive, trying to fill the niche for the players who absolutely love the idea of 3 day hardcore races and ladders with ladder resets ETC. POE is a game you play long term that has genius innovation for the genre (the crafting system). TL2 is just a cartoony diablo clone, with none of what gave D2 long term appeal.

Won't say anything against TL2 because i haven't played it but from what i've seen i didn't like its cartoonish style of graphics and that's all i'm going to say for now :)