Comments on: First Impressions: Torchlight

By: sweatyapple

sweatyapple — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:54:54 +0000

I’ve wanted to try Torchlight, and now maybe I will. I’m with you Mary, on the “never played Diablo or Diablo 2, even tho I played tons of similar games like Dungeon Seige, Neverwinter Knights, etc. By the way, if you want another great cheap game, I LOVED Trine

By: Steph

Steph — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 20:46:51 +0000

“And my left hand is just laying there on the keyboard, useless and bored. ”

While I also don’t like the point and click movement very much, I do use the keyboard quite a bit. I set up my main casts for the first 3 buttons (left click the icons to change them up), a heal for 4, and moved the potions to 5 and 6. All you have to do is move the mouse in the direction you want your cast to go, and hit one of your casting buttons. My left hand now gets to feel involved in the game too

By: prion

prion — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:40:53 +0000

Diablo is what really got me started in gaming.
yeah, there’s a lot of mousework, because you are holding Shift, or hitting your potion buttons, or selecting spells with the keyboard. The repetitive clicking was annoying but the general setup worked in that game.
It sounds like Torchlight just didn’t balance the keyboard work well but an MMO would msot likely be better.

By: columbina

columbina — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:41:14 +0000

I like Torchlight. I bought it pretty much the day it appeared, and played it more or less non-stop for some days. But I agree the controls are sort of lacking. You make some sacrifices for a game that delivers quality at low cost, and one of those was apparently control customization.

I never did finish the game. It doesn’t really have a plot and the action does get repetitive after a while. On the other hand, if I ever decide I need a dungeon crawl break, it’s still around for me to finish, because there’s no story to get heavily invested in or forget (which, for example, is why I probably won’t go back to Dragon Age, because I stopped so long that now I can’t remember what my chars were trying to do and why!)

By: jamesL

jamesL — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 04:23:58 +0000

“Also, the Alt key can be used to bring up the names of stuff on the ground.”

there’s also the magnifying glass icon on the toolbar; click it once and item labels are always on

By: Whimzee

Whimzee — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:09:05 +0000

The movement thing bugs me too. I’m a leftie & generally use the arrow keys to move & the mouse to click on spells & stuff, so using the mouse for everything is very counter intuitive to me. But the game is fun and fills in for a temporary Diablo fix now & again. I just can’t play it for long stretches. It would be nice if you could customize the key bindings.

By: Edmar

Edmar — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:55:34 +0000

I actually can’t believe that someone that into games, specially a Blizzard dependent, never played Diablo 2!
I actually can’t even imagine never playing Diablo at all.
So far as I can remember, for a period of time, Diablo + BattleNet was almost as a dream come true for the fathers of MMO (MUD players). Being able to play a 3D dungeon game online with your friends was awesome! I was in high school at the time, and I’ve manage to learn english (I’m brazilian) playing, for the necessity to communicate with my fellow demon slayers companions.
When Diablo 2 came out, it was a blast! 4 different ‘continents’! 5 character options, including a freakin’ NECROMANCER ( )! Different threes of abilities! And the story was just AWESOME! There were angels battling the old great demons. There were fallen angels traitors to the light. There were 3x more ancient evil for you to worry about, and the best of it, (spoil alert) your hero of Diablo 1 had become Diablo himself!
I love the story arc of warcraft (although there are a lot of stuff that the writers did that just don’t fit), but Diablo’s story arc its just a masterpiece.
The ‘point to move’ is a legacy from Diablo 1, and when battling in PvP, you had to use a LOT of your left hand to drink potions, and cast abilities and stuff like that (hotkeys were from F1 to F4 (D1, D2 up to F8 I think), and potions from 1 – 4).
Diablo 3 is coming out soon, so I suggest you to maybe read the story and watch the CG movies of the game on youtube. So you can enjoy Diablo’s story too.

It’s never enough to say. Awesome blog!

By: maryvarn

maryvarn — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:35:50 +0000

See, this is why I write these – I get great tips in the comments! Thanks all.

By: bacon

bacon — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:26:00 +0000

There’s a pretty active mod community for Torchlight. I got a couple of mod bundles that added specialized merchants (maps, spells, fish, ember (gems), even individual merchants for the various kinds of weapons) as well as mods for resetting your skills and stats. I found that these added a great deal of life to the game, and are pretty easy to install. Resetting your skills specifically allows you to try different builds that can really mix up the gameplay. I switched up my vanquisher from using primarily her rifle to getting the vast amount of dps from minions.

By: Aki

Aki — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:18:55 +0000

While playing Torchlight, you can use the Shift key to stand in one place and attack. If you are playing a ranged player and miss clicking on an enemy, without the shift key, you will move right near the enemy. With the shift key, you will do a ranged attack in the direction of the click.

Also, the Alt key can be used to bring up the names of stuff on the ground. Good for finding loot you may have missed picking up.

I use my left hand on the keyboard for the Shift and Alt keys and for casting spells (spells other than my main right-click spell). You can also use the Tab key to swap between the primary and secondary spells assigned to your right-click button and use ‘W’ to swap between two weapon configurations (ranged vs melee for example).