Taking in all the feedback following a recent beta testing session, Runic Games is still making tweaks to Torchlight II’s gameplay. The skill trees for each of the four classes, for instance, will be changed.
The skill trees function much like in Diablo II, where you’re awarded points upon leveling up and can invest the points to learn and subsequently power up skills. Previously, putting more than one skill point into the same category merely bumped up its effectiveness, increasing the same bonus to higher levels with each point. Runic is reworking the system so skill upgrades will be a little more interesting at higher levels.
After putting in a certain number of points, skills will now gain different effects as they’re leveled. So the Embermage’s electrical attack may not only become more damaging at higher levels, but also gain a chain bonus and hop between targets. These won’t be invisible behind-the-scenes calculations either – you’ll see the bonus effects represented onscreen.
If case you find you don’t like the way you’ve assigned skills, there will be a way to respecialize and reallocate points, but such functionality will be limited. Runic co-founder Max Schaefer says he hates the idea of respecialization because it takes away from the importance of decision making while leveling. At some point while playing Torchlight II you’ll no longer be able to refund and redistribute skill points, meaning you need to think very carefully about how you’d like to upgrade your character. Also like in Diablo II, leveling up awards you with statistic points that you can use to increase your character’s base stats. Unlike the skill points, these will not be refundable at all.
Other post-beta adjustments include toning down the magical effects and targeting. It seems players in groups of six were having a lot of trouble identifying exactly what was going on in the middle of a fight, so Runic is taking steps to pare away some of the more extraneous effects so nobody gets lost during battle. Targeting was also made a little more forgiving, so in the chaos of combat it won’t be quite as tricky to cast spells and swing giant hammers at your desired targets.
Runic says for now to expect Torchlight II toward the end of summer 2012. After launch, the studio plans on pushing an editor out for the community, as well as finishing up a Mac version. Once that’s all done, the next project could be more Torchlight, or it could be something else entirely. It all really depends on what happens with Torchlight II. If there’s a lot of interest at launch, then Runic will be happy to focus on more content and potentially an expansion somewhere down the line.
In case you didn’t get a chance to play the beta, Torchlight II is really good. Even at low levels the Embermage caster class has a varied skill set. Depending on your build, you can unlock channeled fireballs, area of effect frost storms and bursts of elemental magic that automatically seek out targets. One of the Embermage’s passive abilities also has the interesting effect of giving a chance to teleport creatures away from you, opening up some additional space to cast spells and avoid damage.
Like the rest of the four classes, the Embermage gets a charge bar. Every class’s bar works differently, and in this case the more damage an Embermage does, the more the bar fills. When completely full, the Embermage is granted boosted damage and the ability to temporarily cast spells free of mana cost, which should be especially useful in encounters against large groups of foes.
Assuming everything goes smoothly with development as Runic continues to work on Acts II and III, Torchlight II should hopefully be available before the end of summer on Steam.
Source : ign[dot]com
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