Titan Quest Anniversary Edition

[Sensuki]

THQ Nordic seems to have done a spawning pass on a lot of the maps too. In TQ/IT Vanilla the underground tombs and hidden places were often quite disappointing, considering that in Diablo 2 underground maps were often more challenging than their above ground parent maps. A lot of the dungeons have had the creatures slightly touched up a bit, and I've seen a boss spawn in pretty much every dungeon/tomb/cavern so far.

It doesn't make a massive difference to the gameplay but it is a slight exploration improvement to vanilla TQ that will probably have more impact on Epic/Legendary. The only change I haven't liked so far is the removal of the map from the Minotaur maze. WTF is with that, trying deliberately make navigation harder or something?

 

[Aothan]

not a glitch perhaps ? The map is usually available but having just reached Knossos I'm yet to enter the labyrinth

 

[Durwyn]

Not a glitch, altough its implementation (showing only some walls on the map) surely looks like one. I'm currently replaying TQ for the third time and still having a blast. I like the fluidity of the game, frequently missed by many H&S developers. And with my penchant for mythology, I don't really care for its lousy implementation. I'm just a little dissapointed that they did not attempt to implement the systems from Grim Dawn into this (mainly devotions). It would fit the setting perfectly, but I understand that I would force them to rebalance the whole game in order for it not to become a mess.

 

[Aothan]

what class are you using ?

 

[Sensuki]

I'm playing as a Corsair, testing out the change to Poison. I had some issues with enemies that were immune to it in Act 1, but I've got some minor backup elemental damage from an Artifact and I'm maxing out the Poison tree, so currently it's made of rape (tm).

 

[Durwyn]

Earth/Dream - Summoner I guess. Breezed through Act I without stopping. Currently in the middle of II, died twice to Lizardman hero, whom I do not remember from orginal TQ+IM, due to his insane charge attack. Currently feeling slightly overpowered but I always treat first difficulty as a sort of tutorial to the game. Had most fun on higher diffs.

 

[rezaf]

Lol, I tried this out for a bit.
Created a char and ran throug the first village, basically the tutorial, which ends with the defeat of the goat shaman dude. Played until that point and had to run.
Next day, I fire up the game with my char, now glorious lvl2.
Went to check if the game had diablo style respawning - I didn't remember, of course it has.
So, the shaman was back.
And this time, I was unable to beat him. His health regen is just way too fast.
Thus I'm unable to beat the tutorial boss I beat at lvl1 with my now leveled up lvl2 dude.
Makes me kinda reluctant to stick with the game to see how it's balanced further down the road.

 

[4249]

The shaman was scaled up to your level when you re-entered the game. Titan Quest has level scaling, with level caps determined by the area.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Lol, I tried this out for a bit.
Created a char and ran throug the first village, basically the tutorial, which ends with the defeat of the goat shaman dude. Played until that point and had to run.
Next day, I fire up the game with my char, now glorious lvl2.
Went to check if the game had diablo style respawning - I didn't remember, of course it has.
So, the shaman was back.
And this time, I was unable to beat him. His health regen is just way too fast.
Thus I'm unable to beat the tutorial boss I beat at lvl1 with my now leveled up lvl2 dude.
Makes me kinda reluctant to stick with the game to see how it's balanced further down the road.

Haha. Maybe ARPG are not for you? Maybe go back to Diablo then?

Joking actually. Least you tried and not everyone likes what others like. Even the tutorial first baddie can be difficult the first few times depending o your build. Trick is to chug your potions and then use any of the magic pillars around. Nearby you have the boars and if you taken them on first you might have pretty low health before taking on the first shaman dude.

Anyways, wanted to post something that just happened which might indicate the develops heard what we have been saying about the high level drops and their power. Usually in this same I get the same sort of equipment each time, NEVER GOT THIS BEFORE, especially at level 2

 

[Sensuki]

I've also seen new items and new bosses. I died to this new Level 21 boss that I encountered in Act 1 when I was level 12. Some massive two headed dog.

Lol, I tried this out for a bit.
Created a char and ran throug the first village, basically the tutorial, which ends with the defeat of the goat shaman dude. Played until that point and had to run.
Next day, I fire up the game with my char, now glorious lvl2.
Went to check if the game had diablo style respawning - I didn't remember, of course it has.
So, the shaman was back.
And this time, I was unable to beat him. His health regen is just way too fast.
Thus I'm unable to beat the tutorial boss I beat at lvl1 with my now leveled up lvl2 dude.
Makes me kinda reluctant to stick with the game to see how it's balanced further down the road.

Usually there's a Shrine of Regeneration in that grove, just stand under that when you attack him, if you can.

 

[rezaf]

The shaman was scaled up to your level when you re-entered the game. Titan Quest has level scaling, with level caps determined by the area.

Pretty obviously this is what happened. My point was that the tutorial boss scaled up to a lvl 2 char in a manner that said lvl 2 char was unable to defeat him.

Haha. Maybe ARPG are not for you? Maybe go back to Diablo then?

I liked D1 best, that's true, but I DID beat this one before, so I can't suck so hard at them, or can I? I'm not saying I'm remotely "good" at them either though.

Even the tutorial first baddie can be difficult the first few times depending o your build.

Yeah, like I said, this was my point. At that point, you don't have much of a build, so there's not much you in terms of mistakes could've made already.
Besides maybe picking the wrong class - iirc I had the warfare one - as I remarked upthread, I think they were horribly balanced back in the day.

Trick is to chug your potions and then use any of the magic pillars around. Nearby you have the boars and if you taken them on first you might have pretty low health before taking on the first shaman dude.

Usually there's a Shrine of Regeneration in that grove, just stand under that when you attack him, if you can.

I was a full health before starting the engagement. In my first attempt, there was indeed a regen pillar which allowed me to kill the shaman with my lvl1 char, but with the lvl2 char, there was a healing pillar instead, which worked like quaffing a potion. There wasn't really a problem with that - I didn't even die, the problem was, I just couldn't hurt the shaman. He regenerated his health faster than I could dish out damage.

In the end, this was a non issue, I ended up walking out of the starting village in the opposite direction, killing a couple of enemies levling up to 3, grabbing a slightly better weapon and then could defeat the shaman without much trouble. Still, it's quite notable I think that the frigging tutorial boss is designed in a way that he can be impossible to defeat.

Two other things I noticed were the - somebody else wrote it already - incredibad hit feedback and the lack of a healer/healing well in town.
Health in general ... I dunno how I feel about the constant need to quaff potions after all these years. Feels like bad game design somehow.

Oh, and I also had some dagger drop which has a lvl requirement of 33.

 

[Sensuki]

The difficulty of the tutorial boss varies a bit but I never have any trouble if I do the following: pop your first skills into something offensive + finding an axe or some weapon that is better than the starting knife.

But yeah TQ gameplay does heavily rely on healing potions, moreso than Diablo 1/2. The difference is that in TQ potion quaffing has a cooldown, so when fighting bosses you have to be careful when taking high damage and locking yourself out of being able to heal.

D2's limitations are different - obviously the limited belt space and also economic - money and availability.

Overall I would say health management gameplay is better (and more strategically difficult) in Diablo 2. In Titan Quest it's more of a tactical concern, and as long as you make sure you're stocked up on Health potions and stop picking up shit quality ones then all you have to do is properly time drinking them in combat.

Life leeching mechanics are pretty weak in Titan Quest for the most part, although I believe they got buffed in the Anniversary edition so it will be interesting to see if they're more viable now.

 

[Aothan]

I found a rare sword with 30% leech, and about 15% energy leech, and it works very well even without any other mechanics involved, but prefer using elemental type items at this time. For those inclined it could probably work and in late game I foresee some need to ensure energy levels in the later stages with the heightened difficulty and thus increased skill usage (at least for how I intend to play this character), however both Storm and Defence help with energy regeneration so this character might not need to incorporate rings or other items to assist here

regarding feedback, I actually find Titan Quest to be one of the best arpgs in this often overlooked respect, not too many games after the original Diablo have ever produced a similar sense of interaction, and in one notable respect Titan Quest most probably the best shield animations of any hack n slash of its sort

 

[rezaf]

The shield animations are definately a stark contrast to the hit animations, which are of the "Excuse me good sir, may I conceivably inquire you deduct an assessable amount of hitpoints from your currently available allotment, or would that be too much to ask?" variety.

 

[Sensuki]

Unfortunately I died twice to Cleve's brethren, that fucking Neanderthal Chieftan cunt and his stun/snowstorm combo. I swear that cunt drops me at least once on 4/5 characters because I rarely ever have the stun resistance needed.

 

[Leechmonger]

Installed it. Uninstalled it.

 

[rezaf]

Looks like the game is just as unbalanced as I had remembered it to be.
I ran into one boss I found impossible to beat - I couldn't even put a dent in his armor - and the wiki recommended cheesing the game by standing in a spot where he did not yet aggro and killing him slowly with arrows. I did just that, cause otherwise I'd have been stuck there.
The next enemy (I think the endboss of the act) didn't even have me break a sweat.

I also feel the droprate of stuff that can actually be useful is way, WAY too low and enemies and stuff have too little variation. Almost all the way through Act1 you fight the same boring trashmobs over and over again.

 

[Aothan]

Cleve's brethren

just encountered the same and thinking about using one of the Yeti relics to assist with cold resistance. It is also a good time to slow progression down so as to better prepare for the increase in difficulty in the expansion

I ran into one boss I found impossible to beat - I couldn't even put a dent in his armor - and the wiki recommended cheesing the game by standing in a spot where he did not yet aggro and killing him slowly with arrows

if you mean the Cyclops the wiki probably does not have the best advice available because of the changes to encounter challenge and that special challenges such as the Cyclops and aforementioned Yeti chieftain are that much harder now. I would guess some of these situations require characters to level well past the area or be more prepared than what would be usual

 

[Sensuki]

I think he means Alastor who is harder in the AE due to some creature resistance changes. I had to re-spec my gear when I got up to Alastor in the AE but he didn't kill me because I TP'd out the couple times I tried to take him on and realized I couldn't damage him enough. He requires elemental damage to beat atm.

I'm currently in Act 4 with my Corsair, I think I'm level 38 or something and I'm just about to hit the last few areas. Having survivability issues against Makae Archers, they hit like a truck, need better armor ???

 

[Aothan]

I found the iceshards damaging but for some reason, possibly early levels in Storm mastery, my meleeish character managed that encounter without the difficulty expected (conversely decided it best to leave the Cyclops for a later time or even another difficulty) and speaking of Storm mastery having now reached 32 points in Defence I can finally focus about three levels to reach Storm surge and other Storm related skills. I don't recall the visual effect and the additional stun could be very helpful at times. Also need to start developing shield passive skills for the expected increase in challenge that comes with the Immortal Throne expansion

 

[Shadenuat]

So does the chance to get uniques drop right after first kill of the boss/first opening majestic chest? Then how do you farm shining pretties? I'm level 52 close to last parts of act 4 on Epic, and the only blue I wear is Rod of Storms +1 to all Storm skills. Because everything I got had 300+ STR or DEX requirement, even my own Nature/Storm items and sets. And I'm HP+INT. It's MADDENING.
I wear random crap with +skills/elem dmg/resists/+hp.
Like what the fuck.

I got +20% damage+20% life leech for pets amulet at act 1 from shop but sold it for +2 nature skills. I am a moron, because it was super good item and I can't find anything with that prefix ANYWHERE.

http://www.titancalc.com/TitanCalc....=32-0-1-0-0-1-0-0-12-0-12-0-6-4-0-0-1-1-1-8-0

 

[Aothan]

are you playing with the update from Thq Nordic ? The update appears to have noticeably increased the frequency of finding rarer items, I also think the side areas found every so often have a good chance of a blue item

 

[rezaf]

I think he means Alastor who is harder in the AE due to some creature resistance changes.

Yeah, that's the one. I've since gained ten levels or so, and I'd guess he would still be impossible to defeat.
For future encounters, I'm trying to stock up on jewelry so I can at least incease any resistance by 50ish percent or something. But I haven't run into another enemy that was remotely as difficult so far.

 

[Sensuki]

When I faced him my DPS was quite high for my level but it was mostly poison damage. He's immune to poison but weak to Fire/Cold/Lightning damage - get some of that and you'll be able to take him down no problem.

 

[rezaf]

I have basically only raw damage - playing the offensive warrior class. I really think getting resistance to his attacks would be key, as I could MAYBE swing my weapon once before being forced to run away/quaff a potion.
Grinding him down with a (pretty good blue) bow from the door also took an eternity. I fixed my shift key with a coin and put a book on my left mouse key - I finished two full games of Ascension on my old iPod and got pretty far into the third before he was finally killed...