Info about Torchlight III: Official game description: It’s been a century since the events of Torchlight II, and the Ember Empire is in decline. In Torchlight III, Novastraia is again under threat of invasion and it’s up to you to defend against the Netherim and its allies. Gather your wits and brave the frontier to find fame, glory, and new adventures! Travel the Frontier ------------------- Brave the vast wilderness of Novastraia and all of its dangers either alone or with a group of friends!  Collect Epic Gear ----------------- Whether it’s armor, weapons, or even new pets...there’s always more to find as you battle through dungeons and take on dangerous foes. Build Your Hero --------------- With four unique classes to choose from and five available Relic subclasses, there are many different ways to build your hero and maximize your damage. You’ll also gather epic gear along your journey that you can customize to work with your hero’s unique make-up. Build & Upgrade Your Fort ------------------------- It’s time to rebuild – and that includes you! Enjoy your very own fort, where you can upgrade gear and renovate your fort to show off to your friends and the world. Pets Are Back ------------- Fight your way to fame and glory with your loyal companion! Add skills and equip them with gear to make them stronger. Each species comes in a myriad of colors and styles, so make sure to collect them all! Release date: 13 Oct, 2020 Categories: Action RPG, Cooperative Multiplayer, Single-player, Character Progression, Character Customization, Base Building, AI Companion System, Endgame Content - Hardware Profile: No data Feature extractions: - Community Price: No data - Playtime Metrics: No data - Time-to-fun: No data - Player Archetypes: No data Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category. Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews. What players like: - Fluid, engaging, and improved combat (weight 0.28): The game features fluid, fast-paced, and engaging combat with responsive controls, diverse skills, and satisfying impact. Many reviewers found the combat enjoyable, especially on higher difficulties, and noted its improvement over previous titles. The game also offers a great co-op experience. - Improved, vibrant, and stylish graphics (weight 0.19): The game boasts significant graphical improvements with a vibrant, colorful, and stylish art style. Reviewers noted the visuals as a strong positive, with smooth performance and well-designed controls. Some found the graphics to be a bit overwhelming at times. - Unique classes enhance replayability (weight 0.16): The game offers a variety of unique and interesting character classes, each with distinct playstyles and abilities, enhancing replayability. Some reviewers highlighted specific classes like the Railmaster and Forge for their innovative mechanics and themes. - Generally enjoyable experience (weight 0.13): These clusters express general enjoyment of the game, but lack specific details. The points are too vague to be highly informative. - Satisfying loot and progression system (weight 0.13): The game features a well-designed and satisfying loot system with balanced leveling and character progression. Reviewers appreciated the sense of power and the variation in skills and gear, which allowed for experimentation with different builds. Some found the loot grind to be mindless fun. - Customizable fort adds gameplay depth (weight 0.1): Players have their own customizable fort that provides defensive and drop bonuses, as well as cosmetic options. The fort allows for crafting, managing pets, and unlocking new skills, adding depth to the gameplay. Reviewers found the fort feature to be a nice and enjoyable addition. - Playable and lengthy campaign (weight 0.09): The game is playable from beginning to end without game-breaking bugs and runs smoothly. The game offers a lengthy campaign, providing around 30-35 hours of gameplay. - General positive sentiments (weight 0.05): These clusters express general sentiments about the game and developers, but lack specific details. The points are too vague to be highly informative. - Full gamepad controller support (weight 0.04): The game has full gamepad compatibility, making it suitable for relaxed play. Reviewers found the game to play very well with a gamepad controller. - Good voice acting and audio (weight 0.03): The game features good voice acting and atmospheric audio, with lively creature sounds and well-fitted music tracks. Reviewers found the audio to be a positive aspect of the game. - Legendarium enables passive skills (weight 0.03): The Legendarium allows players to activate legendary item abilities they have found, enabling additional passive skills. Legendary equipment grants permanent access to the item's legendary trait even after it's discarded. - Impressive visual effects and abilities (weight 0.03): The game features impressive visual effects, especially the Captain's ghost ship ability. The Cursed Captain’s ghostly, pirate-themed abilities kept the gameplay fresh and dynamic. - Singleplayer and multiplayer modes (weight 0.03): The game offers both singleplayer and multiplayer modes, allowing players to play with friends or alone. The game also has controller support, which allows for a more relaxed gaming experience. - Cost-effective in specific market (weight 0.02): This cluster mentions the game's cost-effectiveness and availability in a specific market. This is not broadly applicable feedback. Common complaints: - Repetitive, shallow, and lacks depth (weight 0.68): Reviewers frequently describe the game as repetitive and lacking depth. This includes repetitive environments, quests, and enemies, as well as a shallow story and uninspired level design. Many feel the game quickly becomes boring and fails to provide a compelling or immersive experience. - Numerous bugs and server issues (weight 0.48): Numerous reviewers report encountering bugs, glitches, and server issues. These range from minor annoyances to game-breaking problems that prevent mission completion or cause crashes. Some reviewers indicate that these issues have persisted since early access or beta, suggesting a lack of attention from the developers. - Simplified, clunky, and uninspired mechanics (weight 0.41): Reviewers criticize the game's mechanics as being simplified, clunky, and lacking impact. This includes character progression, skill systems, and combat, with many feeling that the game lacks depth and build diversity. Some reviewers feel the game's systems are uninspired or even broken. - Unbalanced difficulty, one-shot deaths (weight 0.34): Several reviewers mention unbalanced difficulty, with some areas being too easy while others feature enemies that can one-shot the player. This inconsistency makes progression frustrating and undermines the sense of accomplishment. Some maps are incompletable due to missing items or mobs. - Overpriced for poor quality (weight 0.33): Many reviewers feel the game is overpriced for its quality and content. Some compare it unfavorably to mobile games or other ARPGs, suggesting it doesn't offer enough value for the asking price. Some reviewers express regret over their purchase, feeling it was a waste of money. - Pets are buggy and underutilized (weight 0.12): Pets frequently disappear or exhibit buggy behavior, requiring players to take steps to fix the issue. The pet's stats, inventory, skills, and controls have been removed and replaced with vague generic skills. Pets are underutilized, mainly serving as on-demand shop bots and mobile buffs. - Character restrictions and limited customization (weight 0.08): Reviewers express frustration with character restrictions, such as being tied to singleplayer or multiplayer modes and limited customization options. This limits player choice and prevents them from feeling connected to their characters. The game requires a multiplayer connection, even though social features are absent. Gameplay feedback: - Relic system lacks synergy (weight 0.11): The Relic system introduces a third skill tree, offering build customization. However, the limited synergy with base classes and the perceived power of Relic skills can overshadow the original class skill trees, making the system feel somewhat disjointed. - Repetitive, linear quest design (weight 0.07): The game's quest structure is linear and repetitive, resembling mobile game design. Players pick up quests with minimal context, travel to a location, defeat a monster, and return to the NPC, which some reviewers found unengaging. - Legendarium system enhances customization (weight 0.06): The Legendarium system allows players to extract legendary powers from items, similar to Kanai's Cube in Diablo 3. This system lets players retain weapon bonuses and unlock passive skills, enhancing character customization. - Extensive pet and companion system (weight 0.04): Many classes can utilize multiple pets and companions, each with unique skills that can be unlocked. Players collect pets throughout the game and equip up to four abilities from rescued pets, adding a layer of customization to combat. - Fazeer's is endgame content (weight 0.04): Fazeer's is the endgame content, similar to Greater Rifts, consisting of tiers with dungeons and a boss fight. Mapworks are scrolls that open portals to dungeons with positive and negative affixes, similar to Fazeer's but easier. - Tedious resource gathering, slow leveling (weight 0.03): Resource gathering can be tedious due to the large quantities required for building and crafting. Additionally, leveling can feel slow, especially in the early game. - Risk/reward item system (weight 0.02): Items tied to life provide a power boost but break upon death, incentivizing careful play. Players also lose items upon death, adding risk to combat. - Contract system rewards progression (weight 0.01): The Fame system has been reworked into a Contract system, offering rewards like skill points, items, cosmetics, and respec points as Fame levels increase. - Crafting gated behind endgame (weight 0.01): Crafting is only available after beating the game, impacting early game progression. - Themed acts dictate resistances (weight 0.01): The world is divided into 3 acts including endgame, each with a specific elemental theme that dictates the types of enemies and corresponding resistances needed. Performance notes: - Inconsistent reports of bugs/performance (weight 0.23): Reports regarding bugs, crashes, and optimization are highly inconsistent. Some players report frequent and severe issues like lag, stuttering, crashes, and getting stuck, even on high-end PCs. Others experience smooth performance with few or no issues. This inconsistency suggests potential hardware or configuration dependencies. - Lag, stuttering, rubber banding issues (weight 0.17): Several players mention lag, stuttering, and rubber banding, which significantly impacts responsiveness and gameplay. These issues manifest as delays in skill execution, hit detection problems, and general unresponsiveness, even with good hardware. The rubber banding specifically points to netcode issues. - Frequent server crashes/disconnections (weight 0.05): Players report frequent server crashes and disconnections, sometimes requiring VPNs to connect. These issues disrupt gameplay and can occur frequently, sometimes as often as every 20 minutes. Server instability is a recurring concern. - Minor graphical/functional bugs (weight 0.04): Several minor graphical and functional bugs exist. These include highlighting issues, UI flickering, missing pets, and glitched shop items. While not game-breaking, these issues detract from the overall polish. - Map and aspect ratio bugs (weight 0.02): The game has a bug where the map gets stuck on the left side of the screen. Additionally, the game's locked aspect ratio causes the screen to zoom in on 32:9 monitors, reducing the visible area compared to 16:9 monitors. - Disconnects cause lost progress (weight 0.01): Disconnects during boss battles or events lead to lost progress and missed opportunities. This is particularly frustrating as it negates the time and effort invested in these activities. This can discourage players from engaging with challenging content. - Repeat locations after logging (weight 0.01): Players report having to repeat locations after logging back in because they always start in the city and teleport to the beginning of the location. This is a frustrating experience that wastes time and disrupts the flow of gameplay. - Graphics are acceptable (weight 0.01): The graphics are acceptable, but this point lacks specific details and doesn't offer constructive feedback. It's a general statement without much substance. - Plays excellent through Proton (weight 0.01): The game plays excellent through Proton, but this point lacks specific details and doesn't offer constructive feedback. It's a general statement without much substance. Recommendations: - Inferior to previous Torchlight games (weight 0.94): Many reviewers feel Torchlight III fails to live up to the standards set by its predecessors, particularly Torchlight II. They recommend playing other ARPGs instead, including Torchlight II, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, and Diablo series. Some reviewers suggest the developers have abandoned the game. - Only worth it on sale (weight 0.87): A common sentiment is that Torchlight III is only worth purchasing at a significant discount. Some reviewers provide specific price points they deem acceptable. This suggests the game's perceived value does not align with its full price. - Suitable for casual players (weight 0.45): Some reviewers find the game enjoyable for casual players or those new to the ARPG genre. It's seen as a less demanding and more accessible experience compared to other games in the genre. - Frustrating life-bound items mechanic (weight 0.02): One reviewer uninstalled the game due to the 'life-bound items' mechanic and hopes it will be removed. This suggests that this mechanic is particularly frustrating for some players. - Relic system limits build freedom (weight 0.01): The relic system is criticized for forcing players into specific playstyles based on weapon requirements. This limits build diversity and disadvantages players who prefer certain effects or weapons. - Excessive grinding for legendary sets (weight 0.01): Legendary set hunting is described as an excessive grind with inconsistent drop rates. The possibility of getting unwanted weapon types further discourages players. - Better suited for mobile platforms (weight 0.01): Some reviewers feel the game's design and mechanics are better suited for mobile platforms. This suggests a perception that the game is overly simplified or lacks depth. Other player notes: - Unfinished, abandoned, lacks soul (weight 0.17): Many reviewers feel the game is unfinished, abandoned, and not living up to its potential or the Torchlight name. Some believe it was originally intended as a mobile game or MMO, and its shift in development has resulted in a lack of content and soul. The negative sentiment is amplified by the fact that the game was released as an early access title for a significant price. - Poor Brazilian Portuguese translation (weight 0.03): The game's Brazilian Portuguese translation contains errors and inconsistencies, with some parts remaining untranslated or mixing English and Portuguese. This negatively impacts the player experience for Portuguese-speaking players. - Mobile design, no modding (weight 0.02): Reviewers note the lack of mod support compared to previous titles and the UI/design choices, leading them to believe the game was initially designed for mobile platforms. This perceived shift in design focus has disappointed some fans of the series. - Cartoonish style, younger audience (weight 0.02): The game features a cartoonish art style that some find appealing, while others view it as a departure from the darker, more gothic visuals typical of Diablo-like games. Some reviewers feel the style is catered to a younger audience. - Achievements are grindy, doable (weight 0.02): The game includes Steam achievements and trading cards. Collecting achievements was rewarding, though grindy but doable. - Survival depends on DPS (weight 0.01): Survival in the game is heavily dependent on dealing damage (DPS). This may indicate a lack of viable defensive strategies or an imbalance in character builds, potentially forcing players into specific playstyles. - Fitting, dark music atmosphere (weight 0.01): The music, composed by Matt Uelmen or someone imitating his style, creates a discreet, dark, and fitting atmosphere. This contributes positively to the overall game experience. - Early Access save wipe (weight 0.01): Early Access save data will be wiped upon official release, which is disappointing. This is a common practice, but can still frustrate players who invested time in the early version. - Skills may be unbalanced (weight 0.01): Skills may be unbalanced and will be reported and corrected. This is a common issue in early access games, but can still impact the player experience. Emotions: No emotions}