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Path of Exile, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 2
this is the definitive list.
path of exile is most popular but has optional mtx(?)
titan quest and Torchlight are on multiple consoles. titan quest has a sequel in production
grim dawn is by the titan quest team, has a small file size, and runs well on older pcs.
Does Last Epoch belong on this list too?
Yes it absolutely does belong! It’s officially launching on February 21, but it’s currently available in beta/early access.
I’ve only heard good things but haven’t tried it yet, probably does belong!
Ive had a ton of fun playing it!
Yes! As a die hard Grim Dawn fan I can say Last Epoch is awesome. Grim Dawn is still better imho, but Last Epoch comes close. Both are excellent games one could easily put 100+ hours in and have a blast.
I just wish that I could start at a higher difficulty on Grim Dawn with the appropriate scaling. I don’t want to do the campaign 3 times just like old days.
Didn’t they just change the game with the last patch (still being updated, my God the devs are GOATed) so they you can play to 100 in any difficulty? I still imagine you get pasted in elite and ultimate if that’s your issue though.
I don’t know, haven’t played with that feature. The campaign with expansion is long enough that it was a pain to go through it to get to endgame.
It’s a good thing that you can skip that.
Yeah I’m hoping so as well, haven’t played since that patch. I got really burnt out spamming the story over and over too.
Path of exile charges for inventory QoL and with the ludicrous amount of different stuff that drops, it’s arguably kind of mandatory if you’re trying to complete seasonal objectives
Its also free to play.
Or as some streamers say: its a $60 game with an incredibly generous free trial.
For PoE you consider 30gb installed (on PS5 mind you) a large file size? Yes it has mtx, but it is not once pushed or advertised to you, and none of it is required for anything. They does improve the QoL of the game however.
CoD + WZ is around 240gb I think. Most modern AAA games are usually 90gb minimum.
true, I thought it was larger for some reason
Some years ago they pretty much rewrote the entire base game code (or some parts of it) and tidied it up, reducing the overall size. It may be larger installed on PC (I’m on PS5) but I can’t imagine there being too much of a difference.
The MTX for PoE are within the “nice” ones. There’s extra stash tabs, but you don’t need to consider that until after the campaign. And then there’s cosmetics. No pay to win. And the MTX are on your account, so they will be on PoE2 as well.
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How is the couch co-op for Titan Quest? My SO and I spent a ton of time on Diablo 3 together and I might consider trying that again.
No couch coop on PC, so I don’t know.
There is 2 player local coop for Playstation, XBox and Nintendo though
https://www.co-optimus.com/game/334/pc/titan-quest.html
Torchlight 2 spoiled me for basically the whole genre. It is a classic
RoguelikeARPG dungeon crawler but has so many thoughtful player centric quality of life features. Inventory is full but don’t want to stop kicking butt? You have a pet that can run back to town for you, sell your stuff, and even buy a “shopping list” of potions and scrolls for you. It’ll even run and pick up loot for you. I have trouble playing other games in the genre because I keep running into problems Torchlight 2 solved that I didn’t even think about. It also has mods available to add even more or keep things fresh. It’s getting old but because of that you can run it on anything. It’s a damn good game.Edit: seems I didn’t know what a roguelike was
It is a classic Roguelike
I get that Roguelike is basically a vaguely defined genre now, and though Torchlight 2 in a great game it’s definitely not a “classic Roguelike”.
Ok, is a Diablo-like a thing I can call it then? It’s just such a specific type of game, the isometric top down view RPG with classes, customizable character leveling, randomly generated levels with area themes, randomized loot, a town hub and inventory etc. I’ve always heard those games called Rogue-likes but I never played Rogue.
It’s an ARPG. Rogue-like has permadeath with random levels. Rogue-lite has permadeath with random levels but persistent unlocks and upgrades.
Funnily enough, Diablo was originally a rogue-ish game inspired by the likes of NetHack. The engine was even (technically) turn based - there’s a pretty cool anecdotes about how they made it real time over the course of a single weekend with some clever hacks.
I don’t know if it was ever supposed to have permadeath outside of the hardcore difficulty setting though.
Also a roguelike is usually top down/isometric and tile based. Really not a ton of roguelikes these days, which is good as far as I’m concerned because roguelites are better.
Shattered Pixel Dungeon notwithstanding, of course.
Torchlight 1-2 are decent fun for normal playthrough but plagued by bad design decisions and downright silly difficulty spikes on harder difficulties. Mods probably fix many of these issues but in vanilla the build diversity on harder difficulties is quite bad with only handful of viable builds with skill trees full of “trap skills”.
I might have lucked into some cheesey builds, I only maxed one character and have a few at 60. One mod I did get was a full respec mod, but the default reset of the last 3 levels was at least good enough for me to see if a skill was working for me or not. I agree that there seem to be too many “dud” skills, especially on embermage and engineer. My lvl 100 character I did without mods and I kind of liked how punishing it was. I get that that’s a preference though.
Prismatic bolt embermage is really strong in vanilla and cannon engineer is probably easiest class to play in the whole game. Melee engineer and many other embermage builds can be quite tough and the game has plenty of weird difficulty spikes and enemies with “shotgun” skills that can melt through player health in an instant.
In Torchlight 2 you can reset the world and grind for levels and gear but that can feel like a chore.
Lol yep prismatic bolt embermage is the character I got to max. I realized super early how great that skill was and fully invested in it. I also played sword and board engie and dual pistol Outlander. So maybe if I had invested more in other skills or wanted different builds for my embermage I’d have a more lukewarm view of the game. I had a lot of fun with the builds I did try though.
I never had to go grind for gear, I usually had enough gold to gamble and transmute a decent equipment set together for each character. I did grind for levels in the extra map zones though after finishing the New Game+.
I dunno about it being Rougelike, but I did love me some Torchlight 1 and 2. (Haven’t played 3.)
What are your thoughts on Torchlight 3?
I haven’t played it. My impression is that it was trying very hard to cater to the mobile market. I heard it suffered from a lot of design changes and ended up being sold and then patched up and released by a new team to cut their losses. Meanwhile, Torchlight 2 may be older but it was made with love and care and a strong vision. It’s dirt cheap now too so it’s not hard to get your money’s worth out of it.
I’ve played the first one and second, they’re both great. Sad to hear about the third game.
I mean there’s always Torchlight infinite; which I hear was bought up by a Korean mobile game dev and monetized to hell
Have played a few hours of infinite and there’s fun to be had with the different characters, but every character being (different build and skills) locked behind another paywall, it’s a tough sell… (And as far as I remember the publisher was Korean from the start)
Last Epoch and Grim Dawn are probably most in line with Diablo, I think.
People have mentioned Path Of Exile, and I’ve played a lot of it, but I don’t think it feels particularly like Diablo any more, even though it started out that way. It’s quite unforgiving, and even a lot of experienced players feel like they need to follow build guides rather than work things out for themselves. Its learning curve is hundreds or thousands of hours long. Of course, the reason for that is that it has incredible depth, variety and complexity, which may be a selling point or a deterrent depending on what you like! I definitely like the complexity of it myself, but it’s very overwhelming when you’re new. The reason I don’t think it’s all that in line with Diablo these days, though, is simply the pacing of the gameplay. You blow up screens of enemies at a time, and your deaths are often so fast that you’re not really sure what killed you.
Path Of Exile also heavily revolves around its trading economy. Item drop rates are balanced around players being able to trade for them, which makes trading somewhat mandatory (unless you’re a bit of a masochist). The economy is fairly complex, with there being a lot of different currencies, and quite a lot of factors that can affect the value of an item. I’ll let you decide whether you find this appealing or not - some people do, some people don’t! I do think it causes some issues with the balance and progression of the game, but it’s interesting to say the least, even if you wish you didn’t have to engage with it.
Grim Dawn feels a little mechanically dated at this point but it’s still solid. It’s got some good builds, the dual-class system and constellations system make for some interesting variety. It’s got an offline mode, as well as online co-op play. Its real selling point, though, at least for me, is it’s absolutely soaked with atmosphere. It’s very, well, grim, but the world is really immersive and it has a great setting in general with a solid story and some great lore. It also has quite a lot of mods available (including the Reign Of Terror mod I mentioned in another comment in the thread that adds the entire Diablo 2 campaign and all its classes to Grim Dawn).
Last Epoch is more mechanically interesting than Grim Dawn, I think, but it’s lacking in the story and world-building. It’s still in early access, although its full release is next week. It has quite a lot of depth and complexity, but it’s all done in an intuitive way that means you can jump into the game blindly and work things out for yourself fairly easily. It has a good variety of skills, and the fact that each skill has its own fairly comprehensive skill tree means you can play the same skills in very different ways. It has a wonderful itemisation system that does a great job of making you actually engage with the loot you find on the floor (which is an issue in other loot games), and some of the best crafting I’ve ever seen in a game. The dev team also manages to come up with some really creative and somewhat intuitive solutions to things they perceive as issues in other ARPGs.
Last Epoch’s biggest drawback is that its endgame is currently a little lacking in comparison to POE (which has a very rich and deep endgame, but is also a ten-year-old game that’s been updated constantly). It’s still far, far better than Diablo 4’s, though, and will obviously only improve as more is added. Last Epoch has some truly brilliant systems in place for the devs to build off - and frankly, I still think it’s great now - but it’ll only get better as more content gets added over time.
I love all three games I’ve talked about for different reasons, and honestly, they’re all well worth playing!
The reason I don’t think it’s all that in line with Diablo these days, though, is simply the pacing of the gameplay. You blow up screens of enemies at a time, and your deaths are often so fast that you’re not really sure what killed you.
Yeah, that’s why I don’t care for POE anymore these days.
Grim Dawn feels a little mechanically dated at this point but it’s still solid
Honestly Grim dawn is probably the most polished action rpg I’ve ever played. The developers have spend a ton of time adjusting the game mechanics, balance and build variety to be as good as possible. This is quite a contrast to games like path of exile where the developers are costantly adding new mechanics and bunch of new items each season. Sure doing so keeps the game feeling fresh which is important for live service but results in a lot more rough edges.
Path of Exile.
PoE 2 announced a couple years ago and should be launching soon, pretty much the same stuff on a new engine.
It seems like it’ll actually be radically different, and there’s no way it’s coming out until like at least 2026.
All of the promotional footage I’ve seen for it looked indiscernible from PoE 1 gameplay and graphics but maybe that’s due to ongoing development.
It’s actually an upgraded version of the same engine, and Path of Exile 1 is getting a lot of the new tech backported.
It was originally supposed to replace Path of Exile 1, but now they are going to exist together.
2 will be more refined and slower, with a brand new story and 6 new acts. Should be a fun time.
Slower? I tried to speedrun PoE once and because of a build mistake in Chapter 2 Act 3 it took me 14 hours to beat the base game before maps. Terrible time, but still.
I believe the acts themselves will be longer and more fleshed out but there’s less of them.
6 acts in Path of Exile 2 instead of the 10 acts that PoE1 has.
That might be nice, it would be cool to have coherent independent stories instead of: “There is literally only one path and this random person who means nothing to you or your mission personally is in your way, kill them! (reading their pocket journal is optional)”
I do feel like the second chapter was better than the first in that regard, though.
I spent way way way too many hours playing D2. Path of Exile is a great choice to fill that gap. Just do homework for a little bit before diving in if you give it a shot. Leveling builds and def use a guide.
Grim Dawn
Grim Dawn is “What if a sequel to Diablo 2, but not Diablo 3?”
Oh? I’ve only actually played 3 so I have no reference to 2 and what the differences are
Old timer here… Diablo 2 has a story with an atmosphere that sucks you in. In that sense Diablo 3 was a real disappointment.
Now, if you’re going for Diablo 2 it’s the remastered version you want. The game is like 20 years old and not made for widescreen so it really feels dated on a modern screen. Also, prepare for isometric pixel graphics.
Grim Dawn also has a mod called Reign Of Terror that lets you play the entirety of Diablo 2 in GD, complete with classes, skills and items! It has some differences because it’s built on Grim Dawn’s systems, so it has the dual-class system from Grim Dawn (with similarly laid out skill trees), item affixes work like Grim Dawn, etc, but it feels great to play! And you can combine Grim Dawn classes with D2 classes, D2 classes with other D2 classes, or just play the D2 campaign with a regular Grim Dawn build. It’s great!
EDIT: spelling
Omg how have I not heard about this. I’m blaming you for my lack of social life in the next couple weeks. Not that I have one to begin with.
I’ll see you at the end of Act 2 when you remember what a fucking slog Act 3 was and decide you’ve scratched the itch.
I’m now just learning of this too and intend to do the same
Act 3
Those fucking demon pygmies! Whenever I played necro, I always corpse exploded all of them
Thanks for this!
Another option is to get Grim Dawn, and then get the Reign of Terror mod. It’s basically Diablo 2 recreated almost completely + some extra content.
But since you’ve never played Diablo 2, I’d recommend playing it first in some form (D2R or PD2) so you can appreciate the storyline (and the epic cutscenes) - and then play the Grim Dawn mod.
Grim dawn looks cool aesthetically and I’m liking the UI and how big the skill tree looks. Are any of the expansions any good?
Absolutely. All of the expansions are good, but especially the ones that add extra masteries (classes).
All of them, honestly.
The Crucible is the weakest - it’s just an arena mode, but it’s got a lot of utility for speed leveling new characters + some QoL for existing ones.
Ashes of Malmouth is the direct continuation of the base game’s story, adds Necromancer and Inquisitor which are both very well-loved masteries, and you need it for Forgotten Gods anyway. The zones are a bit meh - great overall mood but you spend a lot of time in cramped corridors.
Forgotten Gods adds Oathkeeper (very fun) and tons of huge new zones with a refreshingly different vibe to the rest of the game. And you can go to this expansion’s zones from the start! (Except that you probably shouldn’t on your first playthrough, you’d get destroyed and you probably want to focus on the main story anyway.)
I’d wait for a sale and get them all if you like this genre, or just base game + AoM if you just want to give it a shot (and technically you could hold off on AoM until you’re close to the end of the campaign).
How would you say Titan Quest compares?
i only played a little of both. i like titan quest for the story and mythology, but grim dawn seems more refined and modern, it’s actually by the SAME team (today i learned)!
Yeah, that last part I knew, but I started diving into this genre with Titan Quest because the sequel is allegedly coming out this year.
The Titan Quest sequel is being done by a completely different team, no guarantee it captures the same magic as the original.
I’m aware, but it will likely be mechanically similar. If it turns out to be a Bloodlines 2 situation, I can always just stick to the first game and Grim Dawn, maybe V Rising. And all of that is assuming that as I spend more time in Titan Quest I still enjoy it.
forgot about that, I would personally wait for the sequel but the first game is cheap anyway
I enjoyed Titan Quest more, but that may be down to the less grimdark aesthetics. Gameplay wise they’re both fine hack ‘n’ slashes.
Haven’t played it. My progression was Diablo 2 -> Torchlight 1 and 2 -> Grim Dawn
Definitely I would check out Grim Dawn and Last Epoch.
Grim Dawn is an insanely sprawling game with tons of class combinations and builds, made by the people who made titan quest. The graphics are dated as hell but it never stopped me from loving it. I also find the lore very fun.
Then there is Last Epoch, which is coming out on the 21st. I’ve been playing it for 3 years, even done some testing for them. Personally some of the more casual friendly things that you can’t find (like the crafting actually being amazing, seasons giving content to non-season characters, etc) just are unmatched and give the game a very good flow. It will be out in 1.0 in ~ a week and I definitely think it’s worth a glance because I find it is a great middle ground between diablo’s dumbed-downness and Path of Exile’s sweatiness.
+1 for Last Epoch
Each skill has its own talent tree you can use to customize it, and if there’s a certain build you like in Diablo you’ll probably be able to find something with a similar playstyle.
Here’s a few:
- Grim Dawn
- Titan Quest
- Sacred Series
- The incredible adventures of Van Helsing
- Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor - martyr
- Divine Divinity
- Torchlight series
Then there’s Last Epoch and Path of Exile
Grim Dawn is probably your best match. PoE is also online only so screw em.
Torchlight 1 was an amazing game. Torchlight 2 was an okay game. Torchlight 3 is nothing like the previous two and is really awful.
Spent a good chunk of my childhood playing Sacred 1. It’s aged very poorly, and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone nowadays, but I still think that the world design and environmental storytelling were some of the best I’ve found in a videogame.
For example, at the beginning of the game, orcs are migrating from the desert and attacking human settlements. When you progress, you discover that they aren’t doing it because they want to, but because the undead army is forcing them out of their land. And when you progress in the northern part of the world, there’s a completely optional region inside the forest, where you can find a few hastily made orcish settlements - but you only find women and shamans, because the men are fighting at the front. There are no dialogues, quests, books or anything telling you that, it’s just something that you infer from the environment.
It made exploring the world and finding its secrets fun, even if there wasn’t always a reward.
(There were also a metric ton of easter eggs, from tombstones mentioning LotR characters to receiving sunglasses as a reward for chasing rude orc visitors from a tourist island… it was a wild game)
Yeah both Sacred games have their fair share of jank on you’ll need to apply community patches and possibly mods to even make them work on todays systems. However what they do not lack is soul as both games are clearly made with love and feel very unique compared to many modern games.
If you can forgive the jank and don’t mind to play older games with somewhat dated graphics I feel these games can still provide a lot of enjoyment. Would love to see remasters for these games or eveb a spiritual sequel.
Currently playing Sacred 2 with community patch, enchanted edition mod , more enemies mod and music mod and having a blast. The EE is tough as nails though and I am frequently getting my ass handed to my by elite enemies and bosses even on silver difficulty.
Grim Dawn is goated. Not a big ARPG fan but this one just hits different for me. Simple enough for anyone to get into but can get complex enough that min-max theory crafters will have a blast messing with the games systems.
For me it was a very short experience, but it’s got online coop.
Work all the dlc? I’ve played though a couple of times and it’s always like 30-40 hours
The base game can be done in like 5-8 hours on a leisurely pace, the current speedrun WR is 57minutes but there are only 6 runners who’ve submitted to it so feasibly you could get a lot better times than that.
I’ve actually got a video on YT where I perform the “I Was Not Expecting You, Human” achievement to Slay Warden Krieg, who is the game’s midboss, in Veteran Mode with a character under level 11, and it was an hour and thirteen minutes from character creation to finish. The last 10 minutes are just the Krieg fight itself. This could be done much faster without the level requirement, though, because you could get more damage and better items.
The major problem with it is the enemy scaling. Every area has a minimum level and a maximum level, and as the character levels up so do the enemies. That means if you keep leveling in an area until you dwarf the enemies, it just keeps making it harder in the next area, so you’re incentivized to stay at the minimum level for that area and ignore the vast majority of enemies. Even farming for good loot comes at the added cost of making the mobs harder. I used to use a site that shows the level range for areas but I can’t find it anymore, sadly.
Torchlight is Torchlight. You might like it because not Diablo, but Torchlight.
I loved Diablo 2 the most, and Torchlight scratches the same itch.
Yes.
Truly a man of the people
Last Epoch seems to be the most popular recent one. It’s currently in early access but it’s releasing in a week or so.
Okay I’m liking the current class selection, still a little sparse but I mean it’s early access so whatever. But the reason this game is going in my wishlist is this one image
That looks so fucking cool
Those fifteen classes are all we’re getting for last epoch. Two of them won’t be live until launch on February 21 (falconer and warlock), but there’s a ton of diversity between those classes.
It’s pretty good, releasing next week.
Early Access is available now and is good. 1.0 launches next week.
Path of Exile.
Its 100% free, so you can play it like a demo until you are either fully in or bored.
It gets a season refresh every 3ish months with an entirely new mechanic, so most experienced players restart it 4 times a year, play a new build, and then stop playing when bored and return at the new season so its always got reasons to peek back in and see if you want to rejoin.
The leveling system is a little daunting at first, but the base game is completely playable newbie blind even if you pick “suboptimally” from the skill tree. If youre too worried about FoMo, there are tons of guides online for builds, both top level and newbie friendly.
The attack/skill system is very interesting and completely moddable, tons of replayablility.
If you like diablo, try PoE.
Looking forward to PoE2
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Last Epoch. It has the best crafting and best skill system of any ARPG IMO.
Absolutely this, the crafting system is a great balance of getting what you want but also giving you something to try again and again for.
Basically that and the talent trees inside skills sold me on this game.
And it has an actual endgame, leaderboards, and it’s half the price of Diablo 4. It’s a no-brainer IMO.
Last epoch, path of exile, grim dawn, Torchlight 1,2 and if you want to suffer 3, if you can suffer through Korean p2w nonsense then lost ark, and also titan quest. All of these games are on multiple platforms.
