Hi there,

Nice to see there's a community around here !

You can call me potty - I used to play a lot of Torchlight 2 until multiplayer became very sparse.

I have done some modding with GUTS - my project was to get a near-perfect experience of Torchlight 2 by modifying what was annoying me the most, namely :

• The lack of end-game content
• The lack of challenge once you know the tricks
• Boss fights being just plain boring and unchallenging (corpserunning ftw)

The mod Synergies provided proper end-game content as well as a more challenging experience - so I wanted initially to build a mod on top of that, and focus on the leveling content.

The mod i had been working on was then called Potty's Synergies Add-on, and was starting to feature the following:

• Scaling all the maps to lvl 100, so that overleveling is not possible anymore (a lot of fights become easier because of overleveling)
• Changing drop rates to have one unique per boss and per golden chest
• Bosses repleneshing their health when player dies. I implemented it with the first half of all the Act 1 bosses, with a Trigger Sphere around the boss - whenever the player walks out of it, the boss regenerates completely. I also had to change the room so that the fights are in close quarters (makes the fight also more interesting !)
• Some changes to bosses - for example I have added spider adds to Window's Veil so that you have the feeling to be literally swarmed and pressured by spiders (sorry arachnophobiac people)

However, right now Synergies is a bit of a mess. The respec potion is broken because of the recent changes done to the Embermage - some people prefer the old version of the Embermage by the way. The Paladin has an entire tree which just doesn't work. And also, there are a few things that I do not like in Synergies :

• Some areas are way too overcrowded. Not only is it bad for the TL2 engine who barely supports it, but it also requires you to spend a long time to travel through an area.
• The endgame farm is just insane. When I was playing TL2 I could afford to spend hours on it, but right now I just can't. You have to get enough DR skull, then you have to farm all the bosses until you have the right stuff (that's for Tier 0), and then you have to farm endlessly in Tier 1 as well..
• The reflect effect is just insanely broken. Characters like Embermage get insta-killed if they use prismatic bolt.

However, the main ideas were great, and I would maybe like to provide a similar experience (just without the broken stuff). The main thing that was retaining me from going forward is motivation. It's hard to get motivated when you know that few people still play TL2 nowadays.

So, what I would like to do in the next couple of months :

• Fire up vanilla TL2 again, and try to feel the difference between this and Synergies. What is so awesome in Synergies that isn't in vanilla TL2 ? This will give me some clues to get a direction to my mod.
• Start again with modifying the boss encounters. This is really the biggest con of the game in my opinion.

In particular, I've just read Mtaurs' mod pack and I'm interested in the change in the potion mechanism. It's true that the current mechanism forces you to spam the potions. And it was even worst in Synergies, as the rejuvenation potions could be obtained from 1 health potion and 1 mana potion.

Some other mechanisms that I might change :

• Damage reduction - just remove the Limoany skull, which is way too overpowered. Damage reduction should be something that is proper to a couple of items, but it should not be the meta.

Some of the Synergies stuff that I believe were a very nice addition:

• Doubling the Champion spawn. Fighting a single Fire mage is nice - fighting two of them is insane
• The random affixes to the monsters. It would be nice if these were Diablo 2-ish, so basically each monster of a Champion group shares the same affixes.

And about the NG.. Right now I think the mechanism is completely unchallenging, as it's just an increase in lvl and nothing more. It would be a lot more challenging if it was accompanied by a decrease in resistance, and also by adding more skills to the monsters (for example the Ratlin archers would be able to cast Firestorm in NG+). However, I have no idea how doable it is. I think that currently the engine only allows to have an increase in lvl.

But there is this area with waves of monsters that is available only in NG+ - so maybe it's possible to do something more than just increasing the level.

Anyway.. Hoping to hear from you guys :-) I still think that TL2 has the best potential as an ARPG, and I hope to get some feedback in this forum, as well as providing some for you

potty

Welcome Potty! I recognize you from the Synergies forums

As far as having ratlings able to learn new abilities at higher levels, I think that should be possible.

Wow such a warm welcome Thanks a lot guys.

  I felt good when you mentioned @MTaur 's mod, because collaboration is one thing I really really hope this place fosters.

To be honest, I have been trying a lot of Torchlight 2 mods - there are actually a lot of them who have good ideas, but just not pushed enough.

Synergies had a good philosophy in the beginning - it started as a kind of multi-mod project, and was featuring several mods from various authors (I did not know Synergies since the very beginning of course - I arrived in TL2 1 or 2 years after its release, and a couple of months before the GUTS update)

Especially with the GUTS file system, it's relatively easy to incorporate parts of a mod to another one. But then it raises the question of copyrights.. Especially with the steam workshop system, you don't want your mod to be forgotten while another one takes your place by integrating some of your work.

It would be nice to get a kind of modders union. But then you have the problem of conflicting directions - one person wanting it this way, the other one that way..

But a nice and complete overhaul of TL2 cannot be done alone. It's just not possible. So yes, collaboration is pretty much needed.

TL2 is far from dead to us, and feel that others should embrace it the same

To be honest, these days it looks like a swarm of ARPG coming out, but none of them close to TL2 when it comes to dynamic gameplay sadly. Even Grim Dawn - this was/is viewed as the next Diablo 2 successor, but to be honest the gameplay is much slower than that.