And the winner is...DII.
I recently gave Titan Quest a try, but ground to a halt near the end of the epic (aka nightmare) difficulty game. TQ does have really pretty graphics --- a area in which DII never quite delivered IMO --- and the I like the Greek/Egyptian/Chinese backgrounds...but that wasn't enough.
In desperation, I recently reinstalled my old DII LoD disks, and started a trusty bowazon (who's currently lvl 39 in nightmare act II --- a kuko dropped from a random boss in nm/tamoe highlands which made her life infinitely easier, though I've yet to acquire a single item of mana-stealing equipment...).
I was struck again by the replayability and enjoyability factor of DII, even if it is perhaps a bit of a cotton-candy version of DI. This got me to wondering why DII succeeds where TQ fails, especially when TQ is so closely modeled on DII.
A few things DII does right and TQ does wrong (some of these are major and for others the devil is in the deatils):
a) Random environments
This is the most crucial difference, I think. Playing through epic TQ with exactly the same maps, quests etc. (the addition of one or two new bosses in epic hardly counts) as normal became stultifying even on my second time through the game. Doing it again on legendary difficulty would seem almost inconceivable.
b) Combat
TQ had some really weird combat AI --- for example, monsters had a certain max range, and once they reached it they bounced back as if they were on elastic strings making kiting them easy (and, often, this was the only reasonable way to kill them). The game was too easy early on, but it definitely got tougher in the middle of epic difficulty --- but often this was a 1%/99% difficulty choice, where almost everything was very easy, and the odd boss (e.g. the Manticore) would have almost unavoidable one-hit kills. Or you would get one-hit without 0 resistance to some attack form, and have no worries at all if you maxed it for that encounter.
DII pre 1.10 had a little bit of that 1%/99% flavor with almost everthing no danger, and then the odd MSLEB/lagged Duriel/hell ancient etc. being deadly, but still you always felt much more in control.
As one tiny example, if used correctly, the Amazon's decoy in DII was and is a wonderful and incredibly powerful skill for safe scouting, protection, and crowd control. TQ has a version called monster lure. But the lure can't be placed --- it always appears in exactly the same position relative to your character (at 2 o'clock a few yards away), so woe betide if you happen to be going in the opposite direction. I don't know what they were thinking when they designed the skill this way.
c) Itemization
TQ has lots and lots of items and mods (many more than DII I would guess). But they honestly still make no sense to me. The progression of drops as you go through the game is really uneven. You get the feeling that every time you clear an area, a huge garbage bag of stuff is being dropped on the ground, and probably every single thing is going to be useless.
Now perhaps I'm just not as familiar with the mods in TQ as I am in DII, but having lots of random items is not enough on its own, they have to be part of a well-thought out progression that is appropriate to the character level and monster difficulty.
d) DII has a much stronger multiplayer component (with its "secure, cheat-free servers" ;) ) than TQ.
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One thing I was a bit shocked by on trying DII for the first time in a long while is that the lag on the realms is as bad or worse than ever. I would've thought they'd have fixed that eventually, especially since I suppose there are far fewer players now than before. I guess there must be some fundamental issues with their implementation of server-side games.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that Hellgate:London will be a worthy DII succesor --- TQ was fun to try but it isn't there for the long haul IMO.
I recently gave Titan Quest a try, but ground to a halt near the end of the epic (aka nightmare) difficulty game. TQ does have really pretty graphics --- a area in which DII never quite delivered IMO --- and the I like the Greek/Egyptian/Chinese backgrounds...but that wasn't enough.
In desperation, I recently reinstalled my old DII LoD disks, and started a trusty bowazon (who's currently lvl 39 in nightmare act II --- a kuko dropped from a random boss in nm/tamoe highlands which made her life infinitely easier, though I've yet to acquire a single item of mana-stealing equipment...).
I was struck again by the replayability and enjoyability factor of DII, even if it is perhaps a bit of a cotton-candy version of DI. This got me to wondering why DII succeeds where TQ fails, especially when TQ is so closely modeled on DII.
A few things DII does right and TQ does wrong (some of these are major and for others the devil is in the deatils):
a) Random environments
This is the most crucial difference, I think. Playing through epic TQ with exactly the same maps, quests etc. (the addition of one or two new bosses in epic hardly counts) as normal became stultifying even on my second time through the game. Doing it again on legendary difficulty would seem almost inconceivable.
b) Combat
TQ had some really weird combat AI --- for example, monsters had a certain max range, and once they reached it they bounced back as if they were on elastic strings making kiting them easy (and, often, this was the only reasonable way to kill them). The game was too easy early on, but it definitely got tougher in the middle of epic difficulty --- but often this was a 1%/99% difficulty choice, where almost everything was very easy, and the odd boss (e.g. the Manticore) would have almost unavoidable one-hit kills. Or you would get one-hit without 0 resistance to some attack form, and have no worries at all if you maxed it for that encounter.
DII pre 1.10 had a little bit of that 1%/99% flavor with almost everthing no danger, and then the odd MSLEB/lagged Duriel/hell ancient etc. being deadly, but still you always felt much more in control.
As one tiny example, if used correctly, the Amazon's decoy in DII was and is a wonderful and incredibly powerful skill for safe scouting, protection, and crowd control. TQ has a version called monster lure. But the lure can't be placed --- it always appears in exactly the same position relative to your character (at 2 o'clock a few yards away), so woe betide if you happen to be going in the opposite direction. I don't know what they were thinking when they designed the skill this way.
c) Itemization
TQ has lots and lots of items and mods (many more than DII I would guess). But they honestly still make no sense to me. The progression of drops as you go through the game is really uneven. You get the feeling that every time you clear an area, a huge garbage bag of stuff is being dropped on the ground, and probably every single thing is going to be useless.
Now perhaps I'm just not as familiar with the mods in TQ as I am in DII, but having lots of random items is not enough on its own, they have to be part of a well-thought out progression that is appropriate to the character level and monster difficulty.
d) DII has a much stronger multiplayer component (with its "secure, cheat-free servers" ;) ) than TQ.
________________________________
One thing I was a bit shocked by on trying DII for the first time in a long while is that the lag on the realms is as bad or worse than ever. I would've thought they'd have fixed that eventually, especially since I suppose there are far fewer players now than before. I guess there must be some fundamental issues with their implementation of server-side games.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that Hellgate:London will be a worthy DII succesor --- TQ was fun to try but it isn't there for the long haul IMO.