3 Closed Beta Tests and 2 Seasons of Open Beta later, Torchlight Infinite Season 3 Cube of Rapacity & Global Launch is set to release on May 9th, 5 PM PDT (12 AM UTC)!
XD's own Sean, Ian, and Jack hosted and revealed Torchlight's very near future to the world in a livestream. In this event, we learned about the new Seasonal Mechanic, the new Divinity Slate system, a new Hero and a new alternative Trait, a new Endgame Boss, and much more. Further perpetuating the hype, our very own Tenkiei and Milkybk_ had an exclusive opportunity to chat with our friends from XD in the livestream's concluding interview segment.
Global Launch and Milestones
XD Celebrates the Global Launch of Torchlight Infinite by looking back at the 5 previous major releases of the game and all of the support they have since received from the community they are happy to call their own.
Rewards for Pioneer Hunters
As a thank you to the 3 Million plus players to play Torchlight Infinite before the Global Launch, XD is giving every veteran player the Pioneer Hunter Avatar portrait, and the Iron Wing Back Accessory.
Live Call: David Brevik
David Brevik, legendary game developer and creator of the Diablo Series has also been a longtime fan of the Torchlight Franchise.
He works with XD as a consultant producer, and has been working hard on Season 3.
He is especially happy with the success of Torchlight's Seasonal Structure, the gameplay loop of the new Hero, and the massive rework to the Crafting System.
Season 3 Information
Seasonal Mechanic: Cube of Rapacity
In Season 3, every map will contain the Cube of Rapacity, guarded by the map's boss - defeat it to beckon the Cube.
Monsters within maps are marked by the Cube, and when slain their insatiable greed spills forth in the form of Desire Crystals. Desire Crystals are automatically collected, and can only be used within the map you've collected them in.
Offer the Cube of Rapacity Desire Crystals to receive a random reward. While this can be done multiple times, do not let your greed get the best of you. If you attempt to extract rewards from the Cube too many times, you lose them all!
Offering to the Cube of Rapacity can rarely cause it to transform into a Cube of Craving, featuring improved rewards. The Cube can also award a new currency called Desire Beads - coveted by Black Market merchants, they'll happily reward you in exchange for them.
Avarice Code
Customize your monster-slaying experience and rewards gained from the Cube of Rapacity with Avarice Code.
This new Talent-Tree-Like System offers customizable influence over the challenge presented by the monsters the Cube infects with greed, and improves the rewards brought on by your own greed.
In describing this new system, XD stated that resetting the Avarice Code Tree would be very easy to do.
New Endgame Boss: Law Bearer
Torchlight Infinite's 3rd Season also introduces its third Seasonal Endgame boss, the Law Bearer - Supreme Judge of the High Court of Desire.
Monsters infected by the Cube of Rapacity have a chance to drop a new item called a Desire Core, these are used to challenge the Law Bearer.
Similar to Blacksail's Lord of the Void Sea, Lawbearer has 3 different tiered difficulties, the lattermost is assuredly capable of obliterating most overambitious Hunters!
Divinity Slates & New Talents
The Statue of The New God is a customizable 4th Talent "Panel", differing from the Talent Trees of the Old Gods players have gotten used to.
Players interact with this system by placing the new itemized Tetris-like Divinity Slates onto the panel. Divinity Slates come in a variety of shapes and can be rotated, and some can drastically modify the effects of nearby Divinity Slates! A puzzle granting superb power.
This new system grants players a ton of newfound power, and its heavily customizable nature is assured to bring about a new age of Build Making.
Divinity Slate Itemization
- Divinity Slates can drop with up to two unmodifiable Fixed Talent Nodes, with modifiers representative of the Small and Medium Talent Nodes from that God's main and subsidiary trees.
- Divinity Slates can be branded a finite amount of times by consuming an unknown new currency, and making the Divinity Slate untradeable. Successful brandings either add a Brand Talent Node, or upgrades the tier of an existing one. Up to 3 Brand Talent Nodes can exist.
- Brand Talent Nodes have a slim chance to be converted into a Talent Node representative of The New God - this mechanic is called Divine Entropy. These special Talent Nodes interact with the new Order and Chaos mechanic - more on that later.
Divinity Slates can be recycled into Divinity Fragments, a tradeable currency that can be used to create brand new randomized Divinity Slates.
New Heroes
Season 3 of Torchlight Infinite features the brand new Hero: Escapist Bing, and an alternative Hero Trait for Oracle Thea.
- For a brand new Hero's first season, they can only be obtained from the paid track of the Season Pass.
- Normally, for a brand new alternative Hero Trait's first season, and for a new Hero's second season, they can only be obtained with Primocrysts in the shop.
- Normally, after a season of only being obtainable with Primocrysts, Hero Traits can be purchased with the free Hero Emblem currency. However, XD has announced that Oracle Thea - Incarnation of the Gods will launch as available for purchase with Hero Emblems!
- Bing - Blast Nova will most likely enter the Hero Emblem exchange in Season 5.
- Thea - Incarnation of the Gods launches into the Hero Emblem exchange at the start of Season 3.
Escapist Bing - Blast Nova
- Bing - Blast Nova has the passive ability to override his Projectile Skills with a Bomb Throw ability which triggers the original skill on detonation in a star shaped pattern.
- This ability has a fixed cast time, and bombs automatically explode after a short delay or after manually detonating them by activating the Hero Trait. Older Bombs prematurely detonate after the upper limit of 10 Bombs is exceeded.
Unlocked Hero Trait Passives allow for multiple Bombs to be thrown at once, Bombs to detonate multiple times, automatic Bomb throwing, and scaling of damage with Attack Speed, Cast Speed, or Projectile Speed.
This character's ability is seemingly inspired by the Trappers and Miners from another Maxroll covered game - Path of Exile.
Oracle Thea - Incarnation of the Gods
- Thea - Incarnation of the Gods can use her Hero Trait to consume all Focus Blessings, Agility Blessings, and Tenacity Blessings to create God's Domain, a 3 second base duration field. Thea gains increased damage and a chance to generate blessings when casting a skill for every Blessing consumed while God's Domain is active.
- While outside the radius of God's Domain, Tenacity Blessings are transformed into Agility Blessings. Thea gains massively increased damage against enemies with Full Life.
- While inside the radius of God's Domain, Agility Blessings are transformed into Tenacity Blessings. Thea gains significant damage resistance and a damage bonus against enemies with Low Life.
Unlocked Hero Trait Passives weaken Thea in some aspects and massively strengthen her abilities in others. Though she may possess true godlike power, XD warns that carelessness may lead to the player falling into a trap of their own making.
Legendaries & Divine Mechanics
Season 3's introduces 13 brand new pieces Legendary Equipment. Some of this Equipment, as well as the some of the new Divinity Slate modifiers include the new Order versus Chaos and Blessing Devouring mechanics.
Order & Chaos
Order and Chaos are mutually exclusive buffs. Characters start with 100 stacks of Order, but 1 stack is lost and converted into a stack of Chaos every second.
These buffs seem to do nothing on their own, they instead seem to be reliant on modifiers from new Legendary Equipment and Divinity Slates with Divine Entropy to have any effect.
Devouring & Swallowing
Having any source of Devouring on your character will cause all 6 Godly Buffs to be consumed every 4 seconds. Your Agility Blessings, Focus Blessings, Tenacity Blessings, Fervor, Blur, and Barrier buffs are thus swallowed and converted into something else.
What that something else is, is not known - it may be specific to new Legendary Equipment and Divinity Slates with Divine Entropy.
New Legendary Hero Memories
The Livestream revealed 3 brand new Legendary Hero Memories to us. How much more - if any amount more - are releasing is currently unknown.
New Skills and Skill Mechanics
Spells, Sentries, and Minions have received new Skills or mechanics to bring them up to par with the previous Attack centric meta.
Spell Burst
Spell Burst is Magic flavored Multistrike. Spell Burst passively charges to a maximum, and automatically activates when the Spell Skill is next used if fully charged - causing the Spell to be repeatedly cast a number of times automatically. Unlike Multistrike, you can move while Spell Burst occurs.
Command
Developed to address the monotonous gameplay that is Moto (sorry Moto mains) - Command has a minimum of -100 stacks and a maximum of 100 stacks. Every Stack of Command grants additional damage and targeting range to your Minions, and the opposite is true for when you are negative stacks.
Command automatically tries to reach 0 total stacks, passively granting stacks if at negative Command and passively removing stacks if at positive Command.
XD says that stacks shift quickly - players can opt to passively maintain a decent amount of positive Command stacks, or they can opt for huge shifts in Command stacks that chaotically shift your minions between being God killers and being as lethal as a paper cut.
New Active Skills
Thunder Spike
Tagged with Shadow, Area, Attack, Lightning, Melee.
Critical Hits made with this Shadow Skill are guaranteed to inflict Shock all enemies in an area, and when your Shadows Crit, they apply deal Shock secondary damage one additional time.
Ghost Blade Einherjar
Tagged with Erosion, Attack, Persistent, Sentry, Horizontal, Projectile.
This Sentry Skill throw sword projectiles at enemies, inheriting your weapon's stats. This Sentry can Multistrike, and its final Attack in the Multistrike causes an explosion on hit and gains a damage buff. Modifiers to Projectile Quantity apply to how many enemies this skill can target.
Arrow Einherjar
Tagged with Attack, Persistent, Area, Vertical, Barrage, Projectile, Sentry.
This Sentry Skill fires arrows into the air, dealing Area damage where they land, inheriting your weapon's stats. This Sentry has an innate Shotgun Effect and gains a damage buff the longer it attacks for.
Thunder Core
Tagged with Spell, Lightning, Area, Sentry, Persistent.
This Sentry Skill summons Lightning Bolts to strike enemies from above, dealing Area damage around that enemy and to that enemy. Modifiers to Chain quantity apply to how many times Lightning Bolts strike an enemy.
Frost Core
Tagged with Spell, Cold, Persistent, Horizontal, Projectile.
This Sentry Skill fires spiraling Icy projectiles that deal massively increased damage to enemies with Frostbite, but removing some Frostbite from the enemy afterwards.
Summon Grim Phantom
Tagged with Spell, Summon, Persistent, Synthetic Troop.
Having this extremely unique Summon Skill in an Active Skill Slot allows Grim Phantom Minions to automatically summon until the Minion limit is reached.
Grim Phantoms use a Beam Skill, and every few attacks in rapid succession cause the next attack to be enhanced. Using Summon Grim Phantom teleports all Phantoms to you.
New Support Skills
The reveal live stream only showcased one new Support Skill - it is entirely possible more are slated to release with Season 3 and the Global Launch.
Psychic Burst
Tagged Support and Spell - Grants a large Percentage Additional Damage buff to linked Spells cast by Spell Burst, but comes with a small Cast Speed penalty.
Quality of Life & Crafting Overhaul
Wouldn't be a massive update without sweeping changes to some existing systems and improved quality of life. Crafting has been reworked to make creation of great items easier, while making perfect items harder to get.
Crafting: Prototype Production
This new Crafting System is available for gear with less than 4 affixes.
- Gear now has Plasticity - using Prototype Production reduces the gear's Plasticity. This Crafting mode cannot be used on gear with 0 Plasticity.
- Select up to two affixes you want to keep, and the others are rerolled to something else entirely. Crafting price increases as you select affixes you wish to keep.
- Ideal crafting bases now have 1-2 desirable high tier affixes, you may want to start checking high ilvl Magic Rarity Gear in maps. This Crafting method prepares gear for the revamped "traditional" Crafting method.
Crafting: Targeted Processing
The old Crafting System has been remade into Targeted Processing, but with some key changes
- It is no longer possible to revert your item to its immediate prior state if a craft yields you a highly unfavorable result.
- Instead, you may use Currency like Flame Sand and Flame Elementium to restore an item to whatever state it was in before you began Targeted Processing.
- While the old method of brute forcing an all orange affix item is still possible, it is far more expensive to do so. Players will need to settle for non perfect gear.
QoL & System Improvements
The livestream revealed a pleasant list of notable QoL updates and system upgrades that will release alongside Season 3 and the Global Launch.
Damage Cap Removal!
Previously, the most amount of damage a single instance could do was locked at 2.1 Billion. This led to the Season 2 Meta of getting to damage cap and then attacking or casting as fast as possible.
Hero Forge
Hero Trait Passives will no longer be unlocked by simply leveling up, players will need to complete some unknown monster-slaying related task to unlock their Passives.
Rifts?
Mysterious Rifts may rarely appear in maps. They can be interacted with, apparently leading to intense battles and phenomenal loot. This new mechanic was reserved only a few sentences during the livestream, not much is known yet.
- Pactspirit "Loadouts" - Players can swap Pactspirit configurations much faster now.
- PC Improvements - Mousing over items now displays item information. My Mouse breathes a sigh of relief.
- Hunter Association System - this "guild" like system makes it easier to communicate with a group of friends in game.
- Controller Support Improvements - the introduction of a Navigation Wheel, better Inventory Navigation, and the option to Vibrate when rare items drop.
- Player Profile Optimizations - Now, almost all build related information is displayed. Figuring out the Meta by browsing Hero Rankings has never been easier!
- Trade House Search Improvements - Searching for multiple of the same affix on items like Chaotic Ending is now possible, and your search parameters are remembered after leaving the Trade House.
Watch the Maxroll x XD Interview
Tenkiei and Milkybk_ had the exclusive opportunity to ask XD questions retrospective over past major releases, and many more looking forward to Torchlight Infinite's near future. Watch the 40 minute interview timestamped below!
Join us!
The Maxroll Torchlight Infinite Team is working hard to prepare for the Global Launch and Season 3 Launch on May 9th. Once its here, we hope to hear of your grandiose tales in the world of Leptis as we pave ours. Head over to our Discord to chat and to stay up to date when new Maxroll guides drop. Happy hunting!
Written by Xtra37
Reviewed by Tenkiei