Torchlight III State of the Game – Relic Subclass Update Preview

Echtra Games’ action-RPG Torchlight III is going through early access on Steam right now, which gives the game’s developers some room to experiment with its systems. As a result, Torchlight III’s upcoming early access update that’s currently scheduled for August 11, 2020, will completely overhaul the Relic system and turn the game’s relics into extra skill trees you pick during character creation.

Here’s how this new system will work:

Hello Torchlight community,

We initially launched Early Access on June 13th; it’s now July 30th. Just 47 days into this process and we have already launched the third act (Echonok Mountains,) Fazeer’s Dun’djinn, an awesome new end game experience, and are already preparing for our next big update – Relic Subclasses. Our next big patch, which is previewed below, will be our final large update prior to launch. While initially scheduled for August 4th, the Relic Subclass update and account wipe has now been delayed a week to August 11th. The decision to delay is partly due to early player feedback and we agree that it will be a better update with another week of bug fixing and refinement. After this update is released, the remaining time in Early Access will be used to polish our current features and resolve outstanding issues and bugs.

While we are still continuing to gather feedback for the post-launch period, our current focus is polishing the final product further before release. We know there are still a large number of bugs to resolve and concerns with rubber banding and lag; we have a few fixes ready to improve the performance for players (it continues to be a priority for us,) and now that major updates are not the focus we can spend much-needed time on fixing bugs, polishing, and tuning.

And even though this update is focused primarily on Relics, it also includes a number of other fixes, tuning, and improvements. One of the community’s biggest requests, having more available skill slots, is coming alongside this update!

There will be a total of NINE SKILL SLOTS and all with controller support!

I’m so excited to reveal what else is coming up for Torchlight III, but for the moment I’ll settle for this upcoming update and hold onto more surprises for a later date. Thank you everyone for your continued input and support. You’re making Torchlight III better.

– Max

RELICS

When we first launched into Early Access we received a large amount of critical feedback pertaining to skills. Players criticized what appeared to be a lack of options and uniqueness when initially creating a character. Alongside some problematic interactions with the current system of swappable Relics, like players accidentally deleting them, it was clear that Relics needed a deep review.

After discussing the issues further with the community including closed focus groups, Friday streams, and long chats in Discord, a rebuild of Relics had to happen if they were going to become the truly unique and powerful skill tree that they were always intended to be.

The community was right and while this was not a small task, we believe this is a huge improvement for Torchlight III’s base gameplay; we’re extremely excited to see all of the new and creative builds that come from this change.

Because this feature would require a large amount of work to retroactively fit into a player’s current accounts/characters, we have decided to wipe all player/account data when this feature update goes live.

This update and wipe is currently scheduled for August 11th but is subject to change.

RELIC SKILL TREE

Players will now choose their Relic after they choose their class. This choice is a permanent 3rd skill tree, full of its own active and passive skills.

You cannot change your Relic in the new system which means that this choice is a fixture of your class; you will be known by the powers and influence your chosen Relic gives you. You will be able to preview all of the skills together and hover over each one individually to provide you with more information before you make a final decision.

RELIC CHOICES

There are five main Relics to choose from, each with its own unique association and strengths.

[…]

The ‘Weapon Mastery’ associations are optional passives each Relic contains, which not only make the basic attacks of the specified weapon stronger, but also increases the potency of the relic overall so long as you have that weapon type equipped. This creates build options that drill down into focusing on specific weapons, which is something the community has directly requested.

RELIC SKILLS & ENERGY

Each Relic comes with 5 Active skills and 5 Passive skills to choose from. Each Active skill has its own set of Tier bonuses that can greatly enhance the skill in a variety of ways.

Like the other two class skill trees, Relic skills have level requirements and share the same skill point pool as the other two trees.

Most Active Relic skills require Relic Energy, though not all do. Relic Energy generates over time as long as you remain in combat.

The former Relic Activation skills have been reworked into a normal skill you put points into and slot into one of your skill slots, but they behave differently from the rest of the Relic’s skills. They do not have a normal resource cost or cooldown, but instead can be activated once you have spent a total of 200 Relic Energy on other skills. As you build and spend the Relic Energy meter, you’ll slowly work towards being able to activate this very potent skill. Naturally, the more you invest your skill points into your new Relic tree, the more often you’ll be able to use this ‘finishing’ skill, and the more potent it will become.

This is going to be a very dramatic update and we’ll have more details and specifics with the patch notes when the update goes live. Until then, keep slayin’. Both goblins and in life. 🙂

– Echtra Bean