Some control questions

[Wolfie]

Ok, first let me say this game needs a manual (PDF would work).

After stumbling around with controls last night I figured out most of them (from playing on the PC) but there are some things I can't figure out how to get them to work. Keep in mind I am still doing the trial. Not sure I will pull the trigger on the XBLA version as I am pretty happy with it on the PC. If I can't figure out the controls, I probably won't especially now that I find out the XBLA doesn't appear to have Portal and Identify spells, two of my most used spells on the PC.

1. How do you send your pet to fetch items on the floor like you could on the PC? (I usually send my pet to collect the white trash while I pick up the magical and up with my character).
2. How do you unlearn a spell? (For you or your pet). I am stuck with Heal Self 1 and 2 on 2 slots because I can't find out how to forget level 1
3. Remap the attack instead of the stupid (X)
4. Stand still while casting AND fighting (like you can with shift on the PC)

Appreciate the help, TIA.

[Wolfie]

Something else occured to me...how do you split stacks? Say I want to keep 20 health pots and sell the rest, how do I do that?

[Arkham]

Can't answer the questions in your first post as I'm not one of the XBLA players, but as far as potion un-stacking goes: it wasn't possible to do on the PC, so I'm willing to bet the same inability went along to the console version.

[IalickI]

1. You can' I believe; you have to pick up everything yourself.
2. Unlearn spell = replace it with another spell. Once learned, you can't remove it, just replace it.
3. Remap attack = not possible, it stays on X.
4. Standstill = not possible I think, never tried it.
5. Unstack = not possible. I did it by ditching all of them and starting over, then transferred a certain amount to my pet for save keeping.

[Wolfie]

Ok, so if I read yall corectly...
You can't split stacks, they just keep piling up and you can't sell just SOME of them?
You can't unlearn a spell. I guess once you learn 4 and you try to learn the 5th, it what? Pops up an option to choose which of the 4 to replace? Work the same on the pet with spell 3?
You can't tell your dog to fetch.
You can't remap attack from (X).

Jesus, didn't they learn anything since they wrote Torchlight?

I also found no way to map TP and Identify to any keys either like you can in the PC. I had really hoped for an improved TL but, sadly, they didn't do much to it at all and in some cases made it worse.

The potions weren't an issue in the PC as they only stacked to 20. Then the overflow you could easily sell. Need a split stack function on the XB.
The pc didn't get much of a manual either nor did it have key mapping other than editing a config file. XB is worse as you can't edit anything.
The PC version had a nice fetch ability with the dog so it could pick up trash and then run sell. XB, not so much.
The PC version has CTL-click to unlearn a spell (say you never used it). Nothing on XB. I guess I will pick up 4+ spells in a test character and see what happens since there is NO MANUAL to find out.

Thanks for the come back on my questions, its appreciated!

[LordGarth]

No need to map identify; just when browsing your inventory, any unidentified items you can just click x on to identify them, followed by Y I think to move it to your pet if you don't like it. I find this is fine.

Unsure what "TP" is so I don't know if there's a good way to map it.

Splitting stacks would be nice to have, but doesn't seem essential. Not game changing. it could be implemented with a spinner control to quickly choose if you have more than one item. Hasn't bothered me yet.

X as the attack is OK. I don't know if I'd prefer it on another key; I don't think it matters too much.

Fetching would be a nice option, but I don't know of a clean way they'd implement it, and direct it. Most of the buttons on the control are needed, so maybe an auto-fetch option that would occur based on settings in a configuration. Tell it if you want to auto fetch if there are no enemies around, and what type of items (white,green, gold, purple, and money). I would really be happy with this option actually.

The couple things that bother me in XBLA (and I've never played PC):
1) Ranged attacks. It's hard to aim at enemies on the side of the screen for a special attack. You have to 'line them up' by getting in range, shooting with a regular attack (which autoaims) then firing your special attack. Makes ranged characters kinda crappy in my experience. I'm sure you can use your mouse to aim it on the PC so it would make it effective. On XBox its just really hard to aim it.
2) You can really only have 4 active skills in the heat of the fight. It's clumsy trying to use the up/down arrows to cycle between skills. Clicking on the right trigger would be cleaner, but thats given to the map. I could deal with a clumsy map as I'm generally not trying to look at the map while being swarmed and fighting for my life. The best implementation I would think would be a toggle; maybe a left click toggle that 'shifts' your skills into set 2, so you could hold it, click what you needed, release, and you'd be back to your regular skill set. I think most people have a 'standard' skill set they use, and move off to long-term skills.
3) Not moving while attack: I don't know if this is important. I haven't played the PC, so is it a good tactical advantage? If so when/with what class?

[planex]

Hey man, I bought Torchlight the day it came out on XBLA and from DAY ONE I was on the forums (under a different name) bugging them to add control remapping. THEY NEVER DID.

My solution? Vote with my wallet. If they're not going to take care of us, I'm not going to support them. I won't be buying Torchlight 2 for ANY platform and I've told all my friends my the same thing.

[Arkham]

^ Now you know how PC players feel when we get a shoddy console port.

[Agalloch]

Eh, this seems a little nitpicky to be honest.

Of course hot-keys will be limited on an XBox, it's a controller and not a keyboard. That being said, I don't think they implemented the switch in an effective way, but it's not too terrible. To say you only have 4 active skills is a lie though, set up one skill-set with buffs and the other with your damaging abilities. I simply switch for my buffs when needed, it's not that bad.

Splitting stacks would be nice and would have been fairly easy to implement when porting over to XBLA, but it's not game-breaking. Maybe using RB or LB to initiate the stack split, then up/down on the analog to confirm how many to split. Still, not the worst thing ever.

Using your pet to pick up items on the ground that you don't necessarily want clogging your inventory sounds awesome, I wasn't aware that PC had that option since I have only played it on XBLA. That would save precious time from me swapping all the useless items over to the pet. Nice quality of life improvement, unfortunately it seems like it'd be quite challenging to incorporate. Either way, it's pretty simple to run over loot and spam the "A" button, and it picks items up really quickly. Just requires some sifting through to swap things to the pet.

Standing still while attacking isn't possible, but the alternative is just slightly moving the analog towards the enemy and seeing the enemy light up red signifying that it's targeted. You'll move a tiny bit, and I won't know how useful it is until the I start playing a ranged class.

The spell system could be better, I haven't really thought much about it though since I've only used one spell so far anyways, the rest are my class abilities. This may obviously change at higher difficulty levels.

@Wolfie the manual is going into "Option" and "Controller Settings" and looking at what all the buttons do. Seriously, how would any controls be hard to pick up? You have LT, RT, Y, B for skills, LB, RB for mana/health potions, "A" interact button, "X" regular attack button, and D-Pad UP, D-pad DOWN to switch skill sets. It doesn't take a rocket scientist.

It just seems like you guys are picking the smallest problems and ignoring the big glaring ones, like pet AI being terrible and ranged attacks being challenging to pull off & aim. I care less about splitting potion stacks and more about my pet following me rather than running into a wall at the top of the stair case while I kill the entire floor.