Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning?

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I don't speak for Vault Dweller, but if his publicly-discussed definition of RPG is anything to go on then I have to agree. As far as actual role-playing goes, on a mechanical level, Amalur just does not give you any reactivity. Doesn't matter what character class you pick - aside from your animations and item type, the combat is basically all the same (except for stealth kills and bows), and while there are a good number of places to use non-combat skills, they almost all feed back into combat or the item grind.

Even if you go full persuasion, lockpicking, etc. you're not really enabling new play options or modes, you're just getting a "MOAR REWARD" or "skip combat" button that works in a handful of situations. RPGs should be about facilitating different styles of play on a level beyond "do I want to hit this with a club or a mace?" and Amalur totally fails at that despite having some smart character development and progression otherwise. It's a shame too, because it has all the mechanics in place and instead they just kind of made a fun, but empty and completely shallow single-player MMO instead.

Pretty much.

Exactly. Kingdom of Amalur excels at one thing - it makes you appreciate Bethesda games more by showing that design can be infinitely worse.

It's not about whether or not the game can be called an RPG. It's an action RPG. It's about killing monsters and feeling good about it. The problem is that the design is fucking atrocious, which makes it very hard to feel good about killing monsters.

What part of Amalur's gameplay is fun? A serious question.

Sounds like EA unlocked yet another achievement.

I wouldn't feel like bashing the game would be a slight against the Lazarus designer, he probably did the best job he could given the circumstances. This game was actually in the oven for a pretty long time and started out as a Fable clone. If anything, he is probably one of the few responsible for giving the game more elaborated RPG elements.

I don't know about everyone else, but I had the same kind of experience with Skyrim. It's like the shiny new car smell that wears off after a while.

Start out, and it seems kind of fun. The opening seems kind of promising, and the first few hours make you think "Wow, this might be an okay game." Play for another few hours, and think, "I hope this picks up soon." Play a few more hours and realize that you're not having fun at all, and the next 60 hours is going to be the exact same. I truly thought this was supposed to be a hiking simulator considering how every promo made sure you knew that Ken Rolston (Morrowind, Oblivion) was the lead designer but that isn't true at all. Like someone else said, it's basically an upgraded Fable - and on that note, even Fable had generic stats, of which Amalur doesn't have at all. I don't know about Fable 2 or 3.

It really is about as much of an RPG as Mass Effect is. That is to say, it's an action game with just enough RPG elements to make you feel like your character is progressing due to your actions. I thought the game might be fun despite its game world and setting, but I don't think even the combat system can save it - which turns out to be much less complex than the promo videos might lead you to believe.

I can understand if people like it. Hell, I might even pick it up once in a while. But it really could have been much better. Maybe the story picks up, but it feels like you start out and they try to bury you in the plot/setting right away by throwing a billion different things at you which you don't even give a shit about. Is there anyone on this entire forum that isn't sick of generic fantasy shit? Even the Witcher did the generic fantasy thing, but somehow managed to make the game world interesting enough that it kept my attention.

This game is bad. Very, very bad. The actiony combat mechanics had some potential, but this game is so piss easy, the whole fun wears off after 30 mins. If you're playing a melee character, you just spam LMB 'till everyone's dead. And that means seconds. Boss battles? As a rogue, i have a skill which takes 1/4 of their health in one shot. Oh, and i played on the highest difficulty possible. Hell, i could always use some more elaborate tactics, like laying traps or killing from stealth. But that takes too much time. I can kill whole groups of enemies faster than it would take me to sneak behind one of them undetected.

The quests are even worse. I got this one quest to steal a few items from 3 people. One of those guys, hid his item somewhere in the woods, and i had no clue where. So i went to talk to him. He said he'll give me a key to the chest containing the map of the hidden item for 5000 gold. I was like "nowai", so he said i'll never get it 'cause he has the key on him, and the chest that's in the nearby room can't be opened without it. And to pickpocket anyone i just have to click the RMB to make my character go totally invisible for 6 seconds. That's some impressive quest design. This game is an insult to the gamer's intelligence. Skyrim's thieves guild quests are truly wonderful in comparison.

The art direction is awful and the engine is shitty. Everything is really low-poly for today's standards and the textures make Arx Fatalis look next-gen. While the game looks like a generic F2P Korean MMO form 2002, there are still loads of pop-ins when you're outdoors. The quests are boring, the story is awful and the characters are uninteresting. The only good thing about this game is itemization. It's pretty rewarding to find a new set piece or an epic weapon, but that's all this game does right.

Stay away from this bland and uninspired PoS. Even if you'll force yourself to play it with hope it gets better over time, you'll quit after 10-15 hours with suicidal thoughts in your head.

I like it, it's nothing special but it's fun, the novelty will certainly wear out soon but well, I didn't expect "Planescape" or "Wasteland" so was pleasantly surprised.

What about it, mechanically, is so broken? I'm curious. I mean, I object to certain aspects of it - the focus on loot is way too heavy, everything about the game design kind of just feeds back into the combat and loot, the world design gives you little incentive to return to previous locations - but for what it sets out to do the game works well enough.

The combat is pretty quick and dynamic, controls well, requires you to stay on your toes and pay attention, it isn't afraid to challenge you but is always fair about that challenge (though this varies with skill level; some players find it easy, while I think the challenge is just right), success hinges both on your skill at playing (reading enemies, crowd control, etc.) as well as your character build and level.

Character development is well-paced and rewarding. While the game forces you to spend points in things you may not want to use to reach certain Destinies, it also gives you more than enough of those points for it not to really matter. Leveling is well-paced and happens frequently enough to stay engaging, and each new level tends to either allow you a new ability, or gets you a substantial upgrade of an existing one. It's not quite as quick and addictive this way as, say, Diablo, but levels definitely feel earned, without coming too slowly.

Some of the quests, especially the faction quests, are entertaining and have interesting stories. The design is never stellar (go here, do X, kill Y) but for an action-RPG it gets the job done. Some of them revolve around the use of non-combat skills, which is nice to see in an action-RPG as well. You do have some influence on the outcome of events, and while it never really matters, it's nice to have the options anyway.

I think the world has some interesting ideas to it and is fun to explore in order to see them. The Summer and Winter Courts, the Fate stuff, the war that you eventually meet the front lines of, etc. are all fairly compelling hooks and do a decent job of making the game stand apart. It's still a bit on the generic side, to be sure, and while it sort of runs out of steam, at least initially, I found myself wanting to know more about the world and its people.

Again, I've got to reiterate - the game has problems. I've already mentioned that the combat and loot portions of the game are just too much of a stand-in for "real" content, and even if the combat is enjoyable it gets very tedious and repetitive after thirty hours. Not enough enemy variety, not enough differences in strategies, etc. and being able to mash the health potion button to come out of everything cheapens the combat a little. Likewise, it feels like a very static and empty world - we're told X is a town, Y is a city but we never really understand or see what makes those places tick. There are few if any farmlands, trade is implied but never witnessed, people supposedly have jobs but kind of just stand around all day, etc. But I don't think this is all enough to ruin the game.

Well the combat is the only thing that not sucks completely, the rest is ugh...
-quests, banal shit boring in literate way
-graphics, im not much graphic whore it doesent seems that bad to me,
but the art and level design is garbage,
-setting, ugh do i must comment this? I don't mind generic fantasy crap, but the seting is just bland
im not even bothering to read non-quest releated dialoguesm

Altough i have some hopes for main quest, so thats why i havent thrown this game already

And yet potatoish Cocks Developer Action gave this game 9/10

For what it's worth, stuff like story and world are subjective, just as visual style and music, or even genre are subjective. If you think the game sucks because it has a boring and generic premise or setting, that's fine by me... but that's not really something you can talk about in terms of design on any objective level. I'm more curious what, mechanically, Vault Dweller sees as being such a big problem, at least in a way that invalidates any of the game's strong points (if he even admits to any).

Sea. Lay off the subjective stuff please.

Can't even begin to express how awful the 'Fae' are in this game.

A saving grace is the ability to skip all of the mind-numbing dialogue. No life-stories being whinged out from every commoner I try to pass a la Skyrim.

So what are those strong points in a primitive and dumbed down action game that comes out every quarter of the year and plays exactly the same?

Every single shit that big publishers churn out plays exactly the same. Every 3 fucking months there's a game where you chase quest compass and twitch LMB until monsters die as you unlock +X to DMG and +X to HP like health regen isn't enough already.

Kill an enemy with a sword or a bow. Or sneak up on him by crouching and your strike will magically double/triple/quadruple the damage. What a fucking unique gameplay in every single "RPG".

All the fucking time. In the exactly the same shitty setting with elves, dwarves, orcs and other annoying generic bullshit. Every 3 months the fucking world is in danger and every 3 fucking months you are the hero who fucking saves it by pressing LMB as fast as you can in another shitty action game that retards consider to be an RPG.

So. Skyway.

Which Action RPGs would you recommend?

Gothic, of course. Silly question.

I didn't say broken. Poorly designed.

I'm playing on Hard. Fighter. Long sword. It was challenging for about a level (when I was level 2). Then it's gotten uneventfully easy. Unlike, say, Diablo 2 where I can use different attacks, all I do is left click and sometimes I hold the LMB for that extra attack I unlocked. Since the game is easy, I don't use block. Since the game is easy, I'm not looking forward to level ups, new powers, new items, etc.

Any game where you can just left-click on shit until it dies is a poorly designed game. That's the gospel's truth, sea.

They've tried to make it contextual (same button, different attacks based on how you play - charge, dodge, block, but they've failed because in the end you just left-click through everything, occasionally dodging and hitting R. In comparison, D2 is a lot more engaging and offers a lot more builds/things to do in combat. Even God of War offers a lot more, so unless I'm really playing it wrong, I don't really see why people praise combat that much. You click on things and they die. Yay?

The loot distribution - an important aspect of action RPGs - is shit too. It's everywhere and it's mostly useless, because there is no stats and skills. You can do only so much with "moar damage", especially in a piss-easy game.

I agree that it's quick (thank God for small miracles) and dynamic, but that's about it.

I envy you.

I don't see a single strong point and I can't think of anything good to say about the game at all. Well, some things aren't awful, but I'm not sure that's enough to call them strong points.

The game tried to be too many things at once and failed:

- It's an action game with God of War -light combat, yet it wants to tell an engaging story. There is a reason why games like God of War and Diablo go easy on the story.

- It wants to tell an engaging story, but it's written for 12 year olds; it's basically a single player MMO where characters where exclamation and question marks over their heads.

- It wants to tell an engaging story but it's generic as fuck. Well, how many people here would consider Salvatore a good writer?

- it wants to be an open world game but it's a corridor game; you can jump only in designated places, for fuck's sakes. If you run up a small hill, you can't just jump down because you'll hit an invisible wall.

- It's an action game but it's easy as fuck.

So, why should anyone play it? To experience a poorly designed, poorly written, poorly put together world? To enjoy a "quick and dynamic" but (in your own words) gets "tedious and repetitive" fast?

For what it's worth, I've only played a little bit as a warrior. I played most of the game as a mage and had a lot of trouble with some sections because I didn't pick up the shield spell - maybe warriors are just easier to play, especially early on when enemies are weaker? I don't know how far you've played but things definitely do get a bit harder as the game goes (though not excessively so).

If you're choosing to mash left-click and ignore your special abilities and different attack types, that's your business, although I do think that the game could do a better job of making you use them, especially on the hard difficulty. For what it's worth, the developers are looking at patching in a tougher difficulty level based on the feedback they've got. My bet is they balanced the game for casual players, and didn't scale up enough.

The game ditches stats because it's practical and efficient. +Strength = +Physical Damage, +Dexterity = +Critical Chance. I don't see a point in keeping attributes if they're all just going to filter into the combat anyway. Keeping useless or redundant attributes wouldn't have really helped the game at all, in my opinion, as it just adds a layer of false complexity

Regarding other item properties, later on enemies have resistances and weaknesses to elemental damage types, and stuff like life leech and mana regeneration come in very handy, so don't tell me that stuff isn't useful.

I also think the sheer quantity of loot was put in primarily to accommodate the crafting and the economy, which depend upon having lots of junk to break down and sell. If you play as a completionist, though, you'll find loot basically everywhere, so once again I have to imagine it was balanced more for casual players who aren't going to explore everything. The find chest -> get loot feedback loop is also a really easy way of creating gameplay, and I think they just went overboard with it in trying to justify their large levels.

I wrote an article pertaining to the world design and loot system recently; you can check it out here - http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/EricSchwarz/20120208/9382/A_World_Without_Reckoning.php

Why do quest markers = bad story? I think the story is definitely alright for what it is, and frankly, a step above most other mainstream RPGs. I'd take this over some HURR DURR REAPERS stuff any day.

Not me, though as far as lore and stuff goes he isn't so bad in my opinion. I actually don't think the game's themes and story are generic so much as the implementation is - cartoony World of Warcraft graphics and some rather bland voice acting really make the game feel a lot less interesting and alien than it could.

This goes back into world design etc. I don't mind this in a focused game like Fable or Zelda, but Amalur started with the "open world! must have open world!" tenet and didn't really change its design to accommodate it.

Again, I don't agree 100% here, but I respect that complaint.

This is where I kind of have to go popamole and say that not everyone plays games for a challenge, or for an amazing story. For a lot of people, romping around in a big fantasy world, finding loot, and watching their character grow over time is fun. Despite what we all think, you can't just throw Fallout or Planescape at any random gamer and expect them to enjoy it - they'd say they're boring, or confusing, or directionless, and you know what? They'd be right, because their paradigm for understanding games is different from yours or mine.

I can enjoy shallow, simple games for what they are, and I appreciate Amalur because, unlike some RPGs, it doesn't hype itself up as the second coming, the most definitive RPG experience ever, etc. It gives you more or less what's on the tin, instead of aspiring to be the next life simulation and failing when its NPC AI bugs out and causes an entire town to attack you for accidentally stealing an apple. I also think it does a good job of integrating non-combat stuff into an action-RPG without it feeling superfluous or divorced from real character development (Witcher 2, Divinity II Mass Effect, etc.) and so that's also a draw for me. In fact, mechanically I think Amalur is one of the best-designed RPGs in years... and maybe that's why I'm able to look past a lot of the mediocre story and presentation aspects.

Thanks for taking the time to make a detailed reply, by the way!

Fuck you. Both of you. Can any of you just put down some points in a single post as to what makes a well designed combat? Your points are so spread around that you are arguing around circles.

Wow you are unbelievably retarded.

Vault Dweller vs sea argument = of the Codex
Don't disturb them, just shut up and watch.

After putting some more hours into the game I have to admit that it does suck - though in a really sad way. I wouldn't go full Roshambo on the title as VD did.

The game is based on a bunch of fine ideas. Usually we say that something is much better than the sum of its parts; here it's exactly the opposite.

- A really fun - not really deep but fun - combat system. Rendered null because of the lack of challenge.
- A fun character development system - you get points you spend in one of the three talent trees; spending points on a tree unlocks "destinies" or character classes that grant bonuses that suit your playstyle. Again, rendered null because of the lack of challenge and because of poor design. By spending a couple of points on a single skill early in the game you can one-shot everything (shadow flare). If you max your weapon masteries early you always outdamage your enemies unless you fall behind on the loot curve which is impossible unless you're an idiot or are deliberately gimping yourself- why not introduce a level cap on talent levels?
- A skill system implemented. Rendered null because the skills are either effectively useless or make the game even more piss easy; the lack of balance is incredible. Lockpicking, dispelling and alchemy are useless. The worst culprits are Smithing and Detect Hidden - first one allows you to craft weapons that are infinitely better than whatever you can find, making the loot game useless while Detect Hidden makes you find huge amounts of stuff on every step, breaking the economy and the loot game too. No idea why would they implement persuasion as 99% of your persuasion options are "GIEV GOLD PLS" and you have tons of gold anyway.
- An ambition to make a mobslasher/story hybrid - unfortunately even the best story CAN'T FUCKING WORK when you have a world map that looks like this: http://i1-games.softpedia-static.co...-Reckoning-Skills-and-Crafting-Trailer_14.jpg and when the whole game revolves around killing hundreds of mobs that don't make any fucking sense.
I won't judge the story on its own as it's completely drowned in tons of filler content. How many players follow the plot when what they did for ten previous hours was dicking around "clearing zones"? As VD said - there's a reason why games like this usually have an extremely simplistic plot that's only meant to provide an excuse for changing locales. A "hey, now you're going to a fucking Egyptian-themed desert so that you can kill Egyptian-themed monsters" screen caption could easily substitute Deckard Cain. So whatever story there is I really couldn't be arsed to care about it, with the notable exception of faction questlines which managed to catch my interest occasionally.
- A "reckoning mode" (also known as "press X to win") which has an interesting story background that the devs fail to use and which should be fun but is broken as hell because someone felt that introducing a legal and easily available god mode in an action game is a good idea.

Now, the thing I'm mildly optimistic about is that the devs have been following the official boards and it seems they're working on a big balance patch - but how much can be salvaged from the game when literally every mechanic just begs to be abused remains to be seen. I made a speedrun to check things and managed to get to Klurikon in a couple of hours with a level 13 character while with my "proper" character I was around level 20 when I got to Ysa. The game *still* wasn't challenging; if a fight proved difficult I could just quaff a couple of potions that made me invincible or press X and win.

There's a lot of extremely amateurish design in the title. It's sad because if done well it could've been a really fun and fresh game. I'd say it's the Alpha Protocol of H&S, just with less redeeming qualities. I never finished KOA; while the game was fun in the beginning it quickly grew boring to the point that it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

A few things do it for me:

• Class balance. Every character build should have definite strengths and weaknesses. Amalur gets this right - warriors are powerful and heavy, but slow, rogues are fast and precise, but have low damage, and mages have powerful area-of-effects and devastating spells, but are basically glass cannons later on and rely on protection spells.
• Responsiveness. In action-RPGs, I want my button inputs to be as 1:1 as possible. No animation priority, no getting stunlocked by dickwolves, no 266ms delay between input and action. Amalur does all of these well, and while there are limits (you can still be stunned, of course), I never feel like I am fighting the controls or like I am disconnected from what's going on on-screen. It feels like an action game, something very few action-RPGs manage to do.
• Enemy variety. This means both in appearance etc. as well as in tactics. Amalur kind of does this right, but could be better. There need to be trash mobs that you can steamroll (again, in an aRPG), slow and powerful enemies, enemies that use numbers against you, enemies that are hard to hit, enemies with devastating attacks that they must charge up, enemies that use status effects, enemies that teleport, etc. etc. The more, the better.
• Encounter design. Tossing a bunch of random enemies in a room is okay from time to time, but it's nice to have interesting encounters. That means traps, ranged attackers firing while melee attackers engage up close, mages using summons as cannon fodder, or just unlikely combinations of standard enemies. Amalur does okay with this - some dungeons have really neat encounters, others are just filler crap. Overworld is all filler, but it's much harder to manage that in an open world situation.
• Effective progression. Not related directly to combat, but I want each level-up to make me feel like I've grown in power. This can mean raw damage, health, mana etc. but it can also mean new spells, abilities, or upgrades to existing ones. Amalur does this very well in my opinion, as each level-up brings either a whole new upgrade or a substantial improvement to an existing one.

I've got to agree with a lot of your points, although I'm not sure the core design is bad as it is just undone by the low difficulty. There are a lot of really good ideas in the game and I think they are actually well executed - I disagree about non-combat skills for example (try dispelling a very hard ward at level 1, loot remains relevant as crafting fuel, money becomes worthless but there are a few sinks for it at least), and stuff like Reckoning Mode is actually smart because it's effectively a "get out of jail free" card for the player, something I think every game should have, plus it actually is not god mode against the game's tougher enemies and bosses, who can withstand it (though it should have had a much bigger time delay).

More than anything the game is just damaged by the fact that it's balanced for casual and carefree play, rather than hardcore action game play. I guess that is a matter of preference, but I do definitely get the sense that tweaking a few variables here and there would have yielded a much more rewarding experience for those that want it.

Depends on how many years we're talking about. It's not saying much if we're talking the last four or five.