Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning?

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Yeah, to clarify, I meant since around 2006 or so. Aside from like, Risen and Dragon Age there isn't a lot of competition in the mainstream, and I think it does deserve points for some of its smarter decisions. It's not Knights of the Chalice, but mechanics aren't about how deep and difficult a game they produce, they're about how much they work to facilitate an end play goal - and in that respect I think Amalur does very well.

Can't comment. Maybe it's harder, maybe the elemental damage works differently, maybe the ranged aspect adds a layer of difficulty. I've only tried a fighter and that's what my impressions are based on.

It's not. It's poor design. A well designed game gives you reasons to use different abilities by making it almost impossible to progress without them. In KoA I can mow through enemies with a left-click and a basic attack. Why should I use different abilities? To break boredom?

Well... the way the game is designed, I agree, but that's my point - the design is shit. You don't have to have stats to have an enjoyable action game, but you do need more than 2 stats if you want to have a decent skill tree and item system. A to-hit chance would have gone a long way making the game harder.

Maybe for a mage. I dish out physical damage and so far nothing managed to stand in my way. Granted, maybe the game gets better later on, but I'm level 12 and I can't play it anymore. It's really bad (for me).

It explains the bad design but doesn't excuse it.

I did, as I like your articles. I agree with pretty much everything you said there, but the conclusion puzzled me. Here is the overview for those who didn't read it:

"All World, No Content
This illusion of size is slowly diminished the longer the game goes on - not due to growing familiarity with the world or a recognition that it just isn't quite as big as it looks, but instead, due to the general lack of actual content populating it. The towns and cities that players visit are soon revealed to only have two or three quests to complete ... Towns and cities only take a few minutes to see the entirety of. Unless one's goal is to inspect ever single nook and cranny of the world, these vast spaces will be exhausted of gameplay in a matter of minutes, not hours.

The Single-Player MMORPG
Due to the sprawling nature of MMOs, and the fact that they offer more content than just about any player could ever hope to see without repeat play-throughs, there's almost never a reason to stay in a zone once it's been out-leveled, as the rewards for completing those old quests are likely to be outstripped by the ones in the new areas - and let's face it, chances are nobody's hunting down Smoked Rat Tails for the sake of the engaging narrative. It's a simple but effective method of compartmentalizing gameplay that works within a multiplayer setting, where the sheer amount of space is needed to house so many players.

Too... Much... Loot!
Unfortunately, this extreme emphasis on the loot factor also reveals a major issue: that aside from plundering chests, there really isn't all that much to do in Reckoning's huge world. There's plenty of stuff to find, yes, but 99% of it will be sold off as vendor trash. As if the developers already realized this problem, the ability to send items straight to the junk bag for immediate selling or destruction has been placed on just about every inventory-related UI element. If so much of this stuff is junk, even to crafters (who will likely only use a handful of pieces before finding gear they like), then it begs the question: why is there so much of it? The only answer, of course, is: to give players something to do.

Closing Thoughts
For what it's worth, I do want to stress - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a very fun game, beautiful, and has some excellent game mechanics. However, as much as I want to love it, the sheer size of the game has a number of pitfalls to it. The world, being as massive as it is, is necessarily empty and devoid of unique, interesting content, and the movement through the game from one zone to the next only serves to reinforce just how fleeting and inconsequential that unique content actually is."

So, basically, it's a big-ass single-player MMO where loot substitutes content, but yet you say it's a fun game? Playing as a mage must be really exciting then.

Well, call me old-fashioned but I can't take a character with a giant exclamation mark over his head seriously.

Could be. I actually liked the conversation with the fateweaver guy, but it quickly drowned in a sea of generic MMO-like conversations aimed at sending you somewhere quickly rather than having a conversation.

:blink:

You've lost me there, sea.

Of course, they would be right, but this isn't about KoA not being as good as Fallout. It's about it being a bad action game and a bad sandbox game.

Likewise, my good sir.

Well...

That's pretty bad, no? Like, rage-inducing bad?

I tried to play this game for an hour or so and just didn't like anything about it really. I don't like the clicky combat much, dont like the art and dont like quest markers and exclamation points. I am going to wait and hope some patches improve some things in the future. I wonder if there will be any community mods like the elder scrolls games get?

For now I am going to continue playing Wizards Crown.

Again, this is where I have to say it gets harder as you go. In fact this is kind of true for the entire game, which is a real shame. I was playing the game for GameBanshee's review, and found myself getting bored by about the point you're at. However, once I got to Ysa and the game opened up, it became far more interesting and I kind of wished I hadn't done all the boring shit before-hand. The other areas (desert and plains) are far more interesting, and the visual variety does a lot for the game too. More entertaining enemies to fight as well (big giants, mages that spam spells at you, etc.).

First off, there are more than two stats. By my count:

1. Total Damage
2. Physical Damage
3. Piercing Damage
4. Fire Damage
5. Burning Damage
6. Shock Damage
7. Ice Damage
8. Freezing Damage
9. Poison Damage
10. Critical Chance
11. Critical Damage
12. Defense
13. Block Effectiveness
14. Fire Resistance
15. Shock Resistance
16. Lightning Resistance

... and there's probably a few more I've missed. That's also not counting the passive effects like mana regeneration and health leach. Point being, there's enough item properties for just about any action-RPG. Sure, the distinction between some isn't great (Fire vs. Burning is instant vs. DOT), and I think the game could do much more with elemental damage (for most enemies it just means "kill in 20 seconds instead of 10 seconds"), but this is the kind of stuff a balance pass would fix, and I certainly don't see the bad design in it. If anything the worst of it is just that enemies don't dodge or block anything.
It explains the bad design but doesn't excuse it.

Because, as I was getting around to, I can enjoy a game that isn't necessarily difficult, or balanced, or 100% engaging 100% of the time. I play Fallout, and Baldur's Gate, and Ultima... and I also play Bejeweled, Beat Hazard, Osmos, Defense Grid, and Assassin's Creed. Not every game has to fill the same niche or offer the same intensity of experience, and a lot of people aren't interested in difficult games.

This bothers me too. Almost all the NPCs are Mr. I Have A Quest, or there to offer background lore on stuff. The topic-by-topic conversation system doesn't really lend itself to super-engaging dialogue, to be fair, but even so they could have done a lot more this way. The story and faction quests actually have fairly engaging (if not especially interactive) conversations, but let's face it, this is a game about running around and killing shit, and it's marketed to as wide an audience as possible. I can deal with simple, goal-oriented dialogue, but I wish the stuff they had written for the "RPG fans" had been a bit more interesting all the same.

Games aren't all about challenge or winning. I know, scary, huh? Some people just like to be given a set of rules to play with and go have fun. It's why Minecraft is selling millions and people enjoy Saints Row: The Third so much. Doesn't mean it's the "right" thing to design an RPG around, but I can't argue with all the players out there that enjoy play for play's sake.

This is kind of a loaded statement. I know maybe it's a bit petty of me to bring up, but we have to consider a few things.

What do we mean by "bad" here? Does bad mean no fun? Does bad mean no challenge? Does bad mean badly designed? Does bad mean ludonarrative dissonance? I realize you are operating under a specific set of expectations for what a game should fulfill, but I guess something about that statement rubs me the wrong way... because it's clear that a lot of people do enjoy Amalur despite the general lack of challenge, and the lack of things to do in its open world. Are those people wrong? Obviously we can't say they're "not really having fun", so I think we have to consider that Amalur is a success in some respects... though whether those are good design in themselves or intrinsic to the core gameplay is another question.

Here's a few I can think up:

• Freedom. The game is open-ended and people like that for its own sake. Just being able to choose where to go and when is a big deal for a lot of players
• Lots of content. Even if there isn't enough to fill its world, there's no denying that Amalur does have a lot of stuff to do. Players like being able to check quests off their list one-by-one, or to feel like they always have something to do.
• Combat is cool. This is where you see a lack of challenge as a problem, but a lot of players want that sense of mastery over opponents - combat is less about the difficulty of winning and more about the psychological buzz you get from doing a bunch of cool flips and stabbing someone in the eye.
• Combat feels good. Likewise, the responsiveness of the controls is in itself pretty nice to have and definitely makes the game a lot more fun in the long run for me. I've suffered through a lot of action-RPGs where the combat just feels bad, whether that's due to laggy controls or some other issue. The act of fighting in and of itself is rewarding, just like the jumping in a Mario game is fun even if you have 99 lives, a Super Guide to let you skip hard parts, etc.

Not to say that you aren't right from your own perspective, but I guess just to say "this is bad design" without considering the other perspectives different types of players have isn't necessarily good critical practice or development practice. For all we know, Amalur focus-tested extremely well amongst players in its current state, or perhaps was tweaked from being a more difficult game to an easier one during development. If most people prefer X, as a game designer it is almost always a good idea to do X even if you might upset some players, or if it goes against your own preferences.

I'm wondering why everyone is playing an Xbox game on the PC.

I generally share your sentiments and that's why I ultimately don't call the game total crap despite the fact that I stopped enjoying it way too early; the problem I see with your statement is that it felt clear to me that the game concentrated on the 'psychological buzz' not because of good design centered around it but due to bad design that fails to deliver any sort of challenge even when it tries to do so.

The game gives you multiple options to empower your character, lots of resources to use - potions, smithing, reckoning mode, new moves, new abilities every level. Would a game designed around "the player always wins" philosophy provide you with these in a way that KOA does?

The number of options the player is given is just begging for some challenge forcing the player to use them. A properly designed KOA would, in my opinion, have a "normal" mode which would look roughly the same as the game does now and a hard mode which would provide the challenge - loot would be more scarce and better tier loot would start being available at later levels, potions and abilities would have cooldowns, enemies would attack concurrently (as it is now they flank/surround you but from what I've seen only the Niskaruu use it to their advantage making them and the Thresh the only relatively challenging-by-design enemy in the game apart from boss fights) and punish you for mistakes. In other words, provide the players with a "Fable" mode and a "Diablo" mode.

It might be that all these options are ultimately what dialogue options are in Bioware games - an illusion. The complexity might be there to fool you into a sense of accomplishment; this would explain somewhat why balance is non-existent and why I was able to get so far with a lvl 13 character. The developers claimed that all the zones have a level threshold and that if you venture too far then all the enemies you'll see will be either orange or red, significantly over your level. My speedrun to Klurikon was entirely possible and even there I had not felt any sort of a spike in the difficulty, even though I was severely underleveled, underequipped and have skipped roughly about 70% of the game's total content. If I am able to do that then is the illusion of accomplishment good? No. At that point it should be impossible to progress for me without resorting to extremely cheesy tactics like AI/bug exploitation.

Sure, some players will enjoy the game regardless for the reasons you mentioned - but a lot of them will be turned off when they realise how easy the game is, I'd wager that even those of the "I always win" type can feel disappointed.

I've only a limited idea of how game design looks like but my experience in other fields allows me to infer that there's generally two different directions a game studio can take:

a) Pick an idea and make the game as perfect representation of that idea as is possible with a non-compromise approach.
b) Pick an idea and then try to make the game as a representation of it that will try to cater to as big a target as possible which generally means making a lot of compromises.

Obviously, mainstream (and big) producers of various stuff pick the latter approach, the former usually being the domain of artistry and niche craftsmanship. I'd say that a really big part of the gamers' populace (and a big part of all the people in the world in general, psychology 101) require at least a modicum of challenge to enjoy their games or whatever they do and if the game can't give them the challenge they need then its design fails as these people find the game not stimulating enough. And KOA doesn't even resort to the stupid but common practice of providing faux-challenge by introducing a superhard or "new game+" mode which simply bloats enemy HP and damage which is a popular cop-out.

It's late here and I feel I might've been incoherent in places so I'll sum it up here: seeking challenge is not a niche thing. One man might spend hours working on a cash register in Tesco and be okay with it, other guy would find it so undemanding that his brain would start melting after a couple of hours. KOA could be easily designed in a way that caters both to people that need challenge and those who do not, and as a mainstream game that adheres to the principle that the larger target is the better it should've been designed so. If there is no challenge to be found then too many people will find the experience unsatisfying - not only the "hardcore gamers" but also ordinary people who happen to have their brains wired differently and who happen to be quite common. So, like I said - I think that while the game had quite a few nifty design ideas the big picture of it looks bad.

Well... 10 different damage types, 3 resistances. I can't say how much different damage types matter, but DnD it's not. So far physical damage works just fine on anything including sprites (expected them to have some resistance to it; maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they died awfully easy). It sounds like an illusion of different stats, rather than stats.

My point is that a good item system is about forcing you to choose between different items of equal value to your character. Diablo 2 does a great job there. KoA - not so much. Items don't mean much and can be swapped without a second thought. The list you posted explains why.

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe they will just give monsters more HP and increase damage, which will make the game more painful to play.

The game wasn't designed to be challenging. It was designed to be accessible and played with a click of a single button. The problem, as usual, is that they wanted the game to please both casual players and hardcore players. Surprise, surprise. So, to change it now will require a rather massive design overhaul, which they won't do, obviously.

I too can enjoy a game that isn't necessarily difficult or totally awesome, as long as it does something right or has a hook. Hell, most games these days are easy, so it's not an issue, but they have something else going for them. KoA doesn't.

It doesn't have great exploration. It doesn't have a great item system that drives you to complete a set or look for a new item. It doesn't have a great crafting system that makes you want to tinker and build the ultimate armor set. It doesn't have great dialogues that draw you like Torment did. It doesn't have a great atmosphere like Diablo 1. It doesn't have great faction gameplay like Risen.

It's an action game where you kill monsters and it lacks the most important aspect - challenge.

They are about something, right? So, what's an easy action game about?

So, what set of rules KoA gives you and what do you do with it?

In an action RPG bad usually comes from no challenge, which always comes from poor design.

I'm not sure where you're going with it. "Those people" tend to like a lot of things. They like Oblivion, Salvatore books, Dragon Age 2, shitty MMOs, and Uwe Boll's movies. In other words, the fact that a lot of people like the game mean absolutely nothing and is irrelevant to the conversation.

You have a giant map filled with monsters. You can kill monsters here or over there. According to you, "This illusion of size is slowly diminished the longer the game goes on, due to the general lack of actual content populating it. Towns and cities only take a few minutes to see the entirety of. Unless one's goal is to inspect ever single nook and cranny of the world, these vast spaces will be exhausted of gameplay in a matter of minutes, not hours."

In other words, you have nowhere to go, really.

Again, to quote you, "[the world is] empty and devoid of unique, interesting content, and the movement through the game from one zone to the next only serves to reinforce just how fleeting and inconsequential that unique content actually is."

Sure, it has plenty of monsters to kill and plenty of generic MMO questgivers, but we both know that it's the worst, most offensive kind of content, so why bring it up?

Um, cool?

Is it?

Borderlands pretty much has those same stats. Is there really any difference between killing someone with fire versus killing someone with lightning? Similarly are there any parts where resistances are necessary? Sure, there are certain enemies in Borderlands that are more susceptible to one type of damage versus another but ultimately you can kill anything with pretty much any gun. As such, elemental damage amounts to little more than an aesthetic difference: do you want to burn your enemy alive or melt his face off? So, let's be honest... the stats boil down to +damage, +crit percentage, +crit damage, +defense, and +block.

The stats are there, the problem is the lack of effectiveness. I guess you could say they are illusory but they do seem to exist and I'm sure enemies have properties defined for all of them (i.e. fire resistance, defense, etc.). I think that playing with those values could yield a more rewarding experience.

I agree... and again, this is also why better balance could fix so much of this stuff, because those core rules are there to begin with.

Not all games have to have a great standout feature to be enjoyable. Much like Skyrim, I think that Amalur is a "sum of its parts" game, but is generally much more tightly designed even if it's not as expansive. It has fewer highs and lows, which maybe goes to show a decent/mediocre game is worse to have than a great or terrible one - impressions are going to be emotionless more than anything else.

Why is challenge so important to an action game?

Fighting dudes. Being awesome. Growing more powerful. Completing tasks in the game world. Progressing the story. Doesn't have to be difficult to be fun, and plenty of games have shown us that the illusion of difficulty is often far more effective than actual difficulty. You don't need to instill rage and frustration over challenging combat to give the player positive emotions.

A combat system that allows for lots of options, all of which are generally fun and play differently (straight melee, ranged, traps, stealth kills, massive area of effect spells, huge powerful weapons or fast, light ones), exploration that satisfies the loot-grinding feedback loop, non-combat skills that enable new options - stealth lets you bypass lots of combat if you want to, and allows you to steal and pickpocket to complete quests differently, persuasion can lead to different quest outcomes (not always just "moar reward") - a good feeling of advancement and progression both in character and loot, etc. The basics of gameplay are all totally competent, difficulty question aside, and in many cases offer more than other action-RPGs (it's just worse at presenting them or lending drama to them).

If game design is about achieving gameplay goals, then why is it bad design to create a game that isn't very challenging? I don't mean to say that Big Huge Games intended Amalur to be easy, but perhaps their testing showed that the level of difficulty they set was about right for the majority of their players. Can you honestly fault them if the data showed this is what their audience wanted? Sure, a game developer has to be smart and realize when to take feedback into account and when to ignore it in favour of intuition, but if you are making a game for market X and market X wants Y, then doesn't it follow that good design is achieving exactly what market wants, if that is the overarching development goal? Even if it is, as you put it, illusory?

I'm jaded, but I'm also not a spiteful 18 year old anymore. People like all sorts of stuff. Some of it might be crap and some of it might be great. I used to spend a lot of time scoffing at those who liked rap music, Michael Bay movies, Call of Duty, etc. What I have come to learn and respect since then is that everyone has their reasons, even if they are base, or emotional, and I am not qualified to judge them over it. If someone likes something, that's their business - we can debate it to the end of time, but I've got to respect their opinion so long as it's founded on something solid, and it doesn't get much more solid than "this makes me happy."

It's relevant to the conversation because we need to understand who and what Big Huge Games were trying to satisfy. I think it's safe to say they hit a reasonable middle-ground between the more dedicated RPG fans (though not "old school" players) and action gamers who want a bit more depth than what other games can offer. We can discuss whether it was the right choice or not, but, as I've said, if they made something that their audience enjoys, they've been successful. This isn't an empty appeal to popularity, but a serious suggestion - we're not talking about avant-garde art that only 0.1% of the population will even consider paying attention to, we're talking about a product designed for popular entertainment. These are important considerations to take into account when discussing design. You're working on Age of Decadence and the goal is to build a hardcore, choice and consequence-driven RPG with huge replayability - I don't think you would want your game judged by the wrong audience (athough it could be illuminating to certain issues), nor would you make design choices that aren't fitting for that style of game.

Game development and game design do not happen in a vacuum. They can't be objectively scored or qualified, because ultimately the bar is the experience the end user walks away with. If that experience is positive, then the game was a success, at least on that person's subjective level. If lots of people walk away happy, it's a success, or even a hit. Niche tastes are well worth designing for, of course, but you can have good design within a niche or within the mainstream, no matter how simple or complex a game you're making. The standards may be different, but I think the measure of good design remains consistent - did the people this game was intended for walk away happy?

one thing mmos got going for them are bragging rights, pvp, competition that makes the grind worth it. most will agree that the way to the reward isn't fun, but end-game content or pvp makes it bearable. if KoA plays like a single player mmo but does not have what mmos offer to justify the grind, well...

Mashing your keyboard while watching Rambo 2 may be a thrilling experience for some, but dammit.

Beyond simply that One can argue that people can perfectly enjoy button mashing (they do). Which is why we must insist on clear parameters as to what make great games and not just fun games.

Because you need a reason to play. you need something to move you forward trough the game. Amalur is a game with focus on combat, you can have a great rpg which is good in only one thing either story, quests, c&c, exploration or combat but Amalur is bad in every regard. While you can argue that the combat system is good at itself, it will be completely pointless if its not accompanied with well made combat encounters and good loot system. You need challenge to see your character grow because trough overcoming adversity you get the feeling of success. In Gothic when I first met an Orc I was beaten in one strike, I got new equipment, few levels in skills and came back to beat him up. For killing him I got few xp and useless cheap sword yet that fight was more rewarding then killing anything in Amalur and getting million gold pieces and uber gear, because when that fight ended I had a big smile on my face.

I'd say that it's a hard task to balance 4 different damage types, without making one better by default or forcing the player to change weapons every 5 min. Balancing 10 damage types... Well, I'd say that based on what we've seen so far, it's an almost impossible task for the game's designers.

Once again, it's poor design. If you fold the damage types, you don't have enough stats. If you try to balance all 10 of them, you have too many of nearly identical ones.

Why playing in god mode isn't fun?

Because without challenge overcoming enemies action games throw at you is meaningless. Blizzard gets it, hence their "You will die. We promise." response. KoA designers don't.

As for "feeling good", I'm used to a more traditional approach. "Here, bitch. Overcome and feel good." vs "You're special. Feel good. Here is "I win" button."

Growing more powerful is meaningless if the game is easy. Finding uber gear is meaningless if the game is easy and could be beaten with a stick. Completing tasks is meaningless if they are of the MMO variety and have no consequences.

The plague quest: An alchemist asks you to find her apprentice who disappeared with a formula for a plague. You don't actually look for him, asking around and retracing his steps. She tells you that he used to visit some ruins a lot. You go to the ruins and there he is. You ask about the formula and he immediately starts boasting that he gave it to the bandits, who quickly manufactured 10 crates of the plague stuff, because he wants to be a bandit too. Ok. Next phase - find and destroy 10 crates of the plague stuff! They have those giant arrows pointing at them, so you can't miss. They are highlighted on your map, because you can't find them otherwise. Yeah, completing tasks in this game sure is fun.

God of War is a well designed game. It doesn't have 10 damage stats, skilltrees, item stats, crafting, and a bunch of other design elements that don't really work and were just thrown into the game. Everything you pointed in your article, everything you admitted in this thread says that the game is poorly designed. Yet for some reasons you are having problems stating it openly. Why?

Sea, you're building quite a theory to support your opinion of the game. "But what if..."

Look, if you want to believe that the game is good and fun (despite everything you wrote about it), who am I to tell you that you can't and shouldn't feel this way?

I couldn't disagree with what you've just said more.

I'm 41, so we aren't talking about spite here. People like all sorts of stuff, which is fine. I'm not on a mission to tell them that they are wrong and I'm not posting my impressions all over the net to make my voice heard. I posted them here, as I always do.

However, once one decides to share the impressions, he should tell his opinion of the game, without taking into considerations the feelings of those who love the game and will cry if they read something negative, those who designed the game, etc.

I told you what I think without giving a fuck about anyone else's opinion. That's the best and only way to review games, and I hope that as someone who writes for game sites, you'd agree with me. If you start reviewing games from the point of view (and for) those who liked it, you'll be wasting your time.

Well, first, the game will be judged by the wrong audience, and that's ok. Second, I'm not playing KoA as I would Fallout. I'm playing it and judging it for what it is, not for what it's not. I'm not asking why the game has no depth or consequences or branching dialogues. I'm asking one question - why combat is so easy and poorly designed?

No Vault Dweller Challenge is highly overrated from a commercial point of view. Oh casuals want challenge all right, but when it gets even a BIT frustrating (As opposed to annoying; sorry for the limited vocabulary) they drop out. Its easy to miss this standing top of the mountain (there is not other place worth being though) but that's what its like.

I dunno. Blizzard seems to be doing ok. Will probably sell 5-8 mil copies in the first month. Dark Souls sold like hotcakes too. And way too many people are complaining about KoA being too easy, even on gamefaq:

"So I enjoy the game, but even with difficulty Hard, I breeze through everything. I've played both finesse and magic types so far, and from what I hear, might is even easier."

"lolwut finesse is hard? Try having max bow skills, Enduring Agonyysterious Toxins+Paralytic poisons, envenomed edge, and Gambit. Throw down gambit as fight prep, then arrow shower+split shot. You can take out LARGE groups of enemies without even getting poked. I love this game to death, and plan to play it for many, many more hours even after beating the story with my finesse character the other day, but it's not a challenge in the least unless your build sucks or you intentionally gimp yourself."

Escapist forums:
"No, he's right. The combat is easy. It's made even easier by the broken Blacksmithing system. if you manage to get the proper components (it DOES take a while admittedly), you can become an invincible killing machine."

"Unfortunately, actually using abilities in clever ways is never necessary, and later in the game, attempting a well thought-out ability-based strategy is largely to your own detriment. The abilities just don't deal enough damage and enemies aren't dangerous enough to justify it. Sure, you could probably save yourself from taking a few hits with a clever strategy, but enemies do little damage and health potions are common enough that it's just too much faster to run in and wail on everyone. Even on the hardest difficulty this doesn't change much. While you'll have to be more diligent with dodges, blocks and ripostes, ability damage utterly pales in comparison to weapon damage - especially if you took time to make your own weapons.

It's a strange thing to see. Whereas a game like Dark Souls has a comparatively small number of subtleties and intricacies to learn, it demands that you know and use all of them. KoA:R has many more to learn and use, but never demands anything more of you than the occasional block, dodge or potion use. As a result, Dark Souls (and the Witcher 1 & 2) have deeper combat in practice."

"Oh yeah, and if you invest in blacksmith and then take the mage/warrior route (mostly mage) then your character can be very overpowered. My dude is a wreaking house. He takes out swaths of dudes in one or two hits all at once with his mage spells and then deals ridiculous damage with his two handled sword. Made the last boss a little underwhelming, and I was on hard. If you want more of a challenge, don't invest in blacksmith, or just put a little in."

"The game is a bit broken in a lot of areas. Even on hard mode, depending on which skill tree you choose, you will eventually become an unstoppable machine of destruction if you're even a slight completionist and actually do sidequests. Blacksmithing is broken, allowing you to save-scum your way into getting insanely powerful gear that is better than anything you find or can buy, including the special unique weapons. Some people talked about how getting hit interrupts you and having to time your dodges and whatnot. Well guess what, going into the Might tree gets you a skill that you can activate to be immune to said interruption, turning the game into a mindless button masher. Magic doesn't even need that skill - your spells are ranged and already powerful enough to make short work of anything you encounter provided you chose the right skill path. As for finesse... daggers and faeblades both have skills and moves that can let you teleport and jump around.

The quests are awful. I mean by god they're awful. There are very few quests here which are fit for a single-player game, most of them being taken straight out of your grindiest MMO. Go there, then there, then there. Collect bandit armbands. Bring random NPC ten rat tails. Go into this dungeon and fight the boss at the end to get the item someone needs then go there and there to finish the quest. Activate 3 monoliths around the map. Escort this guy out of this dungeon. And so on and so on. They're tolerable, but by the time you reach the last area (and even before that) you will be absolutely saturated with useless bullshit filler quests that have no purpose other than to pad out the gameplay time so that the developers can say "this is a 300 hour game".

No, developers, this is not a 300 hour game. This is a 10 hour game into which you stuffed 290 hours worth of bland watered-down filling and now you're expecting us to eat it. Skyrim did this too, but Skyrim was a completely different concept as it allowed you to pick and choose which quests you did with the level scaling giving a very nonlinear undirected experience, unlike Amalur whose big bad boss lies conveniently X zones away from your starting area, where X is ALL THE ZONES. Also half of the continent is locked until you progress past a certain point in the story. Not like that's relevant or anything, the monsters will destroy you if you're not suitably levelled when you go there anyway."

IGN:

- "Am I the only one finding the difficulty too easy? I'm playing on Hard, I'm over 20 hours in, and I've only died twice."
- "Everyone thinks it's too easy."
- "Heard the entire game was like having "god mode" on...regardless of difficulty level."
- "I'm slamming the game on hard. Agreed. It's too easy. I actually got bored because of that."
- "I haven't died once yet, the game is on the easy side a bit."

It sure looks like the top of the mountain is getting pretty crowded.

Hmm. Probably hype? But then I am looking for excuses.

EDIT: Also probably Dark souls only sold a fraction (About 1/10 th ) of Skyrim. Make that 1/5th knowing that Skyrim was multi-platform.

"Challenge overrated from a commercial POV"?!?
*blinks*
*rubs eyes*
*blinks again*
The stuff I'm reading here nowadays truly boggles the mind...

Challenge was intentionally more and more stripped from games for at least the last 10 years. Going hand in hand in trying to cater to the casual ADD-kiddie-crowd.
That's also one component of the argument whether this "bad" design or not. It wholly depends on your POV:
If you consider games to be "games", offering a challenge, the overcoming of which is fun and makes you feel good, then lack thereof is certainly "bad".
If you consider games to be a vehicle to make players feel powerful and special without risking "frustrating" them then lack of challenge may be "good" design.

But the question, o waster of time, is whether reducing challenge actually helps you financially or not. What VD is claiming is that Dark souls, a financially successful game was quite challenging, is an example of the opposite. And that's a good example. The only query is, if its an exception to the rule or there no such rule and some other, deeper law.

Looks like Dungeon Siege got a spiritual successor then

I'd imagine it's much easier putting in gimmicks and story rather than go through the trouble of creating a well balanced challenging game.

Of course.

EDIT: It depends.

Well, to make money you pick the easiest and surest way to make it.

Yep. But the validity of that is slightly under question here. Slightly.