Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

[Cornsnake]

Cornsnake's already spent 300 hours on the demo alone.

I've been trying out everything just to see how I want to build my character. The replay value is actually pretty good because most of the loot is randomized, you'll get something different every time. The number of enemies and the type also changes in a lot of encounters.

I'll have to wait until friday before I can get the game. I'm thinking of starting on Hard because I keep hearing how easy the game is, and there is an option to switch back to normal if needed.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The demo did its job as far as your concerned. If it weren't so HUGE I may have swallowed, but my completionist mentality wouldn't be able to play an hour a day for a year. I'd have to play excessively until done, which would be a month of nothing else!

 

[Cornsnake]

Yeah, it did. I'm not much of a completionist though. I still have Dark Souls left to finish. Which I have every intention to do, but I'll get to that whenever. Reckoning being so easy to pick up and play probably helps it a lot.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

The demo did its job as far as your concerned. If it weren't so HUGE I may have swallowed, but my completionist mentality wouldn't be able to play an hour a day for a year. I'd have to play excessively until done, which would be a month of nothing else!

you sick puppy.

In any case looks like a must buy, but have to finish some other games before I can invest such large amount of time.

 

[Acert93]

The demo did its job as far as your concerned. If it weren't so HUGE I may have swallowed, but my completionist mentality wouldn't be able to play an hour a day for a year. I'd have to play excessively until done, which would be a month of nothing else!

Change your perception of completionism: Complete the Main Quest Only and Max only One Class. Ta da 25-30 hours later you are "completed" which, btw, is still very long for a SP game. And if they feel unfulfilled tell yourself, "Ok, just ONE MORE class" and repeat the game. Whatever you do, do NOT succumb to doing EVERYTHING.

 

[Cornsnake]

All the skills have some uses. Although pick-locks skill is relatively useless (even very hard chests are easy to pick) while dispell magic skill is essential (IMO) as failing to dispell a magic lock can result in getting some VERY nasty curses which in the early game are extraordinarily expensive to cure.

One of the devs mentioned they made some changes to Lockpicking and Dispelling after the demo build was taken from the main game. Making Lockpicking harder, and Dispelling easier.

Change your perception of completionism: Complete the Main Quest Only and Max only One Class. Ta da 25-30 hours later you are "completed" which, btw, is still very long for a SP game. And if they feel unfulfilled tell yourself, "Ok, just ONE MORE class" and repeat the game. Whatever you do, do NOT succumb to doing EVERYTHING.

Reckoning doesn't really have classes. You can put points in any of the 3 skilltree's any make you own sort of hybrid class. And if you don't like it you can respec and spend all your points differently without having to play through the game again.

 

[Acert93]

Stop trying to sell me on the game already! An RPG where skill/combat matter AND at any time you can just redistribute your stats to experience all the game has to offer without endless grinding for every class?

It is like they have violated every RPG law created to keep people like me from every playing the genre. Next thing you know there will be full fledged Kinect games with robust and rewarding gameplay... oh wait, it took RPGs decades to get to this point. Ok, you had me scared there for a moment.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

One of the devs mentioned they made some changes to Lockpicking and Dispelling after the demo build was taken from the main game. Making Lockpicking harder, and Dispelling easier.

Lockpicking is still extremely easy compared to Dispelling in the retail version. There is no time limit as there is for dispelling. It's not a rhythm type game where the harder the difficulty the faster it is.

As long as you use a sort of stutter move on lockpicking and watch your lockpick closely. You'll almost never break a lockpick even on very hard locks at 0 skill. There's also no big drawbacks to failing at lockpicking as there is with dispelling. At least in the early game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cornsnake]

Stop trying to sell me on the game already! An RPG where skill/combat matter AND at any time you can just redistribute your stats to experience all the game has to offer without endless grinding for every class?

You'll have to visit a Fateweaver and pay them 256 times your current level times the number of respecs this will be. It's a pretty flexible system.

 

[Cornsnake]

Lockpicking is still extremely easy compared to Dispelling in the retail version. There is no time limit as there is for dispelling. It's not a rhythm type game where the harder the difficulty the faster it is.

As long as you use a sort of stutter move on lockpicking and watch your lockpick closely. You'll almost never break a lockpick even on very hard locks at 0 skill. There's also no big drawbacks to failing at lockpicking as there is with dispelling. At least in the early game.

Regards,
SB

That's a shame. Is Dispelling still as laggy as it was in the demo where you had press the button before it actually was over the symbols?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's a shame. Is Dispelling still as laggy as it was in the demo where you had press the button before it actually was over the symbols?

Yes, it's very intolerant of display latency, controller latency, and human reaction latency. Hence why I recommend practicing lock picking with 0 skill. And if you feel the need to either bump up dispelling or prepare to pay high fees for curing curses.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cornsnake]

Yes, it's very intolerant of display latency, controller latency, and human reaction latency. Hence why I recommend practicing lock picking with 0 skill. And if you feel the need to either bump up dispelling or prepare to pay high fees for curing curses.

Regards,
SB

I may just ignore chests that need to be dispelled. It's not like there aren't plenty of ways to get loot anyway. Or find an accessory like the one I found in the demo once. It gave +1 Lockpicking and +1 Stealth. And there are trainers and books to be found that can also permanently increase skills.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Curt Schilling Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYw3rnxd1vU

R.A. Salvatore Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDFvR3NjEUc

Todd McFarlane Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwFNHD09-aQ

Ken Rolston Interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyEDHE_lJSI

 

[Cornsnake]

4 Hours in, and just 1 side quest left until I've completed all the quests that were in the demo.

Have encountered a bug though. The sound FX are sometimes delayed. That can get a little annoying when you're waiting to hear that sound just before the lockpick breaks. This in the PS3 version.

Otherwise the game still great though. Hard is indeed a bit easy, but perhaps it'll pick up later on.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Dispelling is definitely tricky compared to lock picking, which seems to be dead easy.

 

[Jedi2016]

Have encountered a bug though. The sound FX are sometimes delayed. That can get a little annoying when you're waiting to hear that sound just before the lockpick breaks. This in the PS3 version.

Same here, also on PS3. Seems to happen when something "unexpected" occurs, like it's not pre-loading the sound file properly. I had something jump out at me, I saw it happen, then almost a full second later, the big crash/rawr. Under normal gameplay, it's fine, though. Hopefully it's something they can patch (and that they patch it).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What are the changes from the demo? Is framerate any more stable? Any changes to UI or skills or stuff?

 

[Cornsnake]

Same here, also on PS3. Seems to happen when something "unexpected" occurs, like it's not pre-loading the sound file properly. I had something jump out at me, I saw it happen, then almost a full second later, the big crash/rawr. Under normal gameplay, it's fine, though. Hopefully it's something they can patch (and that they patch it).

It's posted on their forums, so they are at least aware of it. Hopefully they patch it alongside improving the camera. I also had the camera go underground on me in same dungeon where it happened in the demo.

On the plus side, so far there haven't been any commonly occurring major bugs reported.

 

[Cornsnake]

What are the changes from the demo? Is framerate any more stable? Any changes to UI or skills or stuff?

The framerate is now capped at 30 fps. Some of the skills have their stats slightly adjusted. And most of the bugs are gone. No more holes in the ground, or missing audio. A few more options in the options menu.

The gameplay is pretty much the same.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The framerate is now capped at 30 fps.

Oh. The 60fps was a real draw for me. It made the game more fluid and easier to follow. Are the visuals tweaked to compensate? If not, it'll be a relative weak graphics performer. I can understand the simple MMO look when aiming for 60 fps, but at 30 fps it take a bit of a knocking IMO.