Okay, I just got done playing the demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Now the only reason I did it was to get the free special extra items for Mass Effect 3, but I did believe the game looked and sounded cool, and in a lot of ways it is, but after an hour of playing the demo, I finally saw some major flaws in the game, at least ones I consider huge blemish marks gameplay wise.
Bear with me, I'm going to describe what the game is like and the awesome, good, and bad parts of the game, but also I have discussion style question for the end.
The game a very strange creature, in that it has aspects from several games. Most come together well, but a couple are very very out of place, and really just don't belong in games of today.
The games feels like a make up of Dragon Age 2(for me that is a good thing), the first Mass Effect, the Fable series, World of Warcraft, and Oblivion(this one is the glaring problem).
This post is pretty much a review of the demo, but, I decided to put it in "gaming discussion", because my real reason for making this thread was to start a discussion on what you think of such game mechanic problems.
So, what do you think of such game mechanics as I mentioned in the "Cons" section, and what are mechanics that you can't stand and think shouldn't be around, at least from the standpoint of detracting from the fun of the game?
(Now be nice if there are any typos, this took some time. I was just so pissed after I finished the demo, since the first part of the game and those "Pros" really hooked me in wanting to get the game, but then those Cons are a huge problem for me, as they jumped out and beat me over the head.)
Bear with me, I'm going to describe what the game is like and the awesome, good, and bad parts of the game, but also I have discussion style question for the end.
The game a very strange creature, in that it has aspects from several games. Most come together well, but a couple are very very out of place, and really just don't belong in games of today.
The games feels like a make up of Dragon Age 2(for me that is a good thing), the first Mass Effect, the Fable series, World of Warcraft, and Oblivion(this one is the glaring problem).
The first reason that the game is like DA2 and ME is that the dialogue is done similar to the dialogue wheel, though with a few differences like story questions are lumped at the end of the conversation in a box so that the player can hear ever detail the person has to say on just about everything major and some minor. Now I love the dialogue wheel style, though this one is done strangely in that if you pick the options in the wrong order, you can miss some of the main dialogue, at least it seems that way.
Certain sections of combat feel similar to both Fable and Dragon Age 2. It is fast and for the most part fluid. Yes it is button mash but it is feel good button mash. The also added a combat/time slow down mechanic that I feel is unique in one way.
This mechanic is can be used when the a player fills up the fate bar. The bar fills up by landing several successful attacks on the enemy; the longer the attack chain without getting hit yourself, the faster the meter fills up. Once the meter is full, the player holds down both trigger buttons to activate the fate mode, knocking back any nearby enemies. In the mode the player and his weapons glow purplish white and time is slowed so the player can attack faster and dodge easier. The thing I find unique about it is that after you bring down and enemy to pretty much no health, the A button appears over them to tell the player he can use the main part of the power, which is a slow motion finishing move that is turned into a quick time event. In the event a second button will appear and the player has the press that button as many times and as fast as possible, filling up a percentage meter, which shows the player how much extra exp the player will get from the finishing move. Now, if the player is fast enough and gets the meter to 100%, the finishing move will have a special and awesome critical effect. A 100% critical finish move, will not just net 100% extra exp and kill the enemy, it will also kill every enemy in the area that is the same as the killed enemy. Kill a bandit archer with a fate 100% crit move, all the bandit archers in the area die as well, giving you the exp for those as well.
I found that ability quite fun, though I do get extra mad if I some how don't make 100% in time.
The game is also like Mass Effect 1 in that the skill section when leveling is made up of lines of little squares. A point can be used on each square, and some squares are specially marked in that when you get to that point in the skill line and purchase that square, a boost in that skill will be unlocked. Like with the alchemy skill, at one specially marked point in the basic level, it says that failed potions will still form a potion, but it will be unstable. The skill lines are broken up into basic, adept, and master, five squares in each section.
Now in a couple respects the game is like WoW. The art design has sort of a wow feel, the game is insanely colorful. Also in that design come the race of Gnomes in the game. The faces on some of them look quite like WoW Gnome faces, though these Gnomes look to be about twice the height of WoW Gnomes, about the height of a WoW dwarf. Now the other respect that it looks like WoW is in that the ability trees look like WoW's three section class ability trees. There is a warrior, rogue, and mage section, and the trees in each section are made up of boxes with different pictures that are connected to straight lines to other boxes. Some ability boxes can have multiple points put into them to make that ability much stronger, like the beginning dagger box will boost my dagger stats and use with each point added, same goes for the shock ability I first got to use as part of the mage section. The only slight difference from WoW is that the tree goes from bottom to top, rather than top to bottom.
Now for the most part, everything I mentioned above works well together.
Certain sections of combat feel similar to both Fable and Dragon Age 2. It is fast and for the most part fluid. Yes it is button mash but it is feel good button mash. The also added a combat/time slow down mechanic that I feel is unique in one way.
This mechanic is can be used when the a player fills up the fate bar. The bar fills up by landing several successful attacks on the enemy; the longer the attack chain without getting hit yourself, the faster the meter fills up. Once the meter is full, the player holds down both trigger buttons to activate the fate mode, knocking back any nearby enemies. In the mode the player and his weapons glow purplish white and time is slowed so the player can attack faster and dodge easier. The thing I find unique about it is that after you bring down and enemy to pretty much no health, the A button appears over them to tell the player he can use the main part of the power, which is a slow motion finishing move that is turned into a quick time event. In the event a second button will appear and the player has the press that button as many times and as fast as possible, filling up a percentage meter, which shows the player how much extra exp the player will get from the finishing move. Now, if the player is fast enough and gets the meter to 100%, the finishing move will have a special and awesome critical effect. A 100% critical finish move, will not just net 100% extra exp and kill the enemy, it will also kill every enemy in the area that is the same as the killed enemy. Kill a bandit archer with a fate 100% crit move, all the bandit archers in the area die as well, giving you the exp for those as well.
I found that ability quite fun, though I do get extra mad if I some how don't make 100% in time.
The game is also like Mass Effect 1 in that the skill section when leveling is made up of lines of little squares. A point can be used on each square, and some squares are specially marked in that when you get to that point in the skill line and purchase that square, a boost in that skill will be unlocked. Like with the alchemy skill, at one specially marked point in the basic level, it says that failed potions will still form a potion, but it will be unstable. The skill lines are broken up into basic, adept, and master, five squares in each section.
Now in a couple respects the game is like WoW. The art design has sort of a wow feel, the game is insanely colorful. Also in that design come the race of Gnomes in the game. The faces on some of them look quite like WoW Gnome faces, though these Gnomes look to be about twice the height of WoW Gnomes, about the height of a WoW dwarf. Now the other respect that it looks like WoW is in that the ability trees look like WoW's three section class ability trees. There is a warrior, rogue, and mage section, and the trees in each section are made up of boxes with different pictures that are connected to straight lines to other boxes. Some ability boxes can have multiple points put into them to make that ability much stronger, like the beginning dagger box will boost my dagger stats and use with each point added, same goes for the shock ability I first got to use as part of the mage section. The only slight difference from WoW is that the tree goes from bottom to top, rather than top to bottom.
Now for the most part, everything I mentioned above works well together.
Now for the stupid gameplay mechanics.
The first one is a blatant copy of Fable. When you have your weapons out in front of the non-enemy NPCs, a little skull will appear on the up button on the D-pad. It has a red circle and slash through it. If you press and hold it for a second and then let up, it turns off the function that prevents the player form killing the friendly NPCs. The reason I think this mechanic is stupid is that there is no reason for it other than if the player is feeling murderous and just wants to kill all friendly NPCs. Though the problem with this is that every NPC, accept main story NPCs, can be killed, even the quest givers. So if you go on a homicidal rampage and decide to kill the equivalent of the game's town sheriff that just gave you a quest, you will lose that quest and never be able to complete it. That problem gets worse coming up.
Now for a big nail in this game's coffin. It is blatantly obvious to see as we have been told, that the lead designer from Oblivion, Ken Rolston, was a part of the development of this game. First off, when I was a half hour into the game, I finally noticed that there was a number/number next to my weapons and armor. The blasted game has item wear. Most light items have a 20/20, and the heavy items have a 30/30. The game demo lasted about two hours and in that time most of my items had worn down at least by 2 to 3 points. As far as I'm concerned there is no need for this mechanic in gaming, it is my top list of stupid mechanics. While in combat, I should only be worried about beating the enemy and having fun doing it, not worrying if my staff, daggers and armor will outlast my battle with the latest big enemy. Or that when I find that my weapon needs repairing badly and I don't have any more repair items and I am possibly a half our of gameplay away form getting to a place that sells repair items.
The another Oblivion blunder mechanic added is that of the alchemy agent acquiring system. So, while play the game, I see a glowing flower(first time I seen one). Though since it is glowing I know I can pick up an item from it. So, I walked over and pressed the pick up button. It pops up that I acquired nothing useful, meaning I picked at an alchemy item staring me right in the face and it says there is apparently nothing there. When this happened the game's little help box popped up and said, "Picking alchemy items isn't always success full, sometimes you won't get the item." And in all seriousness through my whole 2 hour play time, I came across at least 50 alchemy items, only about 15 of my pick up attempts were successful. This is a moronic mechanic and makes the game less enjoyable. I come across and item and say, neat that is the ingredient I've been looking for; I walk up to it and pick it and it says there is none there, then I "RAGE!!!". Why of why instead of putting over 50 pick-able items in one small area and only around 20% yielding and item, why not just put 10 or 15 pick-able items in the area, and just let the player pick them up like he should be able to. Oh, and items don't disappear when you pick them, they stupidly shrink back in on themselves like a turtle. This tells me that the items probably respawn in time, but still the whole thing is just messed up and not enjoyable. It would be like, if in real life, I go outside and pick a dandelion and then it just vanishes from my hand, or if I got to pick it and on it's own, it shrivels and retreats into the ground away from my grasp. Just plain stupid, not fun, and not needed.
The last Oblivion blunder mechanic is the guards and as well as the resisting of arrest from said guards. Now when I got to the first town in the game, I get a quest from the sheriff and then after that, I walk into the alchemy shop. I talk to the shop keeper and then proceed to explore the shop. I noticed that there was a guard walking around the shop(a very Oblivion-esque looking guard in the armor styling/look. I see him go down to the basement of the shop, and I follow him to explore the store. Downstairs, is and alchemy lab room with all kinds of books and potion making supplies and an alchemy creation table. In the other room, is another room with a fire place and dining and bed setup. In the alchemy lab area though, I see a big chest; I walk up to it and see that it says pick lock and that it counts as stealing. First I see that the guard is still in the room, so I wait for him to enter and go far into the bedroom area. The chest in the room I was in is out of his line of sight, and he had his back turned to me. Just to make sure I crouched into stealth mode and the symbol above his head showed that he didn't know I was there in the other room.
So, I proceed to pick the lock and I successfully do it and take the contents, but as soon as I exit the item menu after taking everything. Guard turns and says, "Hey!" I see that he some how knows and is headed into the room, so I hide out of his sight for when he entered. He came in and looked at the chest and said, "Hey! Who did this!" I proceed to successfully sneak into the bedroom area. I waited there for about two minutes to see what the guard would do. He just paced back and forth a few steps, the symbol above his head still showed he didn't know I was around. So I thought I was in the clear. I stood up and nonchalantly walked out of the bedroom like I had always been in there and that I knew nothing about said opened chest. But, before I could make it to the steps back up to the main shop, the guard turned to me and the screen changed to the conversation mode and the guard said, "Hey you did this and broke the law, come with me!" Then it gave me the options of go to jail, bribe(13%), and resist arrest. So I'm pretty pissed since this tells me that the game has those stupid psychic guards that always know you did the crime, even if there are no witnesses.(Insert, "Stop right there criminal scum" here)
So, that was the last stupid like Oblivion straw, so I decided to resist arrest. I killed the guard then, then two more psychic guards appear, and I kill them, and more appear. Now the only way to stop the guards from appearing is to crouch and hid just before they appear, that way they can't see you, then if you can stealthily assassinate both guards, they stop appearing. Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there. I go back upstairs and exit the shop, and see a whole host of read dots on my mini-map. I found out that apparently the whole town is psychic, knowing what I did. So everybody and their mothers, and the quest givers as well, descended upon me as the worst angry mob I had ever seen. Plus, as I a said with the Fable-like part of the game, you can kill quest givers. So in my rush to escape the town, I apparently killed that sheriff(or warden as he called himself) and it said I failed his quest. Now, the demo didn't have a save function, so the resist attempt and killing of quest givers was a terminate thing, though I'm quite sure there will be some sort of save function in the final product. But, as you can see the whole situation is just plain stupid. In no game should the NPCs have such open knowledge about what happens in the game. Lastly another problem that stems from that is that the regular enemies can be just as psychic.
I was out in the wooded fields after I escaped the town, and I cam across a bandit. He didn't see me, so I went into stealth mode and assassinated him. The problem I found is that, a group of three bandits that was at least the equivalent of 250 or more feet away with their backs turned to me, with no way they could know what I did, perked up and turn and started after me, with the psychic knowledge that I killed their buddy.
With that, something tells me that Mr.Rolston wasn't with or working with Bethesda when they made Skyrim, because none of those three problems, item wear, alchemy item item picking failures, and psychic NPCs(not psychic for the most part) are not in Skyrim, and Skyrim is better for it. Since the game is so close to launch these things can't be stopped, but if Mr.Rolston gets a hold of and does this again to another game, we need to sit him down and have a stern talking to.
The first one is a blatant copy of Fable. When you have your weapons out in front of the non-enemy NPCs, a little skull will appear on the up button on the D-pad. It has a red circle and slash through it. If you press and hold it for a second and then let up, it turns off the function that prevents the player form killing the friendly NPCs. The reason I think this mechanic is stupid is that there is no reason for it other than if the player is feeling murderous and just wants to kill all friendly NPCs. Though the problem with this is that every NPC, accept main story NPCs, can be killed, even the quest givers. So if you go on a homicidal rampage and decide to kill the equivalent of the game's town sheriff that just gave you a quest, you will lose that quest and never be able to complete it. That problem gets worse coming up.
Now for a big nail in this game's coffin. It is blatantly obvious to see as we have been told, that the lead designer from Oblivion, Ken Rolston, was a part of the development of this game. First off, when I was a half hour into the game, I finally noticed that there was a number/number next to my weapons and armor. The blasted game has item wear. Most light items have a 20/20, and the heavy items have a 30/30. The game demo lasted about two hours and in that time most of my items had worn down at least by 2 to 3 points. As far as I'm concerned there is no need for this mechanic in gaming, it is my top list of stupid mechanics. While in combat, I should only be worried about beating the enemy and having fun doing it, not worrying if my staff, daggers and armor will outlast my battle with the latest big enemy. Or that when I find that my weapon needs repairing badly and I don't have any more repair items and I am possibly a half our of gameplay away form getting to a place that sells repair items.
The another Oblivion blunder mechanic added is that of the alchemy agent acquiring system. So, while play the game, I see a glowing flower(first time I seen one). Though since it is glowing I know I can pick up an item from it. So, I walked over and pressed the pick up button. It pops up that I acquired nothing useful, meaning I picked at an alchemy item staring me right in the face and it says there is apparently nothing there. When this happened the game's little help box popped up and said, "Picking alchemy items isn't always success full, sometimes you won't get the item." And in all seriousness through my whole 2 hour play time, I came across at least 50 alchemy items, only about 15 of my pick up attempts were successful. This is a moronic mechanic and makes the game less enjoyable. I come across and item and say, neat that is the ingredient I've been looking for; I walk up to it and pick it and it says there is none there, then I "RAGE!!!". Why of why instead of putting over 50 pick-able items in one small area and only around 20% yielding and item, why not just put 10 or 15 pick-able items in the area, and just let the player pick them up like he should be able to. Oh, and items don't disappear when you pick them, they stupidly shrink back in on themselves like a turtle. This tells me that the items probably respawn in time, but still the whole thing is just messed up and not enjoyable. It would be like, if in real life, I go outside and pick a dandelion and then it just vanishes from my hand, or if I got to pick it and on it's own, it shrivels and retreats into the ground away from my grasp. Just plain stupid, not fun, and not needed.
The last Oblivion blunder mechanic is the guards and as well as the resisting of arrest from said guards. Now when I got to the first town in the game, I get a quest from the sheriff and then after that, I walk into the alchemy shop. I talk to the shop keeper and then proceed to explore the shop. I noticed that there was a guard walking around the shop(a very Oblivion-esque looking guard in the armor styling/look. I see him go down to the basement of the shop, and I follow him to explore the store. Downstairs, is and alchemy lab room with all kinds of books and potion making supplies and an alchemy creation table. In the other room, is another room with a fire place and dining and bed setup. In the alchemy lab area though, I see a big chest; I walk up to it and see that it says pick lock and that it counts as stealing. First I see that the guard is still in the room, so I wait for him to enter and go far into the bedroom area. The chest in the room I was in is out of his line of sight, and he had his back turned to me. Just to make sure I crouched into stealth mode and the symbol above his head showed that he didn't know I was there in the other room.
So, I proceed to pick the lock and I successfully do it and take the contents, but as soon as I exit the item menu after taking everything. Guard turns and says, "Hey!" I see that he some how knows and is headed into the room, so I hide out of his sight for when he entered. He came in and looked at the chest and said, "Hey! Who did this!" I proceed to successfully sneak into the bedroom area. I waited there for about two minutes to see what the guard would do. He just paced back and forth a few steps, the symbol above his head still showed he didn't know I was around. So I thought I was in the clear. I stood up and nonchalantly walked out of the bedroom like I had always been in there and that I knew nothing about said opened chest. But, before I could make it to the steps back up to the main shop, the guard turned to me and the screen changed to the conversation mode and the guard said, "Hey you did this and broke the law, come with me!" Then it gave me the options of go to jail, bribe(13%), and resist arrest. So I'm pretty pissed since this tells me that the game has those stupid psychic guards that always know you did the crime, even if there are no witnesses.(Insert, "Stop right there criminal scum" here)
So, that was the last stupid like Oblivion straw, so I decided to resist arrest. I killed the guard then, then two more psychic guards appear, and I kill them, and more appear. Now the only way to stop the guards from appearing is to crouch and hid just before they appear, that way they can't see you, then if you can stealthily assassinate both guards, they stop appearing. Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there. I go back upstairs and exit the shop, and see a whole host of read dots on my mini-map. I found out that apparently the whole town is psychic, knowing what I did. So everybody and their mothers, and the quest givers as well, descended upon me as the worst angry mob I had ever seen. Plus, as I a said with the Fable-like part of the game, you can kill quest givers. So in my rush to escape the town, I apparently killed that sheriff(or warden as he called himself) and it said I failed his quest. Now, the demo didn't have a save function, so the resist attempt and killing of quest givers was a terminate thing, though I'm quite sure there will be some sort of save function in the final product. But, as you can see the whole situation is just plain stupid. In no game should the NPCs have such open knowledge about what happens in the game. Lastly another problem that stems from that is that the regular enemies can be just as psychic.
I was out in the wooded fields after I escaped the town, and I cam across a bandit. He didn't see me, so I went into stealth mode and assassinated him. The problem I found is that, a group of three bandits that was at least the equivalent of 250 or more feet away with their backs turned to me, with no way they could know what I did, perked up and turn and started after me, with the psychic knowledge that I killed their buddy.
With that, something tells me that Mr.Rolston wasn't with or working with Bethesda when they made Skyrim, because none of those three problems, item wear, alchemy item item picking failures, and psychic NPCs(not psychic for the most part) are not in Skyrim, and Skyrim is better for it. Since the game is so close to launch these things can't be stopped, but if Mr.Rolston gets a hold of and does this again to another game, we need to sit him down and have a stern talking to.
This post is pretty much a review of the demo, but, I decided to put it in "gaming discussion", because my real reason for making this thread was to start a discussion on what you think of such game mechanic problems.
So, what do you think of such game mechanics as I mentioned in the "Cons" section, and what are mechanics that you can't stand and think shouldn't be around, at least from the standpoint of detracting from the fun of the game?
(Now be nice if there are any typos, this took some time. I was just so pissed after I finished the demo, since the first part of the game and those "Pros" really hooked me in wanting to get the game, but then those Cons are a huge problem for me, as they jumped out and beat me over the head.)
