Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning

Can someone give some examples of interesting moments past Ysa? Just realizing this is the third time I've tried to play this game... and I always end up dropping out here... feeling particularly overpowered, wondering what I can do to avoid that... but mostly being bored out of my skull by (even on hard mode) the ridiculous amount of overpower I've got going on. Thinking of switching my skills with a fateweaver... but can't really decide what to do yet.

Demosthenes wrote:

Can someone give some examples of interesting moments past Ysa? Just realizing this is the third time I've tried to play this game... and I always end up dropping out here... feeling particularly overpowered, wondering what I can do to avoid that... but mostly being bored out of my skull by (even on hard mode) the ridiculous amount of overpower I've got going on. Thinking of switching my skills with a fateweaver... but can't really decide what to do yet.

Mel Senshir was pretty cool.

Maq wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:

Can someone give some examples of interesting moments past Ysa? Just realizing this is the third time I've tried to play this game... and I always end up dropping out here... feeling particularly overpowered, wondering what I can do to avoid that... but mostly being bored out of my skull by (even on hard mode) the ridiculous amount of overpower I've got going on. Thinking of switching my skills with a fateweaver... but can't really decide what to do yet.

Mel Senshir was pretty cool.

I don't mind if we get a little spoilery, looking at the Jack stuff for ME3 and the romance stuff for Citadel is what prompted me not to give up on a full trilogy run because I want to see what happens with Tali. (no, don't spoil THAT, I will hunt down people with singularities).

The Winter Court arc turned out to be quite interesting for me, as it offers a completely different kind of Fae outlook and lifestyle compared to the Summer Court. What I mean by that isn't that they disagree so much as these Fae could exist in completely different games. The time you play the Summer Court arcs makes you think that the Fae are all like that, whereas the Winter Court arc tells you that they're not.

The desert portion is quite interesting as well. There's some really beautiful imagery there, and the arena combats are hella fun. Just watch that level. Don't use Fateshift, don't do all the sidequests.

Ah. Forging Rhyderk at max level is quite surprising. It's supposed to be a low level weapon component, but I've been able to use it on max level opponents and it just kills. It was satisfying to me to recover and reforge the weapon, since the quest is completely off the beaten path. It really nails that feel of being a special weapon with a special purpose.

I think if being powerful in combat bores you, then Reckoning is probably not for you. I remember in one of the interviews they did with the devs, they said the intent of the combat design was to make you feel like an unstoppable killing machine. The combat is not meant to be challenging. About the only way to make it challenging is to forego most of the quests and intentionally use underpowered weapons.

BadKen wrote:

I think if being powerful in combat bores you, then Reckoning is probably not for you. I remember in one of the interviews they did with the devs, they said the intent of the combat design was to make you feel like an unstoppable killing machine. The combat is not meant to be challenging. About the only way to make it challenging is to forego most of the quests and intentionally use underpowered weapons.

Well, my biggest thing has always been feeling engaged by the storyline, but mechanical interest is a close second. The story up to Ysa just feels very samey, lot of go see this person who will tell you to see someone else or will be dead and look, there's the half-naked elf lady to fill in for them. I get that big things are happening as we go along, but nothing has really grabbed my attention.

Unfortunate really, because the side quests have been invaluable in creating new quests and side quests for my D&D group.

I found Faeblades and Chakrams worked decently together in a finesse/magic hybrid

Isn't the House of Ballads questline past Ysa? Ysa seems rather early in the game, IIRC.

babakotia wrote:

I found Faeblades and Chakrams worked decently together in a finesse/magic hybrid

That's what I've been doing.

LarryC wrote:

Isn't the House of Ballads questline past Ysa? Ysa seems rather early in the game, IIRC.

No I just finished that, and haven't went to Ysa yet, although that's the next part of the main quest for me.

The last quest in the Ballads arc is The Hero and The Maid, which takes place in Wintermere. I remember that being past Ysa.

Windemere is actually pretty close to the starting area.

I believe there are no interdependencies between the two quests, you could end up doing Ballads and Ysa in either order.

Yes, yes. That sounds right. The thing is, I thought that the Ballads arc was done with the whole Sir Sagrell thing and went on with the main questline before looping back and doing the Faction Quest for House of Ballads. Now that I think about it, I may have been a little more clueless than usual there.

Demosthenes:

There ought to be a bunch of interesting quests in the Court of Enchantments. I recall doing assassination quests there.

I did the House of Ballads faction quests well before I got to Ysa. For playstyle I've gone both Might (Greatsword) heavy with some side spending in longbows or a secondary Finesse/Sorcery build with Faeblades and Chakrams which is certainly the prettier option.

So, should I wait on The Legend of Dead Kel, since it apparently will spawn up to my level?

Best to come back and do that later right?

Finally worked my way to Rathir last night, as I have a couple main quests, and faction quests all converging on that same city.

Kingdoms of Amalur will be free to PS Plus subscribers in October.

Damn. That is a fine, fine offer.

Aristophan wrote:

Kingdoms of Amalur will be free to PS Plus subscribers in October.

Interesting. Surprising. And that is a damn fine offer.

Fun game, I wonder if the DLC will be on sale too.

Well, I'm really enjoying this game. What a good free spiff.

Doing mostly finesse right now, but will probably supplement it with some strength stuff as well to go down the strength/finesse hybrid path. Judging from what people say about the difficulty of the game, it doesn't sound like there's too much to worry about in terms of painting yourself into a corner with a suboptimal build.

The danger is actually the other way. Due to the numerous side quests in the game, and because of the focus on brawling and loot collection, it is dangerously easy to "overlevel" the game's predicted level for you and render entire areas boringly easy, even on the hardest setting. Standard recommendations are to know the level limits and only open areas when you're at max limit, and/or to never use your Fateshifting if you can help it, since it accelerates leveling.

Yeah probably a good time to link that zone level map again, as some people are starting to play this on PSN.

I really should go back and finish. Got caught up in something else one weekend and never went back. But I was definitely having fun.

Yeah, I probably should finish this as I reckon I'm coming up to the final act.

aspect wrote:

Well, I'm really enjoying this game. What a good free spiff.

Doing mostly finesse right now, but will probably supplement it with some strength stuff as well to go down the strength/finesse hybrid path. Judging from what people say about the difficulty of the game, it doesn't sound like there's too much to worry about in terms of painting yourself into a corner with a suboptimal build.

IIRC, you can respec pretty easily. It can allow you to try out different builds as you go along. Personally, I loved the Jack-of-all-Trades buiuld, since I always want to do a bit of everything.

Curt Schilling is selling his home and it's contents in an estate sale, to cover some of the losses from 38 Studios. He already sold the famous bloody sock for $93,000. What a sad story.

Stele wrote:

Yeah probably a good time to link that zone level map again, as some people are starting to play this on PSN.

You mean the zone level maps I made?

Here's an all-in-one version (click to embiggen):

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/VDxOHl.jpg)

And remember that the first time you enter a zone determines its level. Zones do not scale with you as you level. It's best to do all you want to do in one zone before you move on to the next. And as LarryC said, don't do too many side quests, or you will quickly outlevel the maximum levels, and the game will be very very easy.

Thanks that's much better than the split version I was using while I played.

Well that explains a lot... I was level 20 by the time I left the first set of world zones (like where you load a new "outside" area rather than just continuously running across zones with loading screens).

Weird kind of RPG where doing too many sidequests can totally break the game.

Not totally. To some extent, your power comes from your gear so you can counter overleveling by slumming it with lower level gear. Good if you have a favorite set or want to try out gear you haven't used before.

Also that... Smithing really breaks stuff quick when your weapon does 2x more at least than anything dropped in the area you are in.