Please sign in or sign up!
Login:
Pass:  
  • Forget your password?
  • Want to sign up?
  •       ...blogs for gamers

    Find a GameLog
    ... by game ... by platform
     
    advanced search  advanced search ]
    HOME GAMES LOGS MEMBERS     ABOUT HELP
     
    dkirschner's GameLog for Kingdoms of Amalur (360)

    Wednesday 8 August, 2012

    A handful more things I've remembered/observed/done since last time...actually...they're all criticisms.

    I was wondering about the potential monotony of the battles later on since I've now reached the top of the Sorcery skill tree in the early 20s. One thing that DEFINITELY will contribute to it, and that has been annoying for a long time already, is that you can only have 4 spells active at once. You map them to ABXY. But there's no equivalent of Shift+ABXY to get 4 more spells and there really should be. As a sorcerer, you learn your basic fire, ice and lightning spells almost immediately. Then pretty soon after you can learn heal and summon your ally. That's 5. I keep my ally mapped instead of healing since I can make and use practically infinite potions, and since my ally now leeches life for me. But now I have some mixed elemental spell and I'm about to learn a Meteor spell. That's 7 spells for 4 buttons. If you want to change ready spells, you have to go into your skill tree and manually change every time. Why did they do this? I have a simple solution: L3 or R3 brings up 'page 2' of your spells. Or L3 page 2 and R3 page 3 so you can have 12. They have a radial menu with like 8 slots too. They could have doubled that also with an L3 control. It's stupid. So now instead of using more variety with my sorcerer who is already lacking in variety and feeling a little stale, I actually WANT to stick with 4 spells because changing them is so tedious. Fail.

    Another fail is the voice synchronization on the lorestones. Kingdoms has really nice voiceovers. The only problem with the voices is on the lorestones, which are these pillars you find scattered throughout the world that contain an interesting story or poem or something to listen to that tells you about some legendary hero or whatever. You click on the lorestone and it just reads to you, except the subtitles and the sound are totally off for all of them. I can't just listen to it because there are a bunch of fantasy names and places so I don't understand the nouns coming from it, and I can't read along because the voice is usually lines ahead of the text by the end. What I want to be able to do is listen/read/continue running at the same time, but if I want to get the lorestone story I have to stop what I'm doing and strain my ear to pick out what Kholgardarion the Munificient, Lord Herald of the Barathian Gogdlund Wastes is up to. I can't understand those words without reading them! A minor gripe, all things considered.

    Another annoying thing is the sound of my protection shield's spheres. I have this constant shield on, the one I mentioned last time that distorts my view of landscapes and things. As you level it up, you get these 4 spheres orbiting you that damage enemies. They make a hefty noise when they hit enemies. Unfortunately, they hit everything else too, like walls, barrels, doors, and NPCs, so I CONSTANTLY hear PSSH PSSSH PPSSSH PSSSH PSSH PSHH when I'm running especially in towns or in dungeons through the narrow corridors, which is like half the time. It's gotten really irritating and I wish I could turn their sound off.

    And one more fail is the zone levels. Like I said earlier, there are 5 like megazones with about 8 subzones each. I've almost completed 2/5. I got curious today and looked up what level enemies are in these zones and how Kingdoms handles enemy/player level. Turns out there is a min/max enemy level for each little zone, and once you enter the zone at your current level, the enemy levels are locked to match if it's within the zone's range. If you're higher than the zone's range, then enemy levels is at the zone's max and if you're lower then it's at the zone's min. Makes sense. Except that I'm just now at the max for this current zone, and thus the megazone since this is the last zone in the megazone. The problem is that the next megazone is the same level at it's end. But I already out-level the first 6 zones in the next megazone, so it's going to be really easy. Of course it makes me wonder what the hell is the point if there's no challenge. Story lines, okay, but still. What should I do? Should I play just to hear all the quests? Should I make a beeline straight for the end of the megazone to catch up with my level? Why would they design the game such that if you follow the quests and just take the ride, you out-level an ENTIRE ZONE before the midway point, rendering it practically useless? By the time I get to the end of that megazone, I'll out-level its end zones too. So I'll have played the entire megazone at least a few levels higher than its intended. That seems like pretty weak design to me. So if I play 4 megazones rather than 5, the game basically shrunk 20% because they designed it such that I'd out-level an entire megazone. Why?

    I made some discoveries about the criminal acts in the game. First of all, the lockpicking skill is pointless. Lockpicking and wards range in difficulty from Very Easy to Very Hard. For lockpicking, very easy barely differs from very hard, and none of them are hard. There's like no point in even making the distinction and if you put skill points in lockpicking, they are wasted. Dispelling is another story and is challenging to pull off, which I appreciate. I understand it's really hard to do these mini-games well.

    Secondly, I still don't understand why NPCs sit and watch you pick their locks without saying anything, but then get pissed and call the guards if you take what's in the unlocked container, unless you sit there for a minute in which case they seem to forget about you and you can steal. I have two stories about crimes.

    The Mayor
    I waltzed into the mayor's home unannounced, and was pleased to note my intrusion was not unwelcome. He and his swarthy guard were in the main room, the mayor rocking in a chair by a fire in the hearth. My Detect Hidden skill alerted me to a hidden room behind the fireplace. After making friendly conversation with the two men, I walked to this hidden door and opened it. Neither man said a word to me about opening this secret room. I spotted a large treasure chest inside and resolved to steal its contents from the mayor. But how?! Surely the mayor and his guard would be watching my every move like a hungry hawk. I walked into a corner of the secret room. The stealth detection indicators appeared over the two men's heads, and I remained crouched until the indicators went blank, signaling high time to get my theft on. I cleaned out that hidden room from floor to ceiling and strolled out, greeted only with a 'hello' from the guard and an unsolicited string of complaints about local ruffians from the mayor. I turned right toward the hallway and walked to a locked door, which also was in plain line of sight to the guard and the mayor. Do you know what I did next? Yes, I removed my trusty stack of 89 lockpicks and picked that Very Hard lock. That door led to the mayor's secret villa! He must have secretly wanted me to explore (and steal from) it because once again neither he nor his guard remarked about my behavior. And I lived rich and happily ever after. The end.

    It was soon after this that I became bolder with my thievery since I was officially a millionaire in Amalur. The fine for stealing or pickpocketing being a mere $500-3000 or so, I could afford to be reckless. I began simply stealing quest items in open sight and pickpocketing NPCs from the front rather than the rear. I was still a millionaire, and better yet, the NPCs I'd wronged forgave my transgressions. Apparently the phrase 'criminal record' does not exist in Amalur.

    The Armory
    This afternoon while exploring the beautiful gnomish city of Adessa, the most fleshed out city in Amalur so far, I stumbled upon the armory. Imagine my surprise when, after traveling for 40 hours within Amalur, I was met with my very first 'Do Not Enter' sign. Finally, a place it was against the rules to enter, the equivalent of a lock that I wasn't allowed to pick! Of course I hastily entered the building, with no more than a 'what are you doing?!' from the guard outside. Inside, however, the peace was short-lived. Three gnome soldiers, Praetorians, kept watch over the armory. They verbally reminded me of my trespassing, but appeared willing to leave me alone had I not stolen from a chest. Well, that woke up every guard in the city. These gnomes must have developed walklie talkies to call for backup because once I dispatched the three initial Praetorians, another pair immediately rushed inside. Once I finished them, another pair, and another, and another, presumably forever. Since I cannot loot and fight at the same time, I had to save my nimble fingers for the small window of time between when one pair of guards died and the next pair attacked me. This way, I was able to loot the entire armory and dispatch 30 or so gnome fighters before fleeing the premises. Outside the armory, things were no better. It seems the entire city had turned against me! Every NPC swung her sword or cowered in fear. The UI constantly kept me updated of my crimes: "Crime Committed: Theft!" "Crime Committed: Assault!" "Crime Committed: Murder!" I thought I may be safe once outside the city walls, that if I left and returned, they would forget my crimes. So I left and traveled quickly to Sun Camp to fence my stolen goods. It turned out all the effort was for primarily weak items of little value and I escaped with no rare or set items. I wondered then, "Why was the armory so off-limits if there was nothing of value inside?" "No matter," I thought, "the most important thing now is to win back the hearts of the people in Adessa." Back I went, and I was still a villain, except this time a brave guard approached me and presented me with 3 options: Go to jail, Pay your fine ($116,000!), or Resist arrest. Although I was a millionaire, spending 10% of my net worth on fines for murdering 30 gnomes, ransacking their armory, and shoving down women and children in the streets as I madly fled did not seem the wisest choice.

    So, having never been to jail, I decided to see what it was like. It turns out jail is a simple thing. They stripped me of my possessions, yet overlooked a single lockpick. I was presented with another choice in the form of a quest. I could use my single lockpick to escape the cell and then fight my way out of the dungeon, or I could go to sleep and serve my sentence at the cost of about 5% of my current experience points. I attempted to pick the lock, but my lockpick broke, so I had to sleep off my sentence. And I woke up a free man, missing only that 5% of my current level's experience. I speculate that had I any stolen goods, the guards would have confiscated them, but luckily I had just fenced everything at Sun Camp. I had all my money, all my clothes, and 200% of my street cred, having served hard time. I only regret not getting a prison tattoo during my stay.

    So what have I learned from all this? Well, despite the still-nagging questions of "Why don't NPCs across Amalur care what I do except for looting the armory" and "Why are fines so cheap," I have learned that there is really no deterrent for bad behavior. Because there's no real penalty, and because I'm super rich (I AM the 1% yall), the entire system of crime in Kingdoms of Amalur is rendered meaningless.

    I'm still having a lot of fun though!

    Comments
    1

    My favorite moment of every RPG I've played is reaching that all-powerful god of a character. Oh how I've missed that feeling. Seems you're at that point, at least for the current area.

    I remember I got to that kind of level in Fallout 3, at which point I downloaded a mod that made all mob spawners three times faster and scaled mob numbers by three as well. Now THATS when the real fun begins! Good luck on rest of this game, if however you can get past that whole max-level-area-thing-problem-criticism-whatchamacallit

    Wednesday 8 August, 2012 by MJumbo
    2

    I like reaching the point of God-status in RPGs too, but I like feeling like I earned it, you know? Kingdoms of Amalur doesn't make you earn it. Like, I picked every lock I came across with somewhere between 0-2 lockpicking skill. Logically, my character should have a super hard time or an impossible time with Very Hard locks, but they were still easy. Same thing with stealth in that mayor story. I never put a single point into the stealth skill, yet I could easily steal and sneak unnoticed anywhere (except that armory -- still the only place in the game inexplicably off limits that anyone cares if you break in). And even by the end, like I said, I reached the max of the sorcery spells at like level 25, so from then on, I won most battles by just gathering enemies together and pushing Y to drop a giant meteor. One shot, dead, all enemies, 95% of battles. I put it on hard difficulty for a while and it was just two shots, dead, 95% of battles. So I put it back on normal. But see, I didn't earn any of that God-status!

    Monday 20 August, 2012 by dkirschner
    write a comment      back to log
     
    NEED SOMETHING HERE
    blablabla
    blablabla

     home

    games - logs - members - about - help - recent updates

    Copyright 2004-2014