KoA: Reckoning - Was the Opening Wrong?

VG247 has penned an editorial titled Getting on the Wrong Foot: Reckoning's Dire Opening. The author seems to think that people will no continue playing this game because ofhow the game begins - a relevant quote:

At the very beginning of the game, you’re given a very small number of abilities, which gives you a chance to learn the basics of blocking and dodging, melee and ranged, and decide which options work best for you. This is important, as the number of choices form here on in are staggering, but again, it’s not representative of the mid or end-game – or even a few hours down the track – to the game’s detriment. 38 Studios wants you to learn through playing what weapons and skills suit you, rather than pick from pre-determined classes, but the end result is that every weapon and skill initially feels largely the same. At this point it’s ridiculously easy to waste your skill points on completely unsuitable lines of progression, and the existence of Fateweavers, which allow complete respecs (for a fee which rapidly becomes unaffordable once your past a point at which you really should know better) suggests the developer was aware of this problem.

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More information.

KoA sucks, nuff said.

meinklang said:

KoA sucks, nuff said.

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Have you played the game (and not only the demo)? From my experience the weapons don't feel all the same not even in the first dungeon, slower and faster weapons matter, bows are not that good in my opinion. Magic is definitely different from melee and so on. The fact that there are fateweavers is just a nice take and way of getting people the opportunity to respec rather than do the all the same quests again. But I guess there are many people like me who rather live with the choices made rather than respeccing!

The opening of/in the demo actually reminded me a bit of … Let's say Divinity 1, for example.

You are thrown into the action - and meanwhile there is some sort of "actiony combat", you are taught everything …

Personally , I don't like it that way. I prefer a slow beginning with real trainers and teachers at the beginning.

But I guess that this might be a matter of taste, too. Others, who love action-oriented combat might also love this … this … "tutorial" …

Edit : This makes me think and feel that this game was tailored very much towards being an action game … I tend to see it as an Action-RPG now …

The opening was pretty much the only thing I liked.

I'm enjoying Reckoning, but the biggest weakness is the limited inventory. I don't leave loot behind but I sometimes have to leave in the middle of a dungeon to make a loot run. The opening was fine. It showed all the basics nicely.

I think the opening was fine.

It's the world-design and how the lore fails to complement exploration that's the biggest issue for me.

From my point of view, the opening was too long, unskipable mandatory tutorial. I don't like those.

Daddy32 said:

From my point of view, the opening was too long, unskipable mandatory tutorial. I don't like those.

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once youve done it, the game offers you to skip, when starting another char

Oh, that's better then.

I don't think KoA's opening is bad. It isn't great or original, but it's not terrible either. A lot of RPGs that I consider good have what I'd consider 'ho-hum' beginnings.

Divine Divinity starts you out early in a gigantic underground dungeon. I was more excited to see the outside world and all I remember thinking was, 'my god when is this dungeon going to end so I can get outside.' Would have been better to have that dungeon a little bit later in the game imho.

Oblivion too starts you out 'underground' and unless you know in advance to create a 'save' just before you exit, you are doomed to repeat that opening sequence if you create another character - something KoA addresses by offering you the opportunity to skip the starting dungeon after you have completed it once.

TheMadGamer said:

Divine Divinity starts you out early in a gigantic underground dungeon. I was more excited to see the outside world and all I remember thinking was, 'my god when is this dungeon going to end so I can get outside.' Would have been better to have that dungeon a little bit later in the game imho.

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Not strictly true really, considering you actually start the game in Aleroth. You don't have to do all of the dungeon immediately and can explore the overland as well to break up the sprawling crawl that is the Catacombs. To be honest, I quite liked that dungeon.

Chalk me up as one that thought the opening was okay. KoA is not the sort of RPG I like best, and the opening wasn't enough to convince me to rush out and buy it immediately, but it was enough to make me want to try the full game (at least, one day…). In terms of that, it was as successful as most.

I'll wait for a "special", methinks. (Especially with the couple of comments here saying the main game is not as good as the opening…)

best game of its kind, which there aren't many. far better than divinity 2 and blows away any of the other action non-party 3rd person action rpgs. sacred 2, loki, that cell-shaded crap one and expansion. come on haters, you may not like this genre but with diablo 3 nowhere in sight you can complain all you want but it won't bring you a better game than this. hell its different but even better than dragon age 2 which tried to push its combat to this level and failed. the quests may be pretty weak and the writing is far from award winning but the level of production values is stunning and the level design definately makes it feel more like a full open world rpg like skyrim, or gothic/risen.

Better than "sacred 2, loki, that cell-shaded crap one and expansion" (Silverfall?)
"even better than dragon age 2"

Not much of an endorsement

"far better than divinity 2"

Now that's more like it. Though... far better than? I'm hoping it's good but that seems unlikely.

I don't think the opening was so bad, even though it was a Torment ripoff.

But the combat and world-design left me, meh....

Just in case there's anybody on the fence about buying this, here's my advice as somebody who was a pre-release fanboy, and pre-ordered the $80 Special Edition plus shelled another $15 for launch day delivery:

Wait for a patch to fix balancing/difficulty. Or two. Maybe even wait until folks figure out how to mod the game.

The game has a lot of promise, and lots to do, but the balance is broken. And I mean, it's completely busted. Blacksmithing, loot drops, armor effectiveness, alchemy, abilities, level-scaling, you name it, it's broken balance-wise. As an open story-based action game, it's pretty good, but the RPG systems are a mess.

You get so overpowered so quickly that it just doesn't matter what level you are or what loot you find. I recently unlocked the top-tier Sorcery ability "Meteor", and it's basically an "I win" button that one-shots an entire room (I'm playing on Hard, btw).

Right now, to make the game somewhat enjoyable, I am doing all of the following:

* Stay away from blacksmithing
* Stay away from heavy armor and stick to Mage robes (good armor can make you invincible)
* Restrict potion usage.
* Avoid using top-tier AoE spells.
* Save and re-load prior to boss fights to try and get a decent loot drop (nothing like fighting a boss at the end of a faction line and getting a potion and an alchemy component).
* Don't go NEAR a new area until I'm ready to explore it fully, to keep it from getting level-locked at a low level.

I know that all open-world games like this can suffer from some balance issues, but this is really ridiculous.

They are promising a patch to address the difficulty, and if they do so in a reasonable way I would whole-heartedly recommend this title. I'm enjoying the world, and really like some of the later environments. But there's so much to fix, I'm pessimistic they'll get everything right in the first go-round. I am also now in strict wait-and-see mode when it comes to this development studio. I honestly can't understand how anybody could release a game in this state. In particular, I am starting to gain a rather negative view of Ken Ralston. He's been heavily involved in 3 RPG projects now, and if you look at the negative trend from Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Reckoning, I am quickly starting to get the impression that what he looks for in an RPG is simply not what I or many others look for.

Considering the many improvements that Skyrim made over Oblivion, part of me wonders if Bethesda benefitted from addition by subtraction....

It's obviously subjective but Divinity 2 is far better for me (based on limited play - I pre-ordered Reckoning but didn't get too far before going back to my backlog [not that it's bad but it didn't grab me more than other games I had waiting]).

I'd accept the combat is quite a lot better than D2 but, on the other hand, I really enjoyed the world and quests in D2 much more. The verticality in D2 has quite a bit of fun, as well.

Outside of Skyrim, I can't think of a game that has better verticality than D2 D2 has even more verticality, but Skyrim's is prettier!

Here's the thing: I agree with almost everything Fantasm says, yet I still like the game. There's something addictive about it, but balancing is almost non-existent and, since the publisher is EA, the chances of them funding patches is probably about the same. I'd guess that those waiting for patches will have a very long wait.

What about the Gothic games?