Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is nearing completion, and for those of us who want a fantasy game that doesn’t require a trillion clicks to complete, or will crush your soul with ludicrous amounts of difficulty, it looks quite tempting.
Of course, we’d still like a challenge when playing, but not one that revolves around us getting our asses kicked, then going off to the local grinding gym to come back with a +20 in attitude and over-powered skills. We want something more organic, more constant, and that’s exactly what the developers behind KOA:R have been working on.
Speaking to Average Gamer, Systems Designer Will Miller explained how KOA:R made use of a scaling difficulty system, which barred certain loot and equipment from being used, otherwise the game would be too easy.
Each region in the world of KOA:R will have certain difficulty levels, with highs and lows, but its the range of difficulty within each region that stands out, with variable encounters using a wide variety of challenging options within themselves.
“When the player first enters one of those regions, we clamp all of the region’s NPCs to the level of the player, provided he’s within the range”, Miller explained.
“So if you’re a level 20 character and you go to a level five to ten area, we clamp it at ten. And if you’re too low, we clamp at the low value. So if you’re one of the players who tries to run way ahead of the game trying to get the ‘sweet loots’ further away from where you’re supposed to be, you’ll quickly run into regions that clamp at much higher levels than you are”.
“Enemies don’t level with you always – when you encounter them the first time, that’s the level they’re gonna be at for the rest of the game but we intelligently decide what that level is”.
So, while you won’t have to worry about running into a level 245 Chaos World-Smasher, just as you’ve finally hit level 2 and mastered the skill of a dignified death, at least the game will be anything but predictably easy.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning launches next year in February, across all major platforms.
Last Updated: October 24, 2011
