I'm a sucker for loot-em-ups and fantasy RPGs, so i'm looking to make KofA my next purchase despite some of the criticisms I've heard. If the game has good combat, lots of quests and the constant carrot of acquiring better loot, I'm in. In those parameters, what's the best way to enjoy the experience? How do I ensure I'm not over-leveled too early? What about crafting? (From what I've read you can "out-craft" all the good loot pretty quickly). Are sidequests as dull and repetitive as I've read and is it best to just stick w/ the main quest and some of the larger sidequest stuff? Impart your wisdom, GB community!

Not possible. SPOILERS

Yeah, just do the main quests, dont craft and maybe you´ll be lucky enough not to get a random drop that obliterates every other drop for the next 15 levels. What you can also try is mix things up: play different builds, which will force you to get new loot for your new skills. It´s a good game, just not great.

Just do the mainquest and start new characters if you want to do the guild stuff. Don´t grind a lot and maybe up the difficulty a bit.. the game is not that hard, since skill can really help you win those battles even at low levels.

Don´t expect this to be an Elder Scrolls like "go anywhere" kind of game. I thought the exploration and the random dungeons were pretty weak. The game opens up a bit once you leave the forest, but it´s still not open world. So as long as you stick to the mainquest (which is pretty cool) you should be able to avoid overleveling by accident. Crafting is always a recipe for being overpowered, but I haven´t tried it in KoA so far.

Edit: "skill" means your skill at gaming

Break the disc into as many pieces as possible. Count them. Note down your high score and compare it with friends around the world at "ISmashedAmalur.com".

This is the only way.

Hard to tell but if you do most of the side quests & deal with crafting you will over level quite easily. Might I recommend Two Worlds2 instead as it's quite rpg & lots there in the game plus people might have more fun playing it over KoA (finished both & thought that the last 1/3 of KoA was just not memorable).

Play on hard. It will give you some challenge. Don't hesitate to totally respec your character as you are going through the game to get some pretty unique play styles when you feel like mixing things up.

Also, don't listen to these assholes. It is a really fun game.

Avoid sidequests as a whole or just the fetch-quest crap that I understand is prevalent? I understand that the guild quests are pretty good.

By doing all the side quests I came across, I practically maxed out my ability tree even though I had only explored half the map. It's one thing to have an overpowered character, but it's much worse to have a character you can no longer even develop. So either don't do any side quests, or do some side quests and go with a hybrid character (more room to grow).

Stick to the main quests and the quests labelled as "faction" quests. You will be very quickly over-levelled if you do even a fraction of the side stuff, transforming the game into a soul-crushing grind. Even the side quests themselves are some of the worst I have ever seen in a singleplayer RPG. Trust me, I did all the side stuff and uninstalled it just halfway through the main questline, because I simply couldn't take it anymore. It's very easy to ruin the game for yourself.

@S0ndor: Pretty lame that you need to gimp yourself to best enjoy the game. I love doing sidequests and exploring random caves so hearing this is a disappointment. I'm going to roll a mage/rogue type character starting out just so it takes longer for me to develop.

• play on hard
• don't play as a pure warrior or pure mage or it will still be too easy, warrior gets uninteruptible attacks making dodging/blocking/timing pointless, mage will start to 1-2 shot everything with AoE spells at some point
  
• don't do smithing or jewelcrafting, either will make all loot obsolete and you overpowered
• only do the main quest and maybe faction quests
• no secondary quests period
• do not go in expecting any real depth of story/dialogue like a more traditional RPG, don't excpect the level of loot lust or customisation of a Diablo like game
• listen to the bombcasts as soon as you start getting bored
• play throught the free DLC arena if you want any semblance of a combat challange (but only if steps 1-3 are followed)

I just set it to hard and did what I wanted to do from there. Is it pretty easy to over level? Sure. Was my mage destroying everything in sight in about 1 second? Yup. Did I still enjoy the game and have fun doing the side missions and stuff? Sure did. The main thing I would say to avoid is those repeatable missions. I think they called them "tasks." You don't really need to avoid doing them, but don't go out of your way to try and complete them.

As for the regular side quests, I would just say to do ones that sound interesting to you and just ignore the rest. Or, you could just play the main stuff, and after you beat the game go back and do some of the side stuff if you feel like it. I can understand why people can get bored with it and upset at the lack of any real challenge. But, I guess it just doesn't matter as much to me.

@stryker1121: The game drove me to boredom with too much content. Man, talk about first world problems. Skip all the dumb-ass quests you don't want to do. Maybe you'll last longer than me.

Honest opinion. I tried to give the game a good shot to start being fun for me and it never happened. It just felt like the definition of tedium and mediocrity.

this is clearly a matter of personal taste, so i can't see how any advice here is going to be of great use to you. i found it highly enjoyable from the start - unlike most who are posting here (including a couple of holier-than-thou assholes like that giant peach guy) - and i went on every side quest i could find. i level maxed well before the end, which i found slightly disappointing, but still had about 75 hours of fun (including the Dead Kel DLC) with the game and plan to get the 2nd DLC as soon as it comes out. i enjoyed the ride, quite frankly, difficult or not. either you will like the experience of the game world or you won't. i can't see trying to tailor your gameplay before even stepping into that world. adjust difficulty and/or amount of side quests you pursue as you go along would be my suggestion. take it for what it's worth.

it's pretty much not possible to not be overleveled.

i played on hard difficulty and stopped doing any sidequests half way through and i was at the level cap LONG before the ending. died twice the whole game.

Based on your initial post tc, play Amalur for sure.

If you get bored skip odd sides and play the faction and main story only, and/or switch to hard.

What is so fun about the game besides the combat which is awesome, is the mix and match abilities you can spec between the three roles. They play very differently, and they all have cool special moves/powers. And you can respect anytime w/a fateweaver.

If you do everything, it does get grindy, but it is still a hell of a first game imo. And I liked the story, lore, and the main questline a lot.

How to not get bored: Do not be a completionist

I've been playing the game while listening to podcasts. Most of the side quests are easy enough to get this do that, so there isn't any big reason to listen to all the dialog. So I cruise around killing dudes looking at my map figure out what is close by or quickly reading the quest from the log. I've found the game fun but not too exciting from a story point of view.

I did everything in the game (I think). What I did was stick to the main quest and did one faction quest until I reached the 4th region. At that point I did the other faction quests then moved on to the sidequests just to gain more levels. Don't do the sidequests first as it will be an unnecessary grind. Stick to the main quest first as you'll have a much better time with the game.

I'm 70+ hrs and 100 quests in in and my best advice is try different character combinations and weapons to keep things fresh.

@stryker1121: its a great game just make sure you create a character with a variety of skill types or it might seem bland give the game a chance and youll like it i

Its a fun game despite being ridicolously easy on the hardest difficulty setting, and it provides a lot of content.

@stryker1121: 

• play on hard
• don't play as a pure warrior or pure mage or it will still be too easy, warrior gets uninteruptible attacks making dodging/blocking/timing pointless, mage will start to 1-2 shot everything with AoE spells at some point
  
• don't do smithing or jewelcrafting, either will make all loot obsolete and you overpowered
• only do the main quest and maybe faction quests
• no secondary quests period
• do not go in expecting any real depth of story/dialogue like a more traditional RPG, don't excpect the level of loot lust or customisation of a Diablo like game
• listen to the bombcasts as soon as you start getting bored
• play throught the free DLC arena if you want any semblance of a combat challange (but only if steps 1-3 are followed)

Glad I read through this. Just started the game and was starting to feel the grind with the billions of quests I had piling up, given my usual plan is to work my way from side stuff up to main stuff to get through it all. Main and faction seems like it'll be enough - trying to finish the sidequests even in the first area was overwhelming at times, especially as they started linking to other areas. Exploring was great, but the questing back and forth is a drag.

I do wish they did more with the combat though. The combat itself is awesome, the variety in weapons/skills/playstyles is great, but so far even mixing things up the game hasn't come close to being challenging in my 6+ hours played. While it's fun to roll around shooting off spells and arrows and slicing guys up, it's really easy cheese guys or avoid even getting hit in most circumstances. Maybe that will change if I avoid side stuff more.

The problem isn't that it gets bad, it is just a lot more shallow than would be necessary to keep things interesting for so many hours in the combat department, and the story and characters don't pick up the slack. Deathpooky has the right idea, quit doing the side stuff. You can always go back once you have beaten the final boss and do them, enemies scale at lest a little bit. I would recommend dropping a lot of the faction stuff, too. Especially the mage one. There is a lot of back and forth in them.