Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Grauken]

As far as I understand it Wizardry is a rights clusterfuck, and if the current Japanese rights holders would try to make a sequel and sell it in the US, their rights would be hotly contested. That said nobody would contest them in Japan and maybe outside of the US, but again not a proper analysis, just my understanding of the situation

 

[Eggs is eggs]

Wizardry isn't a series anymore, it's just a license. In what way are the recent Wizardry games in any relation to the originals other than they use a similar system and have the legal rights to use the name "Wizardry" and the logo?

I guess it's a bit of a "ship of Theseus" situation but hoping for a true Wizardry 9 or more "official" Wizardry games seems misplaced.

 

[Serus]

Having a blast with Wizardry 6 these days, I can't say I like it more than the early titles but it is an impressive game and I love the writing. However the terrible stat increases are killing my multiclassing plans. Rolled a faerie bard with the intention to make it a ninja eventually... But STR remains at 3 after reaching level 7, so I don't think it'll ever happen. I refuse to save and reload on levelups. Maybe in W7 I'll be more lucky

Ouch, did you take first roll on all your characters too? Leaving a character with 3 STR at creation is brutal for a number of reasons. The poor girl is probably has her CC in the red just from carrying the lute around

Faerie bard is especially terrible since you don't even get the Lute.

You get the lute and can use it.

Wasn't that the case in W7 where a faerie doesn't start with the instrument - making a starting faerie bard mostly pointless since it's the main reason to take a bard at start.

 

[DavidBVal]

Also this sort of autism is better saved for Wiz7.

Too late... But worry not, I have enough for 7, 8 and grimwah if need be.

I am currently at the Isle of the Damned, with those fountains it takes very little time to do the grinding required for fast multiclassing. Enemies are conveniently killed by Astral Gate and give around 4k xp per encounter.

My faerie bard is now a level 10 priest and just needs one more level to switch to ninja.

My Human Valkyrie spent a few levels as Monk, then returned to valkyrie but with kirijutsu, lots of spells and skills.

My Dwarf Ninja spent 6 levels as Bard until he met the Lord requirements. I am not particularly happy with this one, spellcasting is a bit weak...

Elf Priestess switched to mage for a while, then to bard and is now my main spellcaster.

Mook Mage switched to Ranger.

Samurai Felpurr hasn't switched yet, I'll probably leave him as is.

 

[gman42]

Wizardry isn't a series anymore, it's just a license. In what way are the recent Wizardry games in any relation to the originals other than they use a similar system and have the legal rights to use the name "Wizardry" and the logo?

I guess it's a bit of a "ship of Theseus" situation but hoping for a true Wizardry 9 or more "official" Wizardry games seems misplaced.

My thoughts exactly. I mean unless one really really likes the continuity of the system itself (which would still undoubtedly undergo another yet overhaul of spells and tweaking/renaming of skills and combat structure, etc.) there's not much difference between playing a Wiz9 and just enjoying Elminage and some of the other "reasonable facsimiles" of Wizardry that are out there.

To top it off, Wiz8 tied up the trilogy in a nice bow so there'd be no continuity to a previous story (what would it be, "Your characters got sick of being gods so they used the forge to write in that they would crash back to Earth as mortals and start killing slimes with crappy weapons again?"), and offering any option to import a savegame from a 2001 game would be very very silly, I think all the people who would actually have one handy are on this forum, pretty much.

Other than the ability to have a few easter-eggy things like some old familiar items or a "Trebor sux" on a wall somewhere, there's not a lot of value to be added by using the Wizardry license. (And putting in too many dumb callbacks just for their own sake can be detrimental anyway; Star Wars says hi.)

 

[DavidBVal]

How do you remove a Silenced effect?

 

[gman42]

How do you remove a Silenced effect?

Cure lesser condition doesn't do it, so basically...you're screwed until the encounter is over.

 

[No Great Name]

Had a very busy week so I didn't have time to play more Wizardry I until today.

I made a new team to replace the previous party that got wiped last time I played and decided to play things safer by getting them to level 2 or 3 until venturing further into the floor. Things were going pretty good until I found a fake wall that wrapped around on the map. I wasn't expecting the map to be able to wrap around like that since I thought it would have hard boundaries like in Might and Magic 1. This one-way hallway then led to a teleporter which teleported me to the lower right quadrant of the map (I didn't realize it was a teleporter at first and was very confused for a bit). It took me to this small room with a ton of doors with a bunch of one-way doors, some statues that are haunted by Murphy's ghost, and another hallway that led to an area of darkness of some sort where I couldn't see more than 1 square in front of me. At this point, my spellcasters were depleted, health was low, and I got lost inside that area of darkness and started running around like a headless chicken. Eventually I found a room with 4 buttons labeled A through D and figured why not mess with it. All I wanted at this point was to find a way back out so I thought maybe the buttons would teleport me back to a known area. Well, it didn't. I took one step forward and got ambushed by a group of ninjas who promptly wiped out my party in 2 turns (I later learned that the button took me to the 3rd floor).

I sent in a backup team to go rescue the first one while also continuing to map out the rest of the first floor, leaving the area of darkness for last. I later discovered that the area of darkness also had a wrap around effect on the map which helped explain why I got lost at first. I also had some pretty bad luck with level ups when it came to stat changes, especially with my fighter who's stats all dropped except for Piety for some reason. Oh well. Next time, I'm going to try and get my party to around level 7 or 8 before continuing to the next floor just to be safe.

 

[octavius]

You're not playing it the best way.
You don't need to be lvl 7-8 to continue to the next floor. What you need is to return to base when your magic is about halfway depleted, and you need to map carefully. Do any Dark zones on a level last, so you know beforehand roughly how big it is.
There's a spell (lvl 1, I think) that will help you get your bearings if lost.
Make sure your spell casters have high Wisdom/IQ so that they get all spells as soon as possible. The ability to Cure Paralyze will be important, for example.

Wiz 1 can be played Ironman if you play cautiously, with no need for grinding.

 

[No Great Name]

You're not playing it the best way.
You don't need to be lvl 7-8 to continue to the next floor. What you need is to return to base when your magic is about halfway depleted, and you need to map carefully. Do any Dark zones on a level last, so you know beforehand roughly how big it is.
There's a spell (lvl 1, I think) that will help you get your bearings if lost.
Make sure your spell casters have high Wisdom/IQ so that they get all spells as soon as possible. The ability to Cure Paralyze will be important, for example.

Wiz 1 can be played Ironman if you play cautiously, with no need for grinding.

Thinking about it, lv 7 or 8 is probably a bit high but I guess it would depend on what kind of HP rolls I get on level up.

The issue I ran into was when I stumbled into the teleporter, which took me to the lower right quadrant of the map, my party was already in top shape. Now that I've mapped it all out it's easier to see what the path was, but the only way out from that section of the map is to go through the dark zones. By the time I exhausted all other options and had no choice but to venture inside the dark zones, my spellcasters were already running a bit low on spell points (they were only level 2 at this point). I was able to cast Dumapic while in the dark zone a couple times, but I eventually ran out of spell charges and got lost. I started getting desperate since I couldn't heal anymore either which is why I fiddled with the buttons when I stumbled upon it. Since I didn't have any Dumapic charges left, I had no idea that I was on the 3rd floor until it was too late.

 

[DavidBVal]

That feeling of claustrophobia and that your whole party will be lost in the dungeon and die in a dark corner is the forte of early Wizardry games; I am enjoying 6 a lot but it's a savescumm fest and you never feel the danger like in the older games. That's why 5 is my favorite of the series, even if they're quite different games that excel in different things.

 

[Jabber]

Fwiw, wiz 6 is not that difficult to do without any party wipes / reloads and you may appreciate it more that way... You'll at least be feeling the danger more...

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry III

Are you fucking kidding me? A fixed fight against two enemies who can cast TILTOWAIT not even halfway through the game? No warning whatsoever, it just comes down to pure luck if your sub 100 HP characters (i.e. all of them if you haven't been mindlessly grinding levels) are all wiped out in an instant (if you're lucky, they'll instead cast some other spell and ONLY kill everyone but your fighters).

This game is quite a decline from Wiz 1, which generally felt pretty fair in contrast. It's also a pain in the ass just to get back to where you were, since there's no elevator or anything, outside of a shortcut from level 1 to 4 that relies on winning a random (though common) item from random battles. Unlike Wiz 1 dungeon levels, which typically had hallways you can use to avoid most of the random/fixed encounter rooms, Wiz 3 constantly forces you though sections of as many as 10 encounter rooms just to continue making progress.

[Edit] Well, you can put that fixed encounter aside and continue to explore... until you then hit a different fixed encounter of spellcasting undead who can summon reinforcements, together with level draining undead.

I've pretty much reached the breaking point on this one. Having to run through a dozen encounter rooms just to try yet again at a fixed encounter between you and the next section of the dungeon only to get level drained/tiltowaited to death is just retarded. It all depends on a roll of the die if you can make progress at this point.

The only strategy here is to either grind levels to survive a round of TILTOWAITs (is that even possible?) or keep restoring your disk and throwing yourself at the encounter (which takes a good 5-10 min to get to, thanks to all the encounter rooms you have to run through) until you get lucky and bash the door down while the monsters are in the middle of jerking off.

 

[No Great Name]

In tonight's Wizardry I session, I've mapped out the entirety of Floor 2. It wasn't too bad now that I'm being more mindful about not overextending the resources I have. There were some moments where the first group of enemies I ran into would immediately paralyze my party members (fucking gas clouds) and I also ran into a group of Highwaymen right outside the stairs to the first floor that decapitated 4 of my party members, but was otherwise fairly uneventful. I've been finding a bunch of animal statues and keys on both floors, but I have no idea what they are used for at this point. I've just been tossing them to my mage since he barely carries anything anyways. At this point, my party is around level 5 and 6 so I'll be venturing into the 3rd floor next time.

 

[octavius]

Wizardry III

Are you fucking kidding me? A fixed fight against two enemies who can cast TILTOWAIT not even halfway through the game?

Which enemies are that?

Oh, and just wait till you meet the Priests of Fung...

But yes, Wiz 3 definitely has some balancing issues.

 

[newtmonkey]

octavius

That's PO'LE

I did finally defeat that Fiend/Ghost encounter.

 

[DavidBVal]

About wizardry 6 "secret ending" & Diamond Ring. Is there a way to guess this without reading a walkthrough/guide? You have to say "I love you" to Rebecca in the end, when she asks you a clear yes/no question... sounds pretty arbitrary.

 

[gman42]

Definitely no real hints to it earlier in the game or anything. Since some people like to try typing anything and everything into dialogs to see what happens, it wouldn't surprise me if this got discovered casually before a walkthrough. Probably even more likely if it just responds to the single keyword "love" and not the whole phrase.

As far as that whole ending in general, I suppose the idea is that one would have to determine that what the Queen's ghost is telling you is kind of fishy and you don't trust her, and might lead you to try dropping the cross. Once you do see that it's the single solitary "droppable" quest item, that should set off alarm bells in your head.

 

[DavidBVal]

Definitely no real hints to it earlier in the game or anything. Since some people like to try typing anything and everything into dialogs to see what happens, it wouldn't surprise me if this got discovered casually before a walkthrough.

If this was not leaked by playtesters, I'm pretty sure it'd be discovered faster by people looking into the game files than by just random typing.

Reminds me of the "mystic clue" at the end of Pools of Darkness.

but TBH, it is a completely bonus and non-mandatory ending that grants you a rather powerful item that, from what I see, will be very helpful in the beginning of 7. It's OK if it's almost impossible to get.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I tend to think of the early Wizardry games not as RPGs but as mapping puzzles with combat.

 

[DavidBVal]

Alrighty, I started Wiz 7 at Ukpyr and love the idea of starting at a mid-level area as a trade-off for the gear you start with. Some encounters are maneagable, others are impossible, which I find very fun. It seems I have two options to go to New City: A) a long walk involving being killed by those damn Komodo lizards on the road, and a lot of reloading, or B) a teleporter that only gets unlocked when I have 8K gold. The problem I have with the latter is I can't find a trader to sell stuff, I got some Resurrection potions that would do the trick for me. So I have to take the former, or do a huge grind?

 

[Jason Liang]

Alrighty, I started Wiz 7 at Ukpyr and love the idea of starting at a mid-level area as a trade-off for the gear you start with. Some encounters are maneagable, others are impossible, which I find very fun. It seems I have two options to go to New City: A) a long walk involving being killed by those damn Komodo lizards on the road, and a lot of reloading, or B) a teleporter that only gets unlocked when I have 8K gold. The problem I have with the latter is I can't find a trader to sell stuff, I got some Resurrection potions that would do the trick for me. So I have to take the former, or do a huge grind?

There's no rush to get to New City.

 

[DavidBVal]

Nevermind, somehow one of my goons had 10K gold while the rest had around 150, I am not sure when/how she got it. The access to teleporter worked great.

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry III
Finally beat the PO'LE encounter. The first two times was a total party wipe in round 1 or 2. (Yes, I am backing up my save disk).
Third attempt I managed to either silence or put them to sleep each round and ended up taking them out without even taking a single point of damage in round 3 or so. It's a total crapshoot, if the game wants to be mean it can literally wipe you out in round 1.

With that out of the way, I can finally start making some more progress.

 

[gman42]

If you like TPW frustration, just wait until Wiz IV when your "total party" consists of one weak-ass mage who can still get taken out with a Makanito spell.