Review Our Wizardry 8 review

[Ellester]

I love Wiz8, I still have a saved game right now, that I get to every so often.

 

[Jasede]

*snip*

You made me chortle.
No, really. Hybrid classes worthless? Come one, man. It's true that fighters are great at the beginning and mid-game, but they still lack the sheer power of hybrid classes, when used correctly. A well-developed Samurai can use weapons and throw fireballs left and right!

Did you play 6 and 7? I can't imagine you played through six or seven with a group consisting of mostly fighters! You need so many skills in 7 to do jack...

Oh, and just for your interest: My party for 6, 7 and 8 [all played on "expert/hard"]:

Sam/Mon/Nin/Val/Ran/Bis.

Now, I grant you this, hybrids make for a tough beginning. Try playing 7 with this party and you'll see what I mean. But once you get your, eh, first five, six levels, once magic begins to become useful, you end up with SIX powerful magic users, five of which can heal in 8, and they are still great in melee, except for the Ninja and the Bishop.

 

[FrancoTAU]

The hybrids and Gadgeters become arguably more powerful than the vanilla classes in the later stages of the game. They become pretty good spellcasters, hit more times per turn, get instakills, etc. But yeah, first time through I would recommend the more vanilla classes if you're having trouble.

 

[theverybigslayer]

I recommend the full magic party for the Wiz8 veterans:

Priest/Alchemist/Mage/Psionic/Bishop/Bishop (without NPCs)

It was a lot of fun!

 

[suibhne]

Bards are great, if you're an explorer-type who probes every nook and cranny. There are plenty of powerful bard instruments hanging around, granting high-level spell abilities to bards.

 

[Relien]

Bards are great, if you're an explorer-type who probes every nook and cranny. There are plenty of powerful bard instruments hanging around, granting high-level spell abilities to bards.

And if it's a female with two lockets of reflection, she's really powerful (stamina regeneration and stuff).

Anyway, has anyone tried solo character? I had a faerie ninja going for CoC asap (cheap, I know, but the beginning was hell), but I didn't find it as interesting as a full party. It's quite annoying that paralysis == death in many situations, but on the other hand you don't have to worry about turncoat/insanity, which is a relief.

EDIT: btw, on the Flamestryke's page - check Contests->Theme Party Contest->Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (at the bottom of the page) - THAT's roleplaying

 

[Roqua]

Wiz 8 is a great game, the best in my book in the last 10 years along with the Fallouts.

It is very difficult if you don't understand how character development/skills/stats work (which is poorly explained in the manual).

The biggest thing is that you need fighters (with the berserk attack always enabled - this doubles damage) instead of the other hybrid-melee fighter classes. The melee hybrids are pretty much worthless - they do half as much damage as fighters and you don't have enough skill and attribute points to be both an effective spellcaster and melee combatant. Bishops with 2-3 casting domains are also powerhouses when compared with the regular 1-domain spellcasters.

If you are having trouble with the difficulty you should google 'Flamestryke Wizardry 8' - it is a great site with walkthroughs, item lists, speel info, etc...

Sams are very powerful, and I hardly ever have my sam use spells. Another great melee class is thief. Myles can fill the role, but my thief and sam did great damage, and avoided a lot, in the later game.

This post makes me want to play again. The problem with the DS mod is you level far too quick. It is very fun, and makes the game very different, but too much gear and leveling too quick kind of unbalances the mod.

ANother thiong that got me about wiz 8 was that if you wanted lockpicking ( a general skill) you needed a thief. Why bards or engineers couldn't pick locks gets to me. I never played a ninja so i dont remember if they can or not.

 

[Psilon]

What do you mean? In vanilla W8 I almost always used a gadgeteer for lockpicking instead of a thief.

 

[Roqua]

What do you mean? In vanilla W8 I almost always used a gadgeteer for lockpicking instead of a thief.

I just reinstalled it since this thread motivated me to play agin. I was wrong, of course. I think my gripe is with that 6th slot, or how I build parties. I need my two front line guys (fight and sam). Rang (for always on search) and priest and mage. I have one slot to play around with, and I want another aoe guy. I never got past trinton with a gadgeteer in the party so I can't say for sure, but I don't think their attacks become aoe attacks. Thieves are good, and my first party had that slot as a thief, but wiz8, with the endless hordes of roaming monsters, needs more aoe people. The second time I played threw I replaced my thief with a bard, figuring i have to go back to the monestary after i have myles with the vault key. But Myles leaves your party for that one zone.

It just seems like bards should be able to pick locks, and I could have the party i want with a lockpicker in my core party if the bard could pick locks. Of course, I think a ranger is 100 needed because I always had one and in wiz7 he was my mapping guy also. Maybe I just need to replace him. Does not having the "always search" function of ranger really that bad?

I'm making a new party and I'm thinking of a monk and bard instead of a ranger and thief. But if gadgeteer becomes aoe later in the game I might go that route. And it just doesn't seem right not having a ranger. I always have a ranger. Ninja's another class I could play. I have no interest in playing a psoinic, alchemist, lord or bishop, or having more than one class.

I guess i could cheat and give the bard lockpicking with a save game editor, but that just doesn't feel right.

 

[Relien]

Does not having the "always search" function of ranger really that bad?

Not at all. The only thing that could bother you with "normal" search on is that enemies will occasionally surprise you (first round will be theirs - but usually they spend it just moving towards you). In special places, where you expect *something*, you should use detect secrets anyway.

Ninja's another class I could play.

That's quite a good class, similar to ranger (ranged criticals, alchemy). He also has lockpicking (and even pickpocketing I think).

 

[Roqua]

In the manual ninja's don't, but I have another question. Obviously the have the enemy scaling up and lvl with you system. Not only do you gain skill by placing points on level up, you gain them through use. Would it benefit me to not lvl up my characters? That way when I finally do I have much more skill for a lower level character. Does not lvling up lose skill points; lets say I stay at lvl 1, I still gain exp points towards lvl 2 in combat. But what happenes when I have enough to lvl up to 3 but am still lvl 1?

Sorry for all the questions, I have much more experience with wiz7 than 8 (and will always think wiz 7 is one of the best crpgs made, much better than 8, though 8 is also much better than most games released this milenium). I could find this out myself the old fashioned way, but would rather not waste time testing when I can have someone just tell me.

 

[Relien]

@Roqua:

You can gain as much xp as you want and you are never forced to level up, no matter how much xp you have gained. However, when you press that "+" button, you will advance to the highest level your xp can grant you. So yes, you can save every single point of xp you gain and you won't lose anything, but when you decide to advance you can't raise just to level X if you are eligible to level X+1.

Don't worry, unless you'll be grinding, you will rarely find yourself in a situation where you are eligible to e.g. +5 level advance (except maybe for the beginning when leveling goes quite quickly). That's because of the level scaling - the guys you meet at a certain level simply won't give you enoug xp. The requirements on leveling up grow fast enough, thus you always need some capable enemies who give you some serious amount of xp. I mean if you are lvl 5 and you defeat a band of suckers, you will gain enough to move significantly towards lvl 6, but not enough to make a serious progress towards higher levels. For that you would have to level up, therefore encounter tougher enemies who will give you more xp etc.

To your question - yes, you can stay at some level and just raise the skills, but remember that wizardry takes your level into account for many things - critical hits, spell and magical weapon effects (used either by you or against you), and of course with each level you gain precious hit points, stamina, mana and character attributes that lead to power skills (or what they're called) once you reach 100 in the corresponding attribute. Plus, although the game is level scaled, each area has its minimum and maximum level of enemies, so you could have a hard time in certain locations.

If you play a solo character, it's quite crucial not to level up too quickly, or you'll be dead before you'll realize it in the monastery . If you have a full party though, I wouldn't worry about leveling at all, and as soon as you'll feel comfortable in the swamp I'm sure it'll be ok till the end.

 

[Roqua]

thanks for the answers.

 

[theverybigslayer]

Anyway, has anyone tried solo character? I had a faerie ninja going for CoC asap (cheap, I know, but the beginning was hell),

Yes, I have finished the game with a solo faerie ninja. It was great! I had problem only once, at the monastery exit I met some pestilence rat and I had to run

 

[undead dolphin hacker]

I'm finding this game is quite a bitch to acquire (through any method) these days, especially with a printed manual...

 

[FrancoTAU]

Roqua, I'd actually recommend holding back leveling your guys towards the begginning of the game. Until maybe clearing out Arnika.

However, later on you'll have to level up or you'll get trashed. It's not like Oblivion where you can beat the game at Level 1. Besides going up in hit points, magic points and stamina... Leveling also affects your criticals and the amount of attacks per turn. IIRC, leveling up also increases the quality of loot sold in stores?

You'll live fine without a Ranger too.

 

[Roqua]

Too late, already lvl 9. I was actually going to do some testing but i found out something, I don't have it in me not to lvl up. I see that british cross symbol and I start a-clicking.

Thanks for the advice though. Any one here know what persists mean? A site was going over and breaking down the magic classes, and I guess priests don't have any persists. I looked through the spells in the manual to see if I could figure out what they are talking about, but couldn't.

 

[BeholderX]

Ahh, playing Wizardry 8 for the first time back in '02 was probably the best RPG experience I've had since Planescape:Torment. I spent hours just reading the manual

Too bad I always got frustrated with the roads around Arnika in subsequent playthroughs. There is such a thing as too much combat, particularly if you don't have any cool stuff to use yet

Maybe I'll try the no-leveling trick once I have the time to commit to an RPG again, because the atmosphere and setting were really top notch. Oblivion had absolutely nothing on it.