Wizardry How to best enjoy Wizardry 7?

[Casual Hero]

Not sure if someone else mentioned it already, but make sure you turn off the sound and music in the actual game settings! This will get rid of that 5 seconds pause before and after combat, and generally speeds up the game by a lot!

 

[Daemongar]

Not sure if someone else mentioned it already, but make sure you turn off the sound and music in the actual game settings! This will get rid of that 5 seconds pause before and after combat, and generally speeds up the game by a lot!

Lets see - save 5 seconds every combat (so for an average play-through, save about 16 hours) or miss the sweet sound of phoots, munk, and the forest? I'll pass!

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress report:

- Finally managed to break into the bank in New City. Poison dagger is a perfect secondary weapon for my Lord.
- I charged head first to the Dark Savant prison. Summoned an Acid Dragon that made the fight a lot easier. I was a bit puzzled by the prison door having a color code. I tried inserting the black keycard, but it didn't work. Where the heck do I find out the correct color sequence? I tried looking at the black keycard - maybe the sprite had some colors in it. Nothing. After scratching my head for awhile I watched a bit of a playthrough video to get a hint of how to progress. I heard a mention that the black keycard had the solution after all. After assaying the card again I realized the letters written on the keycard were not a personnel ID but rather told the color sequence needed. So I didn't come up with the answer entirely on my own, but still managed to figure out how to interpret the black keycard code.
- I freed the Gorn Officer and Tulsi stole his fancy leather armor as payment for his release. As I suspected, he gave us a reason to travel to the Gorn Empire.
- It turns out the Gorn are a peace-loving race of jocks who have been forced to steroid abuse due to being bullied by their devious neighbors: the Nerds and the Jehovah's Witnesses.
- Visited Paluke's and he had some new armor for sale. The party gave some money to Tulsi to buy the items, but she chose to steal all the equipment instead. The other party members are of course completely oblivious that she kept the money to herself instead of using it to buy the equipment. I try to keep the money she has stolen on her person for roleplaying purpose. Maybe she'll buy herself a nice dress or a fancy necklace one day.

- I have a suspicion that something's up. What is this other group of strangers that first stole the Rattkin Librarian's blueprints and also threw the Gorn Officer to prison? These "strangers" and "assassins" might of course be unrelated, but it sounds like there might be another horse in the race. My initial suspicion: the Higardi have returned. Or they might be Dark Savant's servants. Time will tell.

Next stop: The Orkogre Fortress

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress report 2:

- After taking a slight detour and wandering into the T'Rang settlement further North, I backtracked and finally found the entrance to the Gorn Fortress.
- I really liked this dungeon. Finding the Gorn King actually required finding a secret door. I like when games do that.
- Gave the bananas to the monkey, as someone suggested. It ran off. I'm not actually sure what releasing the monkey accomplished. Maybe pressing the button in it's cage allowed me to open the throne room door.
- The King was not quite what I was expecting. A Warrior Poet. The way he described the decline of his race amidst the changing world was quite beautiful to be honest. Bradley clearly has a way with words.


Finally I reached the last level of the fortress and opened the door to the king's hidden treasure room. The king promised I would finally find answers to all my questions in his treasure vault. I approach a shiny treasure chest. Hastily I check the chest for traps and get on to open it.

Finally everything is going to make sense! Finally I'm going to find out what's really going on in Guardia.

The King's Treasure

Whaaa...?

Someone stole it???

Rhhaaaaarrhhhggghh!!!!

 

[octavius]

Don't worry, you'll get other chances of getting those maps.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress report 3:

- Been doing lots of class changing. Here's how the classes stand right now.

Level 9 Lord
Level 9 Ninja
Level 8 Priest > Level 4 Ranger > Level 6 Valkyrie
Level 9 Bard > Level 2 Samurai
Level 9 Psionic > Level 2 Monk
Level 9 Alchemist (next level changes to Ninja)

After some testing I truly realized how quick, easy and beneficial class changing is. Decided to take a couple of levels of Ranger for my Priest, since that gives her Ninjitsu, bonus to Scouting and some Alchemy spells. And leveling her to the point I could turn her to Valkyrie only took like 3 fights.

If I had to start over, I would definitely aim to class change much earlier, maybe level 5 or 6. Or even at level 1. As far as I can tell, the only downsides to class changing early are possible limits to gaining spells from a class you change from and not getting as much HP early on. On the other hand, you get ridiculous amounts of skill points very quickly and can focus on developing more important skills first and postpone the development of less crucial ones.

- Got the MT-32 music working and tried out some soundfonts. Improved music quality is nice. By the way, is it possible to add custom music or sound effects to Wiz7? I remember it being possible in Wiz8.
- Met Ratsputin for the first time and after some charming and bribing he became friendly and hinted something about "guilds". He also had two really expensive maps for sale. Unfortunately Tulsi couldn't steal them from him. Yet.

Next stop: the T'Rang settlement.

I was actually planning to ally with the T'Rang instead of the Umpani. Dunno how either are in Wiz7, but I much preferred the T'Rang in Wiz8. In Wiz8 all Umpanis are obnoxiously loud drill sergeants! So if I some day manage to import this party to Wiz8, I much prefer to start with the cool and mysterious T'Rang.

 

[mondblut]

After some testing I truly realized how quick, easy and beneficial class changing is. Decided to take a couple of levels of Ranger for my Priest, since that gives her Ninjitsu, bonus to Scouting and some Alchemy spells. And leveling her to the point I could turn her to Valkyrie only took like 3 fights.

If I had to start over, I would definitely aim to class change much earlier, maybe level 5 or 6. Or even at level 1.

Welcome to the dark side. Feel the power.

 

[Piotrovitz]

No matter how great Wiz7 is, the class changes munchkinism is what I always found very offputting.
Sure you can technically beat the game with single classes, or limit yourself to one class change per char, but the obscene amount of skill points/spells you get by multiclassing abuse is just too much to ignore.

Ending up with whole party of warrior/priest/thief/samurai/lord/ninja/whatever-class-you-add clowns just alienates you from your characters. As you progress and go deeper and deeper with class swapping, you lose a track on who is who and what was his initial role in the party, since everyone has kirijitsu/ninjitsu/casting skills.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but I just can't swallow it and that's why I stick to Wiz 8.

 

[octavius]

I agree with everything but your conclusion.
It's not like you have to abuse the multi-classing to such a degree, and Wiz 7 is still a good game. I never bothered with getting the martial arts for all my characters and I was able to beat 1000 Eyes; for me it was mostly about getting access to higher level spells ASAP.
I think dividing skill points into categories was a big design flaw compared to Wiz 6, since in Wiz 6 you could do well enough with no class changing, while in Wiz 7 I felt I had no choice.

 

[Shaewaroz]

The class roulette is pretty fun to be honest, but I agree the class changing should have more penalties / limitations. The fact that you can change a class and crank up 5 levels to the new class within minutes is just ridiculous. But it's still fun as hell. So... Never mind. Carry on.

 

[Shaewaroz]

A question to optimize the party even further: do monks and ninjas get more attacks with fists than with staffs or other weapons? Maybe a dual wielding monk?

Ranged weapons are kind of pointless in this game, right? If you want to reach a tricky enemy lurking in the back row, you just hit him with a spell instead. + only rangers can kirijutsu with ranged weapons.

I still haven't found any shields. I wonder if the skill is worth investing in at all.

I'm tempted to change my Lord to Ninja just for a few levels. I know it's wrong, but I just can't help it.

I wonder what would be a good secondary class for a Ninja... Maybe Bishop?

 

[Shaewaroz]

So I just realized that if you change from Lord > Ninja > Lord, your Lord class level actually goes back to 1. I didn't expect this to be the case. Pretty crazy. So you can start the game, keep changing between two classes and get endless amounts of skill points in minutes. I would call this a design flaw.

Not sure what to do about this. I now have a L 9 Lord / L 7 Ninja. If I turn him back to Lord the level will go back to 1. This is of course an easy way to get a ton of skill points, but will make the character a lot weaker in terms of level power. This would probably not matter in the long run, since exp requirements go sky high after level 10, so the level difference will be completely negated after awhile.

 

[Piotrovitz]

So I just realized that if you change from Lord > Ninja > Lord, your Lord class level actually goes back to 1. I didn't expect this to be the case. Pretty crazy. So you can start the game, keep changing between two classes and get endless amounts of skill points in minutes. I would call this a design flaw.

That's what I meant in my previous post - the multiclassing system is inherently flawed and just encourages abuse.
This is especially visible when cycling through casters classes, when you can max out you casting skills, get shitload of spells in no time and throw nuclear blast left and right.

 

[mondblut]

I wonder what would be a good secondary class for a Ninja... Maybe Bishop?

Once you got into upper-tier classes, stick with upper-tier classes (which have a lot of stat requirements, hence you don't lose much when you change class). With a bishop, you'll tank everything but int and piety and they will take many levels to recover.

 

[Shaewaroz]

So I just realized that if you change from Lord > Ninja > Lord, your Lord class level actually goes back to 1. I didn't expect this to be the case. Pretty crazy. So you can start the game, keep changing between two classes and get endless amounts of skill points in minutes. I would call this a design flaw.

That's what I meant in my previous post - the multiclassing system is inherently flawed and just encourages abuse.
This is especially visible when cycling through casters classes, when you can max out you casting skills, get shitload of spells in no time and throw nuclear blast left and right.

If the class level didn't go back to 1 when changing back to a previous class the system wouldn't be so obviously flawed. That's the straw that breaks the camel's back. The only choice really is to resist the temptation to get every character all the classes and a gazillion skill and spell points before leaving New City. Make up your own game rules. Unless you want to play the God Mode.

Once you got into upper-tier classes, stick with upper-tier classes (which have a lot of stat requirements, hence you don't lose much when you change class). With a bishop, you'll tank everything but int and piety and they will take many levels to recover.

I knew this even as I created my party, but I didn't really understand how broken the class changing system really was until yesterday. I didn't think I'd be changing classes this much. Besides, you will eventually reach 18 in all stats anyway (if I understand the system correctly), so it really doesn't matter too much in the long run. Of course it's good to plan out your class changes in advance to get the maximum benefit as smoothly as possible.

Right now I'm pretty much operating under the premise that class changing is always going to make the character more powerful in the long run. So I'll just take whatever class I happen to want for each char and end with an upper-tier class. Stats don't seem to be that important anyway.

 

[octavius]

I don't remember the excact details about Wiz 7, but generally in Wizardry games you get bonuses from 16-18.
I remember in Wiz 1 spell progression for my casters was seriously nerfed by not having high PER or INT, for example.

 

[Shaewaroz]

I don't remember the excact details about Wiz 7, but generally in Wizardry games you get bonuses from 16-18.
I remember in Wiz 1 spell progression for my casters was seriously nerfed by not having high PER or INT, for example.

I don't know all the exact formulas, although I've been going through all the available sources online while trying to make sense of the game mechanics. Mostly your combat and magic abilities seem to rely on the class level + the skill used. Attributes give only small bonuses. Like 18 dex gives +2 to hit, 18 str gives +2 to damage and 18 vit gives +2 hp on level up (however when you have changed your class you only get 1 hp anyway for a long time, hp calculation in Wiz7 is rather convoluted). These small bonuses don't seem to make a lot of difference. High wisdom affects mana regen, but that doesn't seem to matter too much difference either. I don't know how saving throws are calculated through, presumably wis and vit affects them in some way. Int affects spell point gain, but you're going to be swimming in spell points anyway if you start the class roulette. Speed seems to be the only really significant attribute, because it affects initiation in combat.

Basically you'll do just fine even if all your characters have only 10 in all their attributes.

On the other hand, the benefits of class changing are monumental. str bonuses don't matter at all when you attack 8 times a round and instakill the enemy every 1/4 hits. My L9 Ninja has already started getting crits occasionally although I've not put any points to kirijutsu yet. His stats are mostly 15-16. So the mere class level + high weapon skill have made him a killing machine. I can't even imagine what he'd be like if I had done some class roulette and got his kirijutsu to 100 before switching to Ninja.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress Report 4:

- Not much to tell this time around. Mapped through the T'Rang settlement and met with the essential players there. Agreed to be their little errand boy. It's really cool the T'Rang have a teleporter in their facilities just like in Wiz8 that takes you straight back to New City.
- Got the second task: venture to the Rattkin Ruins and find the Boat map. The head T'Rang also gave a hint on how to access the map in a form of a puzzle. This time I don't think solving the puzzle is that difficult - it's just a sequence of six numbers that you have to put in the right order. I presume the number sequence corresponds with the Six Spears that hide the map. Time will tell.
- I found some locked doors that have finger holes in them. I found a finger wand and tried using it on the doors. No success. I have to think about this a little more.
- I just love how mysterious the T'Rang are. Their city had a spooky cellar with three inactivated Savant Guards. I'm not sure what could be done with them. Have the T'Rang been experimenting with the Savant robots?
- The red markings in the doors in New City seem to have been made by the T'Rang - I found similar markings in their settlement. They seem to be warning signs, cautioning other T'Rang of the active Savant Guards.
- As I mentioned above, I made a bunch of class changes. The Lord turned to Ninja and back to Lord again. Psionic will soon turn to Ninja. All characters can now hide in shadows. The L9 Ninja is now the only character that hasn't gone through any class changes. I'm not sure if I'd like to change his class as well. He is far behind others in skill development.
- Before coming to the T'Rang settlement I already mapped the route to the Rattkin Ruins. The entrance to the ruins is blocked by trees and bushes. There was a face carved into a tree there. I wonder how I can get through?

I have a new problem. I like the MT-32 Resting music so much that I always end up listening it all the way to the end although my party has regained stamina and mana already long time ago. I must have already missed all the time specific events in the game humming the Resting theme like an idiot.

https://youtu.be/_cmz54iu_Hc?t=677

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress Report 5:

- I read parts of the Gorn Fortress section of the Cluebook, since I couldn't open the cell doors or open the door to the Gorn Mage's quarters. It's too bad I have to resort to using the cluebook, but I don't think I'd ever figure out that I was supposed to use the metal plate to reflect light to open the door to the Mage's quarters. The environmental storytelling didn't make it clear enough that there was a bright beam of light coming from the ceiling, so I couldn't possibly ever thought about trying to reflect light with a plate. The cluebook tries to only give out vague clues, but the hints make it pretty clear how to proceed.
- Have you guys noticed that Dazzling Lights is a pretty weird spell? I hits all enemies and occasionally does ridiculous amounts of damage even at low power levels. I mean like 200 damage just out of the blue while spending 25 mana. At first I thought maybe some enemies are weak against it, but at least T'Rang and Gorn both take similar damage from it.
- My guys have reached their final classes. No more class roulette!

 

[Lady_Error]

Yeah, entering the Rattkin Ruins is also not the most straightforward business.

 

[Shaewaroz]

OK, so there's a lot more to Orkorge Castle than I originally thought. Over half of the content is hidden behind secret doors and puzzles. I love this kind of level design, I just wished there were just a bit more hints on how to solve the puzzles.

Honestly, if Grimoire has as good level design, I have to finish it after finishing Wiz7.

I'm also beginning to understand why so many old schoolers worship Bradley. The writing, worldbuilding and level design in Wiz7 are phenomenal and the puzzles, though very hard, make sense and deepen your immersion.

 

[Shaewaroz]

Damn, this game is getting ever more impressive.

- Went back to the T'Rang settlement after the ghost of the Gorn mage told me about a cemetery there.
- First explored some clearly restricted areas guarded my Savant Guards. It now seems clear that the T'Rang have an alliance with the Dark Savant. They are using their computers to communicated with the Black Ship.
- I'm wondering if the T'Rang are going to get pissed and betray me later since I've been a little too curious and stuck my nose a little too deep into their secret schemes with the Dark Savant.
- Explored the old cathedral the T'Rang had turned into a cattle shelter. Met the ghost of the Gorn mage and he lead me through a wall to a hidden cemetery.
-After finding a new polearm I checked it's stats online and accidentally saw that it can be used to dig up graves in the cemetery! Another thing I probably wouldn't have figured out by myself, since the item wasn't called a shovel or anything that would normally be used for digging. So now it's going through the cemetery, grave by grave, like I'm a grave robber in Fallout 2.

The amount of hidden content in this game is completely off the charts.

 

[octavius]

So what's cooking?

 

[Shaewaroz]

Progress Report 6:

- I dug up all the cemetery graves and one of them revealed a wast underground labyrinth. Found some really good equipment there.
- After climbing up from that hellhole, I found the Statue of the Creator. So whatever race used to inhabit these ruins, they used to worship Phoonzang. I found a jem of some kind from the basement of the statue.
- Used the jem to distract the ghost in the cemetery to give me a cursed wand. This part I managed to figure out by myself. I tried to use the wand to open the cemetery force field blocking the way, but it didn't work. After checking the staff's stats online I discovered that one of your characters have to equip the cursed staff to negate the force field. Again, something I probably wouldn't have figured by myself. I actually can't think of another game that would require you equip a really bad cursed item in order to access a restricted area. I think this is absolutely brilliant game design and I'm just a dumb fuck for not figuring it out myself. Maybe a small hint or two would have been nice though.
- Fought the undead boss creature and got a bunch more magical items.
- Inventory space is becoming a huge issue. I would need to stash items to a safe location, but I read online that NPCs can actually take items that you've left behind! So I need to find a safe stash location first - I don't want some rattkin bastard stealing all my specious items.

I haven't made that much progress cause I've been experimenting with class changing. There are still many game mechanics that still elude me. For instance:

1) Why characters that change from Ninja to another class retain the Ninja armor class benefits, but only for 1 level, after which the benefits disappear? Is there some way to retain the benefit permanently after changing to another class?
2) How is the effectiveness of spells calculated? Does a Level 10 Priest with a 100 theology skill cast priest spells better than a Level 10 Thief with a 100 Theology skill if both have exactly the same attributes? This question has huge importance, but I can't find a clear answer anywhere.

I'm still enjoying the game, but would like to perhaps start over with another party.

 

[mondblut]

Besides, you will eventually reach 18 in all stats anyway (if I understand the system correctly), so it really doesn't matter too much in the long run.

When you need 20 levels to reach the stats you need to change back to ninja, the long run is going to be truly long.

If you switch later than levels 5-7, you are wasting a lot of xp.

Also, when you switch to a class with new skills, invest a point in each at once. Then you can keep developing them on levelups even after changing elsewhere, while zero skills are lost.