Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Great Deceiver]

I'm sorry but how is making the combat less brain dead auto-attack spam a bad thing? You make it sound like actually thinking about the combat is a bad thing. At least to me, nothing is more tedious than having the 100th random battle where all I do is spam the attack key to hope it goes away faster.

1. There are no random battles in MM3-5
2. By trying to introduce more tactics to the combat, they lost the flow of gameplay - as I said before, blobbers are usually very fast-paced despite their turn-based structure. An experienced Wizardry player blazes through most combat, as an experienced player M&M player blazes through combat as well. The combat, though very frequent, isn't the main point of classic M&M games - exploration is. Just like combat isn't the main point of Wizardry, but the floor layouts and beating the dungeon itself is. MMX is a very slow game mainly because of its combat - and despite all their good intentions in spicing up the combat, it's still braindead, except now it takes 10x longer as you reapply buffs and heal every third turn. It didn't pay off in the end.

 

[Haplo]

I think you might want to give Swords and Sorcery: Underworld a go to if you haven't already. It's obviously indie but it's relatively cheap and I quite liked playing it. I don't understand your complains/issues with LoX though. Yes items are a bit meh but leveling was as exciting as MMX if not more so and it's combat is vastly superior in my opinion.

Thank you for the recommendation. Might need to check it sometime. As well as some Wizardries/clones (like Empire).
I rather disagree about character development being interesting in LoX. Maybe it's because it a long game - it drags a lot and the abilities are spread far apart. But usually you only get a little proficiency and a very minor boost the the ability you've been using the last 5 levels (or 15). Meanwhile in MMX every (second) level brings new exciting spells, masteries and abilities. It's no contest for me.
Also combat. MMX requires different approach depending on enemy type - elements, abilities, buffs, debuffs. LoX - it's just "conservative" mode or "guns blazing" and target prioritization. For me the former is far more interesting.

And yes, far more interesting then steamrolling enemies in earlier M&M entries, I don't mind the slower pace. The "world" isn't very big in MMX, therefore slightly slower pacing isn't really an issue for me. And new levels and abilities come pretty quickly anyways. Maybe you become OP slightly too soon (a bit above level 15 I think), but that is also part of the RPG charm and a reward for good character planning.

 

[ilitarist]

Yes, becoming OP was a disappointment in MMXL. Probably no way around it in a relatively open world (it's not open world, but there are lots of optional locations and quests, you can probably finish the game with doing only half of them) with no enemy level scaling. End boss was still not a walk in the park, but in the last third of a game - I think after Dark Elves dungeon - I had enough money to get scrolls and potions to shrug off most problems. Optional powerful bosses in Dangerous Caves helped a little but a game like that always needs some optional extra-hard dungeon or boss. Sadly Western RPGs rarely understand that while JRPGs have something like that as a necessary feature since Final Fantasy 6, I think. And starting from FFX half of your playtime may come from this optional end game content.

 

[CptMace]

And starting from FFX half of your playtime may come from this optional end game content.

If you're retarded, yeah.
Got myself a Tales of off steam sales, still don't get why Japan loves these mega-boring dungeons filled with trash encounters and trash bosses as an optional game after you're done with the story. And as a reward, you get a better sword... what-who-what who the fuck needs a better weapon after surviving the toughest challenge of the game ? The chrysanthemum country is impenetrable indeed.

 

[ilitarist]

If you're retarded, yeah.
Got myself a Tales of off steam sales, still don't get why Japan loves these mega-boring dungeons filled with trash encounters and trash bosses as an optional game after you're done with the story. And as a reward, you get a better sword... what-who-what who the fuck needs a better weapon after surviving the toughest challenge of the game ? The chrysanthemum country is impenetrable indeed.

It's called bragging rights reward. You get an ultimate weapon that lets you destroy everything you encounter without a breath and you know you've earned it.

 

[anvi]

I liked this game. Got a bit bored of the repetition near the end but I finished it anyway.

 

[Diggfinger]

Might & Magic under Ubisoft made sense for a limited amount of time as a Euro-ware popcorn game franchise, but it's now a sorely outdated brand.

HoMM isn't that outdated.

Every time I check GOG, HoMMMIII is in top 20 or top 10 of best selling games. All-time classic.

 

[CptMace]

I remember picking up Heroes III discount edition in a mall back then. Was like "hey that's only 100Francs". Best blind buy ever.

 

[ilitarist]

It's called bragging rights reward. You get an ultimate weapon that lets you destroy everything you encounter without a breath and you know you've earned it.

To expand: I think it's the best way to make the game both approachable and hardcore. You start playing the game, maybe you like the story and graphics as you probably do with Final Fantasy games. And you can finish it with relative ease. But if you want to truly master the game and use all the mechanics in the game you go for some optional stuff. If you win that then the main story is just a walk in the park. If you feel that the game is OK but you aren't really interested in min-maxing it you can still finish the game and have a conclusion.

It's much better approach than self-inflicted challenging limitations or difficulty settings. Difficulty will not tell you how really difficult the game is - XCOM/Baldur's Gate assumes you know everything about the game and make informed decisions on max difficulty (so you learn you've made the game unbeatable several hours in), Dragon Age/Skyrim/Pillars of Eternity/Witcher 3 just makes you a little more cautious in the beginning of the game on max difficulty and is OK for the first try. And difficulty isn't balanced most of the time. Bonus bosses more or less allow you to know you've won the game even if there's still actual difficult part of the game ahead, and as devs know players don't expect those bonus enemies to be beatable at all it's ok to make them extra-hard. With the usual game structure devs are obligated to make game beatable on first try so even Dark Souls or whatever becomes a little too easy by the end if you do a little more than required minimum.

MMXL gives you nicely balanced difficulty choice, by the way, but still becomes trivial by the end.

 

[CptMace]

Yeah but I don't have anything about against optional late game challenges. My confusion comes from the time you can sink in this stuff in jrpgs. The time required to get 100% on final fantasy games, on tales of games... as you said, it's just as much time as what the player spent to reach this part. And they fucking love it.

 

[ilitarist]

Yeah but I don't have anything about optional late game challenges. My confusion comes from the time you can sink in this stuff in jrpgs. The time required to get 100% on final fantasy games, on tales of games... as you said, it's just as much time as what the player spent to reach this part. And they fucking love it.

TBH I only did it in FF6 and FF8 I think and there it wasn't that big. In FFX I've played recently I did some of it and I was bored by the amount of grinding required. Still the game showed me tough bosses and it was clear that to bit them I have to not just grind but progress in a specific ways with my party. I can imagine me returning to FFX one day and doing it. But even if I never do I still see that the systems in the game are deep and thoughtful. It's much better than realization you get in most RPGs that all of your choices didn't really matter, you just eventually gifted everything you need to steamroll.

 

[CptMace]

Well fuck me, sounds like I played the wrong ones I only played 7 and 9. Also, I actually like FF9 confessions confessions.

 

[ilitarist]

I don't remember FF9 having a lot of bonus content. And it felt easier than previous ones. FF7 had Weapons but AFAIK it's just several bosses that require you to breed chocobos and grind extensively. FF8 had some hard dungeons, there were hard bosses in there, you even got a diploma of beating Ultima in your status screen. There were also extra hard overworld zones. FFX had lots of optional bosses, you got most of them from Monster Arena. You had to kill creatures with special weapons for them to be "captured" and thus you got bosses (e.g. if you got all dragons in the game you can fight a dragon boss), bosses gave you special items etc. There were also strong bosses in the overworld that unlocked near the end of the game. You had teleporting ship so it didn't take much time to travel but you still had to grind to capture monsters.

Liked FF9 to, was going to replay it using PC HD edition. But it was before Grimoire release.

It's out now.

We can close this thread on imperfect blobber.

We can close every blobber thread.

We can close every threads.

 

[Haplo]

All but ONE.



P.S. In VII it was mostly grinding, yes. And reaching level 99 was actually the easy/fast part of it. But you basically needed perfect abilities to stand any chance and good tactics/setup too (like auto Phoenix Rebirth Flame summon on wipe).

Just 2 hidden enemies... but finally beating them sure felt good. And the road there... kinda also. I mean Final Fantasy VII just wouldn't be the same without OP abilities like Knights of the Round and Omnislash.

 

[TheGameSquid]

The combat in older M&M games was all about the setup. Getting the right gear, the right buffs, and knowing what order to do the dungeons in. Legacy was definitely more engaging at a tactical level but came at the cost of speed. Having just played through the Xeen games a month ago for the first time since the 90's, there is a certain charm to facerolling all the enemies, but running around to get all the overpowered fountain buffs was quite tedious. Half the time it barely felt like an RPG at all. Then the game loves throwing out 100,000 gold here, 1 million xp there. Even on Warrior mode it's piss-easy. I would almost call it... casual.

I don't think one is necessarily better than the other, just different.

Yeah, I completed M&M3 for the first time a couple of months ago, and I'm near the end of Clouds atm, and they are surprisingly easy games. I spent more than half of M&M3 just one-shotting most enemies. Like you said, there's just so much gold the game throws at you, and boatloads of experience. In the end I just ignored most of the high-tier weapons I came across because I didn't feel like juggling them around in my inventory anymore. In the end I didn't have enough money to level up anymore, but my dudes and dudettes were already gods at that point. Clouds feel like it dialed back the crazy amounts of XP and gold a bit, but it's still as easy.

I actually think casual is a pretty good term for it, just not in a derogatory way (for the record, I enjoyed M&M3 a LOT). It's not that deep, not that hard, very fast paced and very easy to pick up. I think the mayor difference between, say, M&M3 and what we usually refer to as casual games is that it doesn't really feel like it's compromising its vision to cater to a specific group of people. It feels like this is just the game that JVC wanted to make, and I'm fine with that.

 

[Iznaliu]

and what we usually refer to as casual games is that it doesn't really feel like it's compromising its vision to cater to a specific group of people. It feels like this is just the game that JVC wanted to make, and I'm fine with that.

If you look at Todd Howard's quotes, Fallout 4 is the game that he wanted to make. Sometimes people want to strategically shit.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I don't think the older M&M games were casual, but combat was a means to an end and not really a focus of the games themselves. So it was fine that they were simplistic. Compare that to the Wizardry clones, the Etrian Odyssey games where 99% of the game is combat and you have to min-max everything and grind for loot, etc. I guess if you are into that then that's cool but I enjoyed the power fantasy of M&M of blowing through the combats and focusing on the exploration and puzzles.

 

[ilitarist]

Early MM games were marketed as alternative to Wizardry you can actually play and complete without painting maps and stuff. Plus it has big worlds. In a sense it was Fallout 3 to Fallout 2, but in the 80's.

Today it's hard to call them casual, mostly because of UI.

Also Todd really wanted to make a world simulation and he did it. As he did with Morrowind. Oblivion might habe been a misstep of trying to imitate Lord of the Rings but Skyrim really is Morrowind he'd make if he'd have tech and resources in 2000. I'm pretty sure that if lird British made his games today they'd be more similar to Skyrim or Witcher than anything else. Canenghem would've make Dragon Age. MCA loves immersion and Prey is probably a game he really likes, if he'd had this tech when he made Planescape that game would have less text and more qnimation, voice acting and so on. Many things we appreciate, like focus on writing and difficulty came of necessity or inexperience.

 

[Eggs is eggs]

I feel like the Ultima games were another series where the combat was a means to an end (ignoring the fact that the early Ultimas were really grindy, especially with 8 party members in #4). With 6 they reduced the amount of combat in the game and automated your party members and then in 7 you didn't really do much in the combat at all. This was a plus for the game since you could do the basics like equip your party and cast spells but didn't have to grind or get bogged down in complicated mechanics.

 

[Iznaliu]

In a sense it was Fallout 3 to Fallout 2, but in the 80's.

I don't think FO3 was marketed as an alternative to its predecessor. That would be a particularly boneheaded marketing move, and as we all know, Beth is pretty good at selling their stuff.

 

[anvi]

It is like Bethesda don't even need to sell their stuff, there is just an army of plebs waiting to consume it no matter what they make. It must be so nice to be blessed with an infinite money and ability to do no wrong hack, in real life.

 

[Iznaliu]

It is like Bethesda don't even need to sell their stuff, there is just an army of plebs waiting to consume it no matter what they make

That's the situation right now; but Bethesda got that way by marketing the shit out of their stuff.

 

[Average Manatee]

and what we usually refer to as casual games is that it doesn't really feel like it's compromising its vision to cater to a specific group of people. It feels like this is just the game that JVC wanted to make, and I'm fine with that.

If you look at Todd Howard's quotes, Fallout 4 is the game that he wanted to make. Sometimes people want to strategically shit.

Breaking news, developer says his newest game is the best, most perfect game ever. All games he's made before aren't even close to as good as the new one.

 

[torpid]

and what we usually refer to as casual games is that it doesn't really feel like it's compromising its vision to cater to a specific group of people. It feels like this is just the game that JVC wanted to make, and I'm fine with that.

If you look at Todd Howard's quotes, Fallout 4 is the game that he wanted to make. Sometimes people want to strategically shit.

Breaking news, developer says his newest game is the best, most perfect game ever. All games he's made before aren't even close to as good as the new one.

And the glorified PR branch that is game journalism typically works as an enabler. I remember the same sites that had celebrated Oblivion as the best RPG ever talking down the game when previewing Skyrim. "Unlike boring old Oblivion, the game that we absolutely did not score a 10/10..."

Even though MMX had some issues I still wish they could've made an XI But the area that was most in need of improvement was the exploration and I doubt they would've been given the resources and time for a bigger map and bigger dungeons.

 

[Iznaliu]

and what we usually refer to as casual games is that it doesn't really feel like it's compromising its vision to cater to a specific group of people. It feels like this is just the game that JVC wanted to make, and I'm fine with that.

If you look at Todd Howard's quotes, Fallout 4 is the game that he wanted to make. Sometimes people want to strategically shit.

Breaking news, developer says his newest game is the best, most perfect game ever. All games he's made before aren't even close to as good as the new one.

I get the impression that he's pretty genuine. It's a bit cheap to say that all your opponents are just in it for the cash.