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I got kinda tired of reading the ridiculous reviews of this game:
Anyways, I ended up reading a bunch of reviews for Might and Magic X: Legacy. I was not surprised to find a bunch of references to the "old school" nature of the game. And in fact, this is something I remarked on myself, here. But in reading these reviews, I noticed a disturbing trend in how the reviewers approached this so-called "old school"ness, this hearkening back to grid-based slogs and turn-based fights-to-the-death. Because a lot of them seem to think games like MMX:L are some kind of gimmick, a bit of nostalgia tossed to the ravenous horde of neck-bearded grognards who would rather fire up their old x386s for a satisfying game of Betrayal at Krondor than touch a console controller.
I doubt anybody from those magazines will read what I wrote, but it felt good. I'm honestly getting fed up with this shit. And if anyone thinks I'm exaggerating, go read some of the reviews off metacritic. Even the good reviews are full of dudes patting themselves on the back with how awesome they are, and how they appreciate the nostalgia of the game but other people won't. Ugh. Shut the fuck up.
What do you mean by "waste the enemies' blocks"? Does this work similar to the retaliation mechanic in the HoMM games where a creature could only retaliate (or in this case, block) once per turn (unless it has a spell or special ability)? It would sure explain why my defender misses a lot more than my hunter.
Does the block chance affected by anything? I've noticed my barbarian's attack easily blocked whereas my blademaster make deadly combos with her daggers..
From what I can tell the enemies use the same blocking mechanic as the players, as in they have a certain number of blocks per turn. So if you for instance attack an enemy with Party Member A and the attack gets blocked, that block attempt will not be available to him when you attack him with Party Member B on the same turn.
This is my understanding as well. On really high armour/high block enemies I've been resorting to wasting blocks with my Ranger multi dagger attacks just so my Defender taunts will be guaranteed to land (barring evasion, but I use the poison debuff to lower that).
I've found an algorithm for the puzzle in the Mystery Cave near Castle Portmeyron.
It's not the most efficient solution, but it can get the job done.
Plus it can work with any layout of columns, even if you stepped on the pressure plates and the columns are no longer in their starting position.
As you enter the room, there are three pressure plates. Call the one to the left A (North), the one in front of the locked door B (East), and the one on the right C (South).
Call the four columns/torches 1, 2, 3, 4. As you enter the room, the layout is the following, with X representing the party in the center square:
1B2
AXC
4_3
The objective is to light all the torches on the columns by having the torches point to the center tile X.
If you step on any pressure plate, the new column positions will be saved the next time you enter the Mystery Cave (rather than the columns reverting to their original position).
Here is the behavior of the pressure plates:
A: 1 stands still, 2 turns counterclockwise, 3 turns clockwise, 4 turns counterclockwise
B: 1 turns clockwise, 2 stands still, 3 turns counterclockwise, 4 turns clockwise
C: 1 turns clockwise, 2 turns clockwise, 3 stands still, 4 turns counterclockwise
Each pressure plate will turn three torches by 90 degrees, while one torch stands still.
Column 1 can only turn clockwise.
Column 4 never stands still.
Stepping on a plate will result in three columns turning by 90 degrees, so stepping 4 times in a row returns all columns to their original positions (4*90 degrees = 360 degrees). The remaining column will remain still, of course.
The algorithm:
(1) Always step from the center tile on a pressure plate, then return to the center tile, so you don't get stuck on one of the corner squares and mess up the move sequence.
(2) Step on plate B or C until column 1 is in the desired position (lit).
(3) Step four times on plates B or C using different combinations: once on B and three times on C; twice on B and twice on C; three times on B and once on C.
(4) If step (3) did not open the door, step on A once.
(5) Repeat steps (3) and (4) until the door opens.
Note on step 2: by stepping four times on B or C, column 1 turns 4*90 = 360 degrees, so it will still be in the lit position.
Also, note that you'll need to repeat steps (3) and (4) at most three times, since the fourth time, the columns would return to step (2).
Some interesting, but unnecessary technical info:
Since each column has a period of 4, I tried to use i (the square root of -1) to model their behavior.
Note: ^ is used for exponentiation, * for multiplication
i^1 = i
i^2 = i*i = -1 (by definition)
i^3 = i*i*i = (i*i)*i = -1*i = -i
i^4 = i*i*i*i = (i*i)*(i*i) = -1*-1 = 1
i^5 = (i^4)*i = 1*i = i = i^1 (back where we started)
I treated each 90 degree turn clockwise as a multiplication by i, each 90 degree turn counterclockwise as a multiplication by -i, and standing still as multiplication by 1 (since the column did not move). Multiplication is commutative, so again, order of the steps does not matter.
Then, the behavior of the pressure plates can be expressed as a tuple:
A: (1,-i, i,-i)
B: (i, 1,-i, i)
C: (i, i, 1,-i)
Interestingly, the diagonals descending left to right have the same value.
I just finished the Tower of Enigma and I think that while the riddle chests are a nice homage to Betrayal at Krondor, they worked much better in that game for a couple of reasons. First, you knew how many letters were in the answer word, and you could only cycle through a few predetermined letters for each slot - this meant that even if you didn't know the answer to the riddle right away, you could fiddle a bit and be inspired by the potential combinations, intuition kicked in, etc. Having to just type out the answer out of the blue is a lot worse, IMO.
I just finished the Tower of Enigma and I think that while the riddle chests are a nice homage to Betrayal at Krondor, they worked much better in that game for a couple of reasons. First, you knew how many letters were in the answer word, and you could only cycle through a few predetermined letters for each slot - this meant that even if you didn't know the answer to the riddle right away, you could fiddle a bit and be inspired by the potential combinations, intuition kicked in, etc. Having to just type out the answer out of the blue is a lot worse, IMO.
They were also more rooted in the world. "Moredhel riddle chests", had a tactile feel since it showed you a 2D splash of the chest with tumblers you were clicking around with, et cetera. MMXL ones are just disconnected from the game... but overall I don't mind their inclusion at all, it was clearly a last minute attempt to pack some more nostalgia in, and I appreciate all the little details like that they did. I'd rather it was in than not.
I'm finding ranged combat tends to be of limited use in this game, particularly in dungeons. You'll most likely find yourself going toe to toe with your enemies and with the 50% damage reduction to bows at close range it just doesn't seem worth it.
Overall though, I'm finding the game fairly enjoyable. Hopefully it won't outstay its welcome given the 1st Act didn't take too long to complete.
Funny sidenote: was inspired by MMXL to go back and play through 6 & 7 again. Went back to 6 first, was getting all excited trundling through town, reach my first combat... hit turn-based mode. Wait, I can't move? Are you fucking serious? Not sure why I don't remember this, having played 6 a lot back in the day.
And people dare to hold 6 up as something miles better than MMXL? For fuck's sake. Like, I know 6 is a great game, and it has tons of content, and it was a trail-blazer at the time, but goddamn. I just had to nopenopenope my way out of there and onto 7 where I can actually have some half-assed turn-based combat that doesn't require me to switch combat modes every time I want to move one inch.
Yes, but I am a combat fag, and if I'm going to spam arrows exclusively in real time, I might as well just go play Hexen or something. I'm just shocked I don't remember how atrociously bad the lack of movement in turnbased was having played it all those years ago. I guess it explains why I've beaten 7 before, but not 6.
Also, those constantly spazzing portraits. I think excess CPU speed might be to blame for that one, though.
Yes, but I am a combat fag, and if I'm going to spam arrows exclusively in real time, I might as well just go play Hexen or something. I'm just shocked I don't remember how atrociously bad the lack of movement in turnbased was having played it all those years ago. I guess it explains why I've beaten 7 before, but not 6.
Also, those constantly spazzing portraits. I think excess CPU speed might be to blame for that one, though.
6 is the last game in the series with a completely unrestricted open world and fuckhueg dungeons, for that I give it major props. Admittedly most of everything it did was refined in 7 so I can see why a lot of people prefer that game. As for MMX, not sure where I would rank it compared to the older games. I'd be interested in what other M&M fags think on that front.
Yes, but I am a combat fag, and if I'm going to spam arrows exclusively in real time, I might as well just go play Hexen or something. I'm just shocked I don't remember how atrociously bad the lack of movement in turnbased was having played it all those years ago. I guess it explains why I've beaten 7 before, but not 6.
Also, those constantly spazzing portraits. I think excess CPU speed might be to blame for that one, though.
That would be a relief to know, even though I'd lose the awesomeness of Greyface.
ETA: I don't think it fair to compare MMXL to previous titles other than maybe 9, as much as people would love to. Perhaps 8? I rate it high for what they had to work with, but if you remove all the assets borrowed from other Ubisoft games, it's clear they had a ridiculously tiny budget.
I'd like to see what they can do in a proper engine and a decent budget, provided they can maintain their respect for the old school stylings at the same time.
As I said earlier, I think it's a nice nod to the older games but it comes across as a bit middle of the road - by giving enemies special triggered abilities they wanted to create more tactical options in combat, but the lack of party positioning tools (not that it was ever different in any other M&M) means that it often backfires, to the game's detriment. It's much slower paced than the older M&M's, and I personally think that's a bad thing. Some of it is by design, some of it is due to technical problems, but in the end, you blaze through something like MM3 much faster. This is a very personal note, but the music in MMX sucks - it's either completely unremarkable or in-your-face drivel, I really liked the synth soundtrack in the older M&M's, and even the redbook CD soundtrack of MM6, looping and repetitive as it is, is more enjoyable to me.
This is all of course completely subjective, but the older games seem much more whimsical and are more appealing in a silly fantasy sort of way to me compared to the turgid Ashan setting that they had to borrow from the Ubi Heroes reboot. This goes from enemy design to quest writing to little details. It comes with the territory and there's no possible solution to that, even in a sequel, so I guess that's that.
Overall, I like the game, but a couple key flaws keep it from being comparable to MM3-5.
Sorry, I edited my post to better reflect what I meant - I meant that not having a positioning element was always staple in M&M, not the other way around. It's part of what made it a much faster game compared to, say, the Wizardries.
I actually like the promise of tactical combat in MMXL. I think it shows a new way forward that could be evolved into something very special--while the engine overall is shit of course, I really, really like the combat fundamentals. It moves very smoothly when you have high FPS, and offers a lot of possibilities. It's just hamstrung by a lack of time and some niggles, I feel. Chief among them the huge imbalance between ranged and melee, naturally.
I could certainly see it being turned into something great if modding had been less limited, but given that it is I only hope that the next M&M game builds on MMXL's combat rather than throwing it out for some brand-new real-time thingy.
I definitely agree, the fundamentals are strong, and they should iterate upon them and strive for a better balance in upcoming patches and/or sequels. I wish they would dump Unity if they get enough money for a proper production, though.
ETA: I don't think it fair to compare MMXL to previous titles other than maybe 9, as much as people would love to. Perhaps 8? I rate it high for what they had to work with, but if you remove all the assets borrowed from other Ubisoft games, it's clear they had a ridiculously tiny budget.
I'd like to see what they can do in a proper engine and a decent budget, provided they can maintain their respect for the old school stylings at the same time.
MMX is much better than 8. The content in MM8 was mostly pretty uninspired and the balancing was completely out of whack. Almost every enemy dropped items and you could get over 100k gold by level 10. That's not even going into the huge balance issues with the classes (especially the dragons ofc).
In MMXI I'd like to see the return of non-combat skills, Arcomage, maybe an inventory system like MM6-8 with an autosort option to make managing it less of a hassle. Ideally on a different engine than Unity, with free roaming movement (though I know grognards are split on this issue).
I just don't see a way to have freeroaming movement without adulterating the combat. Games that have diametrically opposed systems like this are always made less great by their presence, in my opinion. That's the main reason I prefer grid-based--and the total lack of games of its type in recent years.
That said, I kind of figure it's a foregone conclusion that they'll go freeroam if they use a better 3D engine. I'll just be pining away for that grid-based feeling when that happens, especially since MMXL reminded me how great it feels.
I upgraded my Barbarian's mace skill to the max level, but the GM trainer at the Crag tells me I need to be promoted first in order for him to train me. Does anyone know where the Barbarian upgrade class quest is? I've been roaming around Desolate Wilds without much success.
Ugh. Shut the fuck up.
