Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Great Deceiver]

Julien's favourite Heroes game is Heroes 2 (he loves the opera music). His favorite Might & Magic games are 4,5 and 6.

The other guy is a "story man" and likes Heroes 4 and 6 for their stories.

Heroes 4 was the one that had the opera music. It sounded good, but it could get annoying to just hear the first 10 seconds of the song every time you went to town, bought troops/built a building, then moved to the next town.

There was opera in the orchestrated redbook (CD) Price of Loyalty/Heroes 2 Gold soundtrack. For example:

edit: beaten

 

[Abelian]

No, Heroes 2 had it too (though it was optional). Perhaps you didn't have the CD, as I believe it was Redbook audio.

There was opera in the orchestrated redbook (CD) Price of Loyalty/Heroes 2 Gold soundtrack. For example:

Yep, I didn't have the redbook soundtrack. It's included with the GOG.com's Heroes 2 Gold, which I'll probably get during the next M&M sale.

 

[Bubbles]

Orchestra + vocals does not equal opera.

 

[Great Deceiver]

well it's not even a real orchestra, so why are we mincing words here

 

[cvv]

It's done, Warrior dif, 50 hours. Here are some thoughts, comments and feedback:

- the biggest problem by far is the performance and bugs everyone's harped on this sufficiently, no need to go on a tangent with this, here's just hoping they'll fix the loading screens and the combat bug asap

- second most annoying thing for me was the minimap, in some places the unexplored tiles are black and the explored ones are dark dark grey; I had to constantly lean forward and squint at the screen like an idiot, my eyes are already planning a revenge

- the last third of the game was an easy faceroll consisting basically of spamming the attack button, with my Blademaster absolutely stomping on faces, and pressing Regeneration now and then. I didn't do any research beforehand, just went blindly with a Defender, Bladedancer, Freemage and a Shaman and didn't powergame. Either I lucked out on an optimal party (maybe Crusader instead of Defender would be even better) or, more likely, Limbic didn't hit the endgame difficulty quite right. Although big thumbs up for the block and reflect pain mechanics, it meant I had to soften up dem Black Guards and Elite Shades with a Flawless Assault first, so it wasn't a complete mindnumbing grind after all. Also my Blademaster was useless against the Faceless because thanks to reflect pain he knocked himself out with each hit, since he was constantly criting for 500+

- trash loot! I don't get it why every mob has to drop some stupid old boots or a tunic, even in the second half of the game when you're absolutely swimming in gold and all sqaddies are clad in leveled up relics; it's not a big deal but it seems ill-considered

- spells (?); I read people are using a lot of damaging spells but I found them underwhelming. Maybe it's because I had only Earth GM'd and Dark and Prime mastered, but spells like Blizzard, Implosion or Crush seemed very weak. Didn't use the Air and Fire at all though, maybe that's were it's at.

- lack of positioning mechanics was infuriating at the beginning but at half time, with higher resistances and HP, it didn't matter as much. Only problem is it rendered the ranged classes completely useless which is a shame

- I've always hated the repopulation mechanics in M&Ms, when all enemies respawn after certain period; it's usually at a point when almost nothing presents any challenge anymore and if you need to get somewhere you have to slog through a HP bloated meat wall that can't touch you. Plus I think it's bugged in this game.


But hey, that's all irrelevant in the end because I had as much fun with this game as with MM 6 -7 and those are my favourites. Sure, it's not nearly as epic or ambitious but it's still as much fun as an old blobber loving grognard like me can have these days.

P.S. - I haven't got the Behind the Scenes achievement, is there such a thing as "Limbo dungeon"?

 

[Bubbles]

Because a HoMM built around opera music would be very weird, but potentially cool.

 

[Grunker]

Is there actual C&C in this game, or are the choices just for show?

Spoiler

like fighting luke or choosing to let him go

 

[cvv]

Is there actual C&C in this game, or are the choices just for show?

Spoiler

like fighting luke or choosing to let him go

Just for show, you get a Fallout-style "that's what happened" message in the end corresponding to your choice.

 

[Grunker]

Is there actual C&C in this game, or are the choices just for show?

Spoiler

like fighting luke or choosing to let him go

Just for show, you get a Fallout-style "that's what happened" message in the end corresponding to your choice.

Thought so. Means it's strictly better to fight and get phat l00t!

 

[sser]

Was thinking about making a party of the supposed worst characters. I'm mulling Mercenary, Ranger (with bows), and Defender. Not sure who else to take as everybody else is pretty well rounded, I'd say. Maybe Freemage as they have a bunch of spells I didn't get to use the first time around.

Edit: Also wondering if bows/xbows count as "two-handed" weapons...

 

[LivingOne]

Edit: Also wondering if bows/xbows count as "two-handed" weapons...

Don't think so,my Orc barbarian is using a 2h mace and bow at the same time.

 

[Excidium]

Was thinking about making a party of the supposed worst characters. I'm mulling Mercenary, Ranger (with bows), and Defender.

Hey!

 

[undecaf]

Was thinking about making a party of the supposed worst characters. I'm mulling Mercenary, Ranger (with bows), and Defender.

My defender kicked ass. He didn't do the highest damages (with axe and shield), but he was always the last one up (accompanying druid, freemage and barbarian).

 

[Grunker]

You know what feels the weirdest about this game? Actually using my keyboard as a main component for playing an RPG again. My left hand is all "huh? You need me?"

 

[Abelian]

Was thinking about making a party of the supposed worst characters. I'm mulling Mercenary, Ranger (with bows), and Defender.

My defender kicked ass. He didn't do the highest damages (with axe and shield), but he was always the last one up (accompanying druid, freemage and barbarian).

The defender's taunt came in handy a few times when my casters' HP was low. My party's almost exactly the same, with a hunter instead of barbarian. Speaking of which, I only noticed one other poster in this thread using a hunter. The most popular classes seem to be blade dancer, crusader, freemage, runepriest. Party of win?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Well, I finally finished the game. It was great up until Act 3, I think - but sadly the last part is really, really bad.

Spoiler

The gauntlet of the last boss is just so, so terrible.

The really weird thing is, after completing the game (watching credits roll and everything, and seeing those screens recounting your choices/quests completed), I got dumped back into Karthal and the

Spoiler

"Battle of Karthal" quest is still active, saying that I have to defeat Markus Wolf.

Is this a bug? I didn't get the Act 4 achievement either, which is weird.

If the game didn't rely so much on lame ambush encounters for 90% of its content it would be a lot better, in my opinion. But it has a good foundation and the developers have their hearts in the right place. The open world aspect was very faithful to M&M, even though it was pretty short in the end. It still kept me busy for a few days and I can't say that of many games lately.

 

[goatvomit]

A couple of observations from the 2nd level of Ker-Thal. I did the horrible mistake of going with the default party and more blaster power would have been sorely needed. I don't really get ranger at all and mostly the wench keeps doing those silly 2nd level earth buffs and acts as a healer. Paladin would have made more sense I guess. Defender and Barbarian strike like sledgehammers, that is when they hit at all so perhaps some perception would have helped along with the 100 might. I'm not sure. The Freemage holds her weight and does most of the heavy lifting. The game crashes every few hours so saving often goes without saying. Overall with the familiar mechanics M&M fans should be happy and feel like at home but I don't guess it will attract a lot of new fans.

 

[sser]

Here's the party I decided to roll with:

Spoiler

I'm gonna miss not having an orc, but I really wanted to see the Primordial/Dark spells since I had none on my first go through. Interestingly enough, I already saw some new content right at the start of the game, so that's cool.

Party plan is pretty basic.

Ranger: gonna GM bows, get the pointblank shot and just use that. Earth spells are always a good deal.
Mercenary: two-handed swords. 2/2 Might/Destiny for crit-chance. Going to try and maximize the "swords hit twice when critting" and go for mega damage off that.
Freemage: Primordial/Darkness, mostly, but also going to have to get Liquid Membrane at some point. Not having Light at all will be interesting.
Defender: basic tank. Expert Fire for the debuff protection at some point. I kinda wish I started with it but oh well. I think his damage will be fine with GM axes.


About to start the Lighthouse. I rolled right through the Den of Thieves and everything outside. I don't think I'll get a real indicator of how the party will do until Act 1 is over, though.

 

[Excidium]

Expert Fire for the debuff protection at some point.

Is it really worth it? That spell is p. common in scroll form.

 

[Average Manatee]

My party's almost exactly the same, with a hunter instead of barbarian. Speaking of which, I only noticed one other poster in this thread using a hunter. The most popular classes seem to be blade dancer, crusader, freemage, runepriest. Party of win?

Once you take out the useless ranged stuff and focus on melee, the Hunter is basically a Barbarian with slightly worse skill selection and a highly situational class ability (not entirely useless, but the Barbarian's is just always great).

In general the full casters are all very powerful with a convincing reason to choose them (though Druid is certainly the least interesting of the pack). Bladedancers are just pure DPS machines, especially combined with Freemage and/or Crusader (and since melee isn't tanking in this game, you pretty much go DPS by default). Crusader is a very solid melee with decent magic and is pretty much the only "mixed-use" class that can actually work, since the limited skill points tends to make investment in multiple fields a bad idea. That about rounds up what I would consider the "great" classes, though Barbarian is arguably pretty close.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Towards the end of my game my Barbarian was just tearing everything apart, with huge 450-600 crits on his (rather crappy, didn't find a mace relic) 2h mace. I wish I had invested more in Destiny throughout the game, because mace crits are awesome (they stun) and when you GM two-handed weapons you can't be blocked.

Ranger was pretty terrible but at least you can use them as earth buff bots/ghetto dagger bladedancers. The worst class in the game, imo, is the defender, whose promotion class skill is laughable (eats some ranged attacks for your other party members for free if he has block attempts left for the round, should be any attacks period). The grandmaster Warfare aoe taunt is actually pretty decent, but it costs 50 mana making it prohibitive since you would waste every other turn chugging mana pots, since the class doesn't have Mysticism. I feel like Warfare should give more mana per point.

 

[Excidium]

The worst class in the game, imo, is the defender, whose promotion class skill is laughable (eats some ranged attacks for your other party members for free if he has block attempts left for the round, should be any attacks period).

Ooooh fuck I forgot the promotion ability. God defenders truly suck.

 

[Greatness]

Scout is still probably better than the Barbarian even though his class skill is meh (though you can abuse it the same way as cyclone). Axe grandmastery bonuses are a lot better than the dual-weild grandmastery bonuses. The extra HP from dwarf racial is also nice because it lets you level up might 100% and survive from just items/endurance.

Blademaster still beats both out though since the extra turn is ridiculous.

IMO Crusaders shouldn't even bother with melee. Just skill 100% into magic and enough spirit to get by the early game. The reasons for this are two OP skills, Celestial Armor and Mandate of Heaven. With both scaling off of your pumped magic stat you will be blockign 300+ dmg per turn with Celestial Armor and adding ~150 damage to EVERY attack from your dual weilding blademasters/scouts/etc, these two spells are the most effecient defense and offense spells in the game, so why bother even trying to melee when you can't even get two-handed or dual-weilding skills...

 

[Average Manatee]

At least Defenders (and Mercenaries) get Mace + GM warfare, which lets you get guaranteed crits that will stun the target. Not the kind of thing I'd pick a class for, but it's kind of unique.

Scout is still probably better than the Barbarian even though his class skill is meh (though you can abuse it the same way as cyclone). Axe grandmastery bonuses are a lot better than the dual-weild grandmastery bonuses. The extra HP from dwarf racial is also nice because it lets you level up might 100% and survive from just items/endurance.

Barbarians get GM two-handed. And I'd definitely take being unblockable over a damage increase. But the main advantage Barbarians have is GM Maces, and IMO if you aren't looking for max DPS (meaning blademaster), the only other option are Maces for the amazing stun utility. Plus the +20% from crits orcs have is good synergy with a crit-focused character.

IMO Crusaders shouldn't even bother with melee. Just skill 100% into magic and enough spirit to get by the early game. The reasons for this are two OP skills, Celestial Armor and Mandate of Heaven. With both scaling off of your pumped magic stat you will be blockign 300+ dmg per turn with Celestial Armor and adding ~150 damage to EVERY attack from your dual weilding blademasters/scouts/etc, these two spells are the most effecient defense and offense spells in the game, so why bother even trying to melee when you can't even get two-handed or dual-weilding skills...

Umm, so you max Light Magic and then what? You can still choose another 3-4 skills to invest in. Might as well GM swords, your self-buff will make you a respectable melee regardless. A bit of Warfare for Skull Crack is also a good idea.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Now that I think about it, swords are definitely the best possible way to benefit from destiny, dps wise. With the extra hit, your crit multiplier is essentially given a 100% bonus (or way more, depending on how it works. Does the second attack auto crit? If it doesn't, can it crit and trigger additional attacks too?)