Might and Magic Might & Magic X - Legacy

[Zeriel]

Fuck off and die. The trainer system is one of the high points of M&M.

I was going to agree with you until I read Eyeball's post again. He's not complaining about the trainer system or where the trainers are but about the fact you cannot raise the skill above those soft caps until after you get Expert. And THAT did not exist in 6-8, where you could keep pumping points (and benefitting from the skill) even though you didn't get the extra advantage from the skill promotion until you found the trainer. I would have preferred if they kept it the same here too, especially since as I complained earlier all of ten skills cannot be trained to expert until after arbitrary plot points are passed (not to mention how many Master/GM are gated in Karthal, which is pretty much late-game content). MM7 did this too, and I didn't like it there either despite being able to spend the points - it's worse in MMX.

This is true. Gated trainers is one thing, having certain skills gated far later than others with no recourse other than to power through content with 10+ skillpoints unused is just bad.

I'm pretty sure it's intentional. Or at least "well the previous games did it, let's do it too". People were bitching about that in MM7 not long ago--lots of trainers in Nighon. If anything, I feel MMXL is very generous with the trainers with a few exceptions. Some GM are basically unobtainable until final fight, and there is the stuff that is Expert in Seahaven, but Act I is a tutorial area, so I don't see having to get past it to get trainers a bad thing.

In any case, I like the design, whether it's intended or not. Skills taking effort and even frustration to acquire makes them feel special.

ETA:

Okay, I want to turn this into an impromptu game design clinic because I like this concept, but apparently people have issues with it. Is it okay for there to be only one trainer for a skill if that trainer is accessible very early on? Is it okay for that trainer to be in an obscure location, as long as it is technically feasible, or do they have to be in an obvious location? (Or centralized, as in a town.)

 

[Redlands]

Okay, I want to turn this into an impromptu game design clinic because I like this concept, but apparently people have issues with it. Is it okay for there to be only one trainer for a skill if that trainer is accessible very early on? Is it okay for that trainer to be in an obscure location, as long as it is technically feasible, or do they have to be in an obvious location? (Or centralized, as in a town.)

The answer really depend on what type of game you're making, what skills you're talking about, how useful/powerful they are in relation to other skills at that training level, and the mechanics involved.

Personally, if you have trainers in remote locations, then will (hopefully) be some risk in getting there, and so there should be a proportional reward for doing so. Whether that is learning a particularly powerful, rare skill, or a high level skill, or a skill that can only be trained while out adventuring is up to you. But don't go putting first-tier trainers for basic skills like bows or healing magic out in the middle of nowhere, because:

• it doesn't make sense gameworld-wise for something so commonly known to require you to go to the middle of nowhere to learn the basics that people in the villages already know, and
  
• mechanically players will need those early levels to get to your trainer, but they won't have them in order to get there, putting them in a catch-22 situation, and
• you won't really have that carrot to dangle in front of them to get them to go off adventuring in the first place.

 

[Zeriel]

Okay, I want to turn this into an impromptu game design clinic because I like this concept, but apparently people have issues with it. Is it okay for there to be only one trainer for a skill if that trainer is accessible very early on? Is it okay for that trainer to be in an obscure location, as long as it is technically feasible, or do they have to be in an obvious location? (Or centralized, as in a town.)

The answer really depend on what type of game you're making, what skills you're talking about, how useful/powerful they are in relation to other skills at that training level, and the mechanics involved.

Personally, if you have trainers in remote locations, then will (hopefully) be some risk in getting there, and so there should be a proportional reward for doing so. Whether that is learning a particularly powerful, rare skill, or a high level skill, or a skill that can only be trained while out adventuring is up to you. But don't go putting first-tier trainers for basic skills like bows or healing magic out in the middle of nowhere, because:

• it doesn't make sense gameworld-wise for something so commonly known to require you to go to the middle of nowhere to learn the basics that people in the villages already know, and
  
• mechanically players will need those early levels to get to your trainer, but they won't have them in order to get there, putting them in a catch-22 situation, and
• you won't really have that carrot to dangle in front of them to get them to go off adventuring in the first place.

Yes, but in this thread we've learned it bothers people if such trainers for tiers beyond basic are hard to reach... well, I think mostly people are bothered by them being straight up inaccessible until a certain point, so that's what I'm trying to find out. For advanced tiers, should they simply be accessible but everything else is fair game, or accessible + centralized/easy to reach?

 

[Arkeus]

Yes, but in this thread we've learned it bothers people if such trainers for tiers beyond basic are hard to reach... well, I think mostly people are bothered by them being straight up inaccessible until a certain point, so that's what I'm trying to find out. For advanced tiers, should they simply be accessible but everything else is fair game, or accessible + centralized/easy to reach?

Accessible is enough, even if very hard to reach- a good example would be the dual-wield grandmaster.

OTOH, i think the promotions should be accessible before they currently are. At least some of them are only accessible almost in act IV.

 

[Bubbles]

I disagree. As long as you don't have a pigeon holed character with almost zero build variety (Blade Dancer), the lack of promotions encourages you to diversify and consider seemingly unattractive skills before you become game-breakingly powerful.

 

[SuicideBunny]

I disagree. As long as you don't have a pigeon holed character with almost zero build variety (Blade Dancer), the lack of promotions encourages you to diversify and consider seemingly unattractive skills before you become game-breakingly powerful.

eh, no. those sp are still a fairly limited resource (at least until limbo dungeon and its enemy respawner are patched in.. though it's also moot since it will only be accessible in postgame) which encourages hoarding them until you find a trainer rather than spending on skills you wouldn't normally increase.

 

[Bubbles]

If I can't afford to play 10 hours until I find the right trainer, then yeah, I'm not gonna be hoarding those points.

On my second all-mage playthough I never "hoarded" more than one point and ended up with a very satisfying loadout.

 

[Eyeball]

Once you hit Master, you can max your skill bar. No need to hoard points waiting until you find the GM.

IIRC, the Towns in MM6-7 had trainers that were more easily accessible, seeing as you could just run to those Towns due to the lack of act restrictions. Each town also had a better variety of trainers, making it a bit more fluid than MM10's system. I can't recall ever running around for ages trying to find an Expert trainer, although master and especially GM required some notetaking.

 

[Bubbles]

There are skills like Magic Focus and the magic resistance skill where putting points from Master towards GM without actually having access to the GM trainer/your class promotion would result in greatly diminished returns. In case of MF the GM trainer is just a case of having a spotter in your group, but still - if I'm playing on Warrior without location spoilers, I don't expect to be able to find what I'm looking for any time soon, and I like that.

 

[Arkeus]

There are skills like Magic Focus and the magic resistance skill where putting points towards GM without actually having access to the GM trainer/your class promotion would result in vastly diminished returns. In case of MF the GM trainer is just a case of having a spotter in your group, but still - if I'm playing on Warrior without location spoilers, I don't expect to be able to find whan I'm looking for any time soon, and I like that.

Magic Focus even without GM is damn good. It gives you a flat +20%chance to crit and the ability to equip two focus, which means +60%crit damage and lots of stuff from the enchantment.

 

[Bubbles]

Mysticism and your magic schools are usually better for your damage output than MF without GM. Then you can consider going endurance to shift some Vitality towards the Magic stat (which also has better returns than MF, while Endurance has better returns than Vitality) or towards Spirit, and so on and so forth.

 

[Arkeus]

Mysticism and your magic schools are usually better for your damage output than MF without GM. Then you can consider going endurance to shift some Vitality towards the Magic stat (which also has better returns than MF, while Endurance has better returns than Vitality) or towards Spirit, and so on and so forth.

MF multiplies your magic school damage. Nothing has better damage output than this. GMing MF, however, means that you can only have two magic schools learned with your character (you can GM only 3 skills), so this clearly cut on versatility.

Mysticism does nothing for your damage past the point where you have enough mana to last you any one fight, and items that gives +50mana are ridiculously common.

 

[Bubbles]

You don't need individual versatility with 4 mages, probably not with 3 either. My shaman just took Air, Mysticism, MF, Endurance, Medium armor, and a bit of Dodge and spell resist and helped out with novice level non-scaling skills like cure poison; he rocked the house.

In some later fights I could easily chew through 300 mana per caster in one battle just flinging out the highest damage and the biggest heals possible; it was a lot of fun, and Mysticism was way more helpful than MF on characters that couldn't GM it.

 

[moraes]

I'm trying to finish this but fucking Uplay has constant problems connecting to the key servers. I'll consider sailing the seven seas for the next game if Ubisoft carries on with this bullshit.

EDIT: My party is Crusader + Blademaster + Runepriest + Freemage. I'm at the end of Act III and facerolling everything on Warrior. Is Act IV more challenging? Early game difficulty was pretty satisfaying so I'm not complaining.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yes, but in this thread we've learned it bothers people if such trainers for tiers beyond basic are hard to reach... well, I think mostly people are bothered by them being straight up inaccessible until a certain point, so that's what I'm trying to find out. For advanced tiers, should they simply be accessible but everything else is fair game, or accessible + centralized/easy to reach?

The issue is characters being (temporally) gimped by bad skill choices. Harder vs. Easier to find is alright in an open world (assuming it's used in moderation, don't hide the only Expert level trainer at the end of a high level area), but in a game with gating allowing players to have 15 points and Expert in daggers but only 7 points in spears before a difficult gated fight is just a PITA. Make certain trainers harder to reach, sure, but impossible until you beat the chapter? Don't.

 

[Tigranes]

Alright, I'm getting irritated with Blackguards so might start on this. I've read some of this thread, but look, 200 pages.

(1) Difficulty? I recall reading the normal difficulty is actually OK?
(2) I'm thinking Might/Crusader, Destiny/Bladedancer, Scout and Shaman, but that doesn't get me all the spell schools like Dark. Thoughts? I don't want to powergame, just want to avoid annoyances or gimped classes.

(3) Should only mages invest into spells or is it viable to have others dabble?

 

[Prime]

Can someone tell me if increased melee damage buffs the elemental damage from enchants aswell? Should i be leveling might and destiny or only destiny on dagger dual wield?

 

[InspectorRumpole]

I'm doing fine without Dark and Air so far (~lvl 22 party)

 

[whatevername]

Alright, I'm getting irritated with Blackguards so might start on this. I've read some of this thread, but look, 200 pages.

(1) Difficulty? I recall reading the normal difficulty is actually OK?
(2) I'm thinking Might/Crusader, Destiny/Bladedancer, Scout and Shaman, but that doesn't get me all the spell schools like Dark. Thoughts? I don't want to powergame, just want to avoid annoyances or gimped classes.

(3) Should only mages invest into spells or is it viable to have others dabble?

1) On warrior you can screw up if you pick retarded class combination / skills. I screwed up and picked 2 freemages/2 druids and wasted points on vitality and mysticism so I rerolled to 4 freemages.
3) Spells like celestial armor, cure poison, regeneration, push, gust and utility / buffs are usable for non mages.

I'm doing fine without Dark and Air so far (~lvl 22 party)

Dark has Sleep so you can sleep everything and focus on 1 monster

 

[Abelian]

Okay, I want to turn this into an impromptu game design clinic because I like this concept, but apparently people have issues with it. Is it okay for there to be only one trainer for a skill if that trainer is accessible very early on? Is it okay for that trainer to be in an obscure location, as long as it is technically feasible, or do they have to be in an obvious location? (Or centralized, as in a town.)

I actually like the concept of finding trainers, since it gives the player an extra incentive to scour the game-world. That being said, I feel that there should be multiple lower-level trainers and that they should be easier to find, such as in a town. Also, there shouldn't be a very significant impediment, such as a tough boss, that prevents the player from reaching the more obscure trainers.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Searching for trainers never been a problem for me but putting GM dagger trainer in the last dungeons last floor is bullshit. I feel for dagger users.
Most other GM trainers are easy to reach,you just need to take notes where you met them (most of them are in wilderness)

InspectorRumpole

Well, earth elementals and naga priestess going to give you headaches without purge. And air is good to have against feeblemind (everyone and their grandmother have this in act 4)

 

[Tigranes]

After some fooling around have settled on Warrior difficulty, Crusader / Bladedancer / Shaman / Freemage. Reasonably challenging making me use the consumables and whatever resources I have to keep going. Just got out of the first town and reached the lighthouse.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Bblade Dancer with equal might/destiny and crusador with piddly might outdamages freemage/runepriest in act 3...unless the crit with master air/fire spells.

But acid splash, sunder and agony with celestial armor/ regen are the spells I am using mostly give better consistent damage. For bosses hour of power and inner fire work nicely. Also the various wards and burning determination as applicable.

Much less backtracking for supply whoring.

And the Prime Beacon Spell is kinda bugged. Get stuck in eternal combat no save first time I used it to wrap. But fortunately had a 15 min old save. Wtf causes it apart from Limbic's ineptitude? Manually returning to town all the time is frustrating with that spell sitting on my freemage

Btw guise, I just rescued that old bearded man from Karthal and managed to get all the 6 shards and got earth/water/air blessing with lv23 party.
Should I get the dark/light/fire blessing now? Was buttraped by the crystal spider while rest of lost city was lol faceroll with my setup, jntil I cheesed buffs and rested before begining the fight.

 

[Minttunator]

Searching for trainers never been a problem for me but putting GM dagger trainer in the last dungeons last floor is bullshit. I feel for dagger users.

I didn't know that was the case. God dammit I knew I should've gone with swords!

 

[cvv]

Should I get the dark/light/fire blessing now?

Dark magic blessing is a perma Whispering Shadow buff, so it's more about convenience than anything else.

Light magic blessing reveals traps which is completely useless since there aren't any traps in the whole game (maybe except one or two mysterious tombs).

Fire magic blessing is a perma Danger Sense buff, so...yeah. Besides, the Fire Elemental boss is probably the hardest hitting mob in the game, even worse than the Crystal Spider I'd say.