Game News Might & Magic X Update: Travelling, Questing, Itemization and more

[Excidium]

Jesus Christ don't do that Gurkog

All of that combat while dungeon crawling is not practice?

It is, that's why you get experience. But you won't get enough of a benefit to justify leveling up after a few hours of fighting things. You'll certainly get some other tangible and non-tangible benefits though. Like treasure. Objective completion.

That is why I said it should be supplemental, give a boost to rate of xp gain, or substitute it, as in providing new spells (already learned spells should get better through use).

Yes. That too. Trainer requirement is just an acceptable simplification. Point in parenthesis I'd say should depend on the game.

Suddenly adventurers never spend time 'resting' or 'traveling', and so they have no time to contemplate on their recent experiences.

Might make sense in some circustances. A long haul, maybe. a night's rest? Eeeh...

But if the game doesn't recognize the passage of time it doesn't make much difference.

If the economy is fucked up without training money sinks it is irredeemable shit to begin with.

I agree but every little bit helps. CRPG economy is hard to balance unless you have perfect control of how the player does shit which would make for a rather poor CRPG

 

[Gozma]

Whoosh.

In the Might & Magic games, you traditionally could not level up without a trainer. Trainers were located in towns. That meant you had to return to town periodically to "check in" your experience points. Remind you of anything?

Actually a good point

It's cool that a whole dungeon can be balanced for your initial level and equipment loadout and they can give you whatever they want inside the dungeon without worrying about like making the right side of the dungeon unbalanced if you do it before the left etc.

And if you go back to town to ID your shit and level up then come back you should feel RPG shame obviously

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I'm with @Excidium, @Berekän and others on this. Not being able to use unidentified items has never made sense in any game - I've always hated that mechanic. It's just not logical. Picture it: I'm a warrior hacking and slashing through monsters, suddenly the sword in my hand breaks. Oh, good thing I have another sword in my pack I just found. But wait, some mysterious force keeps pushing it out of my hand because I haven't let a sage look at it yet! It's just a silly, artificial restriction.

Training in town makes a bit more sense because it relates to talking with your mentor about your experiences in the field, and putting further practice in to perfect the new moves (or spells, etc.) you figured out.

You really can't imagine a scenario where a *magic* sword is unusable until you figure it out?

Actually I should have clarified that yes in certain cases the magic of an item should not activate until it's been identified. But a guy should still be able to pick up the magic sword and swing it in a basic manner. Perhaps the full effects don't activate until identified (requiring a activation word, gesture or something). And the same follows for any powerful artifact or relic. The problem is that games aren't making those detailed distinctions between cases.

I always imagined it as the person not wanting to try messing with a magic artifact until they know what it does. Could be cursed, etc.

 

[IDtenT]

Just introduce an iroman mode for those who feel they will cheat by save-scumming. Instant success.

 

[IDtenT]

Meh, not being able to use experience as you get it is shit design, but so is not being able to use unidentified items.

Not gaining experience in the skills you use, is shit design.

That said, I quite like how they did it with this game. You gain experience and get better with stuff as you level, but to gain extra proficiency you need to go back to town to train in that profession. It makes a whole lot of sense.

 

[Infinitron]

Whoosh.

In the Might & Magic games, you traditionally could not level up without a trainer. Trainers were located in towns. That meant you had to return to town periodically to "check in" your experience points. Remind you of anything?

Actually a good point

It's cool that a whole dungeon can be balanced for your initial level and equipment loadout and they can give you whatever they want inside the dungeon without worrying about like making the right side of the dungeon unbalanced if you do it before the left etc.

And if you go back to town to ID your shit and level up then come back you should feel RPG shame obviously

Your sarcasm is noted

If I'm not mistaken however, people did find it enjoyable to see how far they could go on without levelling in WoX. The identification thing adds an additional challenge to that (you'll need to manage your identification spells/scrolls to use new stuff if you want to do so before you return to town)

There are some similarities to how resting will work in PE

That said, being able to use unidentified magical items as a mundane item isn't a bad compromise

 

[Gozma]

No sarcasm intended, I had a legit opinion 180. I'm the guy that defended town training by noting that it gives you a way to reverse level-scale the game.

Item identification is so trivial I can't really be bothered to think about it anymore whichever way though

 

[undecaf]

All of that combat while dungeon crawling is not practice?

Consider the trainers to be teaching you new techniques with the given ability, and the gap between these thresholds to represent honing what the character knows so far up to where he masters the techniques he knows. Once you reach that threshold, you can still learn to hit harder by investing in strength, you can dodge better by investing in evasive abilities, but to learn new tricks with a sword or bow, or what ever (and combining it with the previous technique effectively) requires someone to show it to you first. Shouldn't be that hard to imagine as everything is basically an abstract.

 

[Nael]

No, but you shouldn't get much better at sword fighting by an amount significant enough to be represented statistically all by yourself unless you really practice a lot, a teacher should certainly help you learn faster and better stuff. Not to mention learning spells and other more academic things. CRPGs don't have "downtime" that you can go and assume your character is honing whatever he did during his latest adventures to level up so trainer requirements are just the simplest best step. That it helps the in-game economy by relieving you of your money is just a bonus.

That's pretty much how it works in MMX. When you increase your level you put points into skills but you cannot "graduate" and take advantage of more advanced weapons, armor, spells, etc until you train the requisite skill with a trainer. New spells are likewise only available in libraries. I think this is the most organic way of handling progression in a MM game.