Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[PorkyThePaladin]

I am really enjoying the dungeons in Mandate of Heaven so far. Non-linear, very large (especially by modern standards), tons of gold and loot (when you actually need gold in this game), always some quest or quests related to them, some thematic coherence...

 

[Dungeon Lord]

What am I doing wrong?
I cannot play M&M2 in the proper way.
Proper way:
I step onto a new grid field. I press S to search. I turn to North, West, South, East. I check the map where I am. Step onto the next field..etc. ad nauseum.
This is incredibly boring and tiresome.

Did you try not doing those things?

Wait a minute!
Is searching good for ONLY after battle? Only to search shiny loot? Or there is a clue or hidden important item somewhere you have to search?
Looking at every corner is a must. For example if you are going to east, you will not notice that there is a dungeon at north.

100% Thievery skill is enough?

 

[newtmonkey]

You are making the game far clunkier than it really is. The "Search" command in M&M2 is primarily for searching for treasure immediately after battle. Mostly everything is found in the game simply by walking into its square.

The game is full of stuff to find naturally, there's no need to follow this weird advice you've apparently received on the "proper" way to play the game. Map the towns out, explore their dungeons, and then start by mapping the roads between towns. Then start exploring areas around the roads. You'll find stuff all over the place.

[EDIT] The only time (as far as I recall) where facing matters is when there are messages written on walls, as you must face the wall the message is written on to see it.

 

[octavius]

Facing also matters for seeing things like castles.
Incidentally MM2 is one of the few games in which random encounters are checked when turning.

 

[newtmonkey]

True, I forgot about the castles. However, they are pretty much all at the ends of roads (so you would come upon them naturally) and their locations are also shown on the paper map that comes with the game.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

Is there only one active Lloyds Beacon?
I have 2 sorcerers but it seems the location of spell is overwritten.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

What is the usual maximum level for a party in M&M2 ?
M&M6-7-8 I had usually Level 100 party at the end of the game.
M&M3-4-5 I cannot remember.

 

[Sinatar]

What is the usual maximum level for a party in M&M2 ?
M&M6-7-8 I had usually Level 100 party at the end of the game.
M&M3-4-5 I cannot remember.

If you spend a few minutes fighting cuisinarts you can hit the 200's easy.

 

[Sceptic]

Most encounters in MM2 are level-scaled, both random ones, and "random fixed" ones (fixed square that forces combat, but enemy composition is randomized). Trying to grind higher levels is therefore a bad idea.

 

[octavius]

255 is probably the max level, but as Sceptic mentioned there's not much point in grinding for such levels (except maybe to be able to defeat the Mega Dragon). I like that the game has anti-grinding measures, that makes over-leveled parties regularly face armies (stacks up to 255) of enemies. Playing normally I think the largest stack I saw in a random encounter was like 80 Rocs or 90 Sorcerors.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

255 is probably the max level, but as Sceptic mentioned there's not much point in grinding for such levels (except maybe to be able to defeat the Mega Dragon). I like that the game has anti-grinding measures, that makes over-leveled parties regularly face armies (stacks up to 255) of enemies. Playing normally I think the largest stack I saw in a random encounter was like 80 Rocs or 90 Sorcerors.

Sorry, I meant reachable party level without grinding.

Leprechauns vaporizes valuables what is meaning exactly?

 

[octavius]

Sorry, I meant reachable party level without grinding.

Last time I played my guys were around lvl 30 at the end. That was without grinding or exploring all the map. Most notably I didn't bother exploring all of the elemental areas.

Leprechauns vaporizes valuables what is meaning exactly?

IIRC they have a chance of stealing gems on hit. Some monsters also steal money.

 

[xuerebx]

So, after beating Isles of Terra I moved on to World of Xeen. Completed Clouds of Xeen first and was progressing through Darkside of Xeen before I got distracted with some RL stuff. I decided to start playing Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven as Darkside felt just like playing Clouds of Xeen (duh) and I wanted something different.

Fuck, I'm LOVING Mandate of Heaven.

 

[Ysaye]

Is there only one active Lloyds Beacon?
I have 2 sorcerers but it seems the location of spell is overwritten.

You can have five Beacons per character I thought? I know in my current playthrough my Druid has five different beacons going....

 

[bec de corbin]

I never played swords of xeen. Is it any good?

 

[DaveO]

I never played swords of xeen. Is it any good?

Idealy, Swords of Xeen should be played before World of Xeen or MM3. I played and completed it a long time ago(finale was my first group of online videos). Difficulty spikes in same areas and scripted stuff, but nothing a veteran can't handle. I have a walkthru here: https://sorcerers.net/Games2/DaveO/sox.html

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Man, got tired of dealing with tougher monsters in Booty Bay and environs, with only direct attacks/spells, decided to go to Free Haven, shop around for more powerful stuff.

That town/city is HUGE by rpg standards, in the sense that every building there has something inside of it. Joined the fire guild and went shopping in their store... Feeling like a kid in a candy shop... Ended up spending all my gold (around 20K total) on just 2 spells: Fireball and Incinerate. Fireball for obvious AoE, already enjoying blasting it, and then Incinerate for coolness points. My mage is already level 11 in Fire, so Incinerate does roughly 26-176 damage (101 average).

 

[Ysaye]

Man, got tired of dealing with tougher monsters in Booty Bay and environs, with only direct attacks/spells, decided to go to Free Haven, shop around for more powerful stuff.

That town/city is HUGE by rpg standards, in the sense that every building there has something inside of it. Joined the fire guild and went shopping in their store... Feeling like a kid in a candy shop... Ended up spending all my gold (around 20K total) on just 2 spells: Fireball and Incinerate. Fireball for obvious AoE, already enjoying blasting it, and then Incinerate for coolness points. My mage is already level 11 in Fire, so Incinerate does roughly 26-176 damage (101 average).

If you are prepared to invest in dark magic skill, the best attack spell statistically is Shrapmetal, which is from the Dark Magic spell list; it scales better than any of the other spells in the game, and getting master and grandmaster in Dark only multiplies the damage, also it is useable both indoors and outdoors. The only problem is that to grandmaster that spell list you have to get to a notorious reputation, which you should only do after you have got to saintly reputation so that you can get grandmaster in light spells. Will cost you somewhere between 4-6K depending on your merchant skill.

I have avoided using fire at the moment, as wanted to invest decent points in water (for lloyds beacon, town portal, walk water etc.) and air (fly, wizard eye) so using as staples Ice Bolt with the water mage, and the lightning bolt (indoors) and star burst (outdoors burst). I also have decent light magic for Destroy Undead, Create Food etc..

 

[fantadomat]

Sooo i am playing Brany Skeldalu and having fun now. Just wanted to post it here because many people here enjoy such games and may not know about it. It is a czech game with fan translation and it is pretty good,tho it does have some retarded hidden shit that you could have hard time finding. I would recommend giving it a go if you crave a good dungeon crawl with openish world.

 

[Grauken]

WOX music was composed for a Sound Canvas (specifically SC-55). Of course the MT-32 version will sound more meh (though, as far as SC-to-MT conversions go, this is probably the best one around). The music is also identical between floppy and CD versions of WOX, as the CD tracks just had voices (pretty terrible one too, TBH I prefer playing the non-CD version, but YMMV).

Ah, no wonder the music sounds shit. I'm thinking I could probably configure Scummvm to use an SC-55 soundfont with its built in Fluidsynth program if I want to get truly ambitious about it. The thing is the game is so long (150+ hours?) that I might as well have the optimum music for it. Yeah,, voice acting is not great. Was a bit shocked that the mayor in the starting town sounded just like Ralph Kramden. Town must be located in the same location but alternate plane in the multiverse as Brooklyn NY.

Just tried WoX with SC-55 and damn does it sound great, lots of extra sounds you don't hear when using other sound choices, not even MT-32

 

[Pope Amole II]

If you are prepared to invest in dark magic skill, the best attack spell statistically is Shrapmetal, which is from the Dark Magic spell list; it scales better than any of the other spells in the game

Not really. While it sports the highest damage, it also sports a staggering mana cost. Which, unless you enjoy recharge runs every 5 minutes, matters a lot. To give the exact numbers, 1 Shrapmetal deals 75% more damage than one Fireblast, but it also costs 333% more. 175% dmg for 3.33 times the price is not what I'd call statistically the best.

Likewise, shrapmetal deals 450% more damage than one Sparks, but it costs 12.5 times as much. Mana-wise, Sparks are the best spells to use, although, overall, maxing Fire first gives the best benefits so the optimal way means you're mostly sticking to fire magic for the majority of the game.

Shrapmetal being the best is more of a m&m VII meme (and even there Poison Spray is highly competitive against it).

 

[octavius]

Yeah, that was my experience as well, without crunching any numbers.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I am going to ignore all the build advice for now. That kind of stuff ruins games for me, I just want to play in a fun way, without going too crazy into the numbers. I am also probably not going to get Dark Magic, since I am LARPing good guys, unless there is some non-evil way available later on.

The dungeon variety is insane so far. I am on Free Haven map now, about 5-6 dungeons there, so that makes about almost 20 I've visited in the game so far, and there is no repetition yet. Each one has its own atmosphere, tilesets, layout, puzzles, catches, etc. Pretty impressive.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Just tried WoX with SC-55 and damn does it sound great, lots of extra sounds you don't hear when using other sound choices, not even MT-32

Is there a software to download to use this setting?
Last time i played it i used MT-32 and i was disappointed by the result.

 

[Grauken]

Just tried WoX with SC-55 and damn does it sound great, lots of extra sounds you don't hear when using other sound choices, not even MT-32

Is there a software to download to use this setting?
Last time i played it i used MT-32 and i was disappointed by the result.

There's a SC-55 official plugin that seems to provide great results. No idea how close to the original it is, since I have never owned original hardware, but WoX with that plugin sounds better than using Munt IMHO.

If you want to set it up, I just followed this guide and it worked fine.