Might and Magic The Might and Magic Discussion Thread

[PorkyThePaladin]

Ok, finally finished this thing:

Started out very nicely, but mid-late game turned into a massive slog, and by late game, I couldn't stand the game anymore. Just too much retarded shit, like that idiot Prince Nicholai running away with the circus, and of course the circus has 4 locations, and they are only there 3 days a year or whatever, and while the little fucker is gone, you can't turn any quests to his dumbass overseer... Or the worst item repair system in any game ever... Yeah, it's a lot of fun moving around 40 rings after every dragon fight. And the fucking endless grind.... I just flew through the last 2 maps, fuck clearing them.

The last dungeon, the Hive, was also appropriately retarded. Resets every 7 days (just enough if you have to travel to a nearby city) because the Beacon's doesn't work there of course. Nor can you rest in peace there either. Just 200 switches to complete the rat in a maze feeling, and the final fight with 400 devils and you can't escape. Barely made it out alive, with half the group unconscious.

You know, we spend a lot of time here at the Codex bemoaning the modern games' retardation (the handholding and dumbing down of everything), but some of these old games had their own brand of retardation.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I didn't know you could get such a low score, you probably broke the record.

Also, Might & Magic games were never meant to be completed in two weeks, most entries took me months to complete.
Only replays are shorter because you know what to expect and past the initial discovery, it's less fun to wander so you get straight to the point.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Today I've uploaded the juiciest part of my M&M 8 solo-vamp LP - pretty much the reason I've started it in the first place. A lonely vampire taking on a max-level arena - that is, 20 lvl 100 monsters. Quite doable if you put some mind into it. Relevant part starts at 1:06:00

Spoiler

 

[J_C]

Ok, finally finished this thing:

Started out very nicely, but mid-late game turned into a massive slog, and by late game, I couldn't stand the game anymore. Just too much retarded shit, like that idiot Prince Nicholai running away with the circus, and of course the circus has 4 locations, and they are only there 3 days a year or whatever, and while the little fucker is gone, you can't turn any quests to his dumbass overseer... Or the worst item repair system in any game ever... Yeah, it's a lot of fun moving around 40 rings after every dragon fight. And the fucking endless grind.... I just flew through the last 2 maps, fuck clearing them.

The last dungeon, the Hive, was also appropriately retarded. Resets every 7 days (just enough if you have to travel to a nearby city) because the Beacon's doesn't work there of course. Nor can you rest in peace there either. Just 200 switches to complete the rat in a maze feeling, and the final fight with 400 devils and you can't escape. Barely made it out alive, with half the group unconscious.

You know, we spend a lot of time here at the Codex bemoaning the modern games' retardation (the handholding and dumbing down of everything), but some of these old games had their own brand of retardation.

Congrats to finally finishing the game, but it's sad to see that you didn't enjoy it that much. But as one wise man once said, you were playing it wrong.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yeah, I play games (including RPGs) for fun. So if a game requires you to play it 5 times to learn the meta-game and then the enjoyment comes from max-minning stuff, that's not for me.

 

[J_C]

Yeah, I play games (including RPGs) for fun. So if a game requires you to play it 5 times to learn the meta-game and then the enjoyment comes from max-minning stuff, that's not for me.

Why did you cover the character names? Are you embarassed of them?

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I used my bank account numbers and social security as character names. A personal fetish.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I used my bank account numbers and social security as character names. A personal fetish.

As far as naming characters go, this has to be the weirdest shit I heard.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Fuck, it made me install the M&M 6,7,8 merge mod, starting from VII's world with a weird party
Monk, Thief, Druid and Cleric
Druids are modded and can go GM in all the basic magic schools but i don't think they get access to light and dark (but who knows, it'd be a nice surprise).

I wanted to play a more classical Axe Minotaur instead of the thief but i'm fed-up with traps exploding in my face, maybe i'll try to mod the thief so he gets access to GM dagger because it looks like he'll be quite useless late game (my bad, the thief gets GM dagger down the line), then again, maybe i'll just fire him and pick a nice recruit at some point.

Also, you can create a fifth party member.

M&M III with the new config won't go anywhere, i'll keep it warm for december or january.

 

[deadmeme]

Ok, finally finished this thing:

Started out very nicely, but mid-late game turned into a massive slog, and by late game, I couldn't stand the game anymore. Just too much retarded shit, like that idiot Prince Nicholai running away with the circus, and of course the circus has 4 locations, and they are only there 3 days a year or whatever, and while the little fucker is gone, you can't turn any quests to his dumbass overseer... Or the worst item repair system in any game ever... Yeah, it's a lot of fun moving around 40 rings after every dragon fight. And the fucking endless grind.... I just flew through the last 2 maps, fuck clearing them.

The last dungeon, the Hive, was also appropriately retarded. Resets every 7 days (just enough if you have to travel to a nearby city) because the Beacon's doesn't work there of course. Nor can you rest in peace there either. Just 200 switches to complete the rat in a maze feeling, and the final fight with 400 devils and you can't escape. Barely made it out alive, with half the group unconscious.

You know, we spend a lot of time here at the Codex bemoaning the modern games' retardation (the handholding and dumbing down of everything), but some of these old games had their own brand of retardation.

The Nicholai quest is terrible. But MM 6 has one of the best sewer dungeons ever, beneath Free Heaven. I also love The Hall of the Fire Lord in Bootleg Bay.

 

[fantadomat]

The Nicholai quest is terrible

Ahhh for first time sure. If you replay is a late game quest. Just plot loyd's beacon and do it in 30 seconds.

 

[Eisen]

I am curious,what happens to items in older mm games when your inventory is full? Do they get destroyed ?

In 3,4,5, the item you got replaces the last item in the inventory, that's how i lost Xeen Slayer in MM4

 

[fantadomat]

I am curious,what happens to items in older mm games when your inventory is full? Do they get destroyed ?

In 3,4,5, the item you got replaces the last item in the inventory, that's how i lost Xeen Slayer in MM4

Yeah,the inventory is really bad in those old games. It is the only thing that really puts me off them. I don't remember if it was giving the item to the next character in your party or you had to manually send items to other characters before picking new items.

 

[Sinatar]

It automatically gives the item to the next character with available space assuming someone has any.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Finished my solo-vamp VIII run. Was surprisingly fun, tbh - she's quite op in the late game but you need to be rather creative to get there. And her wide array of tools allows for that creativity.

Endgame stats (with max power white potion boosts):

Skills (Body magic should've been 10 but that would not change much, tbh):

Score (the training to lvl 200 alone takes 5 in-game years, not to mention the lack of travel magic - this isn't a class/playstyle for scoring it high, tbh)

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Pope Amole II]

Skills (Body magic should've been 10 but that would not change much, tbh):

whats up with 40 spirit magic? Just for heroism?

Heroism, Bless, Spirit Lash, Shared life. First two are obvious - 40 skill levels for +65 attack/damage (I have the ring equipped) is a mighty fine deal.

Spirit lash has trash-tier range but it's the only AoE that a Vampire has. Mind you, it's also quite dubious AoE but it's capable of hitting 2-3 enemies at the same time and your average foe has very low spirit resistance. Or none at all. Until you get strong enough to out-lifesteal most opponents, Mistform + Spirit Lash (so you can stay point blank while taking no damage) makes all physical-heavy areas into easy farming places.

Shared Life is just 180 hp for 25 mana healed. Well, the cost is abysmal but Vampire is made of glass so a bit of emergency healing helps a lot.

If you feel like solo-ing combat only, you can also drag around Cauri's corpse, resurrecting her when you need some TPs and then killing her once again.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Pope Amole II]

That's hardly a cheat but nah, no need. You're getting Foulfang from the obelisk treasure and that's better than any natural vampiric dagger. Before the Grayface patch, you could even dual-wield them as the vault would respawn yearly. On the other hand, with Grayface the Dagger's damage is buffed considerably (that tripling of damage from skill mastery never scaled and was permanently stuck at 10%; now it does scale) so it sorta evens out.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Blake00]

ahh man I miss all the M&M games.. need to replay them at some point.. but never enough time lol

 

[Pope Amole II]

Decided to do another quick one:

 

[Darth Canoli]

I didn't bring a thief along for quite some time, the thief promotion quest (steal a vase from Lord Markham's Mansion) is quite hard, at some point, i got two of the toughest guard at once, can't remember their names but they're clearly paladins buffing themselves and they killed the thief; stupid mistake, weak heal next to the end of a turn while he was unconscious and of course, they killed him; but luckily, one was close to death and fled which offered some breathing room.

Fuck, i was sure i could slip in there invisible but i couldn't or maybe i had to click the door again and again ...
Also, Markham mentions a servant's back-way but i couldn't find it.
Anyway, got the vase.

M&M VII goes quite fast when you know what to do.
I already chose Bracada's arbiter, kept Harmondale for myself and reached Celeste.
Also tried walls of Mist for the Priest of Light promotion but you probably need a GM Air for a longer invisibility duration, also, that dungeon is twice too big for its own good (i gave up for now, doing a second promotion round for everyone else first, then GM everyone and everything and i'll come back)

About the merge mod :

• It doesn't change a thing except you can choose classes from all M&M to start with or start as a peasant and get promoted to whatever you want later.
• It's stable with few bugs (mostly some display glitches, more than in the originals and one bug when getting Celeste's Town Hall bounty, debug message but no crash)
• The quest to cross to other worlds isn't intrusive, you can cross from Halfway in when you reach Envenmon Isles.
• Getting a bounty spawns the bounty monster somewhere which is a nice change, i usually don't bother with bounties.
• There's some new options and fixes besides Grayface's ones (and it's compatible with grayface patch which you can apply on top of the mod)

Replaying all three of them recently, I can tell Might & Magic VII is way more focused than M&M VI, i would advise anyone to play VII before VI for a first playthrough and to play VI only if VII was enjoyable, probably 6 months to one year later though.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Finally reached the lands of the giants, at this point, i'm going to stockpile mana potion and Armageddon until nothing moves, Titans are not a threat but the demons are a real pain for my already promoted twice lvl 40+ party.

I'm going to try to complete 7 within the merge and let it rest for a while before attempting to jump to VI or VIII's world.

 

[octavius]

Playing MM2 again, and this time I've noticed some differences between the DOS and Amiga versions.
I played through Middlegate and its dungeon many times back in my Amiga days, and I remember the three square building south of the Magic Guild always held 3 Men-At-Arms and IIRC the two other squares were empty. In the DOS version all three square have random, level scaled (at least the amount) enemies.
Similarly in the secret room at the back of the tavern would have some Acidic Blobs (really nasty for a lvl 1 party), but in the DOS version it's random.

So why would the Amiga version be different?
The DOS version I'm using is the abandonware one.