Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Zboj Lamignat]

Changes I'd like to see in Wiz8?

1. Completing the clearly unfinished quests like the bank heist or the prisoner interrogation.
2. Altering the drop rates, making more items guaranteed drop, especially class-specific stuff like Samurai armour or Ninja daggers.
3. Making more weapons viable choice, with armour the progress is OK, but with weapons not so much - axes are useless, it's easy to get a sword that makes most other swords obsolete, all the magic bows are basically the same thing just with slightly changed values etc.
4. Making some enemies more powerful. Especially the Rapax - they are just an annoying cannon fodder with bloated hp for someone who can use basic protection spells. Also, all the (sub)bosses are basically a cakewalk.
5. More predesigned encounters like the SEW Monastery.
6. Fixing ninjas, cause they suck. They're not powerful enough at all to warrant the highest exp requirements. They are supposed to be thrown specialists, but there is a distinctive lack of thrown weapons. The Sais are one of the most difficult weapons to get and they are not even that good (they are supposed to be supercool ninja weapons, yet top tier daggers that are common stuff are more powerful?). I would add more ninja-specific equipment (thrown stuff goddamit, and I'm not talking the shitty feather darts) and lower their exp requirements to those of normal hybrids, possibly at the expense of the alchemy spellbook.

 

[DraQ]

Specialist gear should generally be more powerful.

 

[Kashrlyyk]

What I would like to have fixed is the spawning of ammunition in shops. It is ridiculous. Any ideas?

 

[eric__s]

That's all pretty good Zboj. I'd keep enemy hit points lower in the beginning of the game, like in Arnika and Trynton, and scale them up further as the game progresses. It's a big problem in the beginning where you don't have the damage output to effectively deal with these guys who have bloated hit points, like the piercer modai, who aren't hard and don't do much damage but can take 20 minutes to kill because you're level 5 and these guys have a million hit points.

Also guarantee certain items to drop or greatly increase their chances. It's lame as hell that 99% of the people that play the game don't even know the best items exist. They should be goals to work towards rather than things you get by chance. Make some super encounter where the monster always drops Light Sword but it's extremely difficult.

 

[Eyeball]

Yep, Wiz8's hammy voice acting is so. fucking. awesome.

Dark Savant clearly wins, though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCKbmq_iZHo

"GEEEEEIVE EEEET TOOO MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Another interesting note: You can definitely hear some of the same voice actors in Wiz8 as in Jagged Alliance, most notably the Umpani bard Saxx who is also the top merc Magic in JA2, having the most badass voice in either game.

Of further interest: The same voice actor can be encountered in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, although I only heard him voice random black street people and not anyone important. Anyone know his name?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Just ascended with my current party.

Dwarf Valkyrie - Str/Dex, polearms and divinity. Party's main and only tank, no one else was able to wear heavy armour. Great buffer with Bless, Magic Screen, Soul Shield and healing. She was the only one in the party with 100 str and high level Power Strike with Dread Spear and yet the damage was so-so, though hexing everybody helped a lot. Top tier polearms should definitely have higher damage though. Didn't die a single time, cheat death motherfucker.

Felpurr Rogue - Spd/Dex, swords/daggers + stealth and traps/locks. A real meat grinder, most kills by far. Was using Bloodlust and Thief's Dagger and then I found the Light Sword for the first time. Let me tell you, there isn't much stuff that can survive 3x Light Sword backstabbing attack. I put points int locks/traps, don't really know why, perhaps because I don't like to waste the skill bonuses.

Human Monk - Spd/Dex, staff, criticals and close combat, not much psionics. I never tried 2-handed staff monk before, so I did now. Was pretty unimpressive until I snuck behind the MW waterfall and got the Staff of Doom. Hex, paralysis and instakill hitting ass and legs omg itz heaven. I don't think I ever had a character with so much critical hit luck. Said meh to Zatoichi Bo, better dmg and to hit/initiative bonuses, but worse status effects.

Mook Ranger - Dex/Sns, bow, ranged, scouting, 15 alchemy for heavy healing potions. Yeah, rangers suck. He was dealing some decent damage with double/triple crossbow, but then I decided to larp by giving him ranger-only bows at which point his only meaningful contributions were the rare instakills. At one point I gave him the Giant's Sword and he became more useful with literally 0 points in swords and close combat.

Hobbit Gadgeteer - Dex/Sns, modern, engineering and artifacts. Pretty standard fare - sucky at the beginning, useful supporting character through the mid game and then a serious killer and status inflicter with endgame gadgets/upgraded omnigun. Was pretty hard to kill thanks to investing lots of points into vitality after bringing main stats to 100, more hp than the monk and rogue at one point.

Fearie Mage - Int/Pie, wizardry, duh. You've got to love the mage in the early to mid game with her high level Missile Shield, Enchanted Blade and Freeze Flesh. Her top tier spells aren't that impressive but she did team up with Gadgeteer for asphyxiation-based holocausts of trash mobs. Of course died a couple of times.

 

[Shadenuat]

Mook Ranger - Dex/Sns

Does't STR give a bonus to bow-class weapons? Otherwise you should go Blunderbuss. And STR would also make him use Giant's Sword better.

Fearie Mage

Psionic or Alchemist are better overall. Pandemonium and Hemorage can be surprisengly useful even at Ascension and of course armies of rapax murdering each other under insanity is fun.
Game has problem that it has only *one* other class (Samurai) who can use mages buffs (aside from Bishop, who is a different story). Two unique classes can be Alchemists. Two warrior-likes provide you with Divinity book. They shoud've given Bard a third or quarter of mage's power and lessen the power of musical instruments.

Staff of Doom

And that's why my Valk used it

A real meat grinder, most kills by far.

I'll admit I am thinking that with +3 stealth every level and build with STR/DEX/SPD I don't actually see why I should't take rogue over warrior any time. He is as good AND can do rogue stuff.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I invested into str right after bringing sns/dex to 100, it was about 90 when I finished, didn't help much. He would be much better if I just kept triple xbow, but yeah - larping. Oh, and a Mook without heavy investment into either Dex or Spd would just be a slowass pointless waste of space with 1 attack per round.

I'm not really that fond of psionic and alchemy spellboks, both are inferior to wizardry/divinity imho. You can do without psionic or alchemist no problem, but have fun on hard without the magic screen for example.

 

[Shadenuat]

Well the thing about them is that they seem to be a bit better at nuking stuff in finale, and divinity and wizardry books are superior because of their buffs, not nuking abilities.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Specialist gear should generally be more powerful.

I would agree with this. Also, there should be more specialist gear out there.
Maybe stuff more race based, like the Serpent's tooth is for Dracons and Lizardmen, but not so pathetic.
The rings that Felpurrs and Rawulfs can wear is a good example.
I'd like to see more stuff like that.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ok, so I'm going to fucking figure out how to install this game on my PC after I take the regulations section of the CPA exam today.
I'm then going to immediately mod the hell out of the fucker and call it an RPG Codex mod of sorts I suppose.
Now, what to mod.
We should create a list.
Axes is on the top of my list.

 

[Shadenuat]

There are only two things which constantly bother me and I already voiced a lot for one of them:
- Bring all the random and specialist loot into the game instead of random drops. Depending on power of each item, something could stay a random drop (like *Light* *Sword*).
- Something should be done about battle magic piercing monster resistances. So it's either a modified Power Cast skill or Dispel spell.
Aside from that... the coolest stuff what can happen to Wiz 8 is probably this: if a group of monsters roll the same initiative and player characters can't act when they move, monsters move or attack simultaneously (fucking pillepides shoot together instead of shooting 9 times for each bug). But that's obviously an AI programming stuff and is't possible.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Make armor items like the Golden Breastplate and Cloak of Many Colors unique instead of merchandise that respawn indefinitely. In fact, if you're going to guarantee high level items you should completely remove or reduce high level items that vendors sell. I think it will help balance things out.

Oh and make all ammunition start at 100 when you find/buy them except only the most high leveled ones (peacemaker arrows, gold nuggets, death stars, etc).

What exactly do you plan on doing with axes?

 

[Shadenuat]

Make armor items like the Golden Breastplate and Cloak of Many Colors unique

Amulet of Healing could be more unique too, for now it respawns on Crock.

 

[hoverdog]

http://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/qodex-wizardry-new-enhancements-qwinn.75221/
here, i made it for ya

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I'm pretty stuck in my iron man game. I decided to side with the T'rang and destroyed the Umpani ship, now all Umpanis are hostile and I can't report to Kunar. Can't report to Z'ant either since I got the "hostile Z'ant" bug, I know the workaround and use the chaos moliri to speak to him but he doesn't acknowledge my mission's success even though I typed a shit-ton of different words... what am I to do ?

What do we do ?

We die !

 

[Major_Blackhart]

What show is that image from?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

That's from "The last starfighter", arguably the weakest Carpenter movie.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ahh, what a waste of Dan OHerlihy and Robert Preston.
But I still liked it as a kid. Thought it was cool back then.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

I haven't played it since it was published, I remember not finishing it, it was hard as nails, just like W8 (which I didn't finish neither)but really interesting also. I should really give it a go again. I hate rolling new characters but I remember that you had a pre-rolled party. I remember hitting an impossibly hard mark. Is it good without powergaming? Or does the game becomes really too hard with these guys? It seemed to me that it was the case, well I didn't multi-class (never played D&D so for me multi-class is a mathematical burden), it's perhaps because of that that I couldn't get anywhere past the midway point.

(Yes I know, heresy, but really: in general when the game provides a pre-rolled party, I go with it). That's why even if I bought Icewind Dale's GOG version, having only played through half of the pirated version, hum hum (I was poor at the time), I'm just too lazy to roll characters and I haven't started it yet.

 

[octavius]

I haven't played it since it was published, I remember not finishing it, it was hard as nails, just like W8 (which I didn't finish neither)but really interesting also. I should really give it a go again. I hate rolling new characters but I remember that you had a pre-rolled party. I remember hitting an impossibly hard mark. Is it good without powergaming? Or does the game becomes really too hard with these guys? It seemed to me that it was the case, well I didn't multi-class (never played D&D so for me multi-class is a mathematical burden), it's perhaps because of that that I couldn't get anywhere past the midway point.

Wiz 7 is defintely harder than Wiz 6, both combat and puzzles.

In Wiz 6 multi classing is of limited importance. It's nice to start as Priests, Alchemists, Mages and Psionics to get the extra mana regeneration (which is based on starting class and stats) and then switch to Valkyrie/Lord, Ninja, Samurai and Monk as soon as you have the stats for it. Of these I think only the Priest can switch to Valkyrie immediately; the rest must gain some more stat points first.
Since every combat calculation is based on comparing character levels to monster levels it's important to not spend too much time in the first class, but instead reach the final class ASAP. Also if you allocate all skill points to the magic skills you'll get the highest level spells soon enough. But some levels in a base class before switching to an elite class will also give you a nice skills boost in addition to the above mentioned better mana regeneration.
So Wiz 6 is actually pretty straightforward, unless you want to grind and switch classes a lot to make über characters who have 100 in all skills.

In Wiz 7 OTOH it's much more difficult to get high magic skills unless you change classes a few times, since you can only allocate 1/3 of the skill points on magic skills.
So in addition to being generally harder and having more random encounters with more annoying enemies, it also has a more complex character advancement system, and it can be hard determining when to switch classes. And you will have to switch classes to get vital survival spells like for example Cure Poison and Cure Diseases ASAP.

(Yes I know, heresy, but really: in general when the game provides a pre-rolled party, I go with it). That's why even if I bought Icewind Dale's GOG version, having only played through half of the pirated version, hum hum (I was poor at the time), I'm just too lazy to roll characters and I haven't started it yet.

I don't see anything wrong with using pregenerated characters, especially in games you are not familiar with.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I love Last Starfighter, but as far as I know, it's not a Carpenter movie...

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Remove Charm, Knock-Knock and Mindread from the castable spell list, but keep them as spells from expendables (like lockpicks).

The main purpose is to remove the temptation to grind realms with these spells, as it's extremely easy to do and breaks game balance. Charm serves no purpose anyway other than to recover from botched thief attempts. Knock-Knock at high level makes high level lockpicking skill pointless, though to deal with super-difficult locks I'd add in very rare and expendable "max lvl Knock-Knock" items, while toning down lock difficulty overall to make it less tedious. Mindread is great and adds flavour, so I'd put in easy to acquire expendables that can cast this spell (something like a "Mind Probe").

 

[Shadenuat]

Remove Charm, Knock-Knock and Mindread from the castable spell list

These are the only means to get hybrids to at least passable casters like 40-50 points of skill (oh no! ninja could cast earth Alchemy spells, the weakest spells there are! horror!), they are unique and fun, and removing anything from game like that just seems wrong. Mod should fix things that are not fun, add new stuff, not scrap vanilla game of content intended to be there by developers.

 

[Black]

The main purpose is to remove the temptation to grind realms with these spells

Stop right there, the temptation to min-max, powergame and metagame should only be removed by the players themselves, not the game.