Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[MilesBeyond]

Stupid n00b question round two: Wizardry 7: DOS version or Gold?

Pickpocketing is a savescum game in most rpg. I never encountered one that made it even remotely feasible skill to develop. Maybe Gothic 2. because your success rate at certain skill level was 100% if i'm not mistaking. Never played the archetypical thief char there so can't say for sure.

IMHO the Rogue Rebalancing mod for Baldur's Gate handled this pretty well. If you're caught pickpocketing, the person will get upset at you. If you're unable to talk your way out of it, or get caught three times, the person will refuse to speak with you. To me, the problem with pickpocketing in most RPGs is that you'll immediately aggro at least the victim and often every other NPC in the area - and usually don't get much out of it. Really the aggroing is the stupid part.

 

[TripJack]

dos

 

[mondblut]

Gold:
- shit music
- shit animufag character portraits
- can be actually harder to run in 64bit days
- who knows what they fucked up in game mechanics and shit
+ has onscreen minimap not requiring 50 clicks and keypresses to look at

DOS:
+ the original one, duh

 

[Jaesun]

The one reason to not play Wiz 7 Gold is that ALL of the text flies on the screen in seconds. You will miss all text in the game, and there is nothing you can do about it.

 

[octavius]

Diplomacy is also broken in Gold, IIRC.
And the voice acting I've hard is bad.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Was diplomacy useful in earlier wiz games? I never found any use of communication skill in 8.

 

[Ashenai]

It's close to useless in 8. As far as I know, it only influences buy/sell prices, which is nice I guess, but I can't imagine ever wanting to put precious skill points into it.

IIRC it's slightly more important in 7, since it makes "Truce" more likely to work, which is needed for some NPCs before they'll agree to trade/talk with you.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Gold:
- shit music
- shit animufag character portraits
- can be actually harder to run in 64bit days
- who knows what they fucked up in game mechanics and shit
+ has onscreen minimap not requiring 50 clicks and keypresses to look at

DOS:
+ the original one, duh

Yeah this is kind of where I landed in my experimenting with both. The Gold version is really off-putting in a thousand ways. The voice acting especially is awful, and not even in the way that the CD version of World of Xeen was charmingly bad. It's just bad.

I just wanted to make sure this wasn't like a Thief thing where the Gold version contains all sorts of extra content that expands upon the base game. If it's just the base game with voice acting and different music and portraits and a staunch refusal to go fullscreen then I see no reason to not play the DOS version.

 

[DraQ]

To me, the problem with pickpocketing in most RPGs is that you'll immediately aggro at least the victim and often every other NPC in the area - and usually don't get much out of it. Really the aggroing is the stupid part.

The problem with pickpocketing is that attempting it puts you pretty much a diceroll away from hard failure.

That's shit design.

 

[Dorateen]

In CotDS, our party's thief/ninja pickpocketed enough gold from Rossarian to buy from him the Holy Basher, which we gave our priest/bishop to use.

 

[MilesBeyond]

The problem with pickpocketing is that attempting it puts you pretty much a diceroll away from hard failure.

That's shit design.

Right? More useful incentives and more forgiving consequences would make it a way more interesting system. Even something like - I was gonna say NWN, but I think it might not even have been NWN that did this, just the module I was playing - where when you fail Pickpocketing you make a Stealth check and if you fail that, you're caught, would be an improvement. Still a bad system, mind you, but at least you're two dice rolls away from hard failure instead of one.

To be clear, I'm not proposing that as a new system to use. I'm saying even a system as flawed as that is still better than what most games use.

 

[octavius]

Only game I ever pickpocket in is Thief.
In CRPGs killing people tend to have less consequences than pickpocketing them.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Only game I ever pickpocket in is Thief.
In CRPGs killing people tend to have less consequences than pickpocketing them.

Too damn true. I'd brofist but I r dum. Or my browser won't let me. Either one - though most likely both.

 

[DraQ]

Right? More useful incentives and more forgiving consequences would make it a way more interesting system.

Yes, there are basically two ways out. Either make failure soft enough, so that failed pickpocket doesn't effectively carry the same effective consequences as the city where it happened being wiped off the map IF player survives this failure (which means proper crime system), or make the system involved enough that it's no longer "roll for game over" and the failure can be blamed on player rather than RNG, the way it happens in good combat system.

 

[Leitz]

Only game I ever pickpocket in is Thief.
In CRPGs killing people tend to have less consequences than pickpocketing them.

Too damn true. I'd brofist but I r dum. Or my browser won't let me. Either one - though most likely both.

I see you never read the rules of this forum. SCAFFOLD!

 

[MilesBeyond]

I see you never read the rules of this forum. SCAFFOLD!

I, uh, what? That's ridiculous. Not reading the rules. That's just crazy talk. Heh heh.

 

[ArchAngel]

Is there any place to read about specific mechanical benefits of raising attributes and skills in Wizardry 8 ?
I am a numbers guy, I cannot work with vague descriptions the game gives.

 

[Gnidrologist]

This is the most comprehensive site on wiz8. It covers basically every aspect of the game to the supersperg levels: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/wizardry8/flamestrykes_w8.html
(thanks God, it's back - it was down for a while)

 

[DraQ]

(thanks God, it's back - it was down for a while)

This sort of thing happens when the owner dies, you know.

 

[Gnidrologist]

She died a long time ago now. This is a backup site that hosts the original one and has been online for at least two years already, i think, and it was down few weeks ago.

 

[ArchAngel]

This is the most comprehensive site on wiz8. It covers basically every aspect of the game to the supersperg levels: http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/wizardry8/flamestrykes_w8.html
(thanks God, it's back - it was down for a while)

It still does not have precise numbers

 

[Gnidrologist]

Precise numbers on what exactly?

 

[ArchAngel]

Precise numbers on what exactly?

On if I raise Strenght from 50 to 60 what do I gain. If I get Close Combat to 20 how better is my Axe wielding than getting Axe to 20. How does exactly Sense and Intellect help with Close Combat while Strength and Dexterity help with Axe. And other such precise numbers..

 

[theSavant]

Question is legit. I agree with that the descriptions in the manual suck. It's very vague, like everything has an influence on combat i.e. in number of attacks, in damage, in critical hits, in missing hits, and then additional phrases like "a high speed rating can also enhance the armor class, and a high xyz skill might also enhance initiative, a high dexterity could also make more damage".

Basically the way it's described is shit. It doesn't explain what precislely enhances something to what extend and what amount. It just says "it shall be maybe somehow influence".

 

[Gnidrologist]

There were great guides with exact numbers on Ironworks forum, but for some retarded reason they have deleted the old W8 section entirely. Always went there to find in depth info.
I agree about vague info, but it doesn't bother me much as after the first walktrough you will intuitively know what influences what and it's kinda fun discovering all of that for the first time.

Without precise numbers some major hints.
Both dex and speed increases number of attacks per round and swings/shots per attack. With both of them maxed out you will usually have a guy, who can attack twice per round and every attack is 3 hits. With dual wielder you get some insane variables by the end game, though one is more vulnerable and slower to develop at the start.
Dex is the main attribute for c2h. More dexterity, more successfully landed hits.
Speed, other than what said before is main attribute for initiative. With it maxed + snake speed it's safe to say that this char will ALWAYS make the first move.
Sense are for increasing critcal chance for both melee and ranged + if you don't have scout or detection spells, it helps reveal hidden items.
Strength, vitality, piety and intelligence is self explanatory imo. I don't think precise numbers are that important here. You want your st/vit for tanks and dex/sense/speeed for rogues/ninjas/monks first. Also st/vit/piety boosts stamina so bards and gadgies apart from int need it. Mages and priests both need int/piety.
Just choose two most important attributes for your class and develop them to 100 asap. After that improvise.