Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Jabber]

Well, the party made it to the river styx. Some comments on the interim:

Giant brothers turned out to be chumps as expected. Vulnerable to blind, and although at least one was a caster he still died too quickly to do much damage
Guardian rock is also basically a chump and can't do much vs. missile shield
Pyramid was fairly straightforward. Dispel undead vs. the amazon zombies; blind vs. the live amazons. Wound up killing the queen which was only semi-intentional as I checked whether I really needed to give her an offering every time I stepped on her square (answer: yes). At least now I have her spear of death and bone necklace.
Mau-mau went down pretty quickly and wasn't too dangerous given the party's fireshield. The priests of phyre were a little scary but turned out to be pretty vulnerable to silence. Had a death to a trap in the pyramid underground and used another resurrect charge on the amulet of life (believe 4 remaining). Fortunately King tut (or whatever his name is) dropped another one so we should be at 10 resurrection charges just from amulets
Cat in the wizard lair received a fireshield and then was beaten up

Single class monk is starting to significantly lag behind in hps (level 10 w/ 17 vitality has given him about 60hp vs the multiclass characters that are over 100). But his physical damage output is very high and he regularly does 100 damage a round. Unfortunately, his kirijitsu skill is only ~30 and ninjitsu only about 60 but nothing can be done there. On balance, I feel good about the strategy to have one single class character, but more doesn't feel tempting. Multi-classing fairies are continuing their multiclassing and have become quite strong with at least one full spellbook each (priest, priest, mage) and 200-300 magic points in each domain. Felpurr multi-classing fighters are starting to get good spellpower and kirujitsu skill, which will be nice when maxed out.

Hopefully the tougher monsters in the river styx won't eat my lunch.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Really the only overly nasty thing in the mines was the stupid worms.

The nasty thing about the mines are the mines themselves. Fucking confusing map layout made me give up on my "drawing my own maps" experiment. Even with maps it was confusing as fuck to navigate. Getting to the central room from four different sides kinda broke me, god was I glad when that was over.

 

[octavius]

The nasty thing about the mines are the mines themselves. Fucking confusing map layout made me give up on my "drawing my own maps" experiment. Even with maps it was confusing as fuck to navigate. Getting to the central room from four different sides kinda broke me, god was I glad when that was over.

Talk of the spineless.

 

[Niektory]

Casual.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Come on bros, at least I tried.

 

[Daemongar]

Come on bros, at least I tried.

Your first mistake was using 4 squares for each step...

 

[octavius]

I found the best way to make a map of those mines was to use block of square paper, and use one sheath of paper for each dungeon level, the uppermost level on the top sheath, and so on.
Makes it more easy to vizualize a 3D maze for me that way, at least.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

I have tried this ironman wizardry6 as well.
Unfortunately my level1 party bumped into the rogue leader and his friends.

 

[Jabber]

Well made it through the isle of the dead and into the enchanted forest. Current Party is (everyone level ~10-12):

Mook Samurai with isle of the dead samurai gear (muramasa, etc.)
Felpurr Valkyrie with maenad gear (lance, etc.)
Felpurr Valkyrie with black knight gear (ebony plate, avenger)
Faerie bard with mage and alchemy books and a giant pool of mana
Faerie mage with priest and alchemy books and a decent pool of mana; unfortunately my sole character with out ninjitsu which is annoying
Faerie alchemist with priest, mage and alchemy books and a giant pool of mana

Biggest irritation is my faerie mage, who has been stuck at 11 dexterity forever, thereby preventing me from giving her ninjitsu or a better class type (alchemist, at least). It turned out to be semi-impossible to get faeries that have left hybrid fighter/caster classes back into them - getting out of the hole of 5 strength, 6 piety and 6 vitality is just not really workable (without ankhs, which aren't widely available in wiz6). But, it turns out that giving up the benefits of better classes isn't too big a deal because alchemist is pretty good, and is only really missing the ninjas combat skills and AC bonus. For casters in the back rows, that is OK (can always hide if necessary and fights are normally over in a round or so anyway).

Anyhow, nothing too rough in styx. I spawned a huge pack of sirens early on that I thought was going to be my doom, but it turns out they're pretty slow and have awful resistances so a few fast mages can easily kill them all before they cause trouble. After a little while in styx, I had several characters with "hit all monsters" spells (nuke, word of death, deadly air) and so sirens ceased being a threat. Isle of the dead was a bit worse, but not too bad. Skeleton lords were dispelled / fireballed / nuked before they could cast much if anything and nothing else is too dangerous (spiders can paralyze everyone with web if you give them time but they are even more vulnerable than skeleton lords so there is no reason to). The four "boss fights" in the isle of the dead were straightforward, with the samurai probably the most dangeorus. None of the boss' supporting monsters can resist nukes, so fast mages can get the battle under control in the first round. Then debuff and kill the boss.

My biggest fear in the enchanted forest is running out of mana as I don't believe there is a mana fountain - hopefully there will not be too many fights but I will likely have to be more judicious with how much mana I allocate to each fight. My biggest fear in the temple is just getting killed by the ridiculous monsters in there. The goal will be to only go through once (i.e. be careful not to hit the button that sends you out of temple) and minimize the number of temple fights.

 

[Sceptic]

I found the best way to make a map of those mines was to use block of square paper, and use one sheath of paper for each dungeon level, the uppermost level on the top sheath, and so on.
Makes it more easy to vizualize a 3D maze for me that way, at least.

I remember a 3D maze (probably the Cosmic Cube?) where one of my short-lived solutions was to have detached pieces of paper for each level and place pins through them at points where they connected. It didn't take long before I had to abandon the idea.

 

[Jabber]

OK finished the ironman run with the Bela ending (i.e. let the bane king commit suicide so you don't have to fight him and can get the diamond ring from rebecca).

The enchanted forest wasn't a big deal (I was worried about running out of mana) because it is so short and only has maybe a dozen fights in it. The cape of hi-zen dropped, which is a rare drop and a ridiculously good monk misc item with 3 AC and a huge amount of excellent resistances. Unfortunately I don't have a monk and apparently it doesn't import into wiz7. Oh well.

The temple was worse, but the only really threatening monsters I bumped into were the ramm priests, which killed several members with instant death spells despite those party members holding rocks of reflection, which I thought were supposed to give max death resistance and presumably protect against instant death spells. Anyhow, valkyries and samurais have a lot of lifeforce resistance so I left them unhidden while the faeries hid and none of the instant death spells killed anyone after that. My mook samurai was killed by a pack of 9 slyphs (basically combat faeries) that mobbed him but he and two of the faeries were the only deaths in the temple (to the priests).

Xorphitus was quite easy. First round everyone hid; second round samurai and black knight valkyrie emerged to fight xorphitus (they both have very high fire resist due to gear) while others threw spells. Xorphitus went down in the first or maybe second round. Next round, the samurai (wielding muramasa) critted all three greater demons in the same round, which was a quite satisfying finale to the run. Final life count was 4-6 on most people and 2 on the two faeries that died to the priests.

Bane king as mentioned killed himself, so we didn't have to fight him.

Overall I had a very good time with this run. Ironman makes some games better and some games worse; I think wiz6 comes out about even but different in an interesting way and so was a fun playthrough whereas I would not have played a non-ironman game again having done it previously some years ago. The game is better in that it forces you to be more careful and to use consumables and roll with the punches (i.e. not reload everytime someone dies or gets stoned and loses vitality). It's a little bit worse in that it heavily pushes you towards the more unbalanced combat strategies, which somtimes feel a bit too overpowered vs. a more balanced party. So I picked lots of faeries and felpurs because they have high base speed and can easily multiclass and I would have had a hard time justifying almost any of the other races (mook was OK, elf would have been OK too).

All those faeries and felpurrs meant that I had powerful and fast casters throughout most of the game. I also got everyone ninjitsu and all the fighters (eventually) kirujitsu. The last of those is a nice to have, but fast casters with a lot of mana can basically end most fights before they start with a nuke, blinding flash, silence or other similar spell. And hiding (particularly if you are fast and can hide before monsters move) as best I can tell makes you invulnerable until you leave hiding, which is quite strong. That said, I rarely hid because for most of the game I didn't have enough ninjitsu to make it reliable and because casting the first turn was more attractive.

One final comment I'll make is that I started this run not sure if it was even possible, but expecting it to be extremely difficult (based on the number of times I died and reloaded when I previously played). It turned out to be pretty easy, as long as one had enough fast casters that could control the fight in the first round before monster movement nearly every time. The party fought many, many groups of monsters that if allowed to move could have resulted in a wipe (big packs of sirens and other AoE damage / disable casters or AoE damage monsters).

...But in essentially every case those monsters (or 90+% of them anyway) were disabled or killed before they could move by high speed feaerie casters. I had a handful of fights throughout the run where I didn't do that, and watching how quickly things spiraled out of control as monsters instead disabled my characters or hit me with poison or fire clouds was always a reminder of the price of not moving first. But if you are careful, at least in wiz6 hardly anything is faster than speed 16-18 or can resists the big nukes. For that reason, I actually thought the game got easier after the river styx than it was before it.

Closest points to death in the run were:

- in the mines, when 3/6 characters were killed by a bunch of shrieking worms and we had to flee back to the castle, drawing multiple additional fights along the way
- on giant mountain, where I nearly walked off the edge after changing the contol scheme from turn to move (was dancing on and off an up-square with levitation)
- in the river styx, when I spawned 25-30 sirens and siren sorceresses and had just enough AoE magic to kill all but a handful of them before they could sing
- in the ramm tample when 4 priests killed 2/6 of the party with lifesteal and death and I was starting to get worried

- I had two failed runs, one in the mines when I racked up too many deaths and ran out of resurrections (first run, under-optimized and sloppy) and one about 10 minute into the game when I had a death to a rogue leader in the castle basement and decided just to restart because it was so early

Anyhow, will probably import in to wiz7 and give that a try at some point. I'd like to do a few things better (get at least one characters with 100 in theosophy, abuse faerie multi-classing earlier on my faerie that isn't getting the priest spellbook). Despite my balance complaints I had a very good time and am looking forward to more in wiz7 (at some point).

 

[octavius]

Good show!

The cape of hi-zen dropped, which is a rare drop and a ridiculously good monk misc item

Damned, with a name like that it sounds like it was made for my Felpur Monk Pu-Zen!

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Actual steam update on Wiz8.

Hello everyone,

A small update for Wizardry 8 is available now. It contains the following:

• (Windows) nGlide was updated to 1.04 from 1.02
  
• (Mac OS X) The game will now launch on OS X 10.11
  
• (Mac OS X) Wine was updated to 1.7.54

Enjoy!

 

[SirSingAlot]

can someone plz send me a savegame file for Wizardry 7 gold on steam?
story wise after rattkin ruins/gorn castle/munkharma

i so want to get into the game again and finish it but felt burned out after i lost my savegames and cannot dip 20hrs+ into rerolling and grinding


ty in advance guys

 

[Baron Dupek]

I tried Wiz6 from GOG and have long term plans of doing Wiz6-7-8 marathon.
Everything went fine except opening locks.
You save the game, get series of numbers and flashing red-green blocks. They're so fkn fast... I use keys do decrease/increase cycles and make game slower, but even then, when you clearly have both green blocks, you might get FAIL message.

Any other ideas? How did you handled it except finishing the game in old times, before 1GHz+ 2core+ cpus were a thing and DOSbox was in creator's filthy mind?

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I think changing the cycles won't do much, just leave the locks alone for now and raise your lockpick skill (was it skullduggery?). If your lockpick skill is high enough it should be no problem, and save/reload is actually quicker than lowering the cycles. I seem to remember reading somewhere that even back in ye olden days, when computers were made of rocks and stones, the lights were flashing so fast that hitting the button was pretty much just a luck thing, not a timing thing.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Is it just me or is Wiz7 way less intuitively to control with the keyboard than Wiz6 was? I had to switch to mouse control cause I couldn't get used to it but the clicking is giving me carpal tunnel syndrome.

How are you guys playing?

 

[Malignant Manor]

I think I used my keyboard for movement and some hotkeys and mouse for most things like inventory management and menus.

 

[aweigh]

real Wizardry series thread iwith detailed listing of all Wizardry games and links to translation patches and walkthroughs can be found here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...wizardry-developers-feb-28-2016.105918/unread

compilation of turn-based blobbers both western and japanese, which is going to be updated daily, can be found here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...crawlers-western-japanese-feb-29-2016.107240/

 

[aweigh]

 

[Celerity]

This guy (Demiath) is actually a member here. I guess the Japanese UI makes this difficult.

Also, the JRPG style combat screen in that version is pretty bad for immersion.

Demiath is a peculiar fellow, blocked me on youtube because we didnt agree on some things.

He has a habit of that then? He was being really noobish on Diablo 3 so I offered him some basic equipment for free, then noticed 2 weeks later he blocked me for offering him free shit. And before that we'd been following each other for years.

One question answered, fuck that guy then.

 

[Luzur]

This guy (Demiath) is actually a member here. I guess the Japanese UI makes this difficult.

Also, the JRPG style combat screen in that version is pretty bad for immersion.

Demiath is a peculiar fellow, blocked me on youtube because we didnt agree on some things.

He has a habit of that then? He was being really noobish on Diablo 3 so I offered him some basic equipment for free, then noticed 2 weeks later he blocked me for offering him free shit. And before that we'd been following each other for years.

One question answered, fuck that guy then.

Looks like it, i cant remember exactly what did it but i commented on some video (since he is a fellow Swede) in swedish with some help on a RPG LP he did, then i was blocked LOL

He is also a member here, but i cant remember seeing him online for like years.

"If you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen" indeed.

 

[Watser]

So I completed Wizardry 1 and wanting to get going on Wizardry 2 I tried to figure out how to transfer my party but to no avail. I did succesfully transfer it, but I think the method was dodgy as when I tried to sell items I got an EXECERR: Unimplemented Instruction error which froze the game.

I am using the DOS version from abandonia.

 

[octavius]

So I completed Wizardry 1 and wanting to get going on Wizardry 2 I tried to figure out how to transfer my party but to no avail. I did succesfully transfer it, but I think the method was dodgy as when I tried to sell items I got an EXECERR: Unimplemented Instruction error which froze the game.

I am using the DOS version from abandonia.

I used the Wiz1-5 collection, and loaded the games using D-Fend. To change from Wiz 1 to Wiz 2 I just changed start program from WIZ1.COM to WIZ2.COM. I then copied SAVE1.DSK and renamed it SAVE2.DSK.

 

[Watser]

From the ultimate wizardry archives? They use a different saving system from what I can see, WIZn.dsk 320kb and a SAVE.dk of 640kb, compared to the version I used for wizardry 1 which has only the 320kb file.

The folder from abandonia comes with a wizdos.com (wizardry 1 exec), wiz2.bat which launches wizardry 2 and a wiz2make.bat which I seem unable to open.

Opening the wizdos before extracting gives me a file which says that I can switch between the different DSK files ingame with using ctrl+left shift to set disk1 and ctrl+right shift to set disk2. This would have made the move characters easy but alas I cannot make it work as described.