Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Grampy_Bone]

Or play the translated Wizardry 1-2-3 SNES version with actual music and 16 bit graphics.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

In Wizardry 7 is there a strict limit to how many loose items you can drop on the ground in the world? Are there any known "vanishing items" bugs related to doing so perhaps?

I've heard that there is an upper limit to the number of items you can toss in a specific map, but I don't know if it starts deleting older stuff or if it refuses to allow you to drop anything.

For the most part you don't have to worry about it. Just make sure you hang on to all the quest items. I threw away every junk loot item I got from combat or chests and never had a problem.

There is a utility that will actually tell you where all the dropped items are in the world if you really need to find something.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Trynnies were definitely engaging.

Especially pickled.

 

[ore clover]

Damn those ninja ambushes; my robber keeps losing his head!

I'm glad I rolled that mage. He learned his first area-effect spells the same time my bishop did, so now we can clear enemies a lot faster.

I found the blue ribbon, and naively thought I could just bulldoze through the lowest floor and stomp Werdna. After four or five fights, I realized I wouldn't have any spells left by the time I reached him. Guess I'll explore some more of the floors, and boost up my levels.

 

[mushaden]

The munk ninjas under munkharama in Wiz 7 are killing me. I didn't make the perfect party but I was hoping my psionic could become a monk and my thief a ninja, but I don't think they'll ever have the stats. Is it a classic case of (start over and) get gud? That's what I had to do with Wizardry 8

Also, is there something I'm missing about healing and regenerating mana? My front three are rarely ever close to full health even when I rest multiple times after a battle (healing as much as I can with my three chars with heal spells). I can't remember the last time any of my healers had full divine spell points

 

[Lady_Error]

Psionics are pretty much the worst casting class in Wizardry 7. I started with a monk and ninja in the front row this time and it was pretty much the best choice - both can hide from the start, don't need weapons and get lower AC pretty quickly.

I'd definitely recommend starting with a bard - the unlimited sleep lute is super-helpful in the beginning and even later it can still neutralize large groups of ratkins/beetles/crows, etc. The best thing is that you can continue using the instruments even after a class change. Also, bards have ninjutsu as well.

A Lord with the Crusader stuff you find near the river is also very powerful in the first half of the game.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

-Typically if you can't get a desired class you can still switch out to an intermediate class with average stat reqs, and then re-roll your level ups to try to get the actual class you want. Ranger and Valkyrie work well for this.

-Encounter triggers are often fixed but the enemy counts are not. You can cheese this by reloading and trying a battle again, you may get fewer enemy casters and a more manageable fight.

-Come back when you're higher level. Wiz7 is really designed with idea that you dabble in every dungeon a little bit and then come back later when you're stronger. That's just how the game was designed.

-Outside the southern entrance to Nyctalinth, to the west is a forest area where you encounter almost nothing but Bantari (2-headed tiger monsters). There's usually only 1-3 per fight, they're pretty easy, and give good exp for early grinding.

-Resting just sucks in Wiz7. There is a mechanic which makes it so you don't get as much benefit from resting if you rest repeatedly. It's horrible. You're just supposed to keep going without full health and hope for the best. You can find fountains that restore health and mana, and there are rechargeable items that restore spell points as well.

 

[Grauken]

It doesn't suck, it fixes the problem that SPAM rest ala EotB introduced

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It doesn't suck, it fixes the problem that SPAM rest ala EotB introduced

It's a bad solution to that "problem" though. The player is unaware of the mechanic and it's not very intuitive--if one rest is good, five rests should be great right? In the end you can still recover as much as you want, it just takes more player time (due to the quasi-realtime resting). That sucks.

There are many better solutions. Adding a food system ala Might and Magic would have worked better. Only allowing resting in certain safe areas would also work, but then D.W. Bradley would have to actually balance his encounter and combat systems. Instead the game throws 30-40 spellcasters at you in a single battle and then expects you to rest for 15 minutes real time in order to recover.

 

[Lady_Error]

The munk ninjas under munkharama in Wiz 7 are killing me.

Also, it's a good idea to be really sure you can make it through a dungeon where there is no exit, like the one in Munkharama. Or at least you have to look for it, if you don't know where it is.

 

[Malignant Manor]

In Wizardry 7, mana regeneration is determined at character creation by your class, race, and stats. It will not change afterwards. You get +1 to all 6 mana regeneration rates if pie*2+vit = 42-50 and +2 if pie*2+vit > 50 at creation. You can download Cosmic Forge and have it increase resting speed.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It definitely recalculated my character's mana regen rates when I imported them from 6 to 7.

 

[Filthy Sauce]

Oh god... After 20 hrs of playing W6, my party suffered a massive disaster... Then I accidentally saved the game. This fucking UI is shit even by old game standards. Anyway, I'm done with this shit. I'd rather go to an Ariana Grande concert than play this boring trash again. Skipping to W7 now, fuckers.

 

[megidolaon]

Oh god... After 20 hrs of playing W6, my party suffered a massive disaster... Then I accidentally saved the game. This fucking UI is shit even by old game standards. Anyway, I'm done with this shit. I'd rather go to an Ariana Grande concert than play this boring trash again. Skipping to W7 now, fuckers.

this is why I check in savegame files to version control after each gameplay session

 

[Lady_Error]

Is there a way to get the Muramasa Blade in W7? Only in Gorrors chests?

 

[mushaden]

Thanks for the replies. I have a bard, probably the only reason I've made it this far. Also I just multiclassed my thief to a bard. I guess I'll multiclass my useless psionic to a mage because I'm very far off from leveling.

I stopped playing wiz 6 once I realized you couldn't see buttons/switches without saving. Perhaps I'll come back to it. I think you'll like wizardry 7 better, though you still have to backup your saves if you're playing the dos version

 

[Lady_Error]

Is there a way to get the Muramasa Blade in W7? Only in Gorrors chests?

Never mind, I got the Avenger instead, which seems to be the third best weapon in the game. Getting ready for some Blienmeis hunting.

 

[ore clover]

Finished Wizardry yesterday. After mulling over my experience, here's some compiled thoughts:

Spoiler

I liked the progression of difficulty throughout. Especially noticeable early on, the encounters feature a gradually more challenging combination of enemy types (scrub melee first, decent melee plus scrub casters second, tougher melee plus decent casters third, etc.) that requires more tactical consideration as you go. You can gauge whether you're ready to progress by how well you can handle your current floor's baddies (for the most part, and I'll expand on that in a bit).

I especially appreciated the use of player classes as enemy types. I was able to predict what sorts of spells and melee strengths I could expect from classes I was using, and received a bit of a sampler of the classes I didn't have (those damn ninjas ). As far as spellcasting enemies, I liked that they weren't restricted to one or two special abilities. It was cool knowing that they were just as dangerous as my casters, and that both initiative and intelligent spell use were needed to pull through.

Ultimately, I was disappointed with the dungeon's level design. When I say that, I don't mean the floors themselves were a chore to explore. To me, it seems like a bit of potential gone to waste. I enjoyed exploring the first four floors, finding barriers and sorting out the clues in their descriptions with those of different keys and statues. I liked that, for example, you find a key on floor 1 that allows access to an area in floor 2; each floor wasn't a standalone challenge to solve. It set up an expectation that I'd be discovering keys and other items throughout, solving puzzles that required meticulous exploration of all the floors' intricate tunnels.

However once you find the blue ribbon, that's pretty much it. You get your objective, and as far as the game is concerned everything else is filler before the final level. I still mapped out the rest of the dungeon, both for experience and because I enjoyed mapping, but it never really topped the early stages. I certainly wouldn't cut out those later floors, though, since their random encounters helped boost my party level. Which leads to my next issue.

This isn't so much directed toward Wizardry 1, but more a general preference of mine. Given the choice between random encounters, or a fixed set of encounters, I think I prefer the fixed set. It comes down to how I perceive the grind. With fixed encounters (eg MM3-5, Gothic 1 and 2, etc.) every enemy I defeat feels like progress made in the game. I can track how far I've come by the zones I've cleared out. Perhaps more importantly, I can better figure out if I'm ready for later sequences. If I've killed everything I can find, and I'm having trouble with a lategame encounter, maybe I just screwed up my character(s).

With randomized encounters, I have trouble figuring out whether I've messed something up or just haven't played long enough. Once I fully mapped all the floors, I wanted to charge my way to Werdna and finish up. I didn't mind grinding while mapping, because I was making progress in an objective. After that, it just felt like in pokemon where you walk around in tall grass to spawn a fight. It started feeling like filler to me, to the point where I bullheadedly muscled my way through the final gauntlet even though I clearly needed more levels.

Anyway, that's my opinion on random versus fixed encounters. I'm curious whether people agree or disagree with my conclusion.

That's a lot of words to read, so I'll wrap up with another positive: the autosaving. It upped the tension while exploring, since I couldn't savescum every few steps in case of disaster. I adopted a cautious approach to exploration of the dungeon (at least until the end eh heh), and throughout I knew my team wasn't unstoppable.

Overall I enjoyed playing through Wizardry 1, and consider it a well-made dungeon crawler. I'll probably put the series on the backburner for a bit, so I can try out some other games from the era, but I definitely plan to return to Wizardry in the future.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Good job, it's not an easy game. I believe the lack of content on floors 5-10 is due to disk space limitations of the time.

The concept of fixed encounters is interesting but it depends on the game. In an open-world sandbox type game it doesn't make a lot of sense. In Might and Magic it is nice that you can clear out an area and be done with it but on the other hand it makes it feels restrictive because you can't grind for more levels. I like being able to level-grind past problem areas in RPGs and Might and Magic's empty world makes that hard. I like how the later Might and Magic games would respawn enemies after a certain period of time.

The later Wizardrys used a mixed system; there are both random and fixed encounters. The random encounter rate is pretty low so it's easier to move through an area once its clear but you are never completely safe.

 

[Emmanuel2]

Just finished a Solo Faerie Ninja/Bishop full-expert playthrough in W8, no recruits except for two alliance quests where they're required and no other party slots filled for "training". Playtime was around a long ~40-50 hours in a span of 4 days (wooo semester break). I discovered cheat engine for speedhack around the time I had two 90s of which didn't work for everything else but time and sprite animations which shortened camp times from 12+ seconds to 3 with the disadvantage of not reliably gauging when to stop camping for surprise encounters due to how fast time flies. Ultimately had to use a combination of Wiz8fast, this and the speedhack since combat speed shouldn't have to be a problem in blobbers IMHO.

Hardest part was around Monastery + Arnika due to the lethality of the encounters to a 30-40 HP faerie with no resists + bad AC and most tedious I've found were the Rapax parts due to their sheer number, HP bloat, and resists + AC + to-hit bonuses from expert mode that even with the tools mentioned managed to reach a good 15-20 minutes for some of the fights especially inside the Rapax Main with me vs 30.

First 7 levels in NIN -> 18 levels in BIS -> NIN for the rest. Endgame stats which IMHO are overkill + equipment: Dark Savant down in 11 rounds without paralysis/kill procs.

Spoiler

 

[octavius]

Anyway, that's my opinion on random versus fixed encounters. I'm curious whether people agree or disagree with my conclusion.

Well, I thought Wiz 1 had too few fixed encounters. Fixed, special encounter always spice up a CRPG.
But generally the Wizardy games have a rather low random encounter frequency, at least before Wiz 7, so I rarely went "oh no, not again", while in the Bard's Tale games you could hardly turn without random encounters popping up.

With randomized encounters, I have trouble figuring out whether I've messed something up or just haven't played long enough.

I can't really relate to that. The strenght of the random encounters are a good gauge of you party's strength. If you have trouble with the random encounters on lvl 6 it's a pretty good indication you are not ready to face Werdna yet.
Also, if you play Iron Man, you can use the random encounters to grind until your party has enough Hit Points to survive one Tiltowait.

 

[ore clover]

Good job, it's not an easy game. I believe the lack of content on floors 5-10 is due to disk space limitations of the time.

The concept of fixed encounters is interesting but it depends on the game. In an open-world sandbox type game it doesn't make a lot of sense. In Might and Magic it is nice that you can clear out an area and be done with it but on the other hand it makes it feels restrictive because you can't grind for more levels. I like being able to level-grind past problem areas in RPGs and Might and Magic's empty world makes that hard. I like how the later Might and Magic games would respawn enemies after a certain period of time.

The later Wizardrys used a mixed system; there are both random and fixed encounters. The random encounter rate is pretty low so it's easier to move through an area once its clear but you are never completely safe.

That sounds like an interesting combination; keeps you on your toes. I didn't mind too much that I started running low on monsters in MM3-5; for the most part I was still powerful enough or could find workarounds. It did become a problem in MM5 for a while, since you're a bit restricted on where you can go earlier on, but the devs gave a lot of safety nets with all those wells you can juice up with. Oh, and of course 3's terminators; I'll freely admit that I could've used a lot more of everything to take them on.

Well, I thought Wiz 1 had too few fixed encounters. Fixed, special encounter always spice up a CRPG.
But generally the Wizardy games have a rather low random encounter frequency, at least before Wiz 7, so I rarely went "oh no, not again", while in the Bard's Tale games you could hardly turn without random encounters popping up.

I agree with you on fixed encounters adding spice. I remember a group of druids and hippogriffs you have to go through at the start of the ancient wizard's lair in MM1 that absolutely thrashed my party the first time I found them. I despised those druids, and one of my favorite moments playing the game was when I returned later on and stomped them flat.

I can't really relate to that. The strenght of the random encounters are a good gauge of you party's strength. If you have trouble with the random encounters on lvl 6 it's a pretty good indication you are not ready to face Werdna yet.
Also, if you play Iron Man, you can use the random encounters to grind until your party has enough Hit Points to survive one Tiltowait.

I get what you mean, and that was definitely a big reason I kept mapping out the dungeon. I suppose I'm not completely adverse to the idea of grinding random encounters, but perhaps they could've popped up a bit more frequently throughout. Obviously not to the extent of Bard's Tale, where if you fight everything you'll end up too powerful too quickly.

The truth is probably that I don't like grinding because I'm lazy. Whenever I get around to playing Wiz 2 and 3 I'll probably either rerun Wiz 1, or continue with my chevron team, and beef them up in prep.

 

[octavius]

I very rarely grind (in the meaning covering already explored terrain to trigger encounters, the Wyverns in MM1 being a prime example) myself, but I do like to map every square of a blobber.

Grinding is kind of like admitting defeat. The only game I was tempted to do some serious grinding was when I replayed Bard's Tale 1 and found the last couple of levels absolutely brutal. But I had already beat the game before (Amiga version as a kid), so I didn't bother.

 

[Darth Roxor]

after a bit of a break i returned to wiz6 and i'm now crawling through the hall of the dead's massive undead legions and by crawling i mean i keep alt-f4'ing each time i run into a random encounter of 25 skeleton lords

i'm getting this peculiar sensation that wiz6 is just not the most fun of games

 

[Sceptic]

Anyway, that's my opinion on random versus fixed encounters. I'm curious whether people agree or disagree with my conclusion.

I completely agree with you actually, but I don't think I felt this while playing Wiz 1, in fact looking back it's amazing that such an old game has such better balance than a lot of later games such as Bard's Tale, and even than my own darling, M&M1. I also agree with octavius about the random encounters in BT and much prefer the hand-placed fixed encounters.