Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Ensi]

I don't have Wiz 6 saves...maybe it would be fair to cheat and use WizEdit or whatever to give myself some gear? I could probably find gear that a lot of people end Wiz 6 with. I don't wanna mess with the challenge too much, but the equipment I have is definitely pretty boring, lol.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, you could always "LARP" that you finished Wiz 6, and give each character one good piece of equipment.
I remember I started with the M... Lance (for Valkyries), the Samurai Sword (don't remember the name) and some gauntlets amongst other things.

EDIT: The downside was that you need prestige classes for the best weapons, and prestige classes gain skills points much slower.

 

[Ensi]

Cool, thanks!

 

[theSavant]

Ah... damn. Noticed in Wiz8 that fast combat with "Continuous Phases" doesn't work well with Casters. At least I can pinpoint the issue now:
When you have Casters in your party, you usually want it to attack with a certain spell. You even want it to attack several times in a row with this spell. However every round you must manually select the spell again, because it defaults back to Melee Weapons. Very tedious.
This is something, that could have been improved in a Wizardry 9: an option to set a "default spell attack", so it defaults back to casting the spell and not the Melee Weapon. Or just select the spell and it will repeat each round, until all Mana is gone.

 

[theSavant]

I tried a full Bard-Party. I thought I could disable enemies by spamming "Sleep" and then kill one after the other with Melee attack. Did work sometimes, sometimes not. Imo in the long run not viable.
- It became really annoying to run up to each enemy when they fell asleep
- There were not enough instruments for ranged attacks (I tried to avoid weapons which require ammo)

However this brought me to a new idea: how about 3 Bards and 3 Gadgeteers?
> Bards have instruments to disable whole enemy groups (Sleep, Freeze All)
> Gadgeteers have plenty of gadgets to attack whole enemy groups (and ranged as well)

A pure "instruments & gadgets" party. Anyone tried that out yet?

The only thing missing is, that none of them has a gadget/instrument for Elemental Shield. Only Magic Screen and Soul Shield. I'm not sure that's enough to not get your ass kicked in Bayjin...

 

[Darth Canoli]

This is something, that could have been improved in a Wizardry 9

Now we got that straight, we just need 2M €, D. W. Bradley on board and the wizardry franchise and we're good to go.

However this brought me to a new idea: how about 3 Bards and 3 Gadgeteers?

You're missing rangers on your set-up, just kill everything from afar, this is the only franchise which got the rangers right.

 

[theSavant]

This is something, that could have been improved in a Wizardry 9

Now we got that straight, we just need 2M €, D. W. Bradley on board and the wizardry franchise and we're good to go.

Yeah, and the same issue is with gadgets and instruments. You can only "use" them but not "equip" them. And then it defaults back to sword attack. Too much clicke-de-click if you want to repeat the same gadget/instrument action. Maybe the developers chose this, because they assumed your bard/gadgeteer will use more than 1 gadget/instrument in combat. And that you actually have only 1 bard/gadgeteer in your party (owning all these tools) and not multiple ones. It still would have been nice to set a gadget/instrument as fallback weapon.
This clicke-de-click thing is also an issue with the party setup below: because for each party member I would have to re-click "use" for every combat round. Sounds tedious. Maybe not as tedious as re-using spells, but still quite... Maybe it's less tedious if I reduce the party to 2 bards and 2 gadgeteers only..

However this brought me to a new idea: how about 3 Bards and 3 Gadgeteers?

You're missing rangers on your set-up, just kill everything from afar, this is the only franchise which got the rangers right.

Yes, I thought about that. However I tried to avoid ranged weapons which require ammo regularly. I recall one playthrough where I had two ranged attackers in the group (1 gadgeteer with omnigun and 1 ranger with bows) and they burned through ammo like hell. Especially later when they shot 3 projectiles at once. Also 2/3 projectiles often missed in larger distances. They burned through so much ammo I had even trouble finding arrows/bolts/stones/bullets anymore. And the enemy drops were just too less. Even the various shops were bought empty. And these were only 2 ranged attackers... but what if I wanted to have 3-6 ranged attackers? Not gonna work. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the game supports by default only 2 ranged attackers (who require to fill up their ammo regularly).

What also came to my mind for the above party setup is, that I practically have to follow a guide which tells me where to find which gadget/instrument. I noticed it already in my 6-bard-party... it was more a hunt for the gadgets/instruments than doing quests or exploration. It's probably even worse with a Bard/Gadgeteer party. Requires even more to follow the artifact/gadget/instrument guide. This party can't do without these items. If it is missing an important gadget or instrument it may suck. So this reduces the enjoyment a bit. Eventually the idea remains interesting, but I'm not so convinced anymore

 

[Darth Canoli]

And then it defaults back to sword attack.

Now i think of it, the game (maybe the enhanced modded version only) save last action so if you keep using the same instrument or spell (and have enough mana / stamina) there's no trouble.

About ammos, arrows aren't as heavy as stones for slings (which are a pain, i agree but i always edit my mages char to give them a strength boost because of that, fuck retarded mechanisms, even a masterpiece like Wizardry 8 has a couple of them )

 

[theSavant]

Indeed. I had to check again, but yes, there is an option to "Repeat Last Combat Action" (on the last page of keyboard options).
This allows indeed with 1 click to re-activate the same action as before. Almost perfect for what I want!

I did that for my Bard and even for my Mage: pressed that "R", and then it automatically advanced to the next character where I could also press "R", and so on... nice!

But damn... after a while came the dealbreaker:
- Once your guys are out of Stamina and Mana, the "Advancement" gets stuck.
- You can choose "Defend" instead, and then it advances again to the next character... but next combat round the "Advancement" gets stuck on all Defenders.
- If you have "Attack" activated and cannot reach an enemy, the "Advancement" also gets stuck.
- The "Advancement" (when it works) does not loop. When you have applied an action for partymember#6 it does not start the cycle again at partymember#1 but remains there. Bad luck if you applied a wrong action...



Basically cycling through your characters is impossible. You are forced to press 1-6 to select your characters. That's very cumbersome. And it makes keyboard inputs useless.
Why is there no button to cycle through the characters? I don't get it. This would make controls soooo much better.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I agree with you, we need a wizardry 9 and 10 to perfect the system but let's be honest, if they were made nowadays, they would throw a graphic heavy shit at us and half the gaming experience would be about loading screens.

Look at the recent games and tell me how many had a very user friendly UI ?

Outside of the old Might & Magic (which were not perfect either) a few games managed it.

Still, the Wizardry spells interface asks a few more clicks than necessary, i take it as the price to pay to play an amazing game which is far more fun than most recent shitty cRPG wannabees.

 

[Viata]

How would you perfect the system, though?
If anything, we should go back to Wiz 7 2D graphics instead of Wiz 8 3D one. But I don't know how the battle system of Wiz 8 would work in this case.

 

[Darth Canoli]

There is nothing wrong with Wiz 8 3D, there's even room for slight improvements without having to go all the way to a retarded AAA production.

There's nothing wrong with 2D either but wiz 7 2D ? Please, it was ugly back then, it's still ugly nowadays, it's playable but ugly, M&M3-5 2D should be the goal or hand drawn 2D.

How would i perfect the system ?
The casting system is nice but it just needs some shortcuts, not one shortcut for every spell but if you could personalize shortcuts for the spells you use the most with a power level attached, it would be a single key/click cast.

You could also tie the mouse wheel to a power level gauge once you selected a spell instead of having to move you mouse cursor and select the power level, it doesn't seem like much but it'd be better already.

Or maybe all of the above / a mix of these.

 

[Darth Canoli]

A Might & Magic like fast combat option with the option to tie any action to it (a spell with a pre-defined power level, an instrument, even a powder or item ) would be nice as well.

 

[theSavant]

Once again some things in Wizardry 8 made me question its systems:

So I tried a duo party. A Lord and a Rogue. I bought the Lord the heaviest and best armor from Arnika at level 8, giving him an AC of 9, and average armor on him was 17. Also his shield was skilled to 100. I thought this guy would rock as a tank. But he didn't. When he was attacked by enemies of the same level, he lost so many hitpoints, it was ridiculous. Like 15-20 hitpoints. The Rogue who had weaker and lighter armor, didn't lose any more than him. How come that? Doesn't make any sense.

Note that up unto Level 10 I skilled only Dexterity and Strength for both guys. And yet the Lord should feel more robust compared to the Rogue. But he didn't. It's like his heavy armor didn't matter at all. Perplexing and frustrating.
After level 10 I started putting points into Vitality. And only then it seemed the damage decreased. As if the armor started to scale with the Vitality of the person. Is this correct? If yes, then this information should be written somewhere... in big red letters.

Besides the Shield skill of 100 for the Lord seemed to be worse than the Stealth skill of 100 for the Rogue. Again perplexing. And frustrating because it made the whole Shield training obsolete. Should have focused on Dual Weapons instead. Even during gameplay I kinda missed it: The Rogue always made 2 consecutive attacks, the Lord only 1. Felt incomplete. Somehow this shield skill is not worth the effort...

Aside from that, I skipped bow attacks for the Lord and instead planned to make him a ranged magic attacker. Unfortunately there was only "Make Wounds" for a ranged magic attack and nothing else. For many levels. Not very satisfying. Only advantage is, that you don't need to powertrain it because you are forced to use it anyways. But it's boring and the amount of damage is not satisfying in the long run (although this may be because I didn't invest any points in Intelligence or Piety). His only good spell is probably "Death Wish", but which he doesn't get until much later in the game. So much later that you probably finished the game by then. At Level 12 I got at least 2/3 of the main plot finished (not doing an encompassing walkthrough), and the only things missing were Sea Caves, Savant Tower, Ascension Peak. And at that point I was still stuck at Spell Level 4 spells.


Something different: I found wrong quest information in most gameguides for Wizardry 8...

The last T'Rang quest requires you to find the informant in the Umpani Camp (which is Kunar) by telling him the code phrase "Destiny Arrives Tonight". And then he should give you the Fake Security Pass etc. Every gameguide says you tell him this phrase and this is gonna happen. Well nope! Right afterwards he asks another question: "Who sent you?". Yeah... who sent me? Huh? I tried "Drazic, T'Rang, T'Rang Empire, Z'Ant" etc., but none of them worked. Furthermore Kunar gets stubborn after that and won't talk to me anymore (except I pay him $5000 or so). So does anyone know the answer to the second question?
The only thing I can think of is, that he and Drazic (who should be his original contactee) have an additional passphrase in common, and therefore I would have to find Drazic first. Is that so?

Another possibly misleading information is, that the Siege Arbalest (a crossbow) is said to be found in Trynton. Unfortunately I couldn't find it. And it's definitely not in the Safe in the Armory section of the Pagoda. Only boring Heavy Crossbows. That was a bummer for my Rogue... Did I miss the weapon somewhere?
EDIT: someone in some other forum wrote that he found the Siege Arbalest in the Mt. Gigas Caves - Lower Caves. I'll try to remember that next time.

Another note I took: while a Thief Buckler shield gives you a +10 for Locks&Traps, equipping two Thief Buckler shields at the same time does not combine the value (so it stays at +10 and not +20).

 

[MpuMngwana]

Besides the Shield skill of 100 for the Lord seemed to be worse than the Stealth skill of 100 for the Rogue.

I believe the Stealth skill in this game gives your Rogue a passive chance to automatically hide in combat, which means the enemies can't detect him and all gang up on your Lord.

Aside from that, I skipped bow attacks for the Lord and instead planned to make him a ranged magic attacker. Unfortunately there was only "Make Wounds" for a ranged magic attack and nothing else. For many levels. Not very satisfying. Only advantage is, that you don't need to powertrain it because you are forced to use it anyways. But it's boring and the amount of damage is not satisfying in the long run (although this may be because I didn't invest any points in Intelligence or Piety).

So:
Casting school mostly focused on support + Hybrid caster + Dumping spellcasting stats = Poor offensive spellcaster
Who would've thought?
(And even then, offensive magic in Wizardry 8 isn't as powerful as in most other RPGs)
I'd probably focus on healing and buffs such as Superman for the Lord.

I don't think you've picked a very powerful pair. Why didn't you go with two hybrids? This party seems needlessly gimped. Did you pick classes at random?

 

[theSavant]

I believe the Stealth skill in this game gives your Rogue a passive chance to automatically hide in combat, which means the enemies can't detect him and all gang up on your Lord.

That is in fact what happened! I wondered about that already. I did "Shield training" (for Lord) and "Stealth training" (for Rogue) in the cellar of the temple in Arnika, where I let ghosts attack my party. They mostly attacked the Lord! Only 1 out of 10 attacks was for the Rogue. And when I put the Rogue in the front line, they stopped attacking after a while and retreated... that was annoying. But it confirms what you said. They all ganged up on the Lord.

So:
Casting school mostly focused on support + Hybrid caster + Dumping spellcasting stats = Poor offensive spellcaster
Who would've thought?
(And even then, offensive magic in Wizardry 8 isn't as powerful as in most other RPGs)
I'd probably focus on healing and buffs such as Superman for the Lord.

I don't think you've picked a very powerful pair. Why didn't you go with two hybrids? This party seems needlessly gimped. Did you pick classes at random?

I kinda agree. It survives for a while but something feels off.

No, I didn't pick them at random. Actually I put a lot of thought in them. Initially I wanted to do a Solo-Run. But then I recalled all the tedious "powertrainings" required, like spamming cast charm, spamming heal, spamming rest all, hours of inspecting traps, multiclassing etc. This honestly turned me off. Then I thought why not make a second character who complements the lacking skills of the Solo-Character? Then I could skip all these annoying powertrainings and multiclassing and just "play naturally". So I looked for a suitable combination.

There are at least 2 requirements to successfully beat the game, which are:
a) Locks&Traps skill to open doors with tumblers
b) Sufficient protection against magic

Lord:
+ can cast the most required protective spells against magic attacks (Magic Screen, Sould Shield, Purify Air)
- lacks Locks&Traps skill (which are essential to complete the game) and cannot learn Knock-Knock

Rogue:
+ has the Locks&Traps skills
- lacks any magic protection

So in essence they would complement each other. Additionally I thought they could master any possible situation standing side by side in combat:
* Lord is decent ranged attacker with spells (plus a really good mass effect spell later) <-> Rogue is decent ranged attacker with bow
* Lord is decent melee attacker <-> Rogue is decent melee attacker
* Lord is difficult to hit with high shield skill <-> Rogue is diffcult to hit with high stealth skill
* Lord has decent healthpoints (plus the bonus of health regeneration) <-> Rogue has decent healthpoints

None of them would ever get bored in combat. Each one could do something in any situation. None of them could be killed easily (unlike the usual setup with Tank + GlassCanon). Both them could probably use some of the best melee weapons in the game (which give an instakill percentage) so even melee combat with lots of enemies should be painless. And the very few spells of the Lord would be an advantage because he could just use the same ones in combat and therefore "naturally" train his magical abiltities without "powertraining". That were my thoughts. But yeah... eventually I'm not so convinced anymore.

The only thing where the Lord really profited from was his "Health Regeneration" and only in the beginnings of the game. When I did his shield powertraining (the only powertraining I did), he absolutely didn't require any potions at all. Just stood there in defending position, got attacked and right afterwards healed himself. Probably one of the fastest powertrainings ever. That now being said... I think this could be done by Rogues or other Classes as well, if they got an Amulet of Healing. But that Health Regeneration was also one of the reasons I chose the Lord. As an additional safety measure in combat, so he should survive the longest (but as it turned out he was often killed before the Rogue). Later in the game the Health Regeneration also did not seem to be sufficient anymore, because the attacks from others were just too strong. So I imagined his innate regeneration ability to be greater than it actually was.

 

[coldcrow]

You do not need L&T skill. In the very first dungeon you find a Cap with +10 L&T wearable by any class which doesn't have said skill innately. So you can move the last tumbler after casting knock.
Lord is good with staff skill - Staff of Doom.
Forget AC in this game. DR/Vit and Healing spells are what keeps you alive. Also I do not understand your insistence on suboptimal parties with <6 characters. You get slighlty more powerful characters but nothing will beat the +x members.
For example a well built ranged party with 2 dedicated Spellcasters. It also infinitely more fun, as you get to do more and you can do without much grinding for skills.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Also I do not understand your insistence on suboptimal parties with <6 characters. You get slighlty more powerful characters but nothing will beat the +x members.
For example a well built ranged party with 2 dedicated Spellcasters. It also infinitely more fun, as you get to do more and you can do without much grinding for skills.

I agree, that small party fetish is weird.

Besides, Lord isn't that great, a Valkyrie is a lord but better if you really need one but you don't (just ad Vi for a while)

I think it's a crime to play without :

• A Samouraï (lightning strike is fun, it breaks the normal fighting pace)
• A Ranger (ranged crit is fun too, plus searchingall the time, which is useful)
• A Monk/Ninja (so many swings i lost count)
• A Wizard/Bishop (for obvious reasons debuffs, healing and superman on the samourai)
• A Priest (which could be turned into a bishop later)

Also, a 7 mem party is needed to protect 2 spell-casters in the middle (2 front - 2 on the sides, 1 ranger in the back)

I don't believe having less party members makes the combat faster, on the contrary because it's going to take more time to kill anything.

To the previous list, i'd add a mook fighter + a gadgeteer, the mook fighter is unusual but he is great with the giant sword which isn't that powerful but has an extended range (which is powerful because you can attack more instead of wasting turns moving) and the gadgeteer for gadgets and the omnigun which has nice ranged effects.

I don't play doubles (except double bishop sometimes) but a second ranger would do wonders (fast to play and deadly)

 

[theSavant]

You do not need L&T skill. In the very first dungeon you find a Cap with +10 L&T wearable by any class which doesn't have said skill innately. So you can move the last tumbler after casting knock.
Lord is good with staff skill - Staff of Doom.
Forget AC in this game. DR/Vit and Healing spells are what keeps you alive. Also I do not understand your insistence on suboptimal parties with <6 characters. You get slighlty more powerful characters but nothing will beat the +x members.
For example a well built ranged party with 2 dedicated Spellcasters. It also infinitely more fun, as you get to do more and you can do without much grinding for skills.

The Lord unfortunately can't cast Knock-Knock (only Divine Trap which only works for chests). And he doesn't accept Knock-Knock spellbooks either. That's why I put a Rogue in the party.

Yeah, that Staff of Doom is perfect. I focused on Swords instead, and it was probably the wrong decision. Good decision that I quit this walkthrough...

I can't disagree with what you've said about the fun part. My experiences with <6 parties have not been great fun. And yet it has something alluring... I don't know why. Maybe it's the faster levelling, maybe that you feel like you have 100% control, maybe that you become superman, maybe the low maintenance? Maybe all of them a bit. That said, I'm not after a Solo-Run, because the grinding, boringness and slow fights. It really kills the fun. It's probably getting better when you can cast every spell at highest level, but the amount of grinding required to do that probably does not make up for it. That's the reason I'm rather looking for a good minimal party, which requires no grinding and is still enjoyable to get through the game. Have not found that golden minimal party yet though.

I agree, that small party fetish is weird.

Besides, Lord isn't that great, a Valkyrie is a lord but better if you really need one but you don't (just ad Vi for a while)

I don't believe having less party members makes the combat faster, on the contrary because it's going to take more time to kill anything.

After some reading it seems right. The Valkyrie would be the better choice.

Also I confirm that the combat feels much slower and tedious with less party members. First of all you must pick your fights carefully, and then it's also frustrating when 10-20 enemies each one does an action (making a total of 10-20 actions) while you can only do 1-2 actions. I once used the Cosmic Forge editor to give me the Boomerang Shuriken edited to 100% instakill, and my solo-character max DEX & SPD - and yet fights with larger enemy groups were veeery slow. Which also reminds me of people saying "they wished they had an additional character to help in their Faerie Ninja Solo-Run". As above, I think I'm looking for a good minimal party which is still enjoyable.

Level up feels a bit faster with less party members, but it really depends.
- Having 2 party members feels definitely faster in the beginning.
- Having 4 party members doesn't feel that much faster than the full 6 party members.

Strangely enough: later on (Level 8 onwards) the small 2-man-party does not seem to level up faster anymore than a 6-man-party. Maybe this "faster-levelling" is deceptive in some way: if your party is very small you cannot engage every enemy. You must carefully pick your fights or run away. And because of that you gain less experience. While 6-man-party doesn't give a fuck and can engage every enemy. And because of that it gains more experience than the 2-man-party. Eventually resulting in that both parties achieve the same levels at the same time. Which kinda leads the idea of faster levelling ad absurdum.

I'm still not over that urge of a smaller party, but it definitely needs more thought. Maybe I'll try it another time again with something crazy like a pure Mook Samurai Party: perhaps great in Melee, Mook has Divine and Mental Resistance, Samurai can cast Elemental Shield complementing the missing magic resistances, has Knock-Knock spells

 

[coldcrow]

I have to expand on my post a bit. AC isn't per se not useful - but it has to be as high as possible and you have to use debuffs. Also DR/high Vit is only useful for a dedicated Tank and if you are willing to abuse Terrain, so enemies can attack only it. This all goes poof in the mid-late game anyways, when everyone is blasting you with deadly Magic and melee enemies aren't so dangerous anymore (though a tank is still somewhat useful). Which they are not, because you should have access to plenty of debuffs. Blindness, Fear, Insanity, Nausea stack very well and reduce large groups to managable chunks. If you play a ranged Party (which you should really try for a completely different experience), you won't waste many actions by running around.
You casters/bard/gadgeteer will drop thier debuffs, then buffs and then either attack or blast away with AoE damage. The one I am playing on and off right now is: Hobbit Bard/Hobbit Ninja/Hobbit Ranger/Human Ranger/Hobbit Gadg/Elven Bishop
Bard: instruments/sword/shield/xbow
ninja: throwing/staff/stealth
ranger1: modern weapon (blunderbuss!)
ranger2: bows (there is a nice cap in the mod I am playing for him, else hobbit would be better)
gadg: modern weapon/gadgs/a few points in lockpicking for the early game
bishop: 4 school

This party lets you use the best of all ranged attack modes and is really a blast to play with ranomizers mod, which buffs ammo a bit and makes more available at stores. It would be viable on vanilla too, though the early game would be harder.

 

[newtmonkey]

Wizardry V (PC)
Slowly making progress step by step in this one. Still loving, best Wiz game by far (so far) out of Wiz 1, 2, 3, and 5.

I can sort of understand how someone could get burnt out playing these games one after another. Wiz 1 is fun from start to finish, so getting through that is a pleasure. Wiz 2 is so shorter and easier in comparison, it's over before you even realize it. Wiz 3 is balanced poorly and is somewhat of a pain to get through, so I imagine most people give up at this point (or shortly after it).

So I imagine someone fresh off of beating Wiz 3 would start Wiz 5 up, and go "great, more Wiz 3" and either skip it or put it off for later. I think this happened with the CRPGAddict when he first gave up on the game.

Anyway, Wiz 5 is nothing like Wiz 3, and I mean that as a compliment. It seems absolutely massive even compared to that game, and so far is balanced MUCH better. It's got a lot of changes big and small that give it a completely different feel than the earlier games. The fact that the game does not save constantly, for instance, makes it feel a bit more like the latter Wizardry games. As a result, you often feel like you are accomplishing stuff even if you only put in 15 mins or so at a time.

 

[Viata]

fresh off of beating Wiz 3 would start Wiz 5 up

What are you saying? People go from 3 to 4, no one ignores Wiz 4 on my watch.

 

[newtmonkey]

Already ignored it

I plan on going back to 4 after I finish Wiz 5-6-7

 

[octavius]

IIRC 5 was made before 4, and since you can import to 5 from 3, it makes sense to play 5 before 4.

 

[Viata]

IIRC 5 was made before 4

Yes. That was also because Bradley had finished the game but had to rewrite it to fit into Wizardry.