First time playing Wizardry 8 and while I've enjoyed most of it so far there are elements that baffle me or annoy me.
For example, why do my seemingly pure physical/ranged combat characters suddenly all ask me to pick a spell for them to learn upon level up? Is everyone is a caster in this game after achieving a given level without dual classing them? I didn't put any points in the various magic schools so they're all kind of gimped now, I guess.
Enemy groups can be rather large. Why didn't they just make each enemy tougher rather than make you fight crowds that take a while to finish a turn regardless of speed settings? Nevermind when you happen to get in the middle of a skirmish with enemies and allies on top.
And finally, I have no idea how to progress the story, I guess I'm dumb. I've exited the monastery, gone to the first town, saved a damsell in distress that ended up being a capable fighter joining my group, got a rogue recruited as well, got various items I can't find a use for (like some destroyed black box I took to a machine that can read such things but it's too broken to do that, or some cop's keycard that doesn't really allow me to do anything much outside entering a building that didn't offer me any progress), I also cleared a graveyard further ahead with a weird ghostly body haunting it and a skull I took next to it (I liked how I beat some wizard and then had to beat his ghost though, lol), and I can't really find how to progress any more, should I just go to the next city already, or am I supposed to find a way to enter that tower after all? I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly. Maybe I missed some NPC or item in the monastery or elsewhere.
I didn't really wanna use a guide for this (or any) game or read up spoilers but I may have to if all of it is so vague. It's still cool, the combat system and character creation seem pretty well developed, the graphics hold up really well in my opinion and the world is fairly unique with its custom mix of fantasy and sci fi elements I haven't quite encountered elsewhere in the same way.
Edit: oh yeah there seem to be some skills that confuse me too, is it best to put points in things like ranged/close combat or better to upgrade the specific weapon skills, or keeping them both at the same level or what? Similarly for the magic categories, just the overall wizardry (or whatever it's called) or the specific schools? And I also see there are two schools that seem to apply to the cleric type spells, meaning there's three categories to choose from dividing points to for my bishop...