Might and Magic Might & Magic X Pre-Release Thread

[Storyfag]

Question 16:
<Chomik> Is alchemy in? Do we get to brew black potions and cause horrible accidents at work in case of bad potions mixed?
<@LE-Marcus> No alchemy in MMX. Actually we dropped a lot of the miscelleneous skills.

 

[Shadenuat]

I never had much trouble with Fallout UI, I think you're supposed to carry ammo, few quest items and stims, and one row is enough for that. If you play character with high strength you can collect every pistol to sell it, but most characters in Fallout 1 only get enough carrying capacity when they get PWA, and at that point you already have all the equipment you need. It also had a lot of options - you could examine and put items in your "hands", use them, load and unload weapons, use items on pieces of terrain - all except maybe combining items together. Now, Fallout 2 had larger world and more quests, so inventory got clustered a lot more. It could have used additional row or two. But as I said ergonomics had nothing to do with my point to begin with; having a set of skills all on fast keys ("F" set I believe) was good design; pressing single button to get large explanatory screen for UI was good design; vault boy was memorable and stat screen was designed very well - all skills and perks in one screen - super handy. Some games can't even get that right, you have to scroll through multiple windows to see stats, resistances, skills, and so on.
I can't tell exactly how "responsive" or "ergonomic" M&MX is from one screenshot, but what I can is that it looks bland and does not inspire me to play in the inventory screen a lot; and I think M&M deserves something cooler.

 

[Stabwound]

MM3-5 showed items as a list though right? I'd actually prefer that rather than the square icon approach. At least then I can see what's what at a quick glance.

I completely disagree. I love that era of MM games, but the inventory management was one of the weak points. I'm willing to bet that weapon attributes aren't completely hidden to the player outside of IDing every time, either. I think the inventory style of this game with tooltip/info included with mouseover is the best type of inventory system there is.

Fuck inventory tetris and lists for that matter. MM6+ did the tetris thing and it was a nightmare. Making everything 1 block with a numerical limit on items carried works fine in my opinion.

 

[Shadenuat]

Mouseover and autosort button can be applied to tetris inventory, just as unified inventory. Characters can have belts with potions and such, while inventory can be unified with multiple bags for different stuff... all carefully drawn to fit different amount of squares, swords and axes with gems, and azure colored leather armor with golden griffons

AND DOLLIES

 

[Crispy]

 

[Stabwound]

My beef with tetris inventory is that it makes for annoying micromanagement that just serves to annoy the player. I don't know if MM7+ improved on this, but MM6 gets irritating with the rearranging your inventory to make more space, especially since it's not always clear how many grid slots each item takes up. It's just an unneeded complication.

MM6 featured anything but carefully-drawn items; you could almost never tell at first glance how many squares a particular weapon would take up, only to hear the annoying error sound because it doesn't fit when you try to place it.

I think the MMX style inventory is about as good as it gets. You can still tell what things are in general by the unique icons and you don't have to memorize 100 different prefixes and suffixes like the older MM games this is drawing from.

 

[Luzur]

well, i guess they went for the old MM3-5 style of inventory.

MM3-5 showed items as a list though right? I'd actually prefer that rather than the square icon approach. At least then I can see what's what at a quick glance.

they where listed but also in MM4-5 they added small icons.

 

[Shadenuat]

For me Diablo and Arcanum is the pinnacle of inventory, but that's just from visual standpoint. I can understand some people hate losing their time on micromanagement, but I absolutely love dragging items around, sorting them and thinking what to do with them. Also placing them into containers!
And, like in UltimaO... then placing containers inside containers... that are trapped!

 

[Alchemist]

Even though I like the visual look of tetris inventory that doesn't mean I like manually sorting it and "playing" tetris on it. I seem to remember some games can auto-sort tetris style (Arcanum maybe?). So yeah - add features like that - and maybe take away the visible grid altogether (though code-wise it can still be there). Clever coding can make this happen - so you don't have to micromanage. But you still get nice big proportional sprites of your items to look at, not tiny generic icons. My ideal would be a hybrid of Ultima 7 / UO and Arcanum inventory, with optional auto-sort to keep things from getting cluttered.

 

[mondblut]

Autosort is shit. In a large inventory, you keep spare weapons in one part of inventory, potions in another, ingredients in third, etc. Now press autosort, and it's instant clusterfuck where nothing can be found.

 

[Alchemist]

Autosort is shit. In a large inventory, you keep spare weapons in one part of inventory, potions in another, ingredients in third, etc. Now press autosort, and it's instant clusterfuck where nothing can be found.

That's where separate bags come in (ala U7 / UO). Or at least tabs. Organize your stuff in containers according to category - then you can auto-sort (optionally) within those. Imagine an actual adventurer - they have a bag for ingredients, a potion belt, scabbards, etc - all separate inventory containers.

 

[Grunker]

A fucking grid with fucking tetris. You see every item in on your screen and you sort it. Simple and fucking easy. People waaaay overstate the amount of "tetris" necessary.

 

[mondblut]

That's where separate bags come in (ala U7 / UO).

Ugh. Bags within bags within bags, it might have had some cool factor back in the day, but I can't imagine a clumsier and more terribly inconvenient method of inventory management. Good riddance, and curses upon those who dare trying to reanimate it (like the "molle system" in JA2 113... fuck it, give me a generic vest and holsters with lots of universal large pockets any day over this shit)

Or at least tabs. Organize your stuff in containers according to category - then you can auto-sort (optionally) within those. Imagine an actual adventurer - they have a bag for ingredients, a potion belt, scabbards, etc - all separate inventory containers.

There will never be enough tabs. Take weapons - you are carrying a spare weapon for yourself, a special weapon for that party member you're planning to recruit down the way, a bunch of rare/magical vanity items you don't use but can't part with, and a fuckton of looted junk you are carrying to the pawn store. Do you seriously expect to have separate tabs for all these cases?

 

[J_C]

Gothic: mouse just for looking - everything else with WSADQE+SPACE+TAB+SHIFT

Why do you make the game harder to control for yourself HiddenX? Are you a masochist?

Sorting through blueberries and cakes with arrows keys was ergonomic and responsive? Damn make up your mind man, first you say it's important, then that you'd prefer WASD controls, and I did't even care for that to begin with, I just want a UI which looks like a part of world I'm in playing with a lot of items draggin/examining/combining
Cause that was fun, and 40x40 WoW icons are not fun, and not creative a bit

Piranha Bites developed Gothic 1 without mouse control in mind - it is the way Gothic is meant to be played -> just for info.
You need a bit intelligence for learning the control scheme, but then it is much better than the mouse controls.

You don't need intelligence for Gothic 1 UI. It is piss easy to control, it is just that using the mouse to control the camera and using the inventory is much more convenient.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Fuck inventory tetris and lists for that matter. MM6+ did the tetris thing and it was a nightmare. Making everything 1 block with a numerical limit on items carried works fine in my opinion.

Uh, in one of them (7th one I think) you had to pick up a frigging sarcophagus which nearly fills half of inventory screen...
That was the moment I decide to hate inventory tetris forever

 

[Darth Roxor]

Uh, in one of them (7th one I think) you had to pick up a frigging sarcophagus which nearly fills half of inventory screen...
That was the moment I decide to hate inventory tetris forever

It gets even better at the end of 7 when you have to equip your entire party with the diving suits and segregate all their normally equipped stuff in backpacks.


But otherwise, equipment tetris is gr8

 

[Storyfag]

Fuck inventory tetris and lists for that matter. MM6+ did the tetris thing and it was a nightmare. Making everything 1 block with a numerical limit on items carried works fine in my opinion.

Uh, in one of them (7th one I think) you had to pick up a frigging sarcophagus which nearly fills half of inventory screen...
That was the moment I decide to hate inventory tetris forever

That was actually 8

 

[Shadenuat]

A fucking grid with fucking tetris. You see every item in on your screen and you sort it. Simple and fucking easy. People waaaay overstate the amount of "tetris" necessary.

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[narupley]

I actually liked equipment tetris. Organizing inventory, giving all quest items to one person, scrolls to another, potions to another, items to sell to my merchant, etc. I liked all of that. I felt it was one of the many little things that made the games addictive for me.

If there was a semi-intelligent auto-sort function that would rearrange everything but keep like items together (if possible), then I say sure why not, It'll cater to those of you who don't care about organization.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I actually liked equipment tetris. Organizing inventory, giving all quest items to one person, scrolls to another, potions to another, items to sell to my merchant, etc. I liked all of that. I felt it was one of the many little things that made the games addictive for me.

Same here. I hate micromanaging shit IRl but I like it in RPGs. My room's a mess but my MM6-8 characters' inventories were neatly compulsively arranged.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I dunno, I like lists best -- I've played a shitload of rpgs of all kinds, and generally I've found lists the fastest and easiest to use.

 

[Infinitron]

New vote: https://mightandmagicx-legacy.ubi.com/opendev/blog/post/view/51dfd7dd888ef6ed79000000

 

[Infinitron]

Chat summary (I think they used zappater's edit!): https://mightandmagicx-legacy.ubi.com/opendev/blog/post/view/51e02e22888ef61c7a000003

mindx2 obviously never got to know my Grandma

 

[Shadenuat]

Ooh, Wiz8 inspired party banter. That's cool.

 

[zappater]

Chat summary (I think they used zappater's edit!): https://mightandmagicx-legacy.ubi.com/opendev/blog/post/view/51e02e22888ef61c7a000003

mindx2 obviously never got to know my Grandma

Oh shit, got to start caring about this game now after being thanked by the devs.
Should I put together a "everything we know about MMX" post?

And really too bad about the mules, mule breeding mechanics would have been the best!