Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Morkar Left]

Is it possible to reduce the respawn-rating and number of random encounters significantly? It's the only thing that destroys the gameplay for me.

 

[DraQ]

I won the game with an entire party made of specialist spell-casters (excluding RPCs), will you prefer that?
I mentioned defence, not offence, though the best defence is to kil them quick. Valks get cheat death ability which makes them very useful.

Well, yeah, Valks are pretty much ultimate tanks in this regard.

Bards can use shields but have poor helms and HP.

True, but there are many lightish helms that make up for poor AC with cool special effects and are wearable by Bards. Other than that, Bards can wear medium armour and while they have poor HP, they can provide fairly good melee hitting power, and, if you don't like the class-specific gear, you can dual into pretty much anything near the end, without losing your musical skills.

Won't dualed casters to fighters have low HP?

Probably, but Priests are already not-horrible in this regard and due to their magic being of mostly defensive nature, they often resort to bashing heads, which means they often belong to fairly durable races anyway, so providing them with extra tanking potential in form of plate and cheat death should make them pretty excellent tanks.

Then again, I gravitate towards offence oriented parties/characters in my cRPGs, spending points on stats that allow me to passively absorb damage as opposed to actually doing something seems really boring. Endurance/vitality tend to be the last of the useful stats I spend points on. I try to not tank, I prefer to hit, and, on rare ocassions when it doesn't solve the problem at once, run.

 

[Shannow]

Ninja can equip two thrown weapons (shurikens are best) and insta gib enemies at range. But sure, take the Valkyrie.

I changed the ninja to a valkyrie because someone suggested my party didn't have tanking power (Fighter, priest, mage, bard, gadgeteer, ninja).

But fuck what is best, I got a valkyrie now, and I'm sticking to my current party. They could be all fighter faeries for all I care.

I wasn't saying something is "best". I never used a ninja as I dislike the slow levelling of the hybrid classes. Valk is great, and if you look for tanking power they're most definately better than ninjas. They're just not generally "better". And your party was fine as it was. With one fighter and 2 RPCs (and the bard in a pinch) you had all the tanking power you needed.

 

[Stabwound]

Well, it doesn't really work on the PSP SNES emulator very well. It shows gibberish crap all over the screen in the inventory menu etc. Not really playable, which sucks.

 

[Mastermind]

Anyone know the numbers for the monk/dwarf damage resistance abilities?

 

[Azrael the cat]

I got diseased in the monastery and the nearest cure is Arnika. And disease cause permanent stat loss with time so I dare not sleep and had to get through Arnika which is blocked by 5 groups of monsters. Tough without sleeping.

I look in my pack and found a potion of Chameleon so I tried to hug the walls and sneak by but failed everytime. In the end I ran in combat mode and reached the Arnika map with most of my party unconscious.Then I had to fight Onyx and finally got a cure at the temple.

This is what happens when you start the game in a dungeon without proper adventuring facilities. And why are the cure spells higher level than the cause spells?

Cosmic Forge (the editor) is a must-have for me now.

Did you get the supply stash near the water where you start off (before entering the monastery)?

Also, cure are higher level than cause spells, to prevent casters from being the 'must-have' counter to all status effects. They're still worth having - just try doing the Bayjin/Ryjin section without anti-psionic spells. But it also means that there is a serious benefit in having races/classes/gear with good resistance.

If you could always guarantee having cure/shield spells available, why would you ever choose anything but lizardmen for your front line tanks? They're way better than any other class for tanking...except for their low resistances and tendency to get mind-controlled. As you can't always guarantee having adequate cure/shields, you then pay serious consideration to whether a less sturdy, but more resistant, race would be better - say, dwarves.

It's part of the tradeoffs that make Wiz8 interesting. More of a strategic challenge than a tactical one.

Mind you, if you WANT a party with great casting to cover your ass with cures and shields, you can - it just means sacrificing other strengths. My favourite is to use 2 bishops, each covering 2 schools ONLY. Bishops level up at different rates depending on how many schools they try to cover - so if you try to learn all 4 schools they take forever to learn, whereas if you take 1 school they learn at the same rate as other casters. 2 schools each is a great compromise, ensuring that between them you have every school available. Add a bard to that, and with stamina-regeneration he'll be able to cast AoE-stun, silence or similar effects every single fight (over the game, he'll get almost all the best AoE spells that casters can get, without worrying about mana, while being a decent backup melee/lock-pick, so long as you take time to look for the instruments). Get a ranger for insta-kills plus casting, and pick up Vi when you meet her for an excellent Valkyrie. That gives you 2 side-casters, and the Valkerie is actually pretty damn competent - not enough to be your main healer, but a very respectable support healer.

Make sure your support casters use their spells regularly in order to raise their skills (I assign each of them a shield/resistance spell to permanently maintain, levelling up their casting without requiring them to cast in battle, and in a context where their low initial casting skill has no significant detriment).

If you want more casting power, get a samurai instead of a fighter - can still offtank with Vi as main tank, and again level his casting by having him maintain at least one party buff constantly.

From that you should have 6 casters or caster-equivalents (including Vi in one of the bonus slots).

Add a ninja or gadgeteer for another ranged slot - I prefer gadgeteer for diversity, and I usually take the robot monk later for another frontline fighter. But if you go ninja, then again use the trick of having your part-time casters maintain the buffs/resistance spells to level their casting up.

You can pretty much get an all-casting party without having to change classes, and while still maintaining a good tanking line (Vi, samurai and monk as dedicated melee, ranger on the flank as ranged but able to switch to melee if necessary, bard on other flank spamming AoE songs + melee when needed, bishops protected behind, and gadgeteer/ninja in the rear). With your 2-school bishops and your bard as the dedicated casters, you won't have any problems with cures/resistance spells.

 

[someone else]

Azrael, I was talking about the mods, which altered the spawns to include a 'wrong' monster in the monastery. There is no cure disease potion in the starter chest. The rest your post doesn't really match what I'm saying. I was wondering why the cure spells for paralyzation, cloud spells, insanity etc are higher than their attack spells. You only need wizardry and divine to cover your protective spells (some of them are psionic/alchemy as well) and they are level 3&4 spells, you get them quite quickly. That leaves 6 other characters to do what whatever you wish them to do.

 

[desocupado]

Hmm, I'm trying to put a gnome priest on the front lines. Is it viable? He isn't getting many hitpoints per level...

Also, fighters seem extremely overpowered. My fighter with berserk sometimes does more damage than the whole rest of the party, including casters.

Maybe I should have gone with 5 fighters and a priest...

 

[someone else]

4 fighters & 2 bishops actually, did that once, quit as the game was too easy.

 

[Azrael the cat]

Azrael, I was talking about the mods, which altered the spawns to include a 'wrong' monster in the monastery. There is no cure disease potion in the starter chest. The rest your post doesn't really match what I'm saying. I was wondering why the cure spells for paralyzation, cloud spells, insanity etc are higher than their attack spells. You only need wizardry and divine to cover your protective spells (some of them are psionic/alchemy as well) and they are level 3&4 spells, you get them quite quickly. That leaves 6 other characters to do what whatever you wish them to do.

Wouldn't lowering the cure spells make natural resistance proportionally less important? I.e. if cure spells take longer to get, then races/classes with better resistance have an important early-game advantage.

Anyway,is it really that odd to consider attack and cure to be separate abilities requiring different degrees of skill? It always seemed like that they'd be grouped together 'just because'. Most strategy/tactical games deliberately put the 'counters' to abilities/strategies/units one tier higher than the things that they're countering, specifically to give the offensive ability a window of dangerousness before the easy counter is available. Could be similar thinking at work - make the status effects genuinely dangerous for a period before the 'easy' counter appears.

 

[Shannow]

Hmm, I'm trying to put a gnome priest on the front lines. Is it viable? He isn't getting many hitpoints per level...

Also, fighters seem extremely overpowered. My fighter with berserk sometimes does more damage than the whole rest of the party, including casters.

Maybe I should have gone with 5 fighters and a priest...

Fighters are my favourite and certainly awesome, but they are most effective when they are buffed, cured and the enemies are disabled. So a few more other classes mixed in makes a lot of sense. And do not to forget that the casters become continually more powerfull and useful as they gain levels whereas the simply simply stays on a constant (high) level. Don't let early impressions fool you. Every class will pull its weight (in the long run) if played right.

 

[desocupado]

What is it that defines hit points on level up? The race or the class?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Constitution or Endurance, whatever it is.

Race will have a part in it, as will class.

A gnome alchemist will not gain as much HP/level as a gnome fighter, but neither will be as insane as a Lizardman Fighter.

Still one of my favorites: Dracon Samurai and a Lizardman Priest/Lord or Lizardman Priest/Valkyrie.
Elves, while stereotypical spellcasters, make awesome Bishops, and Dracons make good rangers, as do the obvious Mooks. Faeries are great psionics and Dwarves are amazing monks (invest into their mace and flail skill, use nunchuks= profit!)
Always wanted to try making a lizardman bishop.
Bards are good with honestly almost any race. Hobbits are the best at that and thieving, but it's technically cheating with them being so fucking good.
A thief is a near necessity, or a bard or a gadgeteer (someone who can lockpick)

 

[Achmed1974]

So in my apathy for alot of today's rpgs I have decided to take a break and play some of the classics of my youth such as Wizardry VI and VII. While I have had no problem with the emulator DosBOx 0.73 with D-Fend Reloaded, I am at a loss for how to make the game look as good as possible.

So I am asking and hoping someone could share an ideal graphics profile, windowed resolution and filters people have been using. The monitor I am playing on is a 1440x900 LCD. If this is a question with an answer on another topic you can feel free to link me and I'll close the topic. Just not very experienced with the emulator and what graphci settings would work best.

 

[Mangoose]

Have you tried Oblivion? It's kinda the same as Wizardry bc of the first person view, but the gameplay and graphics are a lot better. You also have a lot more freedom to do anything you want around the world. Like you don't have to fight monsters in dungeons all the time.

Try it.

 

[Twinkle]

I have a few similar questions to our resident experts.

Sound is unbearably shitty, constantly cracking. Can be cured only by switching it off altogether.

What's even worse: sometimes the framerate just slows down to a crawl and the mouse starts to lag, without any reason. Need to restart dosbox to revert things back to normal.

Is there any way to fix the above?

 

[zeitgeist]

Sound is unbearably shitty, constantly cracking. Can be cured only by switching it off altogether.

What's even worse: sometimes the framerate just slows down to a crawl and the mouse starts to lag, without any reason. Need to restart dosbox to revert things back to normal.

Is there any way to fix the above?

Is this in one of the two Wizardries mentioned in the OP or in DOSBox in general?

 

[SCO]

Can be the dosbox mixer buffer. It needs to be the same size or larger than the rate of the device you are using (eg: oplrate, tandyrate etc). Otherwise you get buffer underuns, ie: crackling.

Open the config file and check.

 

[hanssolo]

Keep correct aspect ratio.
Render: openglnb.
Scale: normal3x.

play windowed.

filters are for faggots.

 

[Twinkle]

Is this in one of the two Wizardries mentioned in the OP or in DOSBox in general?

Wiz 6. Anyway, I've managed to fix this shit myself. Setting sound in the game to "Full/Off" mode retains most of the effects and works like a charm without lag or anything. Alternatively, the Amiga version has superior sound and graphics, but I don't think there is a way to import chars from part 6 to later Wizardries for DOS/Win.

 

[Calem Ravenna]

Wizardry 6/7 have better sound effects when set to PC Speaker instead of Sound Blaster. Try that.

 

[Ammar]

You should avoid playing Wiz 6 with mouse anyway, support is half-hearted at best and you can do everything faster with the keyboard.

Amusingly, just last year a fan patch appeared for it. It fixes a serious bug with the most powerful spells (e.g. nuclear blast) not working correctly. You should get it.

http://www.softwarespecialties.com/dcfo ... /224.html#

 

[Serus]

Wizardry 6/7 have better sound effects when set to PC Speaker instead of Sound Blaster. Try that.

Strangely enough but this is my experience as well. At least in Wizardry 7, havent really played part 6.

 

[BrecMadak]

Hey folks, i used to play Wizardry 8 in XP without any problem, after installing it in the first time to Windows 7 some ridicolous problems started to appear.
I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate x86 and Wizardry 8 1.2.4 patch, after clicking 3dSetup not any single working soundcard possible i'd seen, later it did not start the game ! And therefore it was still asking for Wiz8.cfg can not be found, when i hit Wizardry 8 Fast mod.

So i'm asking you Win 7 users playing Wizardry 8 if there left any :D Any solution welcomes.

 

[Jaesun]

Compatibility mode?