What is the appeal of Might and Magic VI?

[Geckabor]

I don't want to cause too much butthurt but can someone explain the appeal of (only played this one so far) MM6 to me? I'm not too far into the game, but I'm not really sure if the gameplay is going to improve any time soon.

So basically the main thing I've been doing is killing thousands and thousands of (recoloured) trash mobs by holding the A key and occasionally going back to heal. There isn't anything really deep about the combat mechanics nor anything really engaging. Quests are all some kind of fetch quest, but I can pardon this part since the main motivation is to go and explore the world and the quests serving more or less as simple motivation.

I'm expecting the main response of why the game is so great to be the "exploration" and "dungeons", but how can I enjoy these aspects if every dungeon room or every 10 meters there's another tedious slog of killing hundreds of generic enemies...

I do want to actually enjoy the game and continue playing so I hope someone can tell me how to appreciate it, but so far it has been closer to a popamole experience.

 

[Snorkack]

Keep playing until you have the spells fly and meteor shower. Then you'll see.

 

[janior]

 

[Gimble]

MM6 is mostly like that. The inclusion of trash mobs is probably to compensate for free switching between TB and RT combat modes. Later on, you get the fly spell which lets you bypass overland encounters, but you still have to deal with them in dungeouns.

MM7 has a somewhat better design. It has somewhat less enemy count, but more importantly includes spells like invisibility which can be used to completely bypass trash mobs altogether - invisibility breaks only if the party bumps into the mob or initiates attack or times out. MM7 also has slightly more interesting quests and faction choices that change the content somewhat.

 

[fantadomat]

I see that the combat is not your cup of tea,would recommend trying out dear esther and gone home. Heard that those games are pillars of modern gaming. Apparently there is amazing and mysterious new stuff in every new room in "gone home" and the best thing is that there is no annoying "trash mobs". In "dear esther" you can safely traverse the land without the pesky combat.

 

[Snorkack]

MM7 has a somewhat better design.

No. Not in one single aspect is this statement true.

 

[CryptRat]

The dungeons are very good, as well as the overall world.
Despite the unfortunate small party the character system is very good too, very free with a lot of options, and getting stronger and for example getting to spam strong spells and get rid of hordes of then weaker enemies in seconds feels good. Sure the combat system is not the best ever alright but it's not terrible either, fighting hordes of monsters is cool contrary to what you're saying and party builiding, preparation as well as finding nasty ways to deal with these hordes of monsters, testing and using the different spells are fun and by the way the game has its dose of interesting enemies.

 

[Gimble]

MM7 has a somewhat better design.

No. Not in one single aspect is this statement true.

Less trash mobs & more ways to bypass them, different races to play with (with enemies actually reacting to races, which require different combat tactics). Faction choices make actual difference (even if pretty shallow).

Having said that, BOTH games are relevent only because they share continuity with early HOMM series, which are much better games. MM6/7 are not as good as the earlier Xeen games either.

 

[CryptRat]

Nonsense, yes earlier Might&Magic games are very good but so are 6 & 7, and even 8 is a fairly decent game.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Never understood the praise of M&M6. It's very rough, imbalanced, overly grindy, and scales horrendously at high levels. The later dungeons are a massive chore.

It's the BG1 to the BG2 of M&M7:

-More classes
-Actual race choices
-Skills/spells scale properly
-Better items
-Class choices matter
-Spells more balanced by classes
-Better game progression/combat balance
-Light/dark choice replay value
-Vastly less of a dull slog

The only thing M&M6 has going for it is the ridiculously huge dungeons, if you consider every dungeon lasting far past it's welcome a plus. Then again every time I point out Fallout 1 is far too short I get fanboys screeching at me "IT DOESN'T WASTE YOUR TIME." Well M&M6 deliberately wastes your time. I'm all for quality content but when you just copy one mob and hit paste 10,000 times that's not quality.

 

[Taurist]

Might and Magic 6 is one of my favourite FPS.

 

[fantadomat]

MM7 has a somewhat better design.

No. Not in one single aspect is this statement true.

Less trash mobs & more ways to bypass them, different races to play with (with enemies actually reacting to races, which require different combat tactics). Faction choices make actual difference (even if pretty shallow).

Having said that, BOTH games are relevent only because they share continuity with early HOMM series, which are much better games. MM6/7 are not as good as the earlier Xeen games either.

Mob skipping in MM7 is retarded,the game is pretty hard without mob skipping. Why the fuck would you play a MM game and skip combat??? What kind of rpg player are you,passing by XP and loot?! Also MM6 and MM4-5 are the best games of the series. Oh and comparing MM and HoMM is like comparing Votka to Spagetti.

 

[Gimble]

Mob skipping in MM7 is retarded,the game is pretty hard without mob skipping. Why the fuck would you play a MM game and skip combat??? What kind of rpg player are you,passing by XP and loot?! Also MM6 and MM4-5 are the best games of the series. Oh and comparing MM and HoMM is like comparing Votka to Spagetti.

Have you actually played through MM6 and 7? There's enough combat to go around whichever way you play. Yes, XP and loot is good, but if you can beat the game and all quests without maximizing XP, why choose the slowest or less efficient path?

 

[Darth Roxor]

The only upsides MM7 has over 6 are the better character system (IIRC?) and being able to choose a faction. Everything else is dead-on decline, especially the level design, and anyone who actually praises shit like undead always attacking clerics is a certified cretin.

As for OP, MM6 at least to me has at least two great merits that make it great:

1. The level design, particularly dunjins. MM6 dungeons are not only YUUUUUGE, but also in full 3D and very mazelike. It's basically a Daggerfall where the dungeons make sense for a change.
2. The potential for breaking and cheesing everything. Attacking enemies through walls/doors, taking advantage of them getting stuck in door frames, meteor shower spam, pew pew blasters, riding elevators up and down in turn-based mode, etc. MM6 is possibly the most breakable game in existence, and finding new ways to make use of Emergent Gameplay (tm) is extremely fun.

 

[m_s0]

I love the world design, the progression, the dungeon design, the whimsy, and the way the this game encourages the player to screw around. Dungeons are memorable, meaty and feel like an accomplishment rather than a distraction or a chance to grind out a few levels, the world - inexplicably - feels surprisingly alive given that it's populated by randomly generated, copy-paste sprites, and the mechanics are pretty rough and unpolished, but there's a certain character to M&M6 that really makes everything, including the imperfections, gel into a game I routinely come back to (or would've, if I had the time). Part of the appeal genuinely is something you either get, or you just don't.

You might want to try VII for more polish, but the core remains the same in that one as well.

So the short version would be that it's a great example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, although I would consider M&M6 exceptional in a few departments.

 

[V_K]

Can anyone praising the dungeons in MM6 give a spoilerish breakdown of one example to explain what's so great about them? Because the last time I tried playing MM6 I went through 6-8 dungeons in the starting areas and I don't remember being impressed. Granted, they're an improvement over MM4-5 dungeons, but that's a very low bar - those were just the definition of bland.

 

[fantadomat]

Mob skipping in MM7 is retarded,the game is pretty hard without mob skipping. Why the fuck would you play a MM game and skip combat??? What kind of rpg player are you,passing by XP and loot?! Also MM6 and MM4-5 are the best games of the series. Oh and comparing MM and HoMM is like comparing Votka to Spagetti.

Have you actually played through MM6 and 7? There's enough combat to go around whichever way you play. Yes, XP and loot is good, but if you can beat the game and all quests without maximizing XP, why choose the slowest or less efficient path?

Yeah i have played trough them both at least 20 times. Around Christmas i do decide to give it a nice play. Killing mobs is the half the fun of the game. It is like buying a FPS and whining that there is too much shooting in it.

1. The level design, particularly dunjins. MM6 dungeons are not only YUUUUUGE, but also in full 3D and very mazelike. It's basically a Daggerfall where the dungeons make sense for a change.

Castle Darkmoor!
Also there is that fucker in the dungeon with your first dragon farming.

 

[Gimble]

Can anyone praising the dungeons in MM6 give a spoilerish breakdown of one example to explain what's so great about them? Because the last time I tried playing MM6 I went through 6-8 dungeons in the starting areas and I don't remember being impressed. Granted, they're an improvement over MM4-5 dungeons, but that's a very low bar - those were just the definition of bland.

The dungeons are big & expansive, and thats about it. MM7 has far fewer equivalent dungeons. Level design is relatively better than MM7 - still nothing spectacular.

 

[Snorkack]

MM7 has a somewhat better design.

No. Not in one single aspect is this statement true.

Less trash mobs & more ways to bypass them, different races to play with (with enemies actually reacting to races, which require different combat tactics). Faction choices make actual difference (even if pretty shallow).

Having said that, BOTH games are relevent only because they share continuity with early HOMM series, which are much better games. MM6/7 are not as good as the earlier Xeen games either.

Never understood the praise of M&M6. It's very rough, imbalanced, overly grindy, and scales horrendously at high levels. The later dungeons are a massive chore.

It's the BG1 to the BG2 of M&M7:

-More classes
-Actual race choices
-Skills/spells scale properly
-Better items
-Class choices matter
-Spells more balanced by classes
-Better game progression/combat balance
-Light/dark choice replay value
-Vastly less of a dull slog

The only thing M&M6 has going for it is the ridiculously huge dungeons, if you consider every dungeon lasting far past it's welcome a plus. Then again every time I point out Fallout 1 is far too short I get fanboys screeching at me "IT DOESN'T WASTE YOUR TIME." Well M&M6 deliberately wastes your time. I'm all for quality content but when you just copy one mob and hit paste 10,000 times that's not quality.

Okay, not going to elaborate on every single point here. The Light/Dark thing is a nice improvement, I can give you that. Apart from that:
-Yes, there are more classes. No, it is not better designed. The way classes and skills work in VII actually take choices away from you.
-The VII dungeons are Huuuge, in the sense that you have a few huuuge empty rooms tacked together with hardly anything interesting to find in it.
-If you experience the MM6/7 combat as a dull slog, I guess it's just not the game for you. But being able to bypass what makes of 50% of the game is not what I'd call better designed.
-What you call better game progression is what I call more linearity. VII feels way more like 'okay, here is the one area that fits your current power level. Any other area is either trivially easy or almost impossible, so don't bother'.

 

[Gimble]

Yeah i have played trough them both at least 20 times. Around Christmas i do decide to give it a nice play. Killing mobs is the half the fun of the game. It is like buying a FPS and whining that there is too much shooting in it.

I prefer tactical or at least thoughful combat and alternative solutions (if possible) over mindlessly killing mobs. Which is also why HOMM is a lot better if you actually care about combat.

 

[Gimble]

If you experience the MM6/7 combat as a dull slog

Not a slog, just dull - for over 80% of the encounters. In fact trash mobs are easily dealt with using RT mode in both games, reserving TB mode to deal with actually difficult/interesting encounters, unless you like to waste time going 100% TB for even the mindless encounters.

Yes, there are more classes. No, it is not better designed. The way classes and skills work in VII actually take choices away from you.

Which is what a class system needs to work properly - one choice actually takes out another and that is one of the consequences. Would you prefer a classless system instead - in that case ALL choices are available for everyone.

What you call better game progression is what I call more linearity. VII feels way more like 'okay, here is the one area that fits your current power level. Any other area is either trivially easy or almost impossible, so don't bother'.

With all the blessings and spell buffs, no area is really 'impossible' in either game for most parties. With the exception of some endgame areas, you can free roam all you want.

 

[Dorateen]

I'll say this. When Might & Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven was first announced, I was disappointed to learn about the smaller party size and human-centric approach, which dropped the other player character races. However, having such respect for the Might & Magic franchise, I played it and had a good time with this installment. Yes, the highlights are exploration and the dungeons. If the OP is finding combat unsatisfying, then maybe using real time mode exclusively is not the way to go. It can be fun to hunker down in a tight spot, where appropriate, and fight battles turn-based style.

And the manual for M&MVI is one of the most creative written for a computer role-playing game.

 

[Gregz]

Never understood the praise of M&M6. It's very rough, imbalanced, overly grindy, and scales horrendously at high levels. The later dungeons are a massive chore.

It's the BG1 to the BG2 of M&M7:

-More classes
-Actual race choices
-Skills/spells scale properly
-Better items
-Class choices matter
-Spells more balanced by classes
-Better game progression/combat balance
-Light/dark choice replay value
-Vastly less of a dull slog

And Arcomage!

 

[octavius]

The appeal of MM6?

Exploration of a (pseudo) open world.
One of the few CRPGs that allow to face virtual armies of enemies.
Excellent character system.
Very varied loot and lots of items slots to put them in.
Fly and carpet bomb your enemies!

What's not to love about this game?

 

[Tito Anic]

Might and Magic 6 is one of my favourite FPS.

This. Just take 4 chars with archery from the start, machine-gun through all trash mobs until you will get Fly spell and then go explore the Enroth.