Wizardry Wizardry 8 - first time playing

[Piotrovitz]

Difficulty mods :

• Dodd the slayer 2.3, there's a 2.4 version i didn't try (updated by a tier party)
• Lunastralis adds some insanely tough monsters (most avoidable, the breeders though ... that's something else but you fight them later), might want a walkthrough for this one. Also, it's a mod made for a party with at least one gadgeteer and best suited for a ranged* party.

Are those total conversions/add new content?
If so, then I am 99% sure they are shit, as most of such mods.

Do you ironman?

I do not, maybe this is the way to go.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Given the choice between whacking someone or casting a powerful AoE crowd control spell that costs no spell points, I cast every time.

You can always cast powerful AoE CC and then whack someone once his paralyzed/armormelted/insane.

Anyway, that's the beauty of Wiz 8 - you can get away with almost any party build and still have fun, regardless of your playing style.

 

[Thac0]

Anyone tried speedhack on Wiz8 to good results?

Yes, The speedhacks Sseth provides in his review are good and work fine for me. https://pastebin.com/tj9Q6C42. I use all except the cheatengine.



I am running with Lord/Fighter/Valk(Mostly Priest with instakill spears)/Ranger(mostly alchemist with instakill guns)/Mage/Psion

Divine Trap and Knock replace a dedicated thief absolutely fine. The party can naturally access all four spell schools, making it smooth sailing all around. The only one who really doesnt pull his weight is the dual wield mace lord.
Not my first run, but the game stopped working on my new rig for some arcane reasons and when I got it working again i started a new one.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

Thanks. I have used all of the normal anim and wizfast speed mods but am wondering about cheatengine speedhack specifically.

 

[rrex000]

Thanks for the comments and for the very helpful matrix - taking them into account I've tweaked my party as follows:

1. Samurai - human
2. Mage - Faerie
3. Gadgeteer - Hobbit
4. Rogue - Felpurr
5. Psionic - Mook
6. Bard or Fighter*

Is having a gadgeeter and bard too much of the same? Not sure if I should go with Bard for my last choice, or with Fighter to have some more melee damage.

Then, I can finally start the goddamn game

Go Mook bard (he gets a weapon that can reach from the back row for massive damage somewhere mid-game). If you do you won't need a rogue, since his skillset will be covered by gadgeteer/bard and you'll be able to pick fighter instead for a solid damage machine/frontline tank.
Then your frontline can be samurai/fighter/monk (there's a powerful NPC monk you can recruit early one that can follow you anywhere).
Then I'd replace Mage with Bishop and your dream party is all set (replace Samurai with Faerie Ninja for the ultimate late game killing machine)

 

[DraQ]

Do you ironman?

I do not, maybe this is the way to go.

Wizardry 8 doesn't have tremendous amount of content.
And you have (presumably) finished it more than once already.
What do you have to lose?

 

[xuerebx]

Finally started my playthrough! So many options, this is going to be interesting. Combat will take a while to get used to it as it takes me ages to finish off an encounter (Not due to the aminations, I'm just slow to choose how to attack)

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

OK, so this now switches to a let's play thread with pics. Awesome.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Are those total conversions/add new content?
If so, then I am 99% sure they are shit, as most of such mods.

How could modders compete with the team which made Wizardry 8 ?

Lunastralis changes the main quest, it's refreshing, if you've played wizardry 8 a lot already, it's worth a shot, although, you'll get your ass kicked a lot and learn to avoid fancy monsters.

Spoiler

There is a level 30 demon waiting in the first useless room in Trynton, a level 20 adept sitting in a jail cell in Arnika, breeders are level 20-25 i think but you'll fight them after you come back from marten's bluff, etc.

The postcount wizardry forum provides a lot of infos about any wizardry 8 mod.

 

[coldcrow]

Pretty sure that you will curse your choices once your guys hit lvl 8 or 9. Mage AND Psionic AND Samurai AND Gadgeteer - already 4 characters with almost zero defense and low HP. This is no problem if you know what your are doing, but you are likely not. I warned you to stick to the basics for the first run.

 

[xuerebx]

I just chose what seems fun and different from the norm tbh, but I've got no problem restarting until I get used to the system.

I'm not sure what counts as "basic" though? A fighter and rogue?

 

[coldcrow]

Err, no, roll with it. I was just posting that, because I can vividly imagine the situations you will encounter By no means stop your run with that party.

PS: you should consider turning this into a "Let's Play Wiz8 for the first time" run. With copious details for the gaffer.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Thanks. I have used all of the normal anim and wizfast speed mods but am wondering about cheatengine speedhack specifically.

I tried another speed*hack* i had on one of my wizardry directories and it speeds up everything quite a bit, even spells, might be the specific speedhack from the lunastralis mod (you just add a lot of files in the data directory, for some reason, it doesn't overwrite anything) and it's way faster than the enhanced mod wizfast/fastanim combo.

I'm not sure what counts as "basic" though? A fighter and rogue?

If it works, roll with it, if it doesn't, you might want to add some healers (priest, bishop, monk, ranger, valkyrie, lord, ?), people say priests aren't good but for a first time, priests might be mandatory, you can always multi-class you priest to Bishop later.
Also, priests have turn undead and you'll get some annoying ones in the monastery, in arnika and later in marten's bluff.

About low hp characters, it's not really a problem as long as you can heal them, i find the pure fighter boring to play but it's powerful for a first playthrough.
Rogue isn't necessary if you have a bard or a ninja.
Samourai is a lot of fun, fireballs and lightning strikes, yeah baby!

 

[Piotrovitz]

Lunastralis changes the main quest, it's refreshing, if you've played wizardry 8 a lot already, it's worth a shot, although, you'll get your ass kicked a lot and learn to avoid fancy monsters.

This actually sounds good, as long as it doesn't add OPd shit, like many of fan made mods do. Might give it a try

And you have (presumably) finished it more than once already.
What do you have to lose?

Ironman is tempting as fuck, especially that I steamrolled expert with uber optimized party and it would be interesting to try entirely different and more careful playthrough.
The only thing I have to lose is dozens of hours, in case I will fuck up some more difficult fight, like sorceress queen and death lords. Maybe I'll go for it once I'm finished with grimwah.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Pretty sure that you will curse your choices once your guys hit lvl 8 or 9. Mage AND Psionic AND Samurai AND Gadgeteer - already 4 characters with almost zero defense and low HP. This is no problem if you know what your are doing, but you are likely not. I warned you to stick to the basics for the first run.

Stop discouraging him and prompting to restart. Game on normal is beatable with almost any party, and like DraQ said, it's only tough if you deliberately cripple yourself with some wonky builds.
While his party is not powergame'y, it's still perfectly fine. Frontline of samurai/rogue/melee bard is more than enough, especially that he will surely recruit Vi, which will further add to his melee potential.

 

[DraQ]

IIRC my first playthrough included gadgeteer, lord and samurai, but no straight fighter or rogue. Or bard.

Pretty sure that you will curse your choices once your guys hit lvl 8 or 9. Mage AND Psionic AND Samurai AND Gadgeteer - already 4 characters with almost zero defense and low HP. This is no problem if you know what your are doing, but you are likely not. I warned you to stick to the basics for the first run.

Stop discouraging him and prompting to restart. Game on normal is beatable with almost any party, and like DraQ said, it's only tough if you deliberately cripple yourself with some wonky builds.
While his party is not powergame'y, it's still perfectly fine. Frontline of samurai/rogue/melee bard is more than enough, especially that he will surely recruit Vi, which will further add to his melee potential.

And "wonky" does not mean suboptimal, it means all out sucky.

 

[coldcrow]

Samourai is a lot of fun, fireballs and lightning strikes, yeah baby!

Typical BS. So you get Fireballs as a Sam earliest at lvl 9 at powerlvl 1-2. As his main tank. You are probably beginning to see the problem there.

Wiz8 isn't just a mythical endgame of fae ninjas, mook sams and hobbit whatevs. For the most part (until you know you way around the enemies) it is a hard grind and learning by getting wrecked. To make this more bearable, 2-3 fighters at the front are really nice. They can whack and they can shoot (bow/crossbow/gun).

 

[xuerebx]

Well I'll see how it goes and if it's too frustrating I'll start over. Like I said since mostly everyone told me to roll something fun as any build is viable unless you deliberately try to fuck it up, I went with non generic characters for the most part.

If I had more time I'd do a LP, but I only get to game for an hour or two a day and to prepare for an LP it would take away a chunk of this limited time unfortunately

 

[DraQ]

To make this more bearable, 2-3 fighters at the front are really nice.

Dafuq. Just spamming the same class makes for a boring (and potentially very "fun") party (I think everyone has read stories about 6 fighter lizardman parties wrecking everything... then reaching Bayjin and having prosperland inflicted upon them).

Good reasons to repeat classes are:

• a pair of 2 school bishops
• bard, gadgeteer (one won't be able to hold all the items you might want to use with them)
• specialty+normal build
• theme parties

Other than that you need...
DIVERSITY!

As for the tank, quite a few classes will do.
Fighter, Lord, or Valk are the best for that role. Samurai or Ranger are a bit more fragile (and Ranger will rather want to pelt enemies with arrows/bolts/bullets most of the time), Bard, Rogue, Monk, or even Priest or Gadgeteer will work in supporting tank roles AND you can recruit good tanky characters.

Rogue isn't necessary if you have a bard or a ninja.

Or Gadgeteer.

 

[DraQ]

Spoiler

There is a level 30 demon waiting in the first useless room in Trynton, a level 20 adept sitting in a jail cell in Arnika, breeders are level 20-25 i think but you'll fight them after you come back from marten's bluff, etc.

Sounds like shitedgy school of difficulty design.

 

[Parabalus]

Fighters and rogues are pretty OP, but base game is easy and you can always grind if needed.

Difficulty mods :

• Dodd the slayer 2.3, there's a 2.4 version i didn't try (updated by a tier party)
• Lunastralis adds some insanely tough monsters (most avoidable, the breeders though ... that's something else but you fight them later), might want a walkthrough for this one. Also, it's a mod made for a party with at least one gadgeteer and best suited for a ranged* party.

Are those total conversions/add new content?
If so, then I am 99% sure they are shit, as most of such mods.

The latter mod is playable (I think that's the one with enchanting and colorful wallpapers) but is extremely autistic, wouldn't recommend it unless you're an expert who needs another fix.

 

[Darth Canoli]

as long as it doesn't add OPd shit

I does add overpowered modern weapons, they're extremely expensive though, you can find some powerful ones too.
It's worth playing but it's not wizardry 9, it's just an average/good mod with some flaws and some of the new areas are far from polished (specifically the "mine" area near marten's bluff, i had to check a walkthough to get through it).

There's some cool additions though like the bungee jumper flying snake but of course, the "balance" is broken, an hyper specialized team in modern weapons will shorten the random encounters, so, maybe not a bad thing for your 11th wizardry 8 playthrough.

 

[jackofshadows]

Ironman is tempting as fuck

Do it. Awesome experience.

 

[Desiderius]

Can always Tinman if you can be honest with yourself. I often fail to/too lazy, but its a good game for that approach if you can manage it.

Also no way I could play without Bard and Gadgeteer. Only those lacking a healthy level of obsession and compulsion can pull that off.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Typical BS. So you get Fireballs as a Sam earliest at lvl 9 at powerlvl 1-2. As his main tank. You are probably beginning to see the problem there.

Wiz8 isn't just a mythical endgame of fae ninjas, mook sams and hobbit whatevs. For the most part (until you know you way around the enemies) it is a hard grind and learning by getting wrecked. To make this more bearable, 2-3 fighters at the front are really nice. They can whack and they can shoot (bow/crossbow/gun).

3 fighters, that's a real borefest, whenever i pick a fighter i try to find a weird combo to make it fun because they use one single move for the entire game.

Also, getting wrecked ?
Not really, expert mode isn't terribly difficult if you're cautious enough and use debuffs.

Most difficult start so far is the one i just tried, starting with a party of four, only one pure caster with a T'Rang exported party, you take a wrong turn and you're dead, your team starts at level 4/5 but gimped as most items don't cross over and you only get 20% of their skills.
The ranger didn't have any ammo, the bishop didn't have any spell but the ones he picked leveling up.

Ghosts from marten's bluff (with rebel spirit as casters = paralysis, fear, insanity, sleep) -> game over
2x dwellers outside of marten's bluff in a cave -> game over
Pack of vines in trynton (lot of fucking debuffs) -> game over
Hogart (i'm ashamed about this one) -> game over

I did kill the swalower though, snuck my way to Arnika and then it's business as usual.