Wizardry Wizardry 8 great game ruined by level scaling and respawning

[Clockwork Knight]

I can understand people miss uniqueness in a game. But to glorify Wiz8 because of the character quotes is quite inane. The lowest common denominator of later games does not excuse the hilarity - often more annoying than funny - of Wiz8. Sweet flavored crap is still crap, even if it's heads and shoulders above a smelly turd.

Not really sure what you are trying to say but it sounds like faggotry, so I'm assuming it is. The quotes are great.

 

[Whisper]

Cant find Dark Savant in swamps (checked maps, but he is not there). There must be some condition for him to appear?

 

[Zetor]

Have you met Barlone in Trynton?

 

[DraQ]

There must be some condition for him to appear?

Yes.

 

[Shannow]

You need to equip the ring.

 

[Whisper]

Have you met Barlone in Trynton?

Of cause.

p.s. He appears a bit east from tryten entrance, on road? or guide map is wrong

 

[Whisper]

You need to equip the ring.

What ring?

 

[Zombra]

Have you met Barlone in Trynton?

Of cause.

p.s. He appears a bit east from tryten entrance, on road? or guide map is wrong

That's not Barlone. Go back to Trynton. Your quest log will show a reference to Barlone after you've talked to him.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Haha. I love this game. Replaying it now. Still in monastery on 1st floor just getting xp but not leveling. Won't level past 2 until Arnika.

 

[Whisper]

Have you met Barlone in Trynton?

Of cause.

p.s. He appears a bit east from tryten entrance, on road? or guide map is wrong

That's not Barlone. Go back to Trynton. Your quest log will show a reference to Barlone after you've talked to him.

I've talked to Barlone.

What other thing i must do to make dark savant appear in swmp?

And where dark savant appears, a bit west from entrance, on road, (according to map), or he can change position?

 

[Shannow]

Well, go back to Barleone and talk to him again. You obviously haven't found the right topic. You need something from him.
And when you equip the ring, everything will be made clear.

 

[Whisper]

I finished game on Hard with full bishop party.

95% of enemies was killed by magic (other 5% by RPC).
Few fights i had to kill mostly with robo-monk and Vi, because of 100-120 resists in everything. Debuffs (and insta-kills later) also rarely landed, so almost all spells were used to damage enemies.

Some thoughts:

- water creatures have weakness to fire, but you cant use fire magic in water, they have high water resist so this means you have to use either mental or earth magic on them.
- damage comes from fire/water/earth/mental books, air book and divine book are ok for 1-2 characters, just for utility (and heal) spells.
- rapax hate water, androids dont like earth magic, almost always mobs have weakness to some spells.

Damage from magic is balanced (for Hard) - people that say that offensive magic is weak didnt try to play with mages as DD's. Doing 120s hits on 50-60 resist monsters of same level, not very high number but it is from range and never misses. Also a lot of AOEs means fights are done in 4-5 turns max.

Dont pick debuff spells (unreliable), for insta-kill only train 1 mage in air for death cloud. But still learn spells from books for +mana. Take 1 (max 2) divine-focused bishops, some heal and ele summons.

 

[Xi]

Solo, female Fairy Ninja is the only way to play.

 

[DraQ]

I finished game on Hard with full bishop party.

95% of enemies was killed by magic (other 5% by RPC).
Few fights i had to kill mostly with robo-monk and Vi, because of 100-120 resists in everything. Debuffs (and insta-kills later) also rarely landed, so almost all spells were used to damage enemies.

Some thoughts:

- water creatures have weakness to fire, but you cant use fire magic in water, they have high water resist so this means you have to use either mental or earth magic on them.
- damage comes from fire/water/earth/mental books, air book and divine book are ok for 1-2 characters, just for utility (and heal) spells.
- rapax hate water, androids dont like earth magic, almost always mobs have weakness to some spells.

Damage from magic is balanced (for Hard) - people that say that offensive magic is weak didnt try to play with mages as DD's. Doing 120s hits on 50-60 resist monsters of same level, not very high number but it is from range and never misses. Also a lot of AOEs means fights are done in 4-5 turns max.

Dont pick debuff spells (unreliable), for insta-kill only train 1 mage in air for death cloud. But still learn spells from books for +mana. Take 1 (max 2) divine-focused bishops, some heal and ele summons.

What's the point of six bishops as opposed to, say, replacing four of them with straight casters?
Other than being able to name your party "The Conclave" and act all smug about it, that is.

Anyway:

• IIRC water creatures tend to have limited resistance to air. Mental, OTOH isn't the best choice because all the psi sharks and whatnot have high resistances to it.
  
• Air has death cloud, toxic cloud and noxious fumes. It also has shrill sound which isn't great, but it's a very cheap, early AOE. Also, having multiple portals is a good reason to have multiple air casters.
• Divine has summon elemental. That alone is a good reason to consider multiple divine casters (with alchemy or wizardry) in a caster centric party :
  • caster can only control a single elemental (actually it might even be *the* reason to consider >2 bishops as it allows multiple wizardry/alchemy casters without forfeiting the other schools)
  • elementals are monstrous frontline hitters and tanks especially valuable for a party with none of those
  • allies blocking your LOS to target are non-issue for party that does pretty much all its damage with spells (which ignore LOS blocked by friendlies)
• Quicksand is also a very nice AoE instakill which rapes androids and aerial stuff due to being earth based, and both enemy types tend to come in large groups
• Some spells combine debuffs and damage, toxic cloud in particular is awesome (despite low damage) as it tries to reapply a range of particularly crippling debuffs throughout its duration
  
• debuffs are situational, insanity or freeze on a large group of Rapax or web on androids is almost guaranteed to be worth it, blindness is a godsend in the face of imminent rape, and it can be inflicted with both fire and water spells
  
• hypnotic lure is priceless for keeping the heat off the party and enemies clustered where you want them for AoE

Solo, female Fairy Ninja is the only way to play.

Muh banter!

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I don't even like a single bishop that much due to the necessity to powertrain the casting skills (or not powertrain and suck). Six bishop party sounds like an excellent way to spoil Wiz8 even for such a flaming fanboy as me.

 

[Aenra]

Coming next,

Realms of Arkania, BoD
How travel and micro management ruined an almost perfect RPG
/auto-subscribe

 

[ST'Ranger]

I have such a hard time with Wizardry 8 because it was love at first sight. I really like the game's mechanics. But the more you play, the more the game tries to love you to death, throwing shitty encounter after shitty encounter your way.

So sad. Any mod that could fix the amount of enemies in the game - seems such a simple thing - would turn a flawed gem into a truly great game. Wizardry 8 comes so close.

I've found that in any such discussion of W8, there are many who share this optimistic viewpoint that the game is held back by the sheer amount of combat. While I would agree that a strategic lessening of encounters would improve the W8 play experience, it would not fix the fundamental issue. Wizardry VII has possibly (and without exaggeration) a hundred times more combat than W8, but it's almost universally quite satisfying combat. I've never seen someone with a serious complaint about the amount of combat in Wizardry VII.

The real problem W8 has is that its combat is slow. Many "trash" fights in W8 can take 15-20 minutes with larger fights taking 30 or even up to an hour. Major encounters in Wizardry VII are finished in 5 minutes by a neophyte or 50 seconds by a skilled player. And there doesn't seem to be anything lost in the balance when all that time is shaved off. W8 simply lacks the level of abstraction that makes Wizardry VII combat fast. The absolutely gorgeous character system in W8 tricks us into believing that the combat system must be just as brilliant.

There is a large difference between what constitutes "tactics" between the two. In W8, tactics is dominated by engine manipulation - using the 3D constraints of the environment to set up safe corridors, to maximize the effectiveness of pixel-hunting spellcasts, and to minimize the penalty and necessity of in-combat movement while causing the enemy's movement to suffer. In Wizardry VII, tactics are combat mechanics decisions and nothing else - put this spell/effect on this rank/individual and have the frontline concentrate on so-and-so. I made a larger post more in-depth on the subject, but suffice it to say that the decisions that need to be constantly made in W8 take a lot of time, even after you've mastered the game and its mechanics. That's why W8 will always feel like a slog whereas a skilled and knowledgeable player can mow through Wizardry VII.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Worth repeating (for the 56th time): if and when you git gud, the "trash fights take 20 minutes" claim is utter bullshit. There are encounters that take a significant amount of time (though 1hour is still a huuuuge overstatement, unless someone is really inept or has to repeat an encounter many times), but these mostly come in the form of some very difficult hand placed opponents or the Rapax stacks of doom. Most of those come very late into the game, at a point that most "this is boooring, give me back my Viconia romance" dissenters probably don't even reach.

Another thing worth repeating (for the 56th time): contrary to many other (older) blobbers, Wiz8 offers the option to avoid combat by running through, sneaking through or teleporting, which is actually viable in quite a few places. After unlocking both teleport hubs and having two air casters capable enough to cast their own portals on those hubs (which is not a big problem for a vast majority of parties) travelling through the world and reaching the most important places (and avoiding majority of random encounters) becomes pretty straightforward. And both of those hubs become naturally available pretty early.

I get that people can become fed up with the amount and pace of combat in Wiz8, it's not a game for your typical storyfag, that's for sure. But its combat is better than all retail PC crpgs that came after it and better than a majority of codex-revered games that came before. The game could use some options to speed up the combat (though they are obviously available through mods) and making some zones combat free, but I always thought that actually learning the ropes and building a party that has a variety of skills, spells and weapons that can chop things up quickly and cleanly is one of the most fun things in Wiz8.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Another thing worth repeating (for the 56th time): Behead those who insult Wizardry 8.

 

[Whisper]

What's the point of six bishops as opposed to, say, replacing four of them with straight casters?
Other than being able to name your party "The Conclave" and act all smug about it, that is.

Anyway:

• IIRC water creatures tend to have limited resistance to air. Mental, OTOH isn't the best choice because all the psi sharks and whatnot have high resistances to it.
  
• Air has death cloud, toxic cloud and noxious fumes. It also has shrill sound which isn't great, but it's a very cheap, early AOE. Also, having multiple portals is a good reason to have multiple air casters.
• Divine has summon elemental. That alone is a good reason to consider multiple divine casters (with alchemy or wizardry) in a caster centric party :
  • caster can only control a single elemental (actually it might even be *the* reason to consider >2 bishops as it allows multiple wizardry/alchemy casters without forfeiting the other schools)
  • elementals are monstrous frontline hitters and tanks especially valuable for a party with none of those
  • allies blocking your LOS to target are non-issue for party that does pretty much all its damage with spells (which ignore LOS blocked by friendlies)
• Quicksand is also a very nice AoE instakill which rapes androids and aerial stuff due to being earth based, and both enemy types tend to come in large groups
• Some spells combine debuffs and damage, toxic cloud in particular is awesome (despite low damage) as it tries to reapply a range of particularly crippling debuffs throughout its duration
  
• debuffs are situational, insanity or freeze on a large group of Rapax or web on androids is almost guaranteed to be worth it, blindness is a godsend in the face of imminent rape, and it can be inflicted with both fire and water spells
  
• hypnotic lure is priceless for keeping the heat off the party and enemies clustered where you want them for AoE

Muh banter!

You impressions are from normal or expert difficulty?


If you played normal, some thoughts:

Air is very low damage, i will take noxious fumes but pass on shrill sound. In short, you dont need to conserve mana, you better do max damage with spells since time of essence, the longer fight goes the more chance some melee hits can kill one of yours PC. I tried air for water fights, was not worth it - earth (whipping rocks for aoe, crush for single kill faster).
Since clouds are dont stack with each other (correct me if wrong), you cant get 2 clouds of same type, so basically you need only 1 caster of death cloud etc.
Elementals are helpful, i summoned only 1, was enough with ranger tanking (1 ranger + 5 bish), now going to 2 summoners (6 bish).
Insta-kill spells (except death cloud) rarely land, not worth it. Even with 6 bishops doing insta-kill aoe, more then 80%+ will usually save.
Debuffs like insanity, freeze spells, all debuff spells are just bad, they rarely land on worthy targets and you usually better to just kill enemy.
Also aoe dots do bad damage, dont bother with acid bomb, firestorm etc.
You dont need train air for Portal, 60 wiz is enough. Never saw it not working with 0 in air.

p.s. What specialist wizards you think to take for full arcane grp? Alch lack some vital spells (iceball etc), psi is only mental/fire dmg, div - you dont need much healing for mage grp and he lack offence.

 

[Whisper]

The real problem W8 has is that its combat is slow. Many "trash" fights in W8 can take 15-20 minutes with larger fights taking 30 or even up to an hour. Major encounters in Wizardry VII are finished in 5 minutes by a neophyte or 50 seconds by a skilled player.

I finish fights with trash mobs in 1-2 mins in wizardry 8.

Later end-game fights (rapax) is around 5 min.

 

[ST'Ranger]

Worth repeating (for the 56th time): if and when you git gud, the "trash fights take 20 minutes" claim is utter bullshit. There are encounters that take a significant amount of time (though 1hour is still a huuuuge overstatement, unless someone is really inept or has to repeat an encounter many times), but these mostly come in the form of some very difficult hand placed opponents or the Rapax stacks of doom. Most of those come very late into the game, at a point that most "this is boooring, give me back my Viconia romance" dissenters probably don't even reach.

Another thing worth repeating (for the 56th time): contrary to many other (older) blobbers, Wiz8 offers the option to avoid combat by running through, sneaking through or teleporting, which is actually viable in quite a few places. After unlocking both teleport hubs and having two air casters capable enough to cast their own portals on those hubs (which is not a big problem for a vast majority of parties) travelling through the world and reaching the most important places (and avoiding majority of random encounters) becomes pretty straightforward. And both of those hubs become naturally available pretty early.

I get that people can become fed up with the amount and pace of combat in Wiz8, it's not a game for your typical storyfag, that's for sure. But its combat is better than all retail PC crpgs that came after it and better than a majority of codex-revered games that came before. The game could use some options to speed up the combat (though they are obviously available through mods) and making some zones combat free, but I always thought that actually learning the ropes and building a party that has a variety of skills, spells and weapons that can chop things up quickly and cleanly is one of the most fun things in Wiz8.

I understand if you're under the impression that I dislike W8, but it's actually one of the games I love most. My love for it, however, does not make a group of Modai-type creatures fall in less than 10 minutes early game (because my bishop is Just Not There Yet(TM)), no matter my level of familiarity with the game. There are many such encounters (depending on game progress and gear level) that one will inevitably come upon which the party is not optimized for (especially with the more "fun" parties) but should fight anyway for the xp and skillpoints, so as not to lag behind the natural progression.

My example of 15-20 minute "trash" fights is not typical, but it's also not what I would class as rare. And the 1 hour combats belong solely to the Rapax, indeed. Importantly, these kind of numbers just won't ever happen in Wizardry VII, even in extreme cases - which was my main point.

The level of abstraction in combat streamlines not only the animations and movement but also the decision-making with regard to spells, buffs, and attacks. It's simply not as heavily involved as W8. The combat in W8 is very meaty because there are far more considerations to be made. The setup must be just as thought-out as the melee itself. Often, movements at key points must be planned and carried out. The different area types of spell effects open up a lot more possibilities and crafty moves. But these things come at a cost. The combat is really satisfyingly meaty, but the game consistently throws a bit too much meat your way.

I agree that the character system is absolutely brilliant in W8. As far as I'm concerned it's currently unsurpassed by any game. I've spent probably near 800-900 hours over the years playing Wizardry VII, and I'm as red-blooded a combatfag as you'll find. And I find the pace of W8 combat grating. There are literally hundreds of combats that, based on relative party power, would take 10-30 seconds in Wizardry VII but take ~2 minutes in W8. And the time isn't an issue to me. If I'm doing something I enjoy, I have little regard for how much time it eats away. It's the feel of combat, where even the smallest encounters just take too long and feel like speedbumps on my way to something more fulfilling.

Spoiler

Bradley Akbar

 

[DraQ]

What's the point of six bishops as opposed to, say, replacing four of them with straight casters?
Other than being able to name your party "The Conclave" and act all smug about it, that is.

Anyway:

• IIRC water creatures tend to have limited resistance to air. Mental, OTOH isn't the best choice because all the psi sharks and whatnot have high resistances to it.
  
• Air has death cloud, toxic cloud and noxious fumes. It also has shrill sound which isn't great, but it's a very cheap, early AOE. Also, having multiple portals is a good reason to have multiple air casters.
• Divine has summon elemental. That alone is a good reason to consider multiple divine casters (with alchemy or wizardry) in a caster centric party :
  • caster can only control a single elemental (actually it might even be *the* reason to consider >2 bishops as it allows multiple wizardry/alchemy casters without forfeiting the other schools)
  • elementals are monstrous frontline hitters and tanks especially valuable for a party with none of those
  • allies blocking your LOS to target are non-issue for party that does pretty much all its damage with spells (which ignore LOS blocked by friendlies)
• Quicksand is also a very nice AoE instakill which rapes androids and aerial stuff due to being earth based, and both enemy types tend to come in large groups
• Some spells combine debuffs and damage, toxic cloud in particular is awesome (despite low damage) as it tries to reapply a range of particularly crippling debuffs throughout its duration
  
• debuffs are situational, insanity or freeze on a large group of Rapax or web on androids is almost guaranteed to be worth it, blindness is a godsend in the face of imminent rape, and it can be inflicted with both fire and water spells
  
• hypnotic lure is priceless for keeping the heat off the party and enemies clustered where you want them for AoE

Muh banter!

You impressions are from normal or expert difficulty?


If you played normal, some thoughts:

Air is very low damage, i will take noxious fumes but pass on shrill sound. In short, you dont need to conserve mana, you better do max damage with spells since time of essence, the longer fight goes the more chance some melee hits can kill one of yours PC. I tried air for water fights, was not worth it - earth (whipping rocks for aoe, crush for single kill faster).
Since clouds are dont stack with each other (correct me if wrong), you cant get 2 clouds of same type, so basically you need only 1 caster of death cloud etc.
Elementals are helpful, i summoned only 1, was enough with ranger tanking (1 ranger + 5 bish), now going to 2 summoners (6 bish).
Insta-kill spells (except death cloud) rarely land, not worth it. Even with 6 bishops doing insta-kill aoe, more then 80%+ will usually save.
Debuffs like insanity, freeze spells, all debuff spells are just bad, they rarely land on worthy targets and you usually better to just kill enemy.
Also aoe dots do bad damage, dont bother with acid bomb, firestorm etc.
You dont need train air for Portal, 60 wiz is enough. Never saw it not working with 0 in air.

p.s. What specialist wizards you think to take for full arcane grp? Alch lack some vital spells (iceball etc), psi is only mental/fire dmg, div - you dont need much healing for mage grp and he lack offence.

I played all difficulties but it was some time ago and I didn't try full magic, but specialists get the juicier spells faster and can cast them on much higher die - if your bishop casts on 1, while specialist can safely cast on 4 (which is often the case early on), the specialist is doing damage of 4 bishops.
Also, only tried normal for ironman so far.

Shrill sound is indeed better from book and the best from bard, it's more of a low SP finisher and early game AoE and probably not worth wasting a pick on, especially with a bishop. Still, if you get the spellbook it's a nice AoE that costs as much as some first level single target spells.
I don't think clouds of the same type stack, but noxious fumes is nice. Toxic cloud has the advantage of being a really effective disabler as it reapplies status effects each turn, while noxious fumes can be spammed for damage and similar effects as toxic cloud.
Both are best when combined with physical damage dealers, such as elementals, though, same with freeze, because unconscious/paralyzed enemies take extra 1x melee damage. And yeah, crush is for crushing single targets.
With 6 bishops (or, for example 4 bishops, mage and alchemist) you can theoretically field 6 elementals.
Quicksand is for instakilling flyers and androids, both have shitty earth resistances.
Insanity is great because it stops enemies from killing you dead and makes them maim each other, enemies that are most likely to murder your squishy casters in melee - Rapax, hogars - are also the ones most vulnerable to mindfuck.
DoT are cast once, cast something else, they also do quadratic total damage per level, acid bomb may only do 0.6 damage of iceball per turn, but at lvl 7 it will deal 4.2 its damage per casting (although over 7 turns) freeing the caster to do other stuff.
Burst damage only matters if you kill the enemy right away and don't have to recast.

P.S. What was your party's skill composition?

 

[Grunker]

Worth repeating (for the 56th time): if and when you git gud, the "trash fights take 20 minutes" claim is utter bullshit. There are encounters that take a significant amount of time (though 1hour is still a huuuuge overstatement, unless someone is really inept or has to repeat an encounter many times), but these mostly come in the form of some very difficult hand placed opponents or the Rapax stacks of doom. Most of those come very late into the game, at a point that most "this is boooring, give me back my Viconia romance" dissenters probably don't even reach.

Another thing worth repeating (for the 56th time): contrary to many other (older) blobbers, Wiz8 offers the option to avoid combat by running through, sneaking through or teleporting, which is actually viable in quite a few places. After unlocking both teleport hubs and having two air casters capable enough to cast their own portals on those hubs (which is not a big problem for a vast majority of parties) travelling through the world and reaching the most important places (and avoiding majority of random encounters) becomes pretty straightforward. And both of those hubs become naturally available pretty early.

I get that people can become fed up with the amount and pace of combat in Wiz8, it's not a game for your typical storyfag, that's for sure. But its combat is better than all retail PC crpgs that came after it and better than a majority of codex-revered games that came before. The game could use some options to speed up the combat (though they are obviously available through mods) and making some zones combat free, but I always thought that actually learning the ropes and building a party that has a variety of skills, spells and weapons that can chop things up quickly and cleanly is one of the most fun things in Wiz8.

I could discuss your strawman-accussations of "def not a storyfag game" (my favourite newer game is Blackguards) or "anyone who criticize it probably didn't finish it" (I did, because I'm an autist about finishing games and also enjoyed the base mechanics immensely). But what I'm more interested in is the "speed of combat thing." I used the WizFast application, but it doesn't actually help that much. Or rather, it does in the sense that you don't have to wait for animations, which solves the speed of each encounter, but it doesn't cut down on the sheer amount of samey enemies you have to chock through in a combat system that makes every fight feel taxing and not that trashy. M&M can have you fight through a billion enemies because combat is fairly swift and non-taxing. I wish Wizardry 8 had less overall encounters and the remaining encounters even more taxing on the party. I think the system is better structured for that.

Still a very enjoyable game like I said. It's been on my list of favourite RPGs since I played it.

 

[Whisper]

Psi-Wiz
Psi-Wiz
Alch-Wiz
Alch-Wiz
Div-Wiz


F,W,E as main damage element, Divine only for Div-bishop, M only for two of Psi-bishops, Air for two of Wiz-Alch.


Now i try to have 6 bishops, with 3 schools for each. 4 of Psi-Wiz-Alch and 2 of Psi-Wiz-Div.

p.s.
I also notice that chance to cast depends also on character level, not just school and element skill.

p.s. Int-Pie first, then Sen-Speed.