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Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

octavius

Arcane
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Bjørgvin
I'm perhaps judging it slightly harshly because of how annoying the Temple was. Perhaps I was underlevelled, but the whole thing of fighting a bunch of guys who still manage to kill half my party on the first turn with Death Wish despite me having cast full power Anti-magic on them got a bit tedious as I approached the sixteenth reload.

That's what can happen if you class change too much; your characters' levels are too low compared to the enemy spell casters.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Jan 25, 2016
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Finished my Bane run. The quality takes a bit of a dip after the point of no return. Given how much schlepping was involved in that Caterpillar quest, it'd be nice if the reward was something beyond 'Meh, here's a slightly less retarded way to get out of jail I guess'. I mean, was there even a point to the Swamp area beyond that? I suppose it got me the Hammer+1.5, which is the best off-hand weapon for my Samurai that isn't a 1/500 drop, but it still seemed a wasted opportunity.

I'm perhaps judging it slightly harshly because of how annoying the Temple was. Perhaps I was underlevelled, but the whole thing of fighting a bunch of guys who still manage to kill half my party on the first turn with Death Wish despite me having cast full power Anti-magic on them got a bit tedious as I approached the sixteenth reload. Still, at least it's done.

I've imported my party to Wizardry 7, but it's seeming more old and busted than I recalled - I don't know if I'm misremembering from years ago when I last played it, but it seems so much slower in weird, arbitrary ways. Moving into a locked door, for example, stops me doing anything for the next full four seconds. Is that normal?

I ask because I'm beginning to suspect I've got a slightly borked copy. For one thing, the music doesn't work - by default it's set to 'None', yet if I change that to Soundblaster or anything else, the game exits and then refuses to work ('System Error: Unable to open Score!') until I replace the Scenario.HDR file with a backup. So who knows, maybe that's what's to blame for the other technical annoyances, like the slowness, or the fact that while Bane allowed a reasonable mixture of mouse and keyboard, Crusaders is seemingly insisting I use either one or the other near-entirely (why the hell would anyone remove the ability to use Enter to confirm a menu choice or as a quicker way to select Fight/Swing?).

I might take another crack at getting Gold to run on my PC, and thereby swap my issues for a bunch of different ones and anime portraits.

By the way, how the hell was anyone supposed to legitimately figure out to
say 'I love you'?

Are you using the GoG version? I found it ran faster if I turned the music off.
 

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
I'm perhaps judging it slightly harshly because of how annoying the Temple was. Perhaps I was underlevelled, but the whole thing of fighting a bunch of guys who still manage to kill half my party on the first turn with Death Wish despite me having cast full power Anti-magic on them got a bit tedious as I approached the sixteenth reload.

That's what can happen if you class change too much; your characters' levels are too low compared to the enemy spell casters.

I did pretty minimal class-changing, though. I think four of my guys changed class, and even then, only once. That left me at about the level 13 mark as I entered the Temple. Maybe I should have spent more time in the Enchanted Forest, but there just wasn't that much to do there.

Are you using the GoG version? I found it ran faster if I turned the music off.

I can't turn the music on in the first place.

I'm using the version from Madgod's old site, I believe. I've had it on my computer that long I can't say with certainty. I'll try it with the GoG version next week I guess.

So I'm right in thinking the large delay on stuff like bumping a locked door isn't normal then?
 

Leitz

Learned
Joined
Apr 13, 2015
Messages
350
Beside turning sound and music off I have to increase cycles up to 15000 or the game feels very slow.
 

Grampy_Bone

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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
I did pretty minimal class-changing, though. I think four of my guys changed class, and even then, only once. That left me at about the level 13 mark as I entered the Temple. Maybe I should have spent more time in the Enchanted Forest, but there just wasn't that much to do there.

I class changed everyone at least 3-4 times and I was still at level 13ish for the endgame. The late XP curve in the game is pretty flat, nothing really gives over 5-10k XP from the hall of the dead onward. It's hard to gain many more levels even if you never change classes, you'll only be at most 1 or 2 levels ahead, and anyone who does class change will generally make it up in grinding.

In Wiz 7 no, you shouldn't see random pauses. Normally that would be from the game playing it's annoying little music jingle.
 

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
I did pretty minimal class-changing, though. I think four of my guys changed class, and even then, only once. That left me at about the level 13 mark as I entered the Temple. Maybe I should have spent more time in the Enchanted Forest, but there just wasn't that much to do there.

I class changed everyone at least 3-4 times and I was still at level 13ish for the endgame. The late XP curve in the game is pretty flat, nothing really gives over 5-10k XP from the hall of the dead onward.

Huh, I was getting between 30k-50k in the average Temple battle (the ones that weren't like 5 Lesser Devils, anyway). There definitely seemed to be a jump in how much XP I was getting after the Halls of the Dead. Something like a Haunt and a couple of groups of 8 Knights of Death would go down in a couple of rounds, and seemed to give much more XP than equivalent pre-Hall enemies.

Anyway, I put up with the issues I was having in Crusaders and made a decent go of it but my Ironman attempt came to an end the same place my last one did; Munkharama. Dunno if I have a tendency to go there too soon or what, but the Mad Warders completely wreck my party with their Confusion and Poison Gas combos. Does Hypnosis resistance affect Confusion/Insanity, or just Sleep? Either way, next time I'll try heading elsewhere after Orkogre Castle.
 

Watser

Arcane
Joined
May 8, 2014
Messages
1,865,075
Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
Men I fucked up. In Wizardry V I finally solved the entire puzzle related to finding the Loon. The item he sells sounds very important so I tried to steal it for shits and giggles. Turns out this was a very bad idea. I am unable to charm him as katu never works (immunity?) so he refuses to sell the item. Stealing doesn't work either. Any ideas? Will I be needing the item (bird in a cage) at all?
 

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
I think you could also have just killed him and resurrected him at the Temple.
 

Watser

Arcane
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May 8, 2014
Messages
1,865,075
Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign
I think you could also have just killed him and resurrected him at the Temple.
When you kill NPC's it doesn't exactly make them more fond of you. Also, killing The Loon is quite a task as he will rain Ladalto down on you like no tomorrow (yes I tried). His AC is also very low as I barely hit him and damage dealt was minimal.
 

Grampy_Bone

Arcane
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Jan 25, 2016
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Wandering the world randomly in search of maps
Wiz800000.jpg



Place where I get stuck

Wiz800002.jpg
 

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
Decided to take another crack at Ironman Wizardry 7 (and this time I'm not going to fucking Munkharama until I have a party of highly-leveled nigh-invulnerable murder machines).

Couple of preparation questions: Firstly, resistances work similarly to Bane, right? In that they reset upon class-change and are gained on leveling in a class-dependent manner? Secondly - also about resistances - does anyone know if Hypnosis resistance affects Confusion/Insanity, or is it just Sleep?

By the way, is there any real benefit to becoming IUF TUFS other than it providing you the opportunity to let the Quartermaster overcharge you for a goddamn Flak Jacket and Blunderbuss? Because I'm beginning to think the reason the Umpani are so eager to recruit my guys isn't because they expect us to be able to actually do any fighting for them, they just want to bilk me out of my hard-earned gold.
 

newtmonkey

Arcane
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Aug 22, 2013
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1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
Got drunk and bought a complete copy of The Ultimate Wizardry Archives on Ebay after reading CRPG Addict's first couple of posts on Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.

Got all the games set up in DOSBOX and couldn't stand the awful CGA colors. I did some research and apparently Wiz 1-5 on DOS support different palettes or display modes depending on what kind of video card/monitor you are using (the first game also supports composite CGA, or at the least the booter version does).

In DOSBOX you can simulate this by turning the cycle count WAAAAAY down, launching the game from the DOS command line, and holding down various buttons. I couldn't get this to work.

Alternately, you can set the the video card to "CGA" and you will get a MUCH better palette for Wiz 1-5, which is closer to the C64/Apple II versions of the games.

Before


After


Of course, this doesn't increase the number of colors, so the Apple II/C64 versions still look better... but this really makes the games more pleasant to look at imo.
 
Last edited:

Covenant

Savant
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
343
My above-mentioned CotDS Ironman attempt has come to an ignominious end at the hands of D'rang T'rang.

I was heading back to New City after a trip to the Orkogre magic-restoring fountain when he ambushed me on the road and attacked before I could retreat (I think he's hostile to the party with any start that isn't the 'Ally with the T'rang' one you get from killing Bela in the previous game). Not particularly fancying my chances of beating him and his 20+ T'rang Elder friends when the most experienced guy in my party was only level 12, I popped a few invisibility potions and tried to retreat, but Death and Mental Attack (and all Psionic spells?) can apparently target you while you're hidden/invisible, so I died before I could get away.

I got further than last time - beat the Lord of the Dark Forest, at least - but I doubt I'll make another attempt. I have no idea what I could have done to prevent that death and I'd just be risking the same thing happening again. Hell, it had already nearly happened once already in the same playthrough when D'rang turned up while I was doing that damn bean Mastermind puzzle, except that time I hid and managed to escape with two of my party still left alive to drag the rest back to the Father Rulae at the temple.

Y'know, considering how the wandering NPCs basically only do two things (kill each other and collect map pieces to sell for exorbitant prices) D.W. Bradley missed a trick by not giving you the option to slip some of them a bunch of gold to hunt down and murder another particular NPC. King Ulgar can wax lyrical about fate and the decline of the Gorn Empire all he likes, but considering how many NPCs he seems to be fighting whenever I ask for Rumours something tells me he wouldn't be above taking a little wetwork on the side.
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
Patron
Joined
Mar 22, 2013
Messages
12,787
Yeah, the rival NPCs were a good idea, but the implementation was seriously lacking. He also should have included individual targets for each of them, not just hunting map pieces. Supporting or working against these goals would have improved that aspect considerably and made them more interesting long-term, instead of a nuisance
 

Dorateen

Arcane
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Aug 30, 2012
Messages
4,332
Location
The Crystal Mist Mountains
(I think he's hostile to the party with any start that isn't the 'Ally with the T'rang' one you get from killing Bela in the previous game)

When I played Crusaders with a new party arriving in Guardia for the first time, D'Rang was not hostile in New City. Now it might be he would have turned aggressive after going to Nyctalynth and slaughtering H'Jenn-Ra. But I think D'Rang was probably dead by then.
 

newtmonkey

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2013
Messages
1,725
Location
Goblin Lair
My adventures in Wizardry 1 continue...

I've mapped levels 1-3 completely (as far as I know, since I walked around with LIGHT on), and am around level 7-8 depending on class. Level 3 was ridiculously difficult when I first got there due to instant kill enemies (ninjas and vorpal bunnies) and a bunch of enemies that caused poison and paralysis, but after slowly making my way through it and gaining a level or two, I could manage it.

I decided early on not to play this game "straight" because I have zero interest in grinding out levels for rescue parties, etc., but the game has an option built in to recover parties in dungeons, so I don't feel like I am cheating too much. I also backup my save disk at the end of the day, which I actually probably would have done back in the day, so I don't feel too bad about that. Whatever helps you sleep at night...

Anyway, I am really enjoying this game. I thought it would be far too simple to enjoy today, but that is not the case at all. Every time you get into a battle it's a little exciting to see what monsters you're facing, and it is extremely satisfying once you learn the abilities of the monsters and can decide on a strategy (that works!) based on what you are fighting.

I am now rethinking my party. I rolled a Samurai, Fighter, Priest, Thief, Bishop, and Mage. The samurai is basically useless because his experience requirements are much higher than the fighter, and all he gets are VERY low level mage spells (which I never use, because that would mean one less attack each round). The bishop helps a lot thanks to his identify ability, but even at level 7 he has no healing spells, and only weak mage spells, so a pure priest or mage prob would have been better...
 

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