Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[corvax]

Frustrating vs challenging is debatable. Over time I changed my mind a little about Wiz8. I was very critical of it at first and found the combat to be a total drag. The atmosphere and the combat system is great but the level scaling and the sheer amount of enemies took away the fun for me. I recently replayed it and it was still frustrating but not as much once I knew how to beat the game. Anyway, I'm not sure if I would play it again anytime soon - there are probably better ways to spend the now precious game time.

P.S. - Blackhart - change your location to Jersey for ever. I remember you had the "for now" part for like the past 10 years.

 

[animlboogy]

On another forum someone recommended the SNES versions of 1-3 as the best to play today. Is... that really true? The sprites look great and all but it feels wrong that the best version of the early franchise ended up on the SNES of all things.

 

[octavius]

On another forum someone recommended the SNES versions of 1-3 as the best to play today. Is... that really true? The sprites look great and all but it feels wrong that the best version of the early franchise ended up on the SNES of all things.

Haven't played them, but the graphics are obviosuly better, and the artwork is not anime (so the japs can draw other things than little girls). Some of the levels have been changed, for some reason. Maybe the Nintendo censors thought they saw a willie or a bad word when looking at the maps?
Being Nintendo they are naturally censored. Beer or Wine has been changed to soda, and monster are not killed, they "fall" IRC.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Frustrating vs challenging is debatable. Over time I changed my mind a little about Wiz8. I was very critical of it at first and found the combat to be a total drag. The atmosphere and the combat system is great but the level scaling and the sheer amount of enemies took away the fun for me. I recently replayed it and it was still frustrating but not as much once I knew how to beat the game. Anyway, I'm not sure if I would play it again anytime soon - there are probably better ways to spend the now precious game time.

P.S. - Blackhart - change your location to Jersey for ever. I remember you had the "for now" part for like the past 10 years.

For me, it was never frustrating but more about trying to build a class that was entirely different from something else.

And I will never change my location.

 

[TigerKnee]

On another forum someone recommended the SNES versions of 1-3 as the best to play today. Is... that really true? The sprites look great and all but it feels wrong that the best version of the early franchise ended up on the SNES of all things.

I thought the best one was the PSX version

 

[Great Deceiver]

I thought the best one was the PSX version

1-5 on PSX is the best way to play (best sprites, music, automap) but the english isn't complete in those versions; spell and item descriptions are missing, so a certain amount of side reading and additional knowledge is required.

 

[TigerKnee]

1-5 on PSX is the best way to play (best sprites, music, automap) but the english isn't complete in those versions; spell and item descriptions are missing, so a certain amount of side reading and additional knowledge is required.

Were they complete in the SNES version?

I mean, the thing is - the original PC version didn't have descriptions for spells/items too, which is why it "carried" over into the PSX version

 

[likaq]

I'm thinking of giving wiz 8 another try and complete this game for the first time.
Is this party good / beginner friendly:

Fighter
Monk
Rogue
Mage
Psionic
Valkyrie

???

 

[TigerKnee]

I don't like the single-class spellcasters in general but why not.

I would rather replace Psionic with Bard if you had to cut one thing.

 

[Siveon]

Were they complete in the SNES version?

I mean, the thing is - the original PC version didn't have descriptions for spells/items too, which is why it "carried" over into the PSX version

They weren't in the original SNES (SFC) version. However, there was a fan-translation that changed any extra text and descriptions into English. I can't imagine there being much to work with, though.

1-5 on PSX is the best way to play (best sprites, music, automap) but the english isn't complete in those versions; spell and item descriptions are missing, so a certain amount of side reading and additional knowledge is required.

Debatable, but if someone did make a translation patch, I'd play through those versions in a heartbeat.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

How feasible is it to play Wizardry 6-8 without a grid mapping tool/graph paper?

 

[Great Deceiver]

Not sure what kind of question that is; Wiz 6 requires some form of external mapping, game isn't really playable without it, the dungeons are quite complex and it's not doable by memory. There was no automapping function in Wiz 7 DOS, but there's a mod that does it. They introduced automapping in Wiz 7 Gold, but it's not worth playing a considerably inferior version for that functionality alone.

Are you averse to doing maps by hand? To me it's half the fun of playing old dungeon crawlers.

 

[Dorateen]

There was no automapping function in Wiz 7 DOS, but there's a mod that does it.

Just to clarify, the DOS version does have the Journey Map kit tied to the cartography skill, unless you don't consider that a straight forward Auto-map.

I agree about the fun of mapping in dungeon crawlers.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Ok, time for me to try to address the big hole in my RPG portfolio: dungeon crawlers. Bought some graphing paper the other day, will start with Wizardry 6, and if I don't quit that, will try to go through 7-8. But I will probably quit way before that. Something about those types of games...

 

[Jabber]

So I'm thinking about giving 6->7 a try on ironman. How bad an idea is that? Is there anyone here who is legitimately very, very good at either or both and can give advice? I have finished both before but (of course) died many times throughout. I'm thinking the key will be good party composition, careful ordering of locations tackled and finding safe locations to efficiently grind a bit.

A few big picture questions I have:

What party should I be building / aiming for? My recollection is that the best party is basically a bunch of ninjas that will have excellent AC just due to character levels and can't be silenced (and have done a ton of multiclassing so they have all the spells they may want). Maybe one or two non-ninja characters to use some of the uber weapons and armor. Not sure whether all the ninjas should be faeries. Comments?

Any particularly safe places to murder monsters to level up early?

Is it possible to reliably get the cane of corpus without reloading? I'm assuming Blienmeis will just run away because I can't reload 50 times to catch him. Anyone know whether 20 speed + 100 snake speed + high character level is good enough to get him 90%+ of the time?

 

[octavius]

Wiz 6 is hard to Iron Man in the beginning, since your party is so weak.

The most important thing is to start with a Bard, to get the free Sleep spell.

Also, I recommend reading this info about the game mechanics before starting.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

So I'm thinking about giving 6->7 a try on ironman.

How can you play Wizardry 6+7 on ironman mode? There is not such option in the game. Nevertheless it is a very interesting idea...

 

[Leitz]

How can you play Wizardry 6+7 on ironman mode? There is not such option in the game. Nevertheless it is a very interesting idea...

Just don't reload.

 

[DavidBVal]

So I'm thinking about giving 6->7 a try on ironman.

The good thing is it won't take you more than a few minutes.

 

[Jabber]

It's actually not been too bad so far, at last early game. Maybe later it gets impossible. Early on, two 18 speed faerie bards are extremely strong, and can lock down most enemies indefinitely before they can move. The fat rat was a bit tought to put to sleep, but I had found some blinding powder and blind takes him out of commission just as well. We'll see what happens when the bard-sleep strategy stops working.

Other party members are ninjas, a priest and a valkyrie. The priest was basically a mistake - I thought valkyrie wouldn't get heal until level 5 which was too long to wait and so I converted my monk to a priest (only one with 12 piety). So basically my mook has trash stats for no reason. Valkyrie is using the heavy armor / weapons I find, which are basically only enough to equip one character. Other two party members are felpurr ninjas, reasoning that they are not very equipment dependent and get good AC just for leveling up and getting ninjitsu trained up. Everyone has ninjutsu, which I'm hoping is what will keep me safe mid-game once bard sleep stops being so effective.

 

[DavidBVal]

It's actually not been too bad so far, at last early game. Maybe later it gets impossible. Early on, two 18 speed faerie bards are extremely strong, and can lock down most enemies indefinitely before they can move. The fat rat was a bit tought to put to sleep, but I had found some blinding powder and blind takes him out of commission just as well. We'll see what happens when the bard-sleep strategy stops working.

Other party members are ninjas, a priest and a valkyrie. The priest was basically a mistake - I thought valkyrie wouldn't get heal until level 5 which was too long to wait and so I converted my monk to a priest (only one with 12 piety). So basically my mook has trash stats for no reason. Valkyrie is using the heavy armor / weapons I find, which are basically only enough to equip one character. Other two party members are felpurr ninjas, reasoning that they are not very equipment dependent and get good AC just for leveling up and getting ninjitsu trained up. Everyone has ninjutsu, which I'm hoping is what will keep me safe mid-game once bard sleep stops being so effective.

Well done, sir. I must have died about 20 times in that castle when I played recently.

 

[AArmanFV]

Well, I won the third scenario:

Spoiler

Better than DOS version.

I liked more than the second, the next will be the fourth scenario.

 

[Jabber]

Well I've got the early part in the castle down. Dwarven mines are more troublesome. My first party I retired in those mines after I ran out of resurrections. But the first party had numerous problems with it.

The next iteration (now once again in the mines) is:

single class mook ninja using hands and feet, reasoning that its probably stronger than using weapons at least until the really good weapons are available. So far he's been OK; a good damage dealer but not super accurate or tanky which is an issue.
2 felpurr bards which carrier the early game (starting with 16 speed each) and are now valkyries. These two have also both been OK. Losing infinite sleeps is painful and they haven't really caught back up yet
a faerie mage, which has basically been weak because I haven't abused multi-classing enough. Will eventually be strong if we aren't dead by then. I spent too much time trying to get theosophy or theology on him. In hindsight should have started as a psionic and then gone to monk, hopefully getting all the psionic spells he needed and then gone to mage for the rest of the game (or a hybrid class if lucky stat growth makes it available)
2 faerie priests which have both been great, but I've now been reminded that theology doesn't have enough disables so they will be better once they get their mage spells. One I was able to get to a monk, so has theosophy, which is totally underrated, but unfortunately will have trouble getting the higher level spells

I nearly made it to the fountain in the mines, but also nearly wiped doing so. Big packs of the shrieking worms have been trouble - and I lost 3 / 6 party members to a ~4x6 pack outside the fountain. We barely pulled through, and kept getting attacked when we tried to rest. Somehow we pulled through those fights as well (fortunately, no shrieking worms just lots of slimes and dwarves) and escaped back to the castle. It cost me all my gold as well as a charge from the amulet of life (which I think holds 3 or maybe 5 charges), but everyone is alive again. One thing that was annoying is both faerie priests lived, but they can't cast resurrect above 1 dice which despite 20 ish casts didn't seem to do anything.

Planning on stocking up on consumables and heading back to the mines. I'm less worried about giant mountain which I think has mostly enemies that are vulnerable to being blinded (Man'o'war jellies might be trouble, but I think they don't really come in packs). Goal is to get magic users in better shape, and then it should hopefully get easier again.

 

[octavius]

The hardest parts of Wiz 6 is the beginning (when your party is pathetically weak), and at the end, when you meet high level spell casters (Sylphs and Priests (of Ramm?) are particularly nasty. A character that changes classes too much will have good skills at the end, but will be underleveled and have poor saving throws against those high level spell casters.
So I don't think lots of class chanhing is the solution. It will only make things easier against enemies that you will be able to beat anyway, but make it harder against the really nasty, high level ones.

 

[Jabber]

Well the plan is to class change a lot in the mid-game to get skills + spells and then mid-late game pick classes and stick to them. My mook ninja will probably never multi-class at all, although I haven't decided. Because of the way the experience curves are structured, you don't give up much total XP to do a lot of early multiclassing (late is much more costly).

Anyhow, got through the mines, just need to go back to fix the sprocket and then finish giant mountain. I read somewhere that if you kill queequeg you can get the giant's mountain treasure... I'm fairly curious how good it is but I would never be able to kill queequeg because his inventory is too important so its academic.

Really the only overly nasty thing in the mines was the stupid worms. Those shrieking worms and the white worms are both very nasty and relatively difficult to disable. Dwarves + giants are chumps that are easy to blind, and ants are easly to put to sleep (or make insane in the case of the vaspess).

Not too worried about the giant bosses who I'm expecting to be relatively easy to disable. Guardian is more worrisome. Late game, I am worried about those high level spellcasters but hopefully none of them are too quick and I'll try to just nuke all of them before they can move. That is also the plan for the sirens if I bump into any in the river styx, which I recall are basically a death sentence if they get to move. Not sure how likely they are to disable me before I can move as its been so long since I played...