Wizardry 8 sucks! (LOL)

[Clockwork Knight]

The action RPG genre has been around for decades, I don't get why some people still struggle with it.

 

[Dookins]

I've never heard anybody say that Wizardry 8 is hard. People who complain about it mostly complain that the combat is tediously slow, largely due to the use of 3D character models over a 3D landscape, and that when you pluck out the length that this imposes you actually discover a rather limited experience compared to the previous two Wizardries.

Yeah, and Arnika Road definitely makes a bad impression on the early game. Fighting through all those mobs just to get to the first city gets old. Once you get past that it's way better, but playing without the combat speed enhancer and not yet being used to bottlenecking it just drags.

 

[gestalt11]

I thought and still think Wizardry 8 was a great game. The random encounter stuff does get pretty tiresome however this is not even close to being exclusive to Wiz 8 and the variation of Wiz 8 where there is camera rotation and range actually lets you avoid and/or run from things if you are smart. So it is, in fact, actually better about this than some other games.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

The action RPG genre has been around for decades, I don't get why some people still struggle with it.

Because it has largely been downhill since the Underworlds set the bar.

 

[Nuclear Explosion]

Because it has largely been downhill since the Underworlds set the bar.

But they have terrible melee combat.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I don't mind it really.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[belowmecoldhands]

One of the things I didn't like about the VII Wizardry demo were the randomized fights which were (likely) impossible to win. I'd be going down a road or trail and then be ambushed by a crowd of high level creatures which I could not defeat. I'd die. (Was there a way to escape a impossible fight?) Or the time when I moved into some water and for some reason died because I couldn't swim? Mainly, the game felt rushed and unbalanced and the challenge felt too artificial back when I tried it.

I did like some things about it. The trap disarming was sort of interesting. You looked at patterns and you had a book of patterns or something and you'd disarm it by figuring out its pattern. And of course there were lots of lore everywhere from what I remember. It had an "epic" feeling, like hte world was big. It felt like there was lots to explore. I just got turned off by what I perceived to be poor randomly generated fights (tending to be hard or impossible to win) and being so frequent.

Is that how Wizardry VIII (8) is?

 

[Xathrodox86]

I liked VIII until I've met the fucking flower of doom that instagibbed me, no matter what I did. Still I have good memories with this game, especially since it took me ages to make the damn thing to work, but it was worth it and showed me that I can overcome shitty programming and bad optimization of some old ass titles.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I agree that Wizardry VIII is very flawed. It has the best character generation of all time but the insane amount of random encounters that take forever to finish are burning me out every time I try it.

I beat the game twice (on release and 3-4 years later) and I can't say that the random encounters bothered me that much. If you put that "the best chargen of all time" to good use (i.e. create a capable party), the constant fights won't be an issue and even the infamous Arnika road will be a pleasant stroll through the countryside. Not to mention that you can avoid many encounters by staying out of their sight.

 

[Scroo]

I beat the game twice (on release and 3-4 years later) and I can't say that the random encounters bothered me that much. If you put that "the best chargen of all time" to good use (i.e. create a capable party), the constant fights won't be an issue and even the infamous Arnika road will be a pleasant stroll through the countryside. Not to mention that you can avoid many encounters by staying out of their sight.

Oh don't get me wrong, the game isn't very difficult. It's just the sheer amount and length of the random encounters which put me off. I'll give it another try since I really want to love it, maybe I can try to avoid some combat this time. But I fear after the initial excitement it will burn me out again

 

[Johannes]

Theres only a handful of interesting combat encounters throughout the game, thats the problem. Most are just copypaste of the same kind of monster, or 2-3 types if youre lucky. There's all these spells and effects in the game, but the enemies rarely make good use of them. Even if you're fighting a monster that isn't a simple melee hitter, itll likely have the same special ability as its buddy next to it.

 

[prodigydancer]

Arcanum should have been recieved as the greatest rpg of that decade.

Eh? It sure was a shitty decade but not that shitty.

 

[Zombra]

I liked VIII until I've met the fucking flower of doom that instagibbed me, no matter what I did.

Goddamn Crimson Poppies.

 

[DraQ]

Those aren't random battles because battling is the game. Those were random bouts of walking that you were encountering.

This basically makes Wizardry8 a blobber version of Valhalla, so what can be said about someone who can't appreciate that?


P.S. The best and most fun way to play Wiz8 (though perhaps not for the first time) is ironman so claims about it encouraging savescumming are lulzworthy - git gud.

 

[Zombra]

The best and most fun way to play Wiz8 (though perhaps not for the first time) is ironman so claims about it encouraging savescumming are lulzworthy - git gud.

I like that idea in theory, but there are too many "gotcha" encounters in W8 to make me seriously consider trying it. Oh look, a giant sea serpent 10 levels higher than anything I've been fighting in this area. Hmm, I wonder what's in this mountaintop temple ... oh look, it's a sorceress queen with an army of ogre knights 10 levels higher than anything I've been fighting in this area. And so forth, I don't have them all memorized. Basically it would be impossible without detailed foreknowledge of the game - aka slavishly following a walkthrough (either one written by somebody else or your own from a previous playthrough). OK for some I guess, but for me I'd just as soon turn on a Let's Play and watch somebody else do it as play a game to a script. And I find Let's Plays excruciatingly boring.

That said and ironman aside, "save scumming" is totally unnecessary in Wizardry 8. Reloading a save sometimes, yes, you'll have to do that, but that's not save scumming. belowmecoldhands and Smoked Brisket are dumb if they think scumming is necessary in W8, and even dumber if they think it's a deliberate part of the design.

On a personal note, overall I think W8 is beautifully balanced, and often even a fight you're not prepared for can be escaped from, if not with no casualties, at least with less than a full party wipe. The limited but not prohibitive availability of resurrection items means that recovering from major screw-ups is doable, while at the same time it teaches you not to be too careless. The design does encourage "getting good", and players who do save scum (say, reloading every time a character dies) are doing the game and themselves a major disservice.

 

[LeStryfe79]

OP stinks. Game is easy as hell. Just make an all hybrid party. It's super fun.

 

[DraQ]

I like that idea in theory, but there are too many "gotcha" encounters in W8 to make me seriously consider trying it. Oh look, a giant sea serpent 10 levels higher than anything I've been fighting in this area. Hmm, I wonder what's in this mountaintop temple ... oh look, it's a sorceress queen with an army of ogre knights 10 levels higher than anything I've been fighting in this area. And so forth, I don't have them all memorized. Basically it would be impossible without detailed foreknowledge of the game - aka slavishly following a walkthrough (either one written by somebody else or your own from a previous playthrough).

What an entitled thing to say.

The thing about players in this day and age is that they don't plan, don't prepare, are incapable of caution or foresight. And then they expect, nay, demand perfectly fine-tuned difficulty curve no matter what they do and whenever game dares to fuck them up for not considering possibility of <insert mysterious and ominous looking location> containing traps, encounters way out of their league or opportunities to get stuck if you don't prepare for the need to come back the way you came (say dropping from a high ledge without levitation or affixing a rope or crossing a corridor of fire with only one fire immunity potion) they cry bloody outrage. Guess what? It's your responsibility to fucking survive and if you've died it's because you've done screwed up. Developers are only responsible for making it "fair" but it merely means that they don't get to kill you randomly, say by making the end boss appear out of nowhere while are striding along the road at lvl 1 and rape you dead without warning. They can and should kill you if you assume shit for no reason other than "it's good game design" or "it makes for smooth and balanced difficulty curve". No, fuck your gay ass.

In particular this applies to poking around masssive temples in the middle of hostile nowhere without as much as preparations for getting the fuck out if the kitchen gets too hot for you to handle.
If all else fails Wizardry 8 allows peeking around the corners and zipping across doorways while in combat mode without significant consequence as long as you have movement left to duck back out of sight, whether it's intentional mechanics or not, and most of the time even getting into actual combat allows you to flee and survive, even when outleveled, especially if you plasy your cards smartly. You get to see NPCs and monsters level/stats (depending on mythology skill) too by ctrl clicking.

So, tl;dr, I call bullshit.

That said and ironman aside, "save scumming" is totally unnecessary in Wizardry 8. Reloading a save sometimes, yes, you'll have to do that, but that's not save scumming. belowmecoldhands and Smoked Brisket are dumb if they think scumming is necessary in W8, and even dumber if they think it's a deliberate part of the design.

On a personal note, overall I think W8 is beautifully balanced, and often even a fight you're not prepared for can be escaped from, if not with no casualties, at least with less than a full party wipe. The limited but not prohibitive availability of resurrection items means that recovering from major screw-ups is doable, while at the same time it teaches you not to be too careless. The design does encourage "getting good", and players who do save scum (say, reloading every time a character dies) are doing the game and themselves a major disservice.

This.

Wizardry 8 was very clearly designed to be played without reloading or at least without reloading whenever possible because otherwise a significant part of its mechanics is spurious - resurrection, debuffs that don't go away without potions, etc.
It doesn't really get interesting without you having to recover from particularly savage beating - what else is there to do - walking around popping respawning level scaled moles?

 

[HiddenX]

A Wizardry fan plays Wizardry games because he can't get enough of combat. I replayed Wizardry 6, 7, 8 many times - Wizardry 8 even with mods that increase the difficulty. Best party building and combat system I have seen, ever!

So the original post can only be seen as a poor troll attempt.

 

[DavidBVal]

That said and ironman aside, "save scumming" is totally unnecessary in Wizardry 8.

Maybe I just sucked or was too low level, but in my two runs through W8, these little bastards made me suffer, badly. Like, top-10 suffering in my Gaming experiences... on the contrary, other monsters mentioned here seemed easier.

 

[Crooked Bee]

OP stinks. Game is easy as hell. Just make an all hybrid party. It's super fun.

Yeah, Wizardry 8 is the easiest Wizardry game, perfect for Wizardry noobs. So if OP thought that one was a "kick in the balls," then the series just isn't really for him.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

That said and ironman aside, "save scumming" is totally unnecessary in Wizardry 8. Reloading a save sometimes, yes, you'll have to do that, but that's not save scumming. belowmecoldhands and Smoked Brisket are dumb if they think scumming is necessary in W8, and even dumber if they think it's a deliberate part of the design.

Regarding save scumming, I sometimes use that word too freely. Since I haven't really played W7 and W8 long enough and only played the demos, I cannot say for sure if they ever encourage save scumming (or generally push you to reload to save something or make your life easier). Generally, I think games verge on save scumming when you feel like you have to reload savegames too much either after dying or losing something important. If you're reloading to save a party member, for example, that's not really save-scumming until it's frequent. When does it become frequent? I think that depends on who you're asking.

Jagged Alliance 2, for example, verged on save-scumming because every time you had a bad fight and lost mercs, it had a real impact on your future ability to finish the game, especially on harder difficulties. This encouraged you to reload a savegame to redo a bad fight. While I would normally say this is save scumming, I think the quality of the content in JA2 and my years of playing it has made me friendlier to it. It's hard to say for sure. Sometimes games can get away with things, where others can't.

JA2 and other older games expected you to reload a lot because frequent reloading was common in that era. That to me is save scumming, though. IT happens because the makers become lazy and without realizing they start urging you to reload a bad fight or something similar. Reloading goes from being infrequent to frequent. The prosaic definition of save scumming is repeatedly reloading to gain an advantage, but the problem--in my opinion--is "repeatedly" is too loose of a definition. How many times do you have to reload a bad fight in JA2 for it to be "repeatedly"? 3 times? 5 times? In my opinion, it's save scumming if you feel like the game is encouraging you to reload to gain an advantage, even if you're only reloading once. Reloading after you main character dies is understandable. You don't gain an advantage by reloading after your main dies because you MUST reload.

But if I'm dying too much and reloading every 5 minutes, I'll lose interest, even if I'm not reloading to gain an advantage. Notrium is a good example. It's a survival game and I like survival games. But I died so much in it when I was starting out that I got too frustrated to keep playing. The game EXPECTED me to constantly reload and I didn't want to, so I quit. It's like save scumming but instead of reloading "repeatedly" to gain an advantage you're reloading "repeatedly" just to play the game.

Here's a link I favorited a few years ago about save scumming:
http://www.thatsaterribleidea.com/2012/10/save-scumming-is-perverse-optimization.html

 

[Old One]

There are certain features of Wizardy 8 combat that are so good they disqualify the game from sucking. For example, I've personally never seen another non-real-time combat system in which you could significantly alter the difficulty of an encounter by doing things like running over the top of a ridge to ambush your enemies. Using a tactic like that makes fighting ranged enemies much easier because you can start close enough to them that you don't have to tank through their missiles to reach them.

You should be using the 3D environment to your advantage before the combat mode kicks in.

Yes, there might be too many random encounters throughout the game, but that's hardly reason enough to throw out all the other great things about Wizardy 8 and say it sucks. I wish more games would emulate some of the interesting, unconventional ideas in W8.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

If you don't use your environment to your advantage, in some way, shape or form, you are a putz.

 

[Zombra]

The thing about players in this day and age is that they don't plan, don't prepare, are incapable of caution or foresight. And then they expect, nay, demand perfectly fine-tuned difficulty curve no matter what they do and whenever game dares to fuck them up they cry bloody outrage.

I'm not crying bloody outrage. I'm saying that the arbitrary design of the game isn't compatible with ironman being fun without substantial leveraging of meta knowledge. No amount of "caution" will prepare you for the fact that if you go to Bayjin when you are told to, party wipe is a certainty because you can't cast Magic Screen and Soul Shield yet. No amount of "foresight" will tell you that you should explore every nook and cranny on the map, except don't go in that one nameless temple because the Sorceress Queen battle is a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult than anything in the surrounding area. It doesn't matter how smart you are, you're not going to magically guess that the Oak Saplings will annihilate you if you fight them where you find them and you should lure them out to the anti-magic zone instead. You can either read that in a walkthrough, or you can go in and get massacred and then reload the game.

Guess what? It's your responsibility to fucking survive and if you've died it's because you've done screwed up.

Not always ... but when this is true and even when it isn't, I'm OK with getting killed ... that's what load game is for. And if I am playing an ironman or roguelike game and I fuck up and lose, I'm OK with that too. What I'm not OK with is the idea of losing 60 hours to a "gotcha" encounter I had no reasonable way to prepare for, of which there are several examples in W8, and it only takes one to irrevocably ruin an ironman playthrough.

These encounters don't require "foresight"; there is no way to "forsee" them. Even with Mythology those Tree Sprites look pretty harmless.
Beating the game on ironman requires not foresight but foreknowledge and plenty of it.

And as I say, playing with a walkthrough is fine for some people, just not for me.

Regarding save scumming, I sometimes use that word too freely. Generally, I think games verge on save scumming when you feel like you have to reload savegames too much. When does it become frequent? I think that depends on who you're asking. But if I'm dying too much and reloading every 5 minutes, I'll lose interest.

Good post and I agree with you ... but to be blunt, Wizardry 8 is not such a game unless you are dumb. If you die more than twice to a given encounter and you can't come up with better tactics, it's time to simply leave and come back later. Open world RPG, no level scaling, that's just how it works.

Maybe I just sucked or was too low level, but in my two runs through W8, these little bastards made me suffer, badly. Like, top-10 suffering in my Gaming experiences... on the contrary, other monsters mentioned here seemed easier.

Ha, Tree Sprites do suck. In my experience though it didn't take more than a couple of wipes before I copped to a good strategy for nailing them. YMMV.

 

[k0syak]

You don't savescum because of meeting overleveled enemies or PCs dying, you savescum to get the whatshisname sword, the death-ray gun and the shield from the fucking underwater mutants. The sword has like 4% chance of dropping and if it doesn't, you need to re-load a save that's on a different map, re-enter and fight everyone again.