Might & Magic X: Legacy

Seananigans · Feb 9, 2014

No, I don't pirate, I have the retail version.

You must just have a higher tolerance for this kind of bullshit. It is pervasive, and unnecessary, to the point that when it finally made sense to get ambushed (some ghosts in Lost City fly through the walls on either side of you, pincering you once again), I had been subjected to this nonsense so often that it sapped any appreciation for the situation. When you open a chest and all of a sudden 4 armed guards in full plate armor are 3 tiles behind you, where youjust fucking came from not 15 seconds ago, ghosts coming through the walls is just more of the same bullshit.

DiddleySquat · Feb 9, 2014

Doing a rerun with a 4 mage party (druid, RP, shaman, freemage). Quite fun tactically, except Facehuggers.

Vorph · Feb 9, 2014

Seananigans_sl said:
No, I don't pirate, I have the retail version.

You must just have a higher tolerance for this kind of bullshit. It is pervasive, and unnecessary, to the point that when it finally made sense to get ambushed (some ghosts in Lost City fly through the walls on either side of you, pincering you once again), I had been subjected to this nonsense so often that it sapped any appreciation for the situation. When you open a chest and all of a sudden 4 armed guards in full plate armor are 3 tiles behind you, where youjust fucking came from not 15 seconds ago, ghosts coming through the walls is just more of the same bullshit.

I definitely noticed it being a bit more common than perhaps was necessary, but for some reason it just doesn't bother me like the similar thing in Dragon Age 2 did. And like Vaclav said, WoX had plenty of ambushes, and that's the only M&M game that matters when it comes to a new game staying true to the series.

Eventually you just get used to the ambushes and either prepare for potential shitstorms in likely spots or suck it up and take the hits. By early-mid act III, even though the things ambushing me were much nastier, I just didn't care any more because I could steamroll them. Before that point, it was all about abusing Harmony (completely shuts off all enemy AI more than 2 tiles away) and the hireling that buffs the group (his buffs are very short duration, but they let you eat the damage while rushing the worst group in the ambush instead of having to use a full turn buffing yourself while getting cross-fired from 3 or 4 directions).

Vaclav · Feb 9, 2014

Well, ghosts for immersion purposes I give a complete pass to - as do "story related" ambushes. Which the grand majority of the ones I can recall were one or the other - there were a few otherwise, but not in any great number that I can recall.

Vorph · Feb 9, 2014

Depends on your definition of "story related" I guess. Tomb of 1000 Terrors was absolutely loaded with ambushes, and there are even a lot of them on the overworld too that either pincer you or are triggered at a dead end and try to prevent you from getting back out. Some kind of make sense, like the minotaurs at the dead end in the forest... but most of the pincer ones felt pretty cheap. Only forced me to reload once or twice, but still.

Seananigans · Feb 9, 2014

Yes, there are tons. Kudos to you guys for being able to shrug it off, but this shit (crappy third-rate design decisions, basically) really bothers me.

I just replayed Xeen a few months ago, and I can say with certainty that the number of LOL AMBUSH encounters in MMX dwarfs Xeen. Xeen had plenty of monsters popping out of boxes/crates/barrels etc, but that is Might and Magic. Monsters appearing out of thin air to perfectly surround/pincer you is not, and wasrarelyused in Xeen (because they used it thematically!), and the only one coming to mind is the Darkside first town Gremlin ambush that you already mentioned.

Pyros · Feb 9, 2014

Well the dark elves ambushes kinda make sense, the blackguard ones very much less so.

One thing on difficulty that I found very interesting is, they have a fairly large file of traps locations, but they're not hooked or not functional I don't know, so you actually never have to care about traps, besides the 2 places that do have traps(one mysterious cave and in the tower trap room). I wonder if they turned them off cause people kept bitching about getting instant killed and they didn't want to bother balancing them or something. Would have been better if Clairvoyance/Light Shard had any use other than the 2 places I mentionned.

Caliane · Feb 9, 2014

now you mention it yeah. castle port totally had traps in prerelease. I dont remember hitting them in live. And havent hit ANY since for sure.
Traps were working in prerelease.

Void · Feb 9, 2014

I agree the sudden ambush attacks are annoying, but at least it is something that I can easily prepare for now, unlike Blackguards where if you end a fight low you might immediately get thrown into another fight that you have zero chance of winning, so you have to reload the first one. At least here I can save it constantly, and if an ambush hits and I'm not ready for it, I've saved somewhere right before it. Fuck, I save if I do nothing but wander around for a couple of minutes without any encounters, simply because I don't want to repeat my steps. I'm only partway through Act III, and I've got my save count up over 700.

Obviously I suck at this game though, because I can't just faceroll all these ambushes like it ain't no thang. Unless you guys walk around fully buffed and full health/mana all the time anyway.

Frenzied Wombat · Feb 10, 2014

In love with this game. So many childhood memories.. Was up until 2am with a "just one more trip back to town" mentality. Anybody playing this on an average laptop with something like an Intel HD 4000 video card? I have a big international trip coming up and boy would this make the 15 hour flight more tolerable if it can run properly on my work loaner laptop.

P.S: Haven't read anything in this thread for fear of spoilers, and dived into the game sans manual (if there is one). Party consists of a Runepriest, Crusader, Ranger, and Freemage. Just finished cleaning out lvl 1 of the lighthouse. Any essential tips on party comp or levelling that isn't too big of a spoiler? Would prefer not to get halfway through the game and find out putting points into spear for my Runepriest was a waste or something..

Vorph · Feb 10, 2014

Putting points into spear on a runepriest is a huge waste. I highly recommend dual focus (GM it) for RP weapons.

Don't put points into bow on your ranger either.

My recommendations on how to spec that party:

Ranger - GM Dagger/Dodge/Endurance, Master Dual Wield, 1pt Bow/Warfare/Earth
Runepriest - GM Fire/Earth/Focus, Master Mysticism
Crusader - GM Light/Sword, Master Shield/Warfare, Expert Mysticism/Medium Armor
Freemage - GM Air/Dark/Focus, Expert Prime/Mysticism (if you are fine with using the Uplay relic staff, drop Focus to Expert, raise Mysticism to Master, and do Water to Expert)

Joeboo · Feb 10, 2014

I just hit F5 to save after ever single damn fight in the game in case of unexpected ambush. I think when I beat the game I was on save #940 or so.

Frenzied Wombat · Feb 10, 2014

Vorph_sl said:
Putting points into spear on a runepriest is a huge waste. I highly recommend dual focus (GM it) for RP weapons.

Don't put points into bow on your ranger either.

Wahh? Why no points in bow for a Ranger? So far I've been splitting points between dagger, bow, and evade. Besides spellcasters he's my only ranged.. Thanks for the advice on the runepriest, since he came with a spear I figured he was a hybrid type..

littles · Feb 10, 2014

I'm guessing bows suck because stuff is in melee like 95% of the game and they do half damage while pure melee or magic does a ton more damage.

Vorph · Feb 10, 2014

Yep. Bows and xbows do such pathetic damage that you should never waste skill points on them. Rangers are a DW dagger class (one that is far inferior to a blademaster too, btw).

Edited the above post with what I'd recommend for skills on that party. Spoilered in case you don't want that much detail.

Joeboo · Feb 10, 2014

And a lot of enemies in the game can attack from range(spells, thrown weapons) and you pretty much never want to just trade ranged attacks with them, unless you're running 3 or 4 mages. You're always better off moving around a corner so they have to come to you in melee range.

About the only thing in the entire game that decent ranged attacks would be useful is the very last boss encounter of the game. Not going to spoil anything, but you end up having to attack from range quite often.

Frenzied Wombat · Feb 10, 2014

Vorph_sl said:
Yep. Bows and xbows do such pathetic damage that you should never waste skill points on them. Rangers are a DW dagger class (one that is far inferior to a blademaster too, btw).

Edited the above post with what I'd recommend for skills on that party. Spoilered in case you don't want that much detail.

Great thanks for the advice, I'm going to start over tonight then as I've probably dumped at least 5 points into bows (for ranger) and about the same for my RP's spear. So is the ranger hand's down inferior to the blademaster or is it only in regards to dual wielding daggers?

Is there an official/unofficial manual for this game anywhere? I pride myself on finishing these games without cheats, but a detailed run down of the classes and what they are best at would be helpful.

Crone · Feb 10, 2014

Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
Great thanks for the advice, I'm going to start over tonight then as I've probably dumped at least 5 points into bows (for ranger) and about the same for my RP's spear. So is the ranger hand's down inferior to the blademaster or is it only in regards to dual wielding daggers?

Is there an official/unofficial manual for this game anywhere? I pride myself on finishing these games without cheats, but a detailed run down of the classes and what they are best at would be helpful.

I've read every page of this thread, and none of the posts I feel were very spoilers. Certainly none that weren't under spoiler tags. Just go back and re-read this thread, and I promise all your questions will be answered. Myself and others have had the same group make up questions.

Vorph · Feb 10, 2014

Blademasters:
GM swords or daggers (daggers are better in theory, swords are better in practice due to the location of the GM trainers... dagger comes way too late to be useful). Daggers get a relic very early on in the game, but only if you edit a game file to fix a bug. Swords get two relics, daggers only get the one (or none if the bug isn't fixed).
GM dual wield
Advanced class gets a passive that gives a free turn every time it gets a kill shot with a melee attack. I think my record was 7 kills in a row using that.
Advanced class gets an active attack that hits everything in adjacent tiles with a full melee attack. Sadly it does not trigger the above passive, and it costs 50 mana which is rather a lot for a pure melee class. I fed mine almost all the permanent +5 mana potions that I found.

Rangers:
GM dagger only (with all the caveats mentioned above)
Can only master dual wield.
Advanced class gets bow crap that won't help because you don't have any points in bow.

Overall, Rangers will have a lot lower damage and get far fewer kill shots.

Frenzied Wombat · Feb 10, 2014

Vorph_sl said:
Blademasters:
GM swords or daggers (daggers are better in theory, swords are better in practice due to the location of the GM trainers... dagger comes way too late to be useful). Daggers get a relic very early on in the game, but only if you edit a game file to fix a bug. Swords get two relics, daggers only get the one (or none if the bug isn't fixed).
GM dual wield
Advanced class gets a passive that gives a free turn every time it gets a kill shot with a melee attack. I think my record was 7 kills in a row using that.
Advanced class gets an active attack that hits everything in adjacent tiles with a full melee attack. Sadly it does not trigger the above passive, and it costs 50 mana which is rather a lot for a pure melee class. I fed mine almost all the permanent +5 mana potions that I found.

Rangers:
GM dagger only (with all the caveats mentioned above)
Can only master dual wield.
Advanced class gets bow crap that won't help because you don't have any points in bow.

Overall, Rangers will have a lot lower damage and get far fewer kill shots.

So basically rangers are like they were upon EQ release, shitty

. You'd think they'd do away with the short range penalty once you reach a certain skill level to make them viable at least..

Will read through the thread now, thanks for the help..

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