/vr/ - Retro Games

They're pretty similar games, but they both suffer from visible content cuts. 6 has somewhat more freedom in character builds and excessively huge dungeons, but half the world map isn't really used. 8 is conversely smaller, offers less build freedom and is really unabalanced but as a tradeoff you can change characters that aren't your first one. If you like 7, chances are you'll like 6 and 8 as well.

>>6168650
>I'm a bigtime Might and Magic 7 fan
>I've been playing it on and off for twenty years
>and I beat it last year for the first time
...Wut?

>>6168723
That sounds positive. My only critique on 7 was that I felt I had to invis my way through the endgame dungeons cause the mobs were fucking dumb.

The tunnels to Nighon, I must have save scummed a hundred times getting past one guy.

>>6168731
Well I played it as a young lad back in 99. I was ten at the time. Without the internet, I just found it too obscure. I also played it in 2013, but my hard drive crashed and I lost my save. I played it last year with a website to assist, and found it endlessly exciting. I'll upload my winning sheets.

>>6168731
>>6168736

>>6168650
They are both great, if you are a big fan of 7 then there is no reason whatsoever to not play 6 and 8.

There are guides on youtube, about what party members are best and skills. The GOG version works fine too. These are my fav type of game but sadly on this board you'll get little response as the vast majority of posts are about console games.

>>6169367
Yeah that's unfortunate. I feel there's a lot of us that grew up in the 90s that played PC games. Especially RPG's.

I'm very passionate about Might and Magic 7 and outside of a handful of threads, I've never spoke to another human about it. Which sucks, as the game has so much cool shit

you will absolutely enjoy 6 and 8 if you loved 7. i find 6 is the best of the three, but also the hardest. 8 is the worst of the three, but also the easiest and shortest. 6 somehow manages to look the best i find with the environments and dungeons looking way more colorful, while 7 and 8 (which mostly reuses a lot of assets from 7) is overall just very dull green and brown.
8 only sees you customize one party member and then have to hire pre-made characters to fill out the rest of your party which may limit replayability compared to 6 and 7, but you can get very high powered level 50 characters early on in the game that can be fun in how trivial it ends up. i just beat 8 there last week and it was my first playthrough actively seeking out the lvl 50 characters and i was absolutely annihilating my way through dungeons in like 10 minutes that would have taken me around an hour on previous playthroughs.

>>6170285
i should add 6-8 is the golden trio. you can always give 1-5 a go as well but they might feel a bit antiquated with the 2d tile movement, something i couldn't get into it when i tried them for the first time after years of playing 6-8. 9 is where the trouble really starts being a fuck ugly unfinished mess and 10 being a soulless reboot thats looks completely indistinguishable from other modern fantasy MOBA/mobile phone shit, that oddly opted for the tile movement again, so don't bother with those 2.

6 is better than 7. They ruined the dungeons in 7.

>>6170434
7 was hard as shit. I felt like I had to invis through them all. Maybe I wasn't minmaxing hard enough though?

>>6170301
Incorrect zoomer, 3-5 is golden age of M&M.

>>6168650
Definitely play 6. My only problem with 8 is that I feel the grand story arc of the series was fittingly wrapped up in 7, and so it should've ended there.

>>6168650
You played it for 20 years and never tried the rest of the series?

Is this some kind of copypasta?

>>6172259
Who's making copypasta about Might and Magic 7 in 2020

>>6170301
>10 being a soulless reboot
It was actually a pet project by a handful of Limbic Entertainment devs. They didn't get a lot of support from Ubi (for some reason, apart from HoM&M5, Ubi repeatedly dropped the ball when it comes to properly funding/supporting games in the M&M universe). Heck, Ubi cut the team's budget after something like 2 patches. I can't remember whether anybody attempted to make a mod or unofficial patch to fix the remaining bugs or balance issues.

>>6174562
Limbic had not one but two opportunities to show they don't understand the first thing when it comes to Might and Magic and by god they seized both with gusto. No, it wasn't grid movement that people liked about old M&M games, Limbic, it was open world (that you didn't do). No, Limbic, nobody wants to play those forced "story" maps in Heroes. Yes, Limbic, flanking in Heroes is a degenerate idea. Personal fuck you to Marzhin who doesn't seem to understand scale and despite ten years of experience of making Heroes maps still doesn't understand that one turn in the game means one day.

Yes, I am mad.

>>6169367
Out of mild interest, what are the best party members and skills? I remember beating this game probably about 8 years or so ago but I don't think such guides were around then.

>>6170282
It's probably because lots of people had a console while pc's were much more rare, everyone had heard of Mario but section types of pc gaming, not so much.

I got my first pc in 1998 and it was nothing special but it was around $850 at the time, while a console was below $150 if I recall.

So it seems like 99% of posters here are trying to get back to the nostalgia of being 8 on a console and others are the stereotypical adult man child type with Nintendo beanies all over their home.

You'd have to be more of a serious roleplayer to have played might and magic 6 on release, not an 8 year old. So by now you'd be almost 40 and I also believe this board is littered with early 20 year olds who were just too young.

Has anyone here tried that mod which merges 6, 7 and 8 into a single game?

I'm playing through 6 right now with my Fair and Balanced team of
>Paladin
>Knight
>Cleric
>Knight
Going melee only and using my divine power to fuel my crusade against the kreegincels.

All jokes aside, no elemental magic makes the outdoor areas really hard, especially against titans. No flight except with scrolls or water walking makes it so hard to farm Titans for gear, because Supreme Titans will just one shot your party over and over again with their death effects.

I've gotten 2 of the 4 memory crystals so far, and I need to clear Castle Darkmoor (Which is giving me a shit load of trouble because of the Evil Eyes), and Supreme Temple of Baa. The problem isn't the dungeons themselves, but for SToB the walk over to the dungeon is highly dangerous and eats up a ton of resources just getting there.

I call upon your aid, brothers. What should I do in order to continue the holy crusade proper?

best game evar

>>6179393
I can't imagine playing MM without fly/invis/WW

>>6179942
The only thing that REALLY hurts is the lack of Starburst and Meteor Shower. Killing Dragons and Titans is basically impossible outside.

The only thing I can't just plow through is the Obelisk quest. I normally do it once I get flight and DD, and even though I visited every area, I forgot to get the ones in some difficult spots.

>>6179964
As someone that played MM7 with martial weapons only, I can't relate.

I think I only fought monsters when quests required it. The second I got invis, I used that to rinse through the entire game.

Well, Shrapmetal ofc, but why would you NOT use that

This vs realms of arkania shadows over riva?

>>6181693
I really like the RoA series, but the honestly lacklustre and tedious combat prevents it from winning this comparison. I wish they'd made the combat more interesting and more of the skills useful, because otherwise those games possess a great deal of charm.

just started might and magic 6. havent left new sorpigal yet. i have a bunch of rings, where do i go to get these identified?

>>6182530
A new party will always start with a couple rings to sell/use. Sometimes they are magical, sometimes they are vendor trash.

Without any "easter egg" stuff in the starter zone, here's a good primer.
>Start game.
>Show Letter to Andover in the tavern.
>Kill gobs on top of the Spirit/Mind/Body guild and loot the chest to it's left near the shore. (Watch out for the Mages nearby, and the bridge to the other side...)
>Kill gobs on the bridge to the West, below GobWatch (Two Chests)
Always check chests TWICE or more, because sometimes the rolled loot won't fit in the chest on the first open, so it will overflow into a "2nd inventory"
>Buy memberships to all the guilds you can from people in the houses.
>Wait til night, go to Buccaneer's Guild, and train your party members in Identify, Perception, Merchant, and Repair (if it's at this guild.)
Only get one auxiliary skill per person. It doesn't matter who gets what, they aren't modified by stats, iirc. Dedicate each person to focusing on one of these. DON'T get Diplomacy, it's completely worthless.
If you really are getting your ass beat, you can get your party some bows.
>Take the Carriage to Ironfist Castle.
>Get membership to the guild right next to the Carriage.
>Get all your party trained in bows/ repair/ Plate for your warriors.
>Get some cheap bows.
>Go back to New Sorpigal to start the murdering.

Other things to look for is how leveling works, you have to pay to level. Get your Spirit caster to Expert as soon as possible, because Bless is such a massive breath of fresh air at Expert level (applies to your whole party.)

>>6182580
cool, but the weapons guy identifies weapons and the armor guy identifies armor, i have like 15 rings ive picked up but cant find out what they do because i cant find the npc that identifies rings. is there one in new sorpigal or do i need to go to another town?

>>6182653
>Wait til night, go to Buccaneer's Guild, and train your party members in Identify, Perception, Merchant, and Repair (if it's at this guild.)
Learn the Identify skill and have your own dude ident. the items for free. But, Rings/Wands/Misc items are identified by Alchemists. The New-Sorp Alchemist is right behind the blacksmith. Open from 8am-2pm.

In MM6, do Druids' Spell Points scale from Intelligence, Personality, or both? I'm starting a new party and I'm not too sure what to take.

>>6182979
im not sure how i missed that shop holy fuck. thank you. yes i am noob only played might and magic 7 but quit halfway through.

>>6182580
>Only get one auxiliary skill per person.
Get 1st level Merchant to everyone, it affects training, skill and spell prices.
>>6183006
Average of both.

>>6168650
I played MM7 after MM6 and thought that MM7 was bland and boring as fuck. For example, MM6 starts with an open world right away whreas MM7 has this tutorial quest. MM6 lighthearted but genuine aesthetically, whereas MM7 has this wink and nude at all times (lel adbenturers rofl inherish shit mansion lololo may I suggest violence etc.). And I think that the ridiculous digitized photos in MM6 ultimately aged much better than MM7's obsolete CG.

>>6182580
>If you really are getting your ass beat, you can get your party some bows.

I saw a guide on this, To do this before anything or entering combat. I'm in 2 minds as a new player. I either explore freely and learn as I go or get bow skills first.

I don't want to spend ages though if I go freely and learn that I had made a mistake and I should have taken the bows option.

At the same time, would that be irrelevant by the time it gets really hard and magic takes over though?

>>6183990
Just play the game normally. The whole party being able to shoot bows costs money but has obvious advantages that you don't need a guide to understand.

>>6183996
Yeah but I might put skill points or something into hand to hand and not have enough to easily rise bow skill. Although I think following some guide defeats the purpose of freely enjoying the game right away.

>>6184014
You will most definitely have a suboptimal party, but the game is balanced around this. There is literally no gameplay other than figuring out which skills are more useful. You just go into dungeons to see if you're strong enough to beat them, and the more optimally you develop your party, the faster you advance through these dungeons. It's THE game. Exploration is very fun, but not challenging in any way besides, again, the monsters.

>>6184018
Cool, good explanation, I did follow a guide of which classes to use so which will utilise the best magic and strongest, so I suppose I already made it a little easier. Than got to the beginning and here I am.

OP here,

I'm thrilled to see this thread go on for a week. I'm glad to see there's some people who have passion for the MM games like me.

I think I'm gonna get 6 with that "Grayface" mod, so I can enable full mouse look

how do i teach my cleric shield in might and magic 6?

>>6185408
Castle Ironfist and Misty Islands have some guilds that teach shield skill for 500 gold.

For most of the last few years the Might and Magic stuff was in a dual thread with HoMM, but it's since split. The bottom half of the pastebin is might and magic based. To answer the number 1 question (how do I not get killed?) buy bows!

https://pastebin.com/6G9B1cMA

>>6184014
You don't actually have to raise bow skill, but you need to learn it. A lot of skills should just be learned because the level 1 effect is large enough to notice but the skill points are better off elsewhere, with learning being the main example.

>>6179380
Yes, it allows you to carry over characters as you are playing the games, but it results in getting blasters in MM7 (because it has the easiest endgame) and then destroying the other two games. It's easily worth playing once for the crossover story and it adds some neat uses for town portal, but the games are better standalone.

the follower npc's i have are supposed to add to my perception skill, but its not working and im not getting any skill points added. any fix for this or am i doing something wrong?

>>6189772
I suspect some NPCs might be broken. Did you use GrayFace's patch or is it the regular version?

>>6190263
i have greyface patch, and none of the npc's that are supposed to give skill points actually do. they will give the other bonuses, but cant get skills which sucks ass.

>>6191154
Hmm, I wonder if it's a bug in GreyFace's patch, or just some old-ass bug which was never corrected.

>>6189772
Are you sure? The way skills work in 6 are different. They don't actually show when you right click a skill where it displays the bonus like 7 and 8, it should just be applied automatically. It's easy enough to test for certain with a duper or merchant.

>>6179393
I missed this question earlier, but if you don't have an elemental caster then suck it up and hire a gate master/wind master and pay the 40% fee. It's easily worth it in the long run. You won't be spending a fortune on spells since you only have 1 real spellcaster and one backup.

>>6172280
Me.

>>6191275
im trying to get through the temple of baa in castle ironfist and the bone pile treasures keep failing the search check and i get feared or sick or poison etc. i read that you needed at least a 4 perception to get past it but i had 3 + the 6 from the follower npc so i should be able to succeed my search. any advice ?

M&M thread?
I recently started Book One on NES and I just have one question: where do you CREATE characters? I know you can pick some at the inn but haven't found an option or place to create them like the other games.

>>6192097
The NES version doesn't let you create your own characters. It's the main reason that we don't suggest to use that version despite all the other upgrades over Apple II and DOS.

>>6191860
In short ignore them, the loot they give is just a random scroll worth like 50-75 gold. The guide may also be off and it requires a higher level.

Perception is mostly a useless skill (unlike in MM7). There is a room inside a later dungeon which actually requires perception though. It has a message which says "Expert perception is the key". Level 8 normal should work, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was a hard check for expert skill. Other than that dungeon perception basically only increases chances of getting gems from crystals instead of the "useless crystal" message.

>>6194160
If you want upgrades you should play the PCE version.
You can't create your own characters either but since the party has everything you need, you don't have to.
Otherwise you can also play the Macintosh port.

>>6194160
>>6194584
Is it worth it to even play the first two games or should I just skip to 3?
I was fine mapping my way in Sorpigal until somehow a room to the west warped me to a new place without even telling me and then a bunch of gnomes somehow were faster than me and destroyed my party before I even had a turn.

>>6195136
1 is my favorite M&M game. 3 onward became too casualized and 2 is an unbalanced mess with everything dialed up to 11.
There aren't many teleporters in M&M1, you probably fell down to the cavern. You get Location as a level 1 spell so you should be able to pinpoint your location and map accordingly.

>>6195143
Would you approve the use of programs like this?

https://www.eskimo.com/~edv/lockscroll/WhereAreWe/

>enemies give 40ish exp. points
This is going to take a while.

>>6196618
That looks terrible, full of spoilers and information you shouldn't have and it restricts you to the IBM versions.
The thing about manual mapping is that you don't have to enter each square.
M&M1 is easy to map. The normal maps don't have wraparound, spinners, teleporters or whatnot. If you can't even finish that without cheating, how are you doing to handle more difficult mazes?

>>6197004
>QoL bad, tedium good
It shows you nothing that you haven't found yet. You still have to explore the maps, still have to fight, still have to find items and sidequests, etc.
At most it saves you some menu navigation.
Give the program a try before shitting on it, it works with the GOG versions.

>>6197104
The gog versions are just the IBM ones bundled with an old version of DOSbox.
This is akin to playing with multiple walkthroughs open.
>It shows you nothing that you haven't found yet.
>refrain from being quested by the false King Alamar
Don't play M&M1 if you can't play it without training wheels. Stick to Xeen if you want baby games but even they might be too demanding for you.

>>6197165
>QoL bad, tedium good
I'll play whichever way gives me the most fun. No one is the objective owner of the one "right" way to play.

>>6197198
Nothing about that is quality of life. It's plain cheating and the one your are cheating is yourself. You might as well use an editor to increase your stats.

>>6168650
7 is worse than 6 in about every way

>>6197198
Are you >>6196618?

>>6197209
So what info is there that could be considered cheating? Knowing how much HP and SP you have left is cheating? Automapping while the map is still blank is cheating? Not wasting time and graph paper with failed maps is cheating? This isn't 1970's anymore. The genre implemented automapping and legend icons for a reason.

>>6197198
Automating parts of actual gameplay is not "qol". Just like being told who the killer is before you read a mystery novel is not "qol".

>>6197917
Are you seriously comparing spoiling the end with just a program drawing a map for you AS YOU EXPLORE IT yourself? The only difference between the program and mapping yourself if the lack of potential mistakes and time wasted for that. The program isn't outright giving you the full map from the get go or pointing you with huge arrows where to go like Skyrim, it's literally just having a map on a screen rather than paper. Not every person has the same great orientation skills as you and that's ok.

>>6197910
Listing all available quests is cheating.
Showing every possible info about enemies and the map is cheating.
Go play the Mac version if you want more party infos than the IBM one.
If you fail maps in M&M1 there's something wrong with you.

>>6197957
I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a window showing all the quests from the get go, at least not the ones I haven't found but I'll take your word for it.

>>6197957
>listing all available quests
Source?

>>6168736
>The tunnels to Nighon, I must have save scummed a hundred times getting past one guy
Ahahah, yes. There's that one Behemoth in a narrow tunnel. I sat there for like an hour waiting for him to path his way out of mine

>>6198075
Look at this shit.
Quests are the main aspect of M&M1. You can only have a single quest active at the time to the point that you need a spell to end one if you can't fulfill it.

>>6198085
The majority of those windows you have open are optional. I do however wish there was some sort of option to display nothing but the map and party info, seeing your enemies' stats is a bit much imo

>>6198084
I think that was LITERALLY the same for me

>>6197921
Mapping by hand is a completely different feeling than using an automap. With an automap you just walk around until you filled all the blanks, you don't actually think or reflect about what you see and what you've mapped so far.
You can no longer get lost and the Location spell loses its function.
You can also use savestates if you can't handle making mistakes but it's still wrong.

>>6198587
Why would I want to get lost and waste time in a failed map in first place? Sure you must hate games like Legend of Grimrock 2 to death if you think automaps are so bad.
Are you a gaming amish or something?

>>6198587
I want to beat the games before I die of old age. Stop gatekeeping.

>>6198676
>muh gatekeeping
ok cheater

>>6198746
Ok boomer (literally)

>>6198746
Are you, dare I say, jealous because you didn't have these kind of tools and help back then, gramps?

>>6198787
>jealous
>of being too dumb to beat the game without cheats
sure thing kiddo

>>6198791
Are you still this hard pressed to think automaps and quicker reference to your HP and spells is cheating?
Whatever boomer, I'm not gonna let a literal who from an IB tell me his way is the right way to play.
Stay seethed :)

>>6198787
I played the game in 2015.

>>6198673
Why would you want a party wipe and lose hours of progress?
Later games offered multiple save slots and autosaves so surely there's nothing wrong with save stating in a game that only saved when you entered an inn.

>>6168650
haven't played 6 but yeah
7>8
8 is just more of the same, dont play it immediately or you are gonna get burnt out of the genre

Is there a complete guide on how to install Roland emulator/libraries for the GOG versions of M&M3/4/5 DOSBox? I'm tired of the same old SBPro renditions.

>>6200541
-'Obtain' Sound Canvas VA plugin
-Load that VST up with FalcoSoft midiplayer
-Download loopMIDI, this allows you to create a virtual MIDI port that dosbox can route to
-Run dosbox, use 'MIXER /LISTMIDI' command (you'll see the port loopMIDI is presenting along with a number)
-Run dosbox options (or manually open .conf file), edit midiconfig=x where 'x' is the number of that port, leave mididevice=default

Since you're running GOG versions, make sure you're editing the dosbox .conf file included in those packages and not your standalone dosbox install (if you have one).

That's it, viola you're done. I recommend the SC-88 Pro sound map (you can change sound maps in the SCVA plugin by clicking 'ALL' button and then arrows). I see on torrentz2.eu there's 'R2R audio software collection' or something like that, which has Sound Canvas VA in it.

If you need more help just ask me here. It's really not that hard to set up, and the end result is great.

>>6198097
Perhaps you could slide that window down so that the enemy stats remain off-screen?

>>6201215
Thanks man, I'll try it this way. I'm tired of hearing the same farty synth I did back nearly 25 years ago.

>>6176492
3x Sorc 1x Cleric arguably 3x Sorc 1x Druid for GM alchemy in MM7

>>6176492
Followers depends how hard you want to cheese shit, but something along the lines of scholar/merchant/gate master especially if it's MM6

>>6184283
>I think I'm gonna get 6 with that "Grayface" mod, so I can enable full mouse look
This is cheating, ywn know the true power of mowing down Sorpigal goblins with bows in real time at level 3

>>6202172
Don't bows autotarget anyway?