Tips for beginners

[Kln95130]

Hello, Wizardry veterans.

I have always been curious about the series, and I feel like this game would be the perfect opportunity to try it.
I have played a little of Wizardry 8, but am otherwise a complete stranger to the series.

Is there tips or things that a beginner should know before venturing into the maze ?

[Daemon_Master]

Have a read on 'optimal' party builds online, realise that there are some differences from the Apple II and PC/NES versions (Lords and such).

Don't rest in the Inn anywhere other than the stables. The game features an ageing mechanic and resting at the Inn (other than stables) will take months at a time and age you out quickly. Pop down the dungeons stairs and do the remainder of your resting there.

I'm assuming the Apple version is the same as PC in this regards, the game saves when you LEAVE the dungeon not when you enter. After doing a lot of resting and shopping, I'd often enter the dungeon and leave immediately to save the state. When dying in a dungeon the old trick was to reboot the machine and you'd be back in town rather than dead at the bottom of the dungeon. I've not played this remake (yet) but if it doesn't feature save states or save games, you'll probably want to ALT-F4 if things start looking grim.

To begin with 'nibble'. By that I mean, enter, head down the right/eastern passage, look for a single fight. (Hopefully) win and then get the heck out. Repeat. To begin with it's very slow progress. You don't have the hit points or the healing capacity to venture too far beyond the first couple of rooms to begin with.

Never equip anything without identifying it, gear can be cursed.

There's more tips/pointers for when you get further down in the dungeon and your characters advance several levels, but that should get you started.

Oh, I know this remake features some kind of minimap or automap, but honestly the maps aren't that big and you WILL be moving at a slow pace, so consider self mapping for a bit of fun, it's how the games was originally intended.

[Kln95130]

Thanks. I just lost my mage to an exploding chest, so I guess it's the perfect timing for restarting things properly. :-p

Is there ranged weapons or weapons with "reach" in this game ?

[Daemon_Master]

No ranged weapons apart from a 'Shuriken' which you wont get for a very long time. So ideally three melee and three casters.

As for chests - I typically would have my Rogue inspect the chest AND my priest cast 'CALFO'. If they come back with the same result then I'd have the Rogue disarm the trap. If the results differed I'd either go with the CALFO if it was a fairly harmless trap OR just completely leave the thing alone if it was a nasty trap.

Again, I'm not sure (as I haven't played this remake yet) if it supports Save Games or not, but if it's true to the original game you can terminate the program and fire it back up. You'll lose whatever loot and XP you might have gained on that run but at least you'll be alive and in town.

[Strauss]

I'm personally more familiar with the Wizardry/Wiz-like games that were developed in Japan, (such as Elminage), but an easy habit to learn is to hit confirm on every wall you come across if you don't want to use MILWA to find hidden doors. In this remake, I noticed walls that had hidden doors will visibly have bricks shifting in place, so you can keep an eye for that visual cue, too.

[Kln95130]

Originally posted by Daemon_Master:

No ranged weapons apart from a 'Shuriken' which you wont get for a very long time. So ideally three melee and three casters.

This remake's starting party gives you a thief in the back row. Should I switch him out for another class, then?

[Running_Man]

The problem with Thief class is they can't wear decent armor so they're squishy as front line fighters. I'm going to try to convert my back row thief to Ninja at some point to make her more viable as a combatant. For now she's just a freeloader that occasionally picks a chest.

[Maeth]

Damn, no ranged weapons for my thief ? Guess he will just chill in the back and open chests then

[BiffMan]

I usually run thief in the back and cleric in front until you have enough levels/gear to swap them without constant fear of imminent thief death.

Related, my thief is traditionally named '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥' as in "Great, time to go resurrect ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ again."

[Tony]

I do:

Fighter/Fighter/Priest/Thief/Bishop/Wizard. It’s not the only way to go - many people think thieves are useless, and three fighters is pretty strong too.

Don’t waste time with random stats trying for “perfect” characters. Their level ups will bump attributes enough.

Anybody below third level should be considered expendable and not worth resurrecting.

Have two full parties worth of characters and cycle through them so you always have replacements of roughly the same level on hand.

The real game is the exploration, mapping, collecting key items. Once you’ve mapped everything you realize the characters are just tools in your kit towards that. I’d actually recommend at least trying to map by hand at the start even if an auto map is available. It really was a key component of how the game was designed, and you’ll get to know the maze *very* well.

Find Murphy’s Ghost in the first level. He’s always in the same place, respawns, gives insane xp and barely hurts you. He’s there to grind fresh characters back up to a usable level.

[Kln95130]

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I am currently on floor two, so I would say "so far so good" :-)

A lot of the stat complexity went away, when I realized that stats were maxed at 18, so I could quickly max a class's main stat then take care of the others.
What is the max level a party usually reaches, by the end of the game? Around 15? 20?

[Haggleman]

Originally posted by Kln95130:

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I am currently on floor two, so I would say "so far so good" :-)

A lot of the stat complexity went away, when I realized that stats were maxed at 18, so I could quickly max a class's main stat then take care of the others.
What is the max level a party usually reaches, by the end of the game? Around 15? 20?

I forget what the level is but you want a lot of high level spell slots for your spell casters for the final dungeon. The boss can be very tough depending on how many flunkies he has with him.

(If you have an Evil party you could also roll a Thief in to a Ninja and hope for a lucky critical strike!)

[Tony]

Originally posted by Kln95130:

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I am currently on floor two, so I would say "so far so good" :-)

A lot of the stat complexity went away, when I realized that stats were maxed at 18, so I could quickly max a class's main stat then take care of the others.
What is the max level a party usually reaches, by the end of the game? Around 15? 20?

Around 13 - possibly up to 15.

[Baf]

Level 13 is the point where you can learn the highest level of spells. I'd call it the absolute minimum you should have before attempting the endgame.

[Rik]

There are a ton of bugs in the original Apple version. We don’t know what they fixed in the remake.
Do 1-2 fights and exit until you’re level 5 or so. Then go find Murphy’s ghost and grind it.
The next step is being strong enough to tackle the mini boss fight of level 4. Which you’ll grind for a while until you’re strong enough to hit the main boss directly. Floors 5-9 are useless iirc. Frankly the original game is really short, and if you start with a very strong party you can win the game in about 20 seconds.

[Tony]

Originally posted by Rik:

There are a ton of bugs in the original Apple version. We don’t know what they fixed in the remake.
Do 1-2 fights and exit until you’re level 5 or so. Then go find Murphy’s ghost and grind it.
The next step is being strong enough to tackle the mini boss fight of level 4. Which you’ll grind for a while until you’re strong enough to hit the main boss directly. Floors 5-9 are useless iirc. Frankly the original game is really short, and if you start with a very strong party you can win the game in about 20 seconds.

It’s always bothered me that they had to wait so long on a Pascal runtime before shipping but didn’t spend that time making the back half of the maze any fun or even relevant.