Might & Magic X Teased by Ubisoft, To Be Revealed at PAX East

[Gorgon]

Ohh. Yeah I had a hunter on the game I gave up on, spear is very useful. I don't remember where I got the relic spear, but I bought one in a store that was better. More damage vs the relic which had bonuses that weren't essential.

[Humanoid]

Yeah, for the shrines, each corresponds to a day of the week, the day being named very similarly to the god that the shrine is dedicated to. Can be done in any order except that the final one, the one near the Forge, must be done last. The reward is a relic armour, heavy armour I think?

 

The best weapon in the game are randomly generated ones with the Relentless tag, which gives them an extra swing. Didn't find any myself, probably would involve a bit of camping outside weapon vendors.

 

The extra swing from the Dual Wield skill is at Grandmaster. Barbarians can't GM it.

[Keyrock]

Woot!  Got my Hunter upgraded to Marauder.  The harpoon ability is what I was mostly eyeing, but dang, the snare ability does pretty crazy damage.  It's going to be great against advancing melee enemies.

[Gorgon]

Discovered an unlimited money bug. It was supposed to have been fixed, but it works for me. Not going to tempt you with a spoiler. 

[Keyrock]

Went up another level and scooped up spear grandmaster for my Marauder, then headed to the Supreme Temple of Meow.  So far it's been Elite Shadow Panthers (piece of cake), Elite Rakshasa (relatively easy), and Elite Manticores (slightly dangerous).  Nothing really hard so far, the Manticores can do massive damage if the critical on their special attack, but other than that, nothing to really worry about.  Not at level 22, anyway.  I'm not that deep into it yet, though, so it may well get much harder.

[LadyCrimson]

I am told Meow was in the very first game, so they've come full circle I guess. There's also been Eep and Yak along the way.

I remember the temple of Eep in 8 (I think it was in an area that wasn't too hard to get to early-ish). I don't remember the others from the later games tho. But as usual, I don't often pay attention to/remember names. I also had no clue it was some kind of tradition...just that it was a weird dungeon where one found ... cheese. Heh.

[Humanoid]

Baa was pretty prominent, yeah, spanning two games. But they were well integrated into the game and didn't seem out of place, as opposed to the current free-DLC type implementation.

 

I get that they want to be a lot more serious in the new setting, but eh, their attempts, earnest as they may be, are rather dull. And it makes the heavy reuse of the classic names feel a bit out of place. Sure, it's nice to see references to famous characters like Maximus, Kastore, Crag Hack, Kastore, Kilburn, Haart, etc, but many of them are both very prominent characters in the game but bear no resemblance to their predecessors in anything but their names and (sometimes) portraits. And in puts some weird preconceptions into play - like half-expecting Lord Haart to turn out to be a secret necromancer when you get sent on a quest to find him.

 

Another old thing I wish they had retained was the animated frames from the old 2D engine. Back then, one of the gargoyle or whatevers that looked like frame decoration would animate if you were near a secret door for example, which is a handy visual cue. In the current game, all you get is one of your characters barking something like "hmm" or "what's that?", which is both unreliable and prone to getting turned off because their regular speech is annoyingly repetitive.

 

Hint: Don't select the cynical voice in the current game, unless you want to hear the "who forgot to take a bath?" line every dozen steps or so.

[Giantevilhead]

Ubisoft should definitely fire the producer(s) who's trying to turn this franchise into A Song of Fire and Ice or Malazan Book of the Fallen. George RR Martin has more talent in his little finger than the people who are writing the lore for the Ubisoft M&M universe. I think if they had spent that time on the actual game and fixing the bugs, it could have turned out much better. The same goes for the last two Heroes games.

[Humanoid]

I feel the same, but am not so sure that it would have really impacted development all that much, for much of the game they seemed happy to just pay lip service to the setting, and the more finicky stuff probably happened post-review. The long-winded intro for example seems to be as much a post-hoc add-on when a suit somewhere cried out "this game isn't selling our new setting enough!"

[Hurlshort]

Oddly enough, I own the last few HoMM but just never got into them.  I usually end up playing King's Bounty whenever I want that fix.  Storywise, I'm enjoying it in Might and Magic.  Nothing groundbreaking, but it has kept my interest.  

 

I explored Karthak today, but I still haven't seen The Crag.  Almost up to level 20.

[Giantevilhead]

I feel the same, but am not so sure that it would have really impacted development all that much, for much of the game they seemed happy to just pay lip service to the setting, and the more finicky stuff probably happened post-review. The long-winded intro for example seems to be as much a post-hoc add-on when a suit somewhere cried out "this game isn't selling our new setting enough!"

 

It wouldn't have any huge impacts but they could have saved some money and spent it on improving some of the game's features and hiring more game testers.

 

 

Oddly enough, I own the last few HoMM but just never got into them.  I usually end up playing King's Bounty whenever I want that fix.  Storywise, I'm enjoying it in Might and Magic.  Nothing groundbreaking, but it has kept my interest.  

 

I explored Karthak today, but I still haven't seen The Crag.  Almost up to level 20.

 

The King's Bounty games are certainly much better polished than the last few Heroes games. Although, Heroes 5 ended up being a pretty good game after they fixed most of its problems after the last expansion. Heroes 6 could have been pretty decent but Ubisoft decided to end support of the game even though it still has some big bugs and optimization issues.

[Humanoid]

 

Spears aren't two handed though. No two handed requirement on them. (doesn't make sense, but what does ?) So looks like you wasted a lot of points

Spears are two-handed and do benefit from the two-handed skill.  Also, they are awesome.  The biggest downside to spears is that you can't train to expert level until Seahaven.

 

Where do you get the relic spear?

 

It's reported now that it only mostly works. Specifically, the Master bonus of 2H does not work. That is, you don't get the bonus 0.1% crit chance per point of Destiny.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I've passed Act II with my first party: freemage, two dualwielders and a defender taunt tank. For the U-points I got I merrily redeemed the Meow dungeon. What's not to like? I love new content, I love cats, I love rakshasas!

 

Interestingly, my melee-based party is shaping up. I'm not sure they can match my magic-using party when they reach like level 20, but they are dishing out much more damage now that they are masters in the right skills and have one or two relics to play with.

I really liked the mood in Lost City, and all the weird interconnections going on down there.

Thanks to Humanoid's tip, I modded in that relic dagger that Jassad should have given the party. I just made it so that Indril in Seahaven gave it to me instead when I finished the Fallen Star-quest. And yet another thank you to Humanoid for warning us about the risk of missing shards in Lost City. Even if one really OCDs over them tiles, it so easy to miss one, especially in multi-coloured dungeons.

 

Overall, I think M&M X Legacy is a pretty great slomo ARPG with a decent story and quite some size to it. I would rank this game higher than Kingdoms of Amalur, Diablo 3, Torchlight 2, and Wizardry 8, which are the ones I've played recently that in some weird way can be compared to it. Sure, I have many more hours invested in D3, but it has that feverish arcade game feel going for it, with the hope of finding some upgrade to an everlasting killing spree machine (your pc). I think that despite its shortcomings, it has atmosphere and nostalgia in spades, and the other games I mentioned can't match it there. I wish there were even more viable character builds and more classes, though, even skills. Sure, it's repetitive at times, and often predictable, but it's nice and cosy to play, with a solid barebones version of a CRPG. it also shows that the grid-, turn- and party-based CRPG is far from dead. I'd love to see more of Might & Magic in this shape and form, just improved overall.

[Keyrock]

 

 

Spears aren't two handed though. No two handed requirement on them. (doesn't make sense, but what does ?) So looks like you wasted a lot of points

Spears are two-handed and do benefit from the two-handed skill.  Also, they are awesome.  The biggest downside to spears is that you can't train to expert level until Seahaven.

 

Where do you get the relic spear?

 

It's reported now that it only mostly works. Specifically, the Master bonus of 2H does not work. That is, you don't get the bonus 0.1% crit chance per point of Destiny.

 

That sucks.  Hopefully they patch it before I hit master (I'm expert now) with my Marauder.

 

Edit:  There is a way to fix this bug by simply editing a file.  If Limbic doesn't fix this by the time I get master Two-Handed (and I plan to), then I'll fix it myself.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Keyrock

[Gorgon]

Where can you see your crit chances with various weapons equipped. do you mouse over something ?

[Keyrock]

Where can you see your crit chances with various weapons equipped. do you mouse over something ?

I don't think that shows up when you mouse over weapons.  I think you have to swap the weapon and change to the combat tab to look up the crit chance with each weapon.

 

Cleared out The Supreme Temple of Meow.  The boss battle with Kilrath took me 2 tries.  He hits really hard with melee and does a AoE lightning attack, so make sure you can cast air ward or visit an air ward shrine before you face him.  Beyond that, it's a battle where you're constantly healing yourself and protecting yourself.  He generally takes down Celestial Armor down in one round, unless you happen to dodge or block, so I found myself casting that almost every round.  He's immune to poison and mind attacks, so the best I could do was acid spray him, shatter his armor, and just whittle away at his health.  You get a bunch of coin (my party has more money than I know what to do with at this point) as well as some magic items.  No relics and nothing too spectacular.  It's worth it for the experience you pick up along the way mostly.

Edited February 5, 2014 by Keyrock

[IndiraLightfoot]

Alright, I just can't find the quest that promotes my dwarven defender. I have grand master in Shield, but when I go to Sorli, he just says "you are not promoted". I can find the shield gm trainer too (Kilburn), but nothing triggers a quest that gets the whole thing going. What gives?

[Humanoid]

The game just expects you to stumble into your class promotion quest during the course of playing. You need to be promoted before being able to GM any skill. But the quest starter is:

 

Hedwig, in the inn just outside Karthal

 

 

 

A few, but far from all GM trainers also have their own quests you need to complete before they'll train you in that particular skill. The arcane discipline one is a particularly big offender in its stupidity.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Humanoid

[IndiraLightfoot]

Humanoid: Yet again my wonderful helping hand! Thanks a bunch!

And wouldn't you know, I'm like ten tiles from there right now, so it all seems fair enough now.

[Keyrock]

Snare is so awesome.  I don't get to use it that often because you need at least 2 squares between yourself and the enemy to make it work, but when I do get a chance it makes me smile.  My favorite thing to do in those situations is to drop a snare, back up a square, have my Shaman drop a Poison Cloud over the square with the snare on it just before the enemies get there, then the next turn the enemies move into the square, get poisoned, take earth damage, the snare goes off, does usually about 180 damage to the poor saps, and reduces their number of attacks by one.  Good times.

 

I wonder if I can get harpoon and snare to work together.  Drop a snare on the ground then harpoon a mage into it (as a bonus, a mage would likely take more damage from the snare because less armor).  The only problem with that is that the round spent dropping the snare at my feet might be better spent moving a square over, around the corner of something to get out of the line of fire.  If I had 2 Marauders then I could do it all in one round.  Maybe this is something to consider if I wind up making an all orc party.  Or I could do 2 snares at the same time.  Good gravy, that would be awesome.

Edited February 6, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I got my Shield Guard promotion.  Cyclopses (Cyclopi?) are laughably easy at level 24.  I pretty much crushed them beneath my boot.  Is it just me, or is the boss Cyclops actually easier than the regular ones?  He barely put a scratch on me.

[Humanoid]

Can't say I could tell because I it was forever after the cave cyclops that I found any other ones - primarily because I missed getting both the Water and Air shards when I was supposed to due to inadequate pixel-hunting skills. But I've heard that the purely physical damage cyclops do is relatively easily overcome by sheer armour rating, and that Defenders can reasonably early get to a point where they are completely immune to cyclops (cyclopi?). Not necessarily a good idea to solo them due to the silly XP lockout system, but still, an amusing thought - cyclops wailing uselessly at a little dwarf, the dwarf in return mostly whiffing at thin air and getting blocked but slowly landing enough hits to kill it. I've heard a few reports of people describing their first kill of the cave cyclops working out like that.

 

I assume the hunter trap works like the rune priest's fire rune thing? I've, erm, managed to burn myself a few times with that spell, sometimes due to oversight, sometimes due to inexplicable (buggy?) placement.

[Keyrock]

The boss cyclops was such a chump.  I think he only managed to hit any of my characters once and Celestial Armor just laughed at that.  I hit him up with poison cloud, acid splash, shatter, and agony, then just ripped him to shreds.  At one point late in the fight he stone skinned himself.  I must laughed at him as I purged the effect off him.  Purge is such a great spell.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

Woot!  Promoted my Shaman to Bloodcaller.  He's almost never going to need to drink a mana potion again. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

I got my Shield Guard promotion.  Cyclopses (Cyclopi?) are laughably easy at level 24.  I pretty much crushed them beneath my boot.  Is it just me, or is the boss Cyclops actually easier than the regular ones?  He barely put a scratch on me.

I agree. I first took out the dangerous cave Cyclops with a level 15 party, and it was pretty hard (for my party, at least). Then one or two levels later I met two in a certain warfare challenge, and they seemed much harder.

Edited February 7, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot