What is DLAA and how does it compare to other forms of AA. MSAA x2 in this game doesn't really help
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Might & Magic X Legacy |OT| From Corak and Sheltem to Enroth and Erathia
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What is DLAA and how does it compare to other forms of AA. MSAA x2 in this game doesn't really help
Lactose_Intolerant
Member
Is Blackguards good? I heard it was very repetitive.
Before I start this, here is what for you to consider:
----------------NOTES
a. I have put ~12 hours into the game so far. A few dungeons are behind me, but I am not hasty, not trying to rush ahead, but rather complete sidequests first, and do full sweeps of the available areas before moving on.
b. My point of view: I am a HUGE Might and Magic VI fan, I replayed that game several times back in the days. However, I did not particularly enjoy MM1-5, although my exposure was very limited - got bored fast, due to graphics... yeah, I know, bad
I also did not like MM games made past 6....7 and 8 lost their charms rather quickly. Consequently, Heroes III is my favorite of that series, but I do not mind seeing 6's design pop up here.
------------AND THEN THERE WAS... LIGHT. WAIT, ARE THOSE, HEROES VI MODELS?
Where to start...where to start. Yes, the most important thing: a few minutes after staring the game, I began smiling and almost laughing like a madman. Why? Cause oldschool Might and Magic is back, that is why! It was so refreshing to be able to completely customize the starting party - and a full party at that, not just one character, of course!
MMX's structure can be described as a semi-open world RPG, where the elements that you most likely encounter repeatedly (going around cities, talking to people, picking up stuff and fighting opponents) are exactly like they were before, but it is all wrapped up in a modern, semi-handholding package. You cant rush towards the endboss, you need to -at least- complete the mainquests, and for that,
. Is it bad? Is it good? It is okay. The narrative is a little more solid this time, that is for sure. You always know what the next goal is, but you are free to wander around in optional things and in the overworld.
Characters, skills, classes: 12 classes, they said. It is basically a packaging of different options (how high your skills will be able to be trained), so before you decide that you want to do X/Y class combinations, ask this: what type of spells will you want to use? There is 6-7 different magic skills (Light, Dark, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Primordial), there are weapon skills, there are defensive skills (Elemental res skills, evasion, armor and shield skills, a weird one which combines mana gains, taunts and leadership) - and that is it.
The good: The depth is definitely there. I suspect that for endgame/high difficulty, I will need to plan ahead, not just decide randomly what to go with. Since the combat is grid-based now, the emphasis on CC is higher than ever before - but let us talk about that later. Every spell class has tons of buyable spells. 7-8+ if I counted right.
The bad: Many skills are completely missing that were great before. No Alchemy (so far), no herbalism, no diplomacy, nothing like that sort. Which means no Charisma as well, that is gone too. No penalties for having scar-faced sociopaths that cant engage a conversation with anyone!
I decided to go with this party: Druid (healing+cc), Wizard (damage spells, CC), Ranger (ranged attack for free, yo), Shaman (dunno. Spells, ofc.).
Which brings us to the aspect of the game that is going to be the most controversial one yet: the combat!
------------------------ABOUT THE COMBAT
Grid based combat+no free kiting (moving around takes one whole turn, both for you and for all enemies) means that there will be situations where you will have to just tackle the opponents head on. Bosses? Yep. But not only bossses! Sometimes, I triggered a fight where I was in a hallway, and enemies spawned before me AND behind me. 4 enemies, all close, nowhere to run. Take that, all ranged party.
The problem: at this point where I am (lv11-12 party), the CC and space control options are basically non-effective. There is a spell which is supposed to push opponents back, but not only did it never work on the one boss where I REALLY needed it to work, it rarely works on regular enemies as well. Freezing where they should not be able to move? They still move, most of the time. Maybe with more skill in those spells, and some luck, it works, but we just gotta be prepared for when it comes to melee. And mobs start hitting hard soon enough. I just encountered a Minotaur that one-shotted my Wizard who focused on Mana pool, spell power AND Hp only - heavy armor does not seem to penalize casting, only attacks, so we might be forced to go armored mode.
But beside this issue (which is: be prepared, buy all support spells - +armor, +res, +str, etc., for multiple turns), the combat is solid, and when it works, it works well. Battles are played fast, it does not get boring, the feel is exactly like old times. Except that there is much less filler this time. Dungeons are smaller - but not small! -, enemies are less in numbers, but take more than two fireballs to kill (unless you crit, hehe), and potential synergies make rarer fights more than interesting. That is, unless you are one-shotted. Have to do something about that.... sooner or later.
Grid-based movement: It does not bother me as much as I feared it would. MM6 being my main game, I though the transition would be harder, but it is not. The only problem is that textures switch and move around ALL THE TIME when I am outdoors - might be a bad setting, as I kinda put everything around low or lowest. And the angles are sometimes weird as well with grid movements, but it is not restrictive in any way. You can just go above obstacles that were real obstacles in 360 movement-type of traversing.
Content, loot, sustainability:
What will differentiate a good MMX player with a bad one is the wise usage of resources. Every zone seems to have tons of hidden goodies and
, and since you can freely rest everywhere - I have yet to be ambushed even in the middle of a nap in a not-finished dungeon -, you can gather up mana potions to use them when you REALLY need them and chainrest the rest... just not rushing and being methodical about the approach of new places helps tons. But: I am playing on "normal" (which equates to a challenging, if not TOO hard experience so far, sans oneshots), not hardest.
After 12 hours, I am around halfway in Act 1. I have already seen multiple visually different areas, an overworld that is not big or small, yet has a few sidedungeons/mini-zones/graves/chests/some fun
surprises as well. I would expect the main game to easily be 45-60 hours long when it is all said and done, or potentially more if I am being as careful as I was up till this point. It is okay. Considering this time wont be spent fighting 100 nameless nonelite mobs, but less, yet stronger enemies... good enough! And replayability will be huge, even without any mods to back it up. (Btw: I predict herbalism to be the first to come back. And the travelling circus!)
--------------SUMMARY
MM X, so far, is a GREAT experience. There are things to absolutely love (variety in skills and classes, weapon diversity, well-though out combat system, good speed, good conversations, nice humor as well, faithfulness to the roots), things to be "okay" with (all the things they needed to cut in order to be able to make this game), things to actively dislike (player grunts get boring after exactly 12 minutes. Seriously! Loading times kinda suck as well, I am not on an SSD), but this game will easily be something to consider amongst the VERY good rpg games yet to come. Unless the melee problems become more prevalent, but then we can just have a mod that fixes it for us. The core is solid enough, as it is, from what I have seen.
----------------NOTES
a. I have put ~12 hours into the game so far. A few dungeons are behind me, but I am not hasty, not trying to rush ahead, but rather complete sidequests first, and do full sweeps of the available areas before moving on.
b. My point of view: I am a HUGE Might and Magic VI fan, I replayed that game several times back in the days. However, I did not particularly enjoy MM1-5, although my exposure was very limited - got bored fast, due to graphics... yeah, I know, bad
I also did not like MM games made past 6....7 and 8 lost their charms rather quickly. Consequently, Heroes III is my favorite of that series, but I do not mind seeing 6's design pop up here. ------------AND THEN THERE WAS... LIGHT. WAIT, ARE THOSE, HEROES VI MODELS?
Where to start...where to start. Yes, the most important thing: a few minutes after staring the game, I began smiling and almost laughing like a madman. Why? Cause oldschool Might and Magic is back, that is why! It was so refreshing to be able to completely customize the starting party - and a full party at that, not just one character, of course!
MMX's structure can be described as a semi-open world RPG, where the elements that you most likely encounter repeatedly (going around cities, talking to people, picking up stuff and fighting opponents) are exactly like they were before, but it is all wrapped up in a modern, semi-handholding package. You cant rush towards the endboss, you need to -at least- complete the mainquests, and for that,
you need to find someone, and for that, you need to clear the spider-ridden dwell as well
Characters, skills, classes: 12 classes, they said. It is basically a packaging of different options (how high your skills will be able to be trained), so before you decide that you want to do X/Y class combinations, ask this: what type of spells will you want to use? There is 6-7 different magic skills (Light, Dark, Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Primordial), there are weapon skills, there are defensive skills (Elemental res skills, evasion, armor and shield skills, a weird one which combines mana gains, taunts and leadership) - and that is it.
The good: The depth is definitely there. I suspect that for endgame/high difficulty, I will need to plan ahead, not just decide randomly what to go with. Since the combat is grid-based now, the emphasis on CC is higher than ever before - but let us talk about that later. Every spell class has tons of buyable spells. 7-8+ if I counted right.
The bad: Many skills are completely missing that were great before. No Alchemy (so far), no herbalism, no diplomacy, nothing like that sort. Which means no Charisma as well, that is gone too. No penalties for having scar-faced sociopaths that cant engage a conversation with anyone!
I decided to go with this party: Druid (healing+cc), Wizard (damage spells, CC), Ranger (ranged attack for free, yo), Shaman (dunno. Spells, ofc.).
Which brings us to the aspect of the game that is going to be the most controversial one yet: the combat!
------------------------ABOUT THE COMBAT
Grid based combat+no free kiting (moving around takes one whole turn, both for you and for all enemies) means that there will be situations where you will have to just tackle the opponents head on. Bosses? Yep. But not only bossses! Sometimes, I triggered a fight where I was in a hallway, and enemies spawned before me AND behind me. 4 enemies, all close, nowhere to run. Take that, all ranged party.
The problem: at this point where I am (lv11-12 party), the CC and space control options are basically non-effective. There is a spell which is supposed to push opponents back, but not only did it never work on the one boss where I REALLY needed it to work, it rarely works on regular enemies as well. Freezing where they should not be able to move? They still move, most of the time. Maybe with more skill in those spells, and some luck, it works, but we just gotta be prepared for when it comes to melee. And mobs start hitting hard soon enough. I just encountered a Minotaur that one-shotted my Wizard who focused on Mana pool, spell power AND Hp only - heavy armor does not seem to penalize casting, only attacks, so we might be forced to go armored mode.
But beside this issue (which is: be prepared, buy all support spells - +armor, +res, +str, etc., for multiple turns), the combat is solid, and when it works, it works well. Battles are played fast, it does not get boring, the feel is exactly like old times. Except that there is much less filler this time. Dungeons are smaller - but not small! -, enemies are less in numbers, but take more than two fireballs to kill (unless you crit, hehe), and potential synergies make rarer fights more than interesting. That is, unless you are one-shotted. Have to do something about that.... sooner or later.
Grid-based movement: It does not bother me as much as I feared it would. MM6 being my main game, I though the transition would be harder, but it is not. The only problem is that textures switch and move around ALL THE TIME when I am outdoors - might be a bad setting, as I kinda put everything around low or lowest. And the angles are sometimes weird as well with grid movements, but it is not restrictive in any way. You can just go above obstacles that were real obstacles in 360 movement-type of traversing.
Content, loot, sustainability:
What will differentiate a good MMX player with a bad one is the wise usage of resources. Every zone seems to have tons of hidden goodies and
hidden rooms with stat requirements to open them
After 12 hours, I am around halfway in Act 1. I have already seen multiple visually different areas, an overworld that is not big or small, yet has a few sidedungeons/mini-zones/graves/chests/some fun
and spooky
--------------SUMMARY
MM X, so far, is a GREAT experience. There are things to absolutely love (variety in skills and classes, weapon diversity, well-though out combat system, good speed, good conversations, nice humor as well, faithfulness to the roots), things to be "okay" with (all the things they needed to cut in order to be able to make this game), things to actively dislike (player grunts get boring after exactly 12 minutes. Seriously! Loading times kinda suck as well, I am not on an SSD), but this game will easily be something to consider amongst the VERY good rpg games yet to come. Unless the melee problems become more prevalent, but then we can just have a mod that fixes it for us. The core is solid enough, as it is, from what I have seen.
Thanks for the write up! I'm hoping major review sites with old school RPG'ers on board take a crack at this game, and millennials stay far away. Hoping this and Grimrock kick off a resurgence in classic CRPGs.
Thanks for writing your impressions! I'll almost def get the game, just going to hold off until for a day or two to get some impressions on the full game - delayed review embargoes make me paranoid
Many thanks V_Arnold for that write-up! Really great praise but I hope some of those drawbacks that you noted will be fixed. That specific of a spell that didn't work as expected is the the worse for me. I understand when a spell has some restrictions to its use/effect or some enemies that have invulnerability to it but I expect the game to let me know what those restrictions are. Or is it a case of a dice roll deciding its success hit maybe? I'll play today for a bit to see for myself.
Let me just echo the thanks for your detailed impressions V_Arnold. From your description, the game seems longer than I expected it to be, particularly since I'm generally a very slow RPG player. Normally I'd just be happy about this (more of a good thing and all that), but this year it also adds to my time management issues
Well, it might be the case of resist rolls coming in to play one too often. Regardless: resist system works like this:
Every point of resist gives you 1 percent of a straight up reduction, and 0.5 percent of a chance for a full resist. Which means that with 20 points in air resist, you take 20 percent reduced damage and can avoid the spell completely with 10 percent.
My sample size is not too big so far to claim that the spell is completely broken, but since I realized it is not too reliable (and costs mana anyway), I started focusing on DPS instead. Will check them again later.
Yes, I know. Completely my fault if this fails endgame. But, I am currently in the process of....hm, how shall I put it... *hybridizing* my shaman to be be able to melee somewhat efficiently. Also, important to note that the ranger is a hybrid as well by definition: it has good melee skills tied to dagger+Warfare skills, but relies on dodge/evade instead of block/dmg reduction.
-tetsuo-
Unlimited Capacity
After 26 hours and reaching the end of chapter two my conclusion is this: ranged characters are garbage in this game. Rerolled new team, 2 melee, 2 casters
Overall impressions?
Broke down and bought this and Blackguards today. Not sure why I couldn't hold out on either but meh, 26.99 for Blackguards wasn't terrible.
Regarding this release
1. I hope to hell they really did optimize the game, with the full release tomorrow. Getting objects popping up one grid ahead of you on default setting(medium). Increasing the setting the fps bogs down in the city a lot, more so at night.
2. It's a shame there are only 13 tracks for the soundtrack, not sure if there is more in game or not, would assume so, so that's disappointing if so.
3. Mandate of Heaven, jesus is the GOG version as broken as this one? Fullscreen, turning speed is extremely high, makes it pretty much unplayable for me. You can switch to windowed, but it's a tiny ass screen and I had to drop my desktop down to 16-bit color depth for it to work. I see there is a config file, maybe I can increase the size of that window? Oh, and every time I run it, it moves icons out of place on the desktop, keep having to put them back heh.
Regarding this release
1. I hope to hell they really did optimize the game, with the full release tomorrow. Getting objects popping up one grid ahead of you on default setting(medium). Increasing the setting the fps bogs down in the city a lot, more so at night.
2. It's a shame there are only 13 tracks for the soundtrack, not sure if there is more in game or not, would assume so, so that's disappointing if so.
3. Mandate of Heaven, jesus is the GOG version as broken as this one? Fullscreen, turning speed is extremely high, makes it pretty much unplayable for me. You can switch to windowed, but it's a tiny ass screen and I had to drop my desktop down to 16-bit color depth for it to work. I see there is a config file, maybe I can increase the size of that window? Oh, and every time I run it, it moves icons out of place on the desktop, keep having to put them back heh.
Nope the GOG version is pretty much flawless.
Perhaps try installing Grayface's community patch, that might help.
So far - great, except for one weird difficulty spike that I encountered after finishing 2nd chapter which forced me to reroll. Basically all enemies that I encountered on my way to the next story location had suddenly double hp, hit like truck, etc. and I had no option to earn more xp because I killed everything else before. Really, really weird.
Codex impressions were positive, and there's a meaty demo available on Steam.
For the turn speed you need to go to options, then turn rate and set it to smooth, it should fix the the turning speed problem.
I will get this eventually, but probably not right away.
I've never played 1-5, but was a huge fan of VI. VII and VIII were fun as well, but didn't have the same flair as VI. IX I just hated.
Glad to see the impressions are relatively good so far.
My computer is pretty old now. I am running a duoCore 2.6, 3 GB RAM (I know, pitiful) and a Geforce 9500 GT. Will this be sufficient?
Also, was JVC involved with this in any way?
I've never played 1-5, but was a huge fan of VI. VII and VIII were fun as well, but didn't have the same flair as VI. IX I just hated.
Glad to see the impressions are relatively good so far.
My computer is pretty old now. I am running a duoCore 2.6, 3 GB RAM (I know, pitiful) and a Geforce 9500 GT. Will this be sufficient?
Also, was JVC involved with this in any way?
Nope, he was toiling away at EA on that F2P C&C Generals game that got shitcanned. I'm assuming he's unemployed at the moment.
StoppedInTracks
Member
After 26 hours and reaching the end of chapter two my conclusion is this: ranged characters are garbage in this game. Rerolled new team, 2 melee, 2 casters
26 hours for 2 chapters (I assume 100% everything, every side quest and square on the map) that is fantastic to hear. How many chapters are there, do you know?
Based on the number of completion icons, 4.
ambientmystic
Member
It should be at the very minimum, but you're running on the edge. And so am I, with this Core 2 laptop and a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670. Which can still surprisingly handle a butt load of the newest games at modest settings and resolutions lol. Gaming on the cheap.
Hopefully the game is a bit more optimized than it used to be during the earlier phases.
Oh, I read somewhere on the Steam forums that the game is gimped for 32bit OSes, is that right?
Steam page says "3rd-party DRM: Uplay"
It's the single thing stopping me from picking it up but I'll probably bend in the end.
ambientmystic
Member
After 26 hours and reaching the end of chapter two my conclusion is this: ranged characters are garbage in this game. Rerolled new team, 2 melee, 2 casters
Can you explain why ranged or archer is garbage?
The only thing I found was Ubi replying in the comments section of their blog post saying "morning" CET so who knows how long morning is for them and when it starts.
StoppedInTracks
Member
UPlay is not cancer, Jesus guys. Use it and then uninstall it. If this game required a fucking malware to run I'd install it inside a VirtualBox and run it nonetheless.
You can remove UPlay totally from your system you know this, right? It's not sticking forever in your PC...
I only installed it for this single game. Have no qualms about it. Will delete it after beating M&MX.
You can remove UPlay totally from your system you know this, right? It's not sticking forever in your PC...
I only installed it for this single game. Have no qualms about it. Will delete it after beating M&MX.
It's why I get annoyed that these people keep wanting to make their own services, when seemingly more often than not they run like crap and are typically redundant with Steam, and can usually go without those features if they'd rather go DRM free or allow someone else to sell it. Maybe if everyone was doing a really good job, but that's not the case. It's basically a somewhat more benevolent GFWL, except only for Ubi games. At least EA's better on the uptake of Steam's advantages.
It's now been officially released. Downloading a 3.5 gig update. I played about 5 minutes of the early release version 10 minutes ago and the performance was pretty crap (GTX 470 I5 @ 3.4ghz). Hopefully the performance will be much improved when I play it soon.
edit: Performance is much better.
edit: Performance is much better.
For people on Uplay: restarting makes the download show up immediately. And I'm actually getting 6.2 MB/s, which is my connection's maximum more or less. I always get better BW on every service that's not Steam
I just got my box a minute or so after starting the download. Really nice, paticularly the map. You can see that it was designed by someone who appreciates collecting, all the marketing stuff and ugly logos were on a sleeve which is easily removable from the box, and they are also absent from the DVD inside it.
And it arrived on the morning of the release day. Good job Ubisoft!
And it arrived on the morning of the release day. Good job Ubisoft!
For people on Uplay: restarting makes the download show up immediately. And I'm actually getting 6.2 MB/s, which is my connection's maximum more or less. I always get better BW on every service that's not Steam
Downloading right now!!
The same thing happens to me. I can download in Origin, Uplay or GOG at my connection's maximum and I can still navigate the web without problems. With Steam I don't get maximum speed and my computer gets hammered.
Awaiting your impressions/mini-review.
StoppedInTracks
Member
I understand this perfectly. But in this case I am treating UPlay as nothing more than a launcher. It's not a "Service" for me - it is a launcher for M&MX. I have 0% interest in every single feature it offers (UPlay points, Achievements?) and do not plan on using it for browsing UbiSoft store (suckers) or anything else that is not launching M&MX. Don't give two fucks about my UPlay account. I even used a throwaway email for that.
I can deal with a launcher for the moment, no problemo. Every other game has launchers: from Mass Effect to Battlefield 3/4 on the PC. Play & Uninstall, that's it.
Man, I hope my box arrives by the EOW. I want to post some high-res pics of the contents!
Guess I won't be picking this up until it goes on sale then.
Oh, it wasn't anything really bad. It was literally just a few random drops to low fps and went instantly back up, had that happen about 3 or 4 times in the good couple of hours I played it.
Box hasn't arrived yet, but I can't play it till I get home from work anyway.
loganclaws
Plane Escape Torment
Hearing all these good impressions, I just bought the game. Download just started and will be finished in 11 minutes. It's 9 gigs. I will post impressions a little later.
Yes please!!