Might and Magic 7 focused fire issue

Due to GOG releasing Might and Magic 1-6, I recently became excited about another playthrough of the series. All was well until I reached #7. Since GOG has not released a “fixed” version of this one, I had to load from my original disks. The vanilla version does not play friendly with Win 7 so I located and installed the 2 patches that would force comradery between the two. Combined with some minor adjustments in the Compatibility settings, I finally got the program to run. My party has now achieved level 7 but I have noticed a HUGE bug that will make the game extremely difficult to complete. Every creature of the same type (rat, bandit, etc) will only attack a single party member – usually my Cleric. It’s as if the whole animal kingdom held a meeting with the world of evil-doers and came up with the brilliant strategy that eludes most groups in MMORGs today – kill the healer first!

I have attempted to uninstall and reinstall the game and patches but that did not work. Has anyone else experienced this or have any ideas as to what is happening?


P.S. @ dte: Is your avatar going through some sort of mid-post crisis and trying to decide what it wants to be?

Have you tried GrayFace´s patch?
(http://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm)

There actually was some of that "targetting" designed into the original game (the first and fourth characters were targetted slightly more starting in MM6, but MM7 introduced a little under-the-hood "favorite class to attack" angle to the monsters, IIRC), although it sounds like you've got a highly caffeinated version of it going on. As DeepO linked, you might try GrayFace's patch, but I can't say I've seen or heard of this particular issue before. Let us know how it turns out.

As to the avatar, I've got about a dozen that I switch among when the mood strikes me. The one I tried for a day recently didn't work out since you couldn't read the text ("I appreciate the Muppets on a much deeper level than you"). I made the current one back during my Plants Vs. Zombies addiction, and when I dumped the t-shirt experiment one of my girls told me in no uncertain terms that this was the right avatar to go with. She'd just gotten in trouble over her homework, but I'm certain that had absolutely no impact on her selection.

All this was without doubt fixed in MM…., MMI…..

Sorry, I can't make myself say it, even as a joke. Outside the P&R section this site is (usually) polite. So I won't mention the you-know-what (No, not Voldemort), the MM that shall not be mentioned.

Stop right there, mister. Put those discs on the ground and then put your hands on your head.

First of all, I would like to thank you for all the replies and laughs. It's nice to be able to have a location where help is actually given along with a laid back atmosphere.

I apologize for not listing which patches I had (the official v1.1 and then Mok's). I had never been introduced to GrayFace's "everything in one" package - thank you, DeepO, for making the acquaintance!

So I wiped the slate clean and reinstalled with GrayFace's patch and then replaced my save games. Loaded up my most recent save and BAM! my cleric becomes an immediate pincushion for a group of bandits while the rest of the party point and giggle. I then reloaded different save games going backwards in time and found one (the first save game I still have) where the attacks do hit other members. Perhaps something corrupted my game and I've perpetuated the corruption in each save since?

<sigh> Time to either start over, try Drakensang:tRoT or skip ahead two games in the series where everything is fixed and then aid pibbur in his struggle for rights of free Hastur speech. Down with the (greenish, homework tyrant, Southern-US tooth job) man!

With a Wiz8 toon for an avatar, you clearly deserve all available assistance.

Is it always the cleric that gets hammered, or does the victim of choice change from battle to battle? If you've got time to kill, it might be interesting to see what happens once the cleric does the big sleep. Do the monsters pick a new victim to gang-tackle, or do they think the battle is over (I'm thinking a corrupt save could have the monsters thinking your other party members are dead when they do their targetting calc)?

Although starting over kinda sucks, I'd highly recommend it. Other than Wiz8, MM7 is the best game evah. Well worth a headache or two, if I do say so. Quite unlike that travesty pibbur nearly mentioned...

Sersanah said:

... aid pibbur in his struggle for rights of free Hastur speech. Down with the (greenish, homework tyrant, Southern-US tooth job) man!

Click to expand...

No need to worry. I knew what I was doing, and the response was ... expected. You might call it self-inflicted injury.

But thanks for your support.

@dte

The cleric is almost always the one that takes the pain. The only exceptions were (1) Lightning Rats always hit my ranger and (2) all spirits, ghosts, etc targeted my mage. My rogue was never touched.

After the main target would die, random targeting would occur. I even attempted this to see if it would reset but each time the dead target was rezzed they would become the focus again.

It's great to find someone who feels that way about Wiz8. That game has turned sooooo many of my real-time hours into joyous turn-based moments.

I know you hate it, but I would still prefer the condemned 9th installment over some of the new stuff like ME2 or Borderlands.


@pibbur

My walking feet may fail with arch support but my typing fingers can always provide anarch support!

To rate Wiz8 over MM7 is heresy But what do I know; I'm a Bethesda fanatic. Another question for MM7: Have you tried moving the cleric around in the party? Maybe it's the slot he's in and he might live longer in a different party order....

If that's the case, then I suppose I'm glad I was not around while the Inquisition did their questing, for I would be a heretic without equal!

Now that I've gotten all the self-namecalling out of the way, I have a serious question. How do you rearrange the party order once you start a game? I just assumed that it was static and hits were completely randomized (besides the slight variation mentioned by dte earlier in this thread).

AFAIK, you have to use a mod/trainer to alter your save file in order to change the party order. Actually, I always put the healer in position 4 anyway, rather than putting the caster over there, since the healer usually has better AC and HP. It must be a corrupt save that's causing your problems, but I'm not sure how a "mechanics parameter" like monster targetting would even be part of a save file.

Really enjoy Wiz8, eh? I've got 7 wins including an expert ironman run, 4 Rifts including a solo faerie ninja, and over 100 Arnikas. Yeah, I suppose the game's marginally OK.

dteowner said:

AFAIK, you have to use a mod/trainer to alter your save file in order to change the party order.

Click to expand...

I'm very surprised the devs overlooked that option for a game like M&M 7.

I'm a heretic too. AND my favourite MM is 4-5.

@dte

Ok, dte, you can be president of the fan club and I'll be your vice (no pun intended?). I've completed it 11 times but with no finished ironman runs - a teleportation accident after 30 hours in really brings out the b**ch in this gal, as my household found out the hard way.

100 Arnikas?!? Wow!! I only have 9 games I've started without completing - you, sir, are either a freak or a truly hardcore genesisian (whether that's a word or not is not the issue).


@JDR13

My mage, in particular, agrees with that thought. She's stuck beside the ranger who refuses to take a bath AND has grabby hands. She's tried on numerous occasions to bribe the cleric into a no-heal agreement and talked to the rogue about an "accident". All that could be avoided with a simple relocation.



@pibbur

Instead of a fan club, we can form a coven - all heretics welcome. Down with D'sparil!

I played MM7 several times but I always get stuck in places, usually in that maze with the rooms that go with roman numerals I think. Or in Celeste with those buttons that do things. I haven't played it in years though, so I might be better now, who knows ?

I do find the game to get a bit boring at some point where all you do is click on the beasts to kill them, especially when you want to get experience to level up.

There is no bug in the game that would cause such behaviour were it isn't intended. Might be your installation of course, but it's much more plausible that it's simply the ingame mechanic at work. There are three factors for monsters to decide who they will prefer to attack: class, race and gender. If several of these come together (i.e. enemies who hate both dwarves and clerics) then they will pound on that character to the exclusion of everyone else.

Sersanah said:

Ok, dte, you can be president of the fan club and I'll be your vice (no pun intended?). I've completed it 11 times but with no finished ironman runs - a teleportation accident after 30 hours in really brings out the b**ch in this gal, as my household found out the hard way.

100 Arnikas?!? Wow!! I only have 9 games I've started without completing - you, sir, are either a freak or a truly hardcore genesisian (whether that's a word or not is not the issue).

Click to expand...

I bow before an equal. 11 wins is very impressive, given the amount of time one must invest to get there. You clearly are a true Fan of the Game.

As to the final either/or, I'm not sure I can claim either option to be false. I'm guessing you'd get plenty of votes for the first choice if you asked around here much. I really enjoy putting together different parties and seeing how they gel. Normally, I hit Arnika at level 7, which is a fairly good introduction to how a party will come together. 3 of the 4 Rifts were experimental parties that I thought would be fun and seemed to be working well thru Arnika, Trynton and the Umpani/Trang thing but they just got to the point where I flat out didn't like them. I couldn't manage the commitment to push those parties thru the Rapax gauntlet, let alone Peaking.

@Pladio

Welcome to the party, oh mighty Guardian (I hope you remembered it was your turn to bring beverages). For me, the Might and Magic series has always been about the exploration over the combat; for combat I get my Wizardry fix instead. I have never actually become bored with the combat, but I've been known to entertain myself for hours with a paper clip, a strand of dental floss and a piece of Kleenex. If you have any urges to test your theory of being able to "be better now", I highly recommend it.

Btw, forgive me if this question is merely my having a blonde moment, but I was unsure of the interpretation of your title. Are you standing guard to fight against approaching nonsense or are you playing the role of protector and preserver of nonsense?


@SacredPath

Thank you for your input - I'm not sure what happened with my game. I did restart the game with the same party and those same enemies are not focussing fire like they did. Maybe it was a combination of not just class, race and gender, but also the controlling player they hated and thus ganged up to tick me off.

@dte

Due to your experience in the experimental department, not only are you president of the club, but you are also in charge of our theoretical and abstract ideas research area. But without more pay, of course.

Dte, I think we need to get this girl in our DDO party!!