Might and Magic 7

I can't say combat gets any less either. Combat is the primary focus of the game. The variety of builds is what makes the combat so fun, at least for me. I love all the steps necessary to win fights easily. I'll always buff my party right at the entrance, using the longer lasting spells outside. So I'll cast fire aura on any weapon that isn't enchanted, throw up whichever protection spells I've learned (bless, heroism, stoneskin, shield, etc), then enter the dungeon and cast wizard eye, torchlight, and other navigatiing type spells. It's very rare for creatures to make it all the way to my party before reaching a horrible death

I currently don't have a lot of buff spells to play around with, so that might be the issue. I'm just brute forcing myself through things. I'll go out and buy some more buff spells and other things to play around with, and give the game one more chance.

It's great to finish where you're at first though. Kill the trogs (don't forget to heal for cheap at the temple just outside the dungeon), and then sell your junk at Stone City. You can use a merchant and trader for more dough. Travel back to Harmondale and make sure to get Fire Aura for your mage. If you want to make a quick trip to get them up to expert in fire magic, your bows will do even more damage with Fire Aura on them. I'll put where to do this behind this cute little spoiler tag:

If you have the funds, raise your priest to expert Spirit Magic in Harmondale and be sure to buy Heroism and Bless, if you don't have them yet. These 3 spells will make average combats simple. Only boss-type monsters will give you any pause. Extra buffs make it simpler but Fire Aura, Bless, Heroism is a very potent combination.

Thanks, that did quite a lot for the game! I'm still not quite sold on the game, but at least it is more fun now. I'll continue to play for a while, and see how much the game is able to grow on me.

Thanks for your help crpgnut, but I think I'll have to drop this one. While there is so much to like about these games (character customization, plenty of spells, large worlds and so on), I just can't get past the fact that I don't at all feel engaged during combat.

No problem. Many people love Gothic, and I just don't get it. It's okay if someone doesn't love one of my favorites

Originally Posted by crpgnut
It's okay if someone doesn't love one of my favorites

No, it's not. He shall be dragged to the town square where he will be stoned to death.

Do what I do: Play it realtime. Makes kiting monsters around so much easier. The only problem in the troglodyte cave is a bunch of oozes, as they can only be harmed by elemental attacks. Just run around them for now, they're so slow they can't really do anything as long as you avoid them.

Ewww! I hate realtime in MM7, but Fnord might like it. I only realtime the easiest encounters as I almost always play magic parties and like the ability to change spells every round if I feel like it.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Many people love Gothic, and I just don't get it.

I've always known you were special. Kind of like my cousin Bobo.

This is the second time I'm threatened to be stoned/lynched for my opinions on the M&M series

I tried both, and real time worked well for very simple encounters, but it just left two of my characters relatively useless, and it felt less tactical than turnbased.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I've always known you were special. Kind of like my cousin Bobo.

I'm not sure what it is about Gothic. My guess is that I don't create a character, I play one assigned to me. I didn't like the Nameless One or Unknown Freak or whatever either, from Torment. However, I enjoyed JC Denton and Adam Jensen? from Deus Ex. Story games are normally a miss for me. I think because there was so much action in Deus Ex, I was able to forgive the story. Dragon Age didn't work for me either, so I guess I need to be the writer in my games. That's why Bethesda games work so well for me, there really isn't a strong story.

You're not the first to suggest that perhaps I rode a shorter bus than most folks, JDR.

I'm having a little trouble over here. How exactly do I level up? I found some horseshoes and they give me skill points that I can use to increase my other skills. I made fire and air level 2 on my mage. However, the characters are still level 1 even though I have a lot of XP. (if I click my xp it says "Eligible to train level 5).

edit: I suppose leveling up skills differs from leveling up the char. just like in HOMM 3 of ex, but how exactly do I level up my char and skills?

Every major city has trainers. You need to pay them and u get skill points for every level.

Then you need a certain amount of points in a skill to go from basic to expert to master and then grandmaster. Most of the time you would need to do the promotion quests for your characters to train from expert to higher.

So look for a building with a sign with a bunch of red circles. It's suppose to look like a target fr shooting arrows.

Yep, what Pladio said. If you're on Emerald Isle the training place is on the slope of the hill leading up to the guilds. If you're already in Harmondale it is just south of the temple, across the street from the potion shop/magic shop.

If you're playing MM6 it's on the western end of New Sorpigal, IIRC.

Originally Posted by Fnord
Thanks for your help crpgnut, but I think I'll have to drop this one. While there is so much to like about these games (character customization, plenty of spells, large worlds and so on), I just can't get past the fact that I don't at all feel engaged during combat.

You should try World of Xeen if you don`t care about graphics. There are a lot more puzzles there and combat doesn`t feel like endless quest. And play CD version of the game with full speech.

Originally Posted by Dark Savant
You should try World of Xeen if you don`t care about graphics. There are a lot more puzzles there and combat doesn`t feel like endless quest. And play CD version of the game with full speech.

I have played through VoX (though sadly not the CD version), and I really liked it. If it had not been for that game, I would probably not have tried to get into M&M 7 in the first place, considering how boring I found M&M 6 to be.

I'm glad I have at least played Word of Xeen. If I don't get time enough to play the others, it sounds like I made the right choice.

It all comes down to personal preference. I found M&M 6-7 far more to my liking than the earlier titles.

Endless spawns of combat are game killers for me. At least in WoX the combat was fast.