Cheating without breaking the game.

[Drakeero]

I've always believed its possible. In some cases [such as getting around or fixing glitches caused by bugs] it can enhance the playability of the game, especially if you've already played through it a few times.

Sometimes you can cheat to make it harder like the old NES "cheats" that would decrease the number of lives you have. Anyway, I believe in cheating on games. Yes, I'll admit it. After playing through MM7 the umpteenth time, I finally grabbed a savegame editor and played around with it.

Here's some interesting things I like to do:

Sometimes, I don't entirely agree with the class restrictions on skills or skill masteries. Sometimes, I just want to make a character more unique. Now, I'm not gonna give my sorceror the ability to wield a 2-handed axe. That's just lame. I don't wanna be lame about it.

Another thing I did with it, was allowed my paladin to get that one last, special, grandmastery in body magic. For those who've been following the solo playthroughs you'll know why. I love my cute little elf paladin, Jennifer, but those instant death and insta-eradication were just getting to be too much.

I don't use it to cheat too much though. Just a little to help customize the game. I'm using the mm8editor to increase the numbers of monsters that spawn which should balance it out and instead of the editor I use the save/load trick for the dragons and the ore shops.



Oh, and I almost forgot. I can already kill the dragon on emerald island without help, so I usually add a wand of clouds or something to speed it up. When I'm done I walk outside and throw it into the ocean. Another place I'll sometimes use the savegame editor to save time is the halls of mist. The one key where you gotta play around with that combination to get it right? Did it before, don't wanna do it again.

Does anyone else make small cheats? Do you purposely break the game, or just enhance the experience or skip over the most frustrating spots? Or are one of you those staunch defenders of the vanilla path?

[koval321]

Litle changes make game more fun. Once i found that dragons could drop something valuable and i used editor to take artifact but only after kiling dragon. Also i cant imagine playing mm8 without savegame mod which put all heroes to tavern, because i want to start game with full party.

[tolich]

In MM6, it´s possible to use some scrolls more than once. There are:
1) Scrolls with spells that affect one character at Master level, like Cure Wounds or Healing Touch, but not Power.
2) Scrolls with spell that need to choose a target monster at Master level, like Lightning or FireBall, but not Meteor Shower.
3) Scroll of Telekinesis.

I know cheating the game is not good, but always fell tempted while playing. It´s so easy to heal whole party from wounds and conditions without mana loss, or to kill a group of monsters with free fireball or dragon breath. The apotheosis is killing Gold Dragon in the Temple of Snake with one scroll of Toxic Clouds. Yes, it doesn´t give the absolute power, but makes the game much easier.

The most recent patch by GrayFace cures this bug (also it prevents inactive characters from using scrolls), so I don´t describe how to use scrolls to cheat.

[Drakeero]

Here's another example. When playing MM7 I was trying to clear all the trolls out of Tatlia. Now, I could do it using the run and fire arrows the whole time trick BUT... I didn't want to spend an hour or more at it. So, it was inevitable I was gonna win so why not speed it up with a few meteor shower scrolls?

[GrayFace]

I just thought, it's obvious I'm gonna win the game, so why not speed it up by typing the win command (evt.EnterHouse(600)) in the console right after party creation?
In MM8 knight solo I gave my knight Protection from Magic as quick spell and gave him enough spell points to cast it in the Gorgons place. Don't remember about the others. That's the one that doesn't break game at all.
Once I used a cheat to kill the seer in MM7. I thought he's not dying for too long.
Each cheat I discovered I used in a few games. Like, used infinite experience of Lord of Fire in one game, but probably reloaded at some point, I don't remember.
I used map obstacles to avoid getting hit by monsters a lot in many games at first. Like, finding a place where the monster gets stuck and killing him safely. It was interesting to clear Clanker's Laboratory with a basic party.
Used save-load-enter trick to avoid getting hit. This even helped me do 1st level party run in MM6.
Did save-load to get good stuff from corpses in many games.
Eventually, I decided to do without such things and also not care about game time. Since then I also added "no Armageddon/Meteor Shower/Starburst" rule and usually use "no shooting" rule - they make the game more fun.
What I don't like in MM is that there are too many cheats provided by the game. Like, an explosive bow in MM8 that lets you kill dragons with almost no effort - they almost don't move, always suffering from your explosions.
Now the only cheats I use are like giving Protection from Magic to those who cannot cast it by themselves.

[Drakeero]

Wait, there's a console?

And jumping ahead to the end of the game does kind of skip over all the fun stuff. I consider that different from shortening a monotonous grind in one part, unless you've got an entire night to spend on one particular spot.

[GrayFace]

Yes, MMExtension adds a console.
I prefer to wait until I have weapons good enough to dispatch the Trolls in melee and get some fun doing it.

[Sure Valla]

To be honest, i never played with cheats....... yes once but cheats are lame, ok twice but that was just editing for someone. But i never played on them.

Be a man, try this 'hard' game on you're own, with no exeptions.

I must have completed it like 20 times maybe more WITHOUT cheats.

But thats how i think about it

[GrayFace]

I forgot I also did a dragon solo in MM8.

[hobowu]

To be honest, i never played with cheats....... yes once but cheats are lame, ok twice but that was just editing for someone. But i never played on them.

Be a man, try this 'hard' game on you're own, with no exeptions.

I must have completed it like 20 times maybe more WITHOUT cheats.

But thats how i think about it

That's the spirit!
Cheats aren't needed at all... game isn't that hard with a little bit of hit and run, or popping around a corner, shoot a few arrows, and going back.

Only time I "cheated" would have been using a character editor... ---> Gharik's Forge Key that disappeared and the Soul Jars that never turned up

[GreatEmerald]

If using sites like Flamestryke's is considered a cheat, I sometimes do that if I get stuck. I usually never mess with the games themselves, except, for example, to change the names of my characters if I forgot to do that on the party creation screen and don't want to repeat the process all over again.

I did use a fully fledged cheat in Might and Magic I, though, but it was just because of a bug with screen refresh, so it wasn't game breaking. The thing is that it didn't tell me that in Erliquin, after robbing from the city, if you run from the guards, one of the party members get eradicated. Normally an asterisk would appear near the character's name, but that time the screen didn't refresh and I saved the game, just to find out that two of the party members were eradicated... So I Hex edited the eradication state (had to compare all my party members until I found the symbol that coded the state, though) and resumed normal play.

[tolich]

BTW, is there way to transform MM6 party into werewolves?

[GrayFace]

If using sites like Flamestryke's is considered a cheat, I sometimes do that if I get stuck.

What's in there that may be considered cheating?

BTW, is there way to transform MM6 party into werewolves?

Do you mean turn their portraits into werewolfs?? Nope, no way.

[GreatEmerald]

Walkthroughs, I guess.

[GrayFace]

I regulary use skill teachers tables in solutions and use alchemy tables when I make potions (that happens rarely).

[Sure Valla]

Walkthroughs, I guess.

Just to find the teachers i mean, god thats alot of work when finding those teachers if you have absolutly no idea were to check.

[tolich]

The search of what to do is the very part of gameplay. So reading walkthroughs must be considered cheating.

[GrayFace]

Nope, I don't see a value in that part of gameplay.
[edit] I meant finding teachers.

[Salamandre]

Being the one who did an RPG mod for WOG and saw 20 pages walkthroughts raising fast, I was pissed that people could read what to do so my hard worked hints were ignored from now.

I agree, reading walkthrough is weakening the gaming experience but can't be prohibited. It also remove the replayability, as when you read the best solution, you do it, no point to replay.

However MM7 has a better infos layouts than MM6, so search is easier. Sometimes MM6 is very annoying, like the biggest town (don(t remember the name) where it is hard as hell to find a specific location. When I played it for the second time, I pasted the photo of that city with houses hints on my inventory grid so I could have the directions.

[Sure Valla]

The search of what to do is the very part of gameplay. So reading walkthroughs must be considered cheating.

Agreed, good to i finally know all spots of teachers