Might & Magic 6 mod: MAW; Monsters, Arts & Wonders [30/7/23 update]

[Malekitsu]

The point of spirit vs body was to provide strong buffs to melee teams, as Heroism used to give 1.5 damage per rank.
With latest mechanics changes the whole buff system have been changed.
I might consider to give back stronger buffs to make it feeling good to invest in once again.
I used to play a paladin with heavy spirit investment and felt really satisfying with heroism at 1.5.
Also Bless is really strong, and luck game changing specially early game (5 luck=1 to all resistances and reduced chances for bad status).
I think stronger buffs might be the way to go.

Some more questions:
Are you using divine shield? How does it feel?
Is he mostly healing with attacks or by manually casting?
Did you manage to activate the autoress?

[Gray Magic Expert]

The point of spirit vs body was to provide strong buffs to melee teams, as Heroism used to give 1.5 damage per rank.
With latest mechanics changes the whole buff system have been changed.
I might consider to give back stronger buffs to make it feeling good to invest in once again.
I used to play a paladin with heavy spirit investment and felt really satisfying with heroism at 1.5.
Also Bless is really strong, and luck game changing specially early game (5 luck=1 to all resistances and reduced chances for bad status).
I think stronger buffs might be the way to go.

in almost every situation a high rank shared life is better than final aid/ress.
cure poison is briefly viable at rank 12, after a few more ranks healing touch etc is far better
casting shared life at rank 4 can be neccessary but uses precious time. casting it at rank 30 boosts your life total significantly

Okay, if we are talking 30 ranks as something normal, then I'll wait and see, how would it play in practice. In this case, there is no need to buff anything right now. But around 8-15 skill Spirit feels really inferior to body.

knight has some nice advantages but berserker outdamages him by a fair bit.

In melee only, as far as I understand! In ranged combat Champion is better. And melee combat is not always safe. Charging into crowds of Warlocks/Fire Elemntals/ Sea Serpents is very dangerous. Of course, you can engage then one-on-one in melee. But you can also engage the m one by onee at range, which requires much less preparation!

There is an issue with him having access to a spell like raise dead that is already ultra useful at 4 ranks.

Eh, the knight has 30% chance to redirect damage at 4 plate ranks. I'd say, this pretty equal in cheap utility to rise dead. Keep in mind that between Guardian Angel, investing into bodybuilding and Endurance, shared life, and smart engagements, it is pretty hard to die from hitpoint damage. Only insta-death really messes your plans here. So Rise Dead is needed only to deal with stupidity on part of the player, or with Instant-Death monsters like Supreme Titans or Elder Minotaurs.

Some more questions:
Are you using divine shield? How does it feel?
Is he mostly healing with attacks or by manually casting?
Did you manage to activate the autoress?

- How exactly divine shield works?
- Healing - Both methods are used. On one hand, spellcasting is far more reliable. No missed attacks possible! On the other hand, seraph has not too much mana, and also does not get +50% mana regen, like 2nd promo paladins and archers do. So melee healing is very convenient to save mana. I also works wonderfully gaainst debuffed enemies.
- Autores - most likely, I did use it a few times. Seraph goes into negative HP less often than other chars. In exchange, he sometimes loses a lot of mana. This auto-res working as intended, right?
- Seraph with 1 mastery, 4 master light, 8 master staff (+6 and 10-25 fire damage), and about 140 might/70 personality manages to deal 70-90 damage, almost the same as non-raging berserker with expert spear 8. Is this normal?

[Malekitsu]

Make sure to check description as down below (for example divine shield):
https://ibb.co/R4Fzwrc
Divine shield is activated with "E" keybind.
For seraphin if you go melee a lot sword might be better, as it hits faster.

- Autores - most likely, I did use it a few times. Seraph goes into negative HP less often than other chars. In exchange, he sometimes loses a lot of mana. This auto-res working as intended, right?

correct

[Gray Magic Expert]

Seraphin:

Autores - definitely a useful ability. Healer/Buffer without mana may feel sad, but healer/buffer without HP is even worse. Moreover, seraph can contribute without mana. Autores requires some getting used to, but in the end, it feels pretty useful.

Divine shield - I am yet to use it. But it looks insane at a glance...

About Weapons

1) the staff example was less about efficiency, and more about sheer amount of damage in exchange for a minimal investment, even with a non-offensive weapon. Do those damage numbers (70-90) match your expectations? That's what I am concerned about.

2) Seraph uses staff when I need additional resitances, and/or a reliable chance of debuffing enemy damage as far as can. For offense, I use main hand Hammer +9 & and Off-hand sword +12 on my second promo Seraph. With sword 1, mace master 8, and master light 4, this pair of weapons reliably delivers 90-110 damage.

Edit 1
Found some more bugs in the most current version:
1.1) Guided projectiles: sometimes, projectiles from monsters fail to lock onto the party. (Typically, when fired from max distance)
1.2) Guided projectiles: Many "Trap" projectiles in the dungeons lock onto paty. Worst offenders - Fireball traps in the Ironfist temple of Baa, and Ethric's tomb, and Poison Clouds in Sewers. Decorative fires in Garic's Forge and Semi-decorative cold beams/static charges in the big trap room of Shadow Guild also home onto the party.
2) Description bug: Fury class descrption is definitely fixed, but Archangel shows High Priest description. I think, it is worth to check all promoted class descriptions for new classes.
3) Seraph description says "Offhand must be disabled". Yet my seraph happily fights with a mace + sword combo.

Edit 2
4) SuperShop Bug.
Step 1: Buy something at Eel Infested Waters magic item shop.
Step 2: Save and reload.
Step 3: The shop is re-filled!
A wonderful way to buy all the OP items you need in only one in-game day! Normally, that shop restocks in 20-something days, so this bug is a big deal!
Note, that revisiting Eel Infested Waters does not re-fill the shop. Only reloading does.

Edit 3 (28 march 2023)
5) Bug: Seraph Divine shield works from savegame menu. (Typing 'e' into a savegame activates the shield)
6) Possible Bug: Homing projectiles are set to True, but dodging Titan shots in Paradise Valley is surprisingly easy. I am not sure, but it appears they do not home at all!

[Malekitsu]

1) the staff example was less about efficiency, and more about sheer amount of damage in exchange for a minimal investment, even with a non-offensive weapon. Do those damage numbers (70-90) match your expectations? That's what I am concerned about.

70-90 is on lower end, end game you are supposed to around do 200-300 damage melee.

Edit 1
Found some more bugs in the most current version:
1.1) Guided projectiles: sometimes, projectiles from monsters fail to lock onto the party. (Typically, when fired from max distance)
1.2) Guided projectiles: Many "Trap" projectiles in the dungeons lock onto paty. Worst offenders - Fireball traps in the Ironfist temple of Baa, and Ethric's tomb, and Poison Clouds in Sewers. Decorative fires in Garic's Forge and Semi-decorative cold beams/static charges in the big trap room of Shadow Guild also home onto the party.
2) Description bug: Fury class descrption is definitely fixed, but Archangel shows High Priest description. I think, it is worth to check all promoted class descriptions for new classes.
3) Seraph description says "Offhand must be disabled". Yet my seraph happily fights with a mace + sword combo.

1.1) intended, max distance projectiles wont hit you
1.2) I think as they fall in the same category of normal casted spell disabling them will also disable normal spells
2) thanks for reporting, it was a copy-paste mistake into the code. Fixed
3) It's not supposed to use it, but we are still working on the code to actually preventing players to do it.

4) SuperShop Bug.
Step 1: Buy something at Eel Infested Waters magic item shop.
Step 2: Save and reload.
Step 3: The shop is re-filled!
A wonderful way to buy all the OP items you need in only one in-game day! Normally, that shop restocks in 20-something days, so this bug is a big deal!
Note, that revisiting Eel Infested Waters does not re-fill the shop. Only reloading does.

It's something really weird as we should't have touched anything about shops refill timers, but there is indeed some bugs going on with shops.

Edit 3 (28 march 2023)
5) Bug: Seraph Divine shield works from savegame menu. (Typing 'e' into a savegame activates the shield)
6) Possible Bug: Homing projectiles are set to True, but dodging Titan shots in Paradise Valley is surprisingly easy. I am not sure, but it appears they do not home at all!

5) you can use trought menu, but effect will not expire. Not sure if there is another bug.
6) it's weird, they are correctly homing in my save. Are you staying at max range?

[Gray Magic Expert]

70-90 is on lower end, end game you are supposed to around do 200-300 damage melee.

That's the thing - those numbers were at lvl 32, with mininmal investment! I checked one of early saves - and my 32 Archangel with only 4 points in light magic was dealing 70 damage on a melee attack with normal, non-enchanted staff +7. His might was 41, his personality was 67!

BTW, seraph Divine damage goes through damage immunity of enemies turned to stone. Is this intended?

1.1) intended, max distance projectiles wont hit you
6) it's weird, they are correctly homing in my save. Are you staying at max range?

Hmm, maybe its considered max distance. I was trying to keep as far away as possible, to avoid agrro-ing multiple titans at once. (Clearing Paradise Valley town on lvl 45 is fun, am I right?). That said, in turn based mode it is possible to use good old vertical dodging flight trick, at least from far away. (I cleared the town without it, but only because I wanted to test the limits of my party)

BTW, what's the intended build for berserker? I created a silly Knight / Knight / Berserker / Druid party, to see how berserkers and knights compare in combat.

[Malekitsu]

BTW, what's the intended build for berserker? I created a silly Knight / Knight / Berserker / Druid party, to see how berserkers and knights compare in combat.

he's supposed to be a 2h weapon user, but works good also with dual wield weapons.
Some spirit is good to have some offhealing and buffs for melee players if you don't have it yet.
We are still working on making it more interesting

As for seraphin will be changed in a day or two, to change spell scaling with mastery and other stuff.

[Gray Magic Expert]

Berserkers are already very interseting classes, be it a dedicated melee damage-dealer, or my weird mage-berserker!

What my Knight/Berserker/Knight/Druid paty showcased so far:
So far, berserker does not overshadow knights. Olaf the berserker does deliver bigger damage numbers, however he also has notably less hp than the knights. Knights need much less maintenance, especially with Mordred in the off-hand, and they also defend both the Druid and Berserker using cover mechanics of Plate skill.

Like with my Druid/Archer/Berserker/Seraph party, Berserker feels less like a Knight replacement and more like a melee version of the Archer class: very strong offensive options, and considerable utility, but not the best at either taking damage or mitigating damage to their allies.

Funnily enough, Seraph feels much more like a knight substitute! Tanky, strong defense for allies, very hard to bring down.

[berserker]'s supposed to be a 2h weapon user, but works good also with dual wield weapons.
Some spirit is good to have some offhealing and buffs for melee players if you don't have it yet.
We are still working on making it more interesting

Okay, then my idea about the build is correct. Spirit 4, bow/armor as needed, melee weapons and mastery as the main focus starting mid-game.
Let's see, how this will compare to Champions in late game...

[Malekitsu]

I'm happy you are enjoying
Have you tried with blood knight?
Might be interesting too

For berserker we are going to add some passive bonus to mastery other than insanity buff and making attacks to make rage stop decaying for few seconds.

[Gray Magic Expert]

Before trying Blood Knight, I want to fully test normal champion. Just to know, what to expect from a non-magic combat class.

BTW, so far the Knight-Berserker-Knight-Druid party proved to be surprisingly effective. Every class does its multiple jobs, and the y cover each-over's weaknesses very well. And I am yet to try fully using the shield skill... I even managed to complete a champion quest. The turn to stone spell proved very useful for that...

Edit 1:
Right now, there's a constant fear of "What if skillpoints in Shield are completely wasted, because double weapons are better ?".
Have you considered adding skill-sharing between shield and dagger/sword? It has some in-game sense - every item is an off-hand equipment. It may encourage using shield more.

And if full skill-sharing proves too strong - maybe it is possible to add partial skill-sharing, like magic skills have right now?

[Malekitsu]

Edit 1:
Right now, there's a constant fear of "What if skillpoints in Shield are completely wasted, because double weapons are better ?".
Have you considered adding skill-sharing between shield and dagger/sword? It has some in-game sense - every item is an off-hand equipment. It may encourage using shield more.

we discussed about this for weeks, the problem is that sword+shield becomes too strong and we would need to nerf shield by a lot.
The current design for Knight is so that:
- Dual Wield does the most damage but translate bad into shield
- 2h weapons deal slighty less damage but they much better with shield

btw...
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NEW UPDATE:
Seraphin Changes:
Mastery will now add 4 damage and 3 flat heal per hit
Light will now increase 2 damage per level, no expert/master bonus; same for body healing.
Divine Protection now has 5 minutes cooldown, glimmering and message added on activation.
Tooltips updated accordingly

We are working on item and stats rework, and what you can expect is:
- might +1% of melee damage
- intellect/personality +1% spell damage/heal (only the highest one will be picked)
- endurance +1% hp
- accuracy +2% critical damage
- speed + 0.5% damage evade chance (0.995^(speedEffect))
- luck +0.5% critical chance
This is every 5 stats and will add to current effect, so 100 might will increase 20% damage, in addition of the base +20 flat damage.

Item will have more interesting stats and enchants.

[Gray Magic Expert]

we discussed about this for weeks, the problem is that sword+shield becomes too strong and we would need to nerf shield by a lot.
The current design for Knight is so that:
- Dual Wield does the most damage but translate bad into shield
- 2h weapons deal slighty less damage but they much better with shield

But right now sword + shield is absolutely terrible, despite being an iconic combination for a knight!
Right now, as far as I understand, learning the second magic skill cost around 2 times cheaper than learning the first one. What if sword and shield had a similar interaction? Would such combination still be imbalanced?

Seraphin Changes:
Mastery will now add 4 damage and 3 flat heal per hit
Light will now increase 2 damage per level, no expert/master bonus; same for body healing.
Divine Protection now has 5 minutes cooldown, glimmering and message added on activation.
Tooltips updated accordingly

I am not sure, how I feel about this change. On one hand, it does appear more balanced. On the other hand, it pushes the seraph even farther away from cleric and even closer to paladin. The previous setup, as powerful as it may have been, encouraged seraph to be a primarily magic class. New approach seems to encourage a hybrid magic+weapon spread of skills...

BTW, are those new changes integrated into Nightmare?

[Malekitsu]

Right now, as far as I understand, learning the second magic skill cost around 2 times cheaper than learning the first one. What if sword and shield had a similar interaction? Would such combination still be imbalanced?

Actually could be a good idea, will think over it.

I am not sure, how I feel about this change. On one hand, it does appear more balanced. On the other hand, it pushes the seraph even farther away from cleric and even closer to paladin. The previous setup, as powerful as it may have been, encouraged seraph to be a primarily magic class. New approach seems to encourage a hybrid magic+weapon spread of skills...

BTW, are those new changes integrated into Nightmare?

Older version was way too broken from mid-late game on.
I understand moving out some points from light/body could be disappointing, but you also have reduced cost if you level both, and mastery will now be more interesting early game.

Nightmare is updated too

[Gray Magic Expert]

I understand moving out some points from light/body could be disappointing, but you also have reduced cost if you level both, and mastery will now be more interesting early game.

This is less about disappointment and more about class concepts
1) Knight/Blood Knight - both are non-magic warriors, who have higher health and use is for additional benefit. Knight for durability, Blood Knight for offense.
2) Archer/Rogue - both are half-mages half warriors, who have reduced durability in exchange for strong utility and a great arsenal of offensive options.
3) Sorcerer/Necro - both are dedicated casters, who have lots of mana and huge array of offensive options.
4) Paladin/Berserker - both are melee combatants with good off-healing tricks. Berserker is focused on damage, paladin is more about utility and protecting allies.
5) Druid/Shaman (at least in concept) - both classes are masters of Self/Elemental magic combo. Druid prefers magic, shaman adds weapons, but still, the those are the only two classes with full access to both self and elemental magics, and all the utility this combination provides.

And now lets consider Cleric\Seraph:
- Cleric is a dedidaced non-elemental magic specialist. Investing into magic skills is why the cleric class is taken in the first place!
- Seraph? The class right now is weapon/magic hybrid, with Self magic and defense for allies. Sounds like a Paladin, not like a Cleric.
Of all the new classes, Seraph inherits the precursor class the least.
That's why I dislike the new mastery. With old mastery skill, seraph was still a magic-skill focused class.
But now? Seraph has as much interest in leveling magic as the Paladin does. Actually, maybe even less than paladin. Paladin has better mana regen after 2nd promo, and does not spend mana on the auto-ressurect/divine shield class options.

I think, Seraph should be somehow encouraged to use and level magic skills more. Maybe provide the full* Seraph melee attack benefits upon hitting a target with an offensive spell? Sounds fun, in theory at least.

*or 80% / 60% / 50% percent, if full would prove too op.

Edit 1
About magic benefiting from Seraph Divine Strike & Healing on hit:
- something like 100% on most spells, 50% on Spirit Arrow and about 200% (or even 300% ?) on Destroy Undead/Sun ray. Spirit arrow gets nerfed, because it is a 0 mana spell with minimal skill invested needed, Light magic gets buffed, because the spells are both expensive and relatively niche.

With those setups, offensive magic still shouldn't outcompete healing spells - the body offensive spells are not the best by design, and investing deep into mind means investing less into spirit/body. Additional damage is also not too overpowered, because seraph has not that much mana to begin with - both relatively small mana per level stat and the Auto-Res ability take their toll.

Edit 2
Or a simpler approach:
- Damaging spells fully apply additional damage (maybe a bit reduced for spirit arrow).
- Healing spells fully apply the healing (to the most wounded character, as usual)
- Melee hits apply both.
This way, leveling mastery would make total sense for a caster Seraph. Yet, spell based seraph would play differently from a cleric or paladin.

[Malekitsu]

so mastery bonus applying also on spells I guess...
Looks like a good idea but might be a bit overpowered, but I agree that mastery favors only melee build and it's not fun for caster ones, will look into it.
That said, keep in mind that seraphin has more base mana than a paladin (4 vs 3), so you are still more of a caster than your regular paladin, and ending mana or generally being in melee situations will still allow for some decent healing.
As for class concept: Seraphin was indeed built to be similiar to paladin, but cleric is mod "divinity" related class

[Gray Magic Expert]

Re: seraph
I will begin testing rogue seraph and paladin soon. Will report, how those classes feel to play.

Re: super-shop bug (described in my post from 26 of march)

I accidentally discovered, how this bug happens. It seems to occur in any shop of the game.

There is certain malfunction in the MAW mod, (or maybe in MM Extension? Patch 257 works fine, I checked):
When you load the map L:
the shop is in some state A.
when you enter the shop and check the goods and buy stuff, the shop goes into state B.
when you visit the shop again, it still will be in state B.

So far everything works 100% as it should.
But if you save the game, the save game considers the shop to be in the state A, despite in reality it being in state B!
What happens when you reload that save? The shop have returned to state A!

There is a way to make save game remember the state B, however.
You simply leave the map L before saving the game! The game will remember that the shop is in state B. But now, if you save the game, it will correctly save shop state B to the savegame file.

So the problem lies with writing current(!) map information into the save game. The other maps are saved properly. But the current map sends outdated info about the shops into the savegame!

It may be the case that something related to random monster functionality of MAW is to blame here. After all, this functionality messes with how the maps are generated and remembered in the game memory. The bug itself may be caused either by error in the MAW mod itself, or by Might and Magic Extension having a bug in some of its functionality.

[Malekitsu]

Thanks for report, I will probably need Eksekk help to solve this bug.
No idea what's the cause.
I hope it's not too game breaking for you, I barely visit shops due to shortage of money (and I recently I've stopped buying, enchant and reselling stuff)
rogue seraph paladin and who?
Where did you arrive so far in the game?
I wonder if you made through last dungeons

[Gray Magic Expert]

Thanks for report, I will probably need Eksekk help to solve this bug.
No idea what's the cause.
I hope it's not too game breaking for you, I barely visit shops due to shortage of money (and I recently I've stopped buying, enchant and reselling stuff)
rogue seraph paladin and who?
Where did you arrive so far in the game?
I wonder if you made through last dungeons

Shops are good for getting specific weapon types, and for those rare moments, when spare money do appear. But the bug is not game-breaking in any way, shape, or form.

Party would be Rogue-Seraph-Paladin-Rogue. For nightmare. The idea is to test both Seraph/Paladin competition and the Rogue class in extreme conditions. For what I have seen from my other playthroughs, this party should have enough tools to tackle everything, even if a lot of weird adaptations would be required for harder dungeons.

My other 2 playthroughs are around 30-40 level mark at the moment. The Druid-Archer-Berserker-Seraph party managed to clear The Gharik's Forge, the Paradise Valley town area, the Kriegspire Temple of Baa, the Caves of Dragon Riders, and the whole Medusa Temple in Blackshire (including the gold dragon and Q).

The Knight-Berserker-Knight-Druid party reached the 2nd promos for berserker and knight classes, and right now I am thinking about clearing Kriegspire Volcano to get master bow.

[Malekitsu]

Oh cool, did you enjoy unique encounters and bosses? My favourite one is in VARN, but temple of baa and dragon keep were great aswell.
Did you enter the Silver helm tower?
Keep in mind that atm stat scaling with might/int etc should be disabled by default, but we are working on a system to keep it default without making new classes too op

[Gray Magic Expert]

Bug:
paladins don't get mana regen from meditation skill.
30 mana meditation 1 seraph has mana regen, but 36 mana mediattion expert 4 paladin does not!

Question:
where can I see combo points for rogues?

Edit: so far, rogues feel lame.
They cannot earn combo points in ranged combat - therefore, they loose to an archer in every practical way:
- archers have more hp - therefore, require less attention from healers.
- archers have strong bows and strong ranged spells. Rogues have only bows. They need combo points to have good spells. Which they can only earn in melee.
- In theory, rogues can deliver insane damage in melee.
- But! Archers can too, if they go deep into Dark. Dark magic is inaccessible for rogues at all.
- Alternative way to get a super-strong melee archer - go deep into Fire magic. Rogues can get fire magic, but it is reduced to mostly melee (because of 50% damage penalty without combo points). Archer can happily use fire both at range and in melee.

So why should I have a rogue, when I can get a druid, a sorcerer, a necromancer, or an archer instead?