not pelted..
but wizards and warriors more reminded me of mm6, which was also a great game.

Yes, it does. But I still think of it as of W9 for it being Mr. Bradley's brainchild and some logical development of his ideas.

That's not the problem.

What *is* the problem is the following:
* Base miss chance decreases by a random amount, with range based on class, at level up. (This means that base miss chance is *not* a function of level, for the same reason that maximum HP isn't.)
* Base miss chance doesn't reset on class change, but it won't improve until you reach your previous level.
* Base miss chance does not improve past level 20. Bad base miss chance at level 20? Well, that will never improve, and there's no fixing that.

In other words, a level 20 fighter who leveled up first as a mage will be a worse fighter than one who has always been a fighter, who (IIRC) will be worse than one who first leveled up to level 20 as a samurai. Essentially, this leads to the "missable stats" problem, where you can permanently cripple a character's fighting ability in a way that the game gives you no information about.

The inability to create new characters mid-game exacerbates this problem.

Or you could just be a high level, stuck using the most basic healing spell because the game did not provide any upgraded healing spell at all. There's upgraded attack spells, so why not upgraded healing spells?

Actually, the Japanese Wizardry games also share much of their mechanics with Wizardry 1-5. In fact, the Wizardry Gaiden series follows the classic Wizardry mechanics closely, even down to things like how initiative is determined and the chance of a thief being able to inspect and disarm chest traps.

As a side note, why are Bishops so terrible in most Wizardry games? (Wizardry 8 and Labyrinth of Lost Souls are both exceptions here.)

You should specify which game you are talking about here; Wizardry 8 is quite different from 6 and 7. (8 fixes many of the issues that 6 and 7 have, but it does have its own different set of issues.)

Wizards & Warriors (not the NES game) was released in 2000.
Wizardry 8 was released in 2001.

Therefore, it might be better to think of Wizards and Warriors as Wizardry 7.5, even though it is a separate story line and doesn't support transfer with the Dark Savant trilogy.

Well, doh... It means I thought wrong all these years then :)

By the way, IIRC Bradley had very little to do with W8 so W&W could also be considered as "alternative W8" :)

miss chance>
so you complain that you have to live with your decisions.. ? or that the game does not want you to create superman who can cast and fight perfectly? if you start of as a non magic user your mana regeneration is also lower..
Seriously this only becomes a problem if you try to make all characters be able to do everything.
if your fighter sticks to combat classes and your mage to magic classes you will never notice that.

also deleting characters and refilling them with new characters feels so wrong, like a sin, to someone who loved playing proper p&p rpgs. even if it was an option i would never do it, because it would feel like losing.

healing>
so? there is a limit in the game you have to live with (which is not an issue if you did not try to class change a million times and have too many hitpoints)
i could apply the same complaint to basically every game where i have to drink healing potions manually while there are also games where it is done automatically. "why do i have to press a button to drink it and can not set a %hp where the character uses it automatically?"
yes, it can be inconvenient, but that is a game design choice which you do not like

sounds>
6+7, and also i consider 8 to be the worst of the three. for me it did not fix it, it broke it.

Yes, I am complaining about having to live with my decisions because that sort of thing makes it harder to experiment, and experimenting is one of the things I enjoy doing in RPGs. (Case in point: In Baldur's Gate 2, I've probably spent more time experimenting (with the help of the cheat menu) than actually trying to play through the game normally.)

Another issue is that the whole mechanic is hidden, making it not obvious that you'd be hurting your characters by leveling up the character as a mage first, rather than as a fighter (or samurai) first. It wouldn't be so bad if said mechanic were clearly visible. Also, having RNG involved with the improvement of this statistic is also bad game design.

If the developer wants to do this, the mechanic should be explicitly visible to the player, so the player can make decisions based on this.

Also, it wouldn't be so bad if I could just leave the character behind somewhere and start a new character, who would nt be affected by decisions made with the first character (especially since, on a first playthrough, those decisions were made when the player wasn't yet familiar with the game).

I could also point out that the mechanics can have strange consequences, particularly when interacting with some of Wizardry 6 balance issues. For example, if I create a Priest and change her to a Valkyrie, the resulting charactet:
* Gets the SP regen of a Priest, which is higher than that of a Valkyrie
* Levels up faster than said Priest, and as a result is a better caster in the long run
* Gets the base miss chance for 2 levels of Priest + 1 level of Valktrie instead of 2 levels of Valkyrie (which works out in favor); why do you get more base miss chance reduction when reaching your exact former level? (See the possible exploit here?)
* Because of that, fights better than a character who was created as a Valkyrie.

It would have been better if both SP regen and base miss chance were pure functions of class and level, changing with every class change; this would solve the problems I have with them (except that SP regen should improve as you gain levels (expecially for those in caster classes including Bishop), as it's too slow past the early levels), while still providing an incentive to focus on one or the other.

Actually, it feels, in a way, like poor user interface, not unlike buying 99 healing potions in the NES version of the original Final Fantasy. (I have seriously seen a recommendation to use a turbo controller for that.) In other words, the situation here is more like having to press the A button 297 times to stock up on potions rather than just being able to select the number of potions to buy (a difference that does not affecte game difficulty), while your example is more like something like the Auto-Potion ability in some later Final Fantasy games (which does affect difficulty, which is why there's a cost to equipping the ability just like every other passive).

Another comparison: Imagine if the only attack spell available to the player were Energy Blast.

I could also point out that I have watched someone play Wizardry 7 without class changing (IIRC) or power leveling, and the healing issue already came up; the problem is really that bad. (Wizardry 1-3 and 5 actually have that problem at low levels, until the MADI spell shows up.)

Also, don't forget that some people find mechanics like class changing fun, and if the developer wants there to be a downside to doing so, that downside should be made *explicit* to the player, not hidden like the base miss chance mechanic.

These are all pretty good points, but, I still really enjoyed my time with Wizardry VI in particular (probably the most unbalanced of the series, but to me still the most entertaining.) I like the Magic Points system over the spells per level method of handling magic, but it does get to a point when you multiclass around and you have like way too many. But if you were just set on beating the game, with minimal grinding it out the issue there doesn't come up too much. Also solid point on the miss chance reduction stuff, When I first started playing I just made a party of samurai, a bard a lord and valkyrie pretty much, and didn't have many problems. I avoided the "basic" classes. I can see a use for them now after playing through several times but just starting as a basic caster class and immediately changing into a hybrid or "elite" class before gaining 1 level so I'll have the higher Magic regen rates. I wonder how difficult it would be to mod in a "gligamesh's tavern" of sorts for 6. Hmmmmm.

Actually, due to a quirk of the way base miss chance decreases are handled, as well as (to my understanding) a few other things like HP and SP, it's actually better, in the long run, to reach level 2.

In fact, if you keep leveling up to the same level before changing class, you'll keep getting base miss chance reduction, which really does feel wrong.

I actually think the way Wizardry 1-3 and 5 handled it is better: HP are rolled from scratch at each level up (with a minimum gain of 1 HP), so after class change you'll get only 1 HP per level until your level catches up with your HP. (Many Wizardry spin-offs and clones work this way, including the Wizardry Gaiden series, The Dark Spire, and Elminage Gothic, but not Wizardry Empire or Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls. (Anyone know about Tales of the Forsaken Land or its sequel?)) SP are based purely on current class, level, and what spells you know, so you won't get extra SP with heavy class changing. Attack bonus is purely a function of current class and level; the character's history has nothing to do with it.

Interestingly enough, Wizardry Gaiden 3 copies a few of the balance problems. In particular:
* Valkyries are really good, and level up faster than Priests. Also, they're the only way, without rare class changing items or a password from the previous game, for a Neutral character to learn priest spells.
* Rangers are bad. They level slowly, have poor equipment selection, and aren't even good in terms of thief skills. Also, the Alchemist spell list, while it has a couple nice spells (a single target full heal (but not status cure), a multi target status cure (but not petrification), and a spell to identify items), isn't that great. As if that weren't bad enough, Rangers (and Bards) aren't even good at unlocking doors, and unlocking doors is *mandatory* to progress through the game, so you can't use one to replace the party thief.

By the way, the strategy of starting as a Priest and changing to a Valkyrie doesn't work in Wizardry Gaiden 3, because:
* When you change class, your progression starts over, so while you might have level 1 spells, you still will have to wait until level 6 to learn level 2 spells. Also, no skill points to carry over, either.
* Even ignoring that fact, there's an even worse problem, one that has no work-around. Priests *can't* be Neutral, they must be either Good or Evil. Valkyries *must* be Neutral; they can't be Good or Evil. Alighment change is possible based on your interaction with friendly monsters, but alignment can only change between Good and Evil, and not to or from Neutral. Therefore, that set-up is actually impossible.

(With that said, one thing I like about Wizardry 6-8 is how skills improve through use, and I wish more games did that.)

I do like the system, particularly in Wizardry 8 where practice can get you more SP without having to level up, but I wish the HP restoring spells weren't all crammed into the same category. I really wish they had made Wizardry 8's Restore Health spell learnable. (Spell level 2, earth realm, acts as a combination Heal Wounds + Stamina, don't think it has a cost (I would put it at 5 SP/level in Wizardry 8, since that's the combined cost of Heal Wounds and Stamina), not in any spellbooks (definitely would go in Priest, maybe Alchemist as well?).)

I actually go

5 > 1 > 8 > 6 > 7(even though I never beat it ) > 2 > 3 > 4(never started)

I really love 1-5 having a single mega dungeon and how resources work in them, I get a feeling of "save half of your spells" for the way back up and it's a real "spelunking" kind of game where I push my luck to see how far I can go safely before having to regroup. There's even an ultimate choice of either tiltowatt to win a fight (almost) instantly or Malor to teleport which cruelly share the same spell slot.

The combat of the old games is less tactical ... but at the same time 6-8 kind of let you rest-spam.

1-5 are also Lighting fast if you set them to 0 text delay - 6-7 with sound off are still faster than non-blobber RPGs, but having animated graphics and animations instead of wireframe prevent them from getting to the crazy 1 turn of combat being instantly turned into 8~ lines of text thing that makes combat in the old games so fast and almost hypnotic.

1 and 5 are also kind of above average to explore and map out (1 due to wall planning and 5 due to humor and lite-puzzle elements) which is a nice bonus that is normally pre associated with Real Time blobbers rather than Wizardry games. 2-3 are kind of a let down in this area though.

Wizardry 4 is quite different from the other Wizardry games; you should try it. Rather than having to see how far you can get, it's more a matter of making it to the next pentagram, or finding a key item and making it back to the pentagram you were just on. There's also the fact that some of the enemies you encounter can, if they get a turn, kill you outright, so there's a lot of tension in that area (and that's when you would cast TILTOWAIT if you have it, even if your summoned monsters could take the enemy out without your help).

Also, those lite-puzzle elements that appear in Wizardry 5 actually first became prominent in Wizardry 4, and they are a *major* part of the game.

Wizardry 4 is also interesting to try to map out simply because each floor is different; each floor has its own distinct gimmick and feel.

You should give WIzardry 4 a try.

I would have said Wizardry VI as well... but then when Wizardry VIII came out and I was knee deep in loving the game; my wife peered over my shoulder and was like, "That looks fun." So she bought her own copy of Wizardry VIII. And while it was never a race; I'd been playing Wizardry VIII for several weeks already - and somehow she managed to beat the game before I did. (But then I am one of those people that likes to have EVERYTHING uncovered on a map). So I thought that created a very fun experience that she and I could talk about.

And to this day - TO THIS VERY DAY - we still mimic the NPC RFS81 when he gets hit with an insanity spell and does his robotic "Ha. Ha. Ha." laugh.

It really doesn't make sense... But I am glad it didn't, because it created an awesome memory for my wife and I.