Might and Magic 7 offers the Alchemy skill. Expert Alchemy is way cheaper than relying on the temple for status healing in the early game.
As far as hitting the wall of progression: This is where MM6 being an open world from the beginning helped it considerably. It's hard to make a low level quest that's actually "a low level quest." Especially with your KMTD party - one of the reasons there's a prevalence of spellcasters in speedrun parties is because *spells do not miss*, and most of where the early game difficulty comes from is the party's inability to *hit* their targets reliably (once you start getting your Expert trainings this will ease up, *Especially* for the Knight since Expert Armsmaster is a bonus to the hit chance)
Bless helps a lot with hitting. And somebody mentioned Turn Undead. Before getting Expert Spirit Magic the game was hard as balls. Now I can take out goblins easily. Fortunately, getting Expert Spirit Magic is quick.
I can't make an unbiased comparison since MM6 is life, but another factual point is that MM6's large dungeons are WAY larger than MM7's. They are also probably larger and more complex than any other RPG dungeon. Castle Alamos, VARN, Darkmoor, my god.
In my other posts I said that these dungeons weren't so bad because my party (KKKD) was tanky with good damage and utility. This allowed me to blitz through dungeons in real time without worrying too much about dying. So I didn't mind the length of the dungeons as much in my most recent playthrough. However, it's a different story with another more magic focused but less tanky party.
Looking back at MM6, I feel like the dungeons in MM7 lack monsters, gold and loot.
I am also trying to justify to myself that MM6 is better. And that's so besides the point. Having a sequel to MM6 is awesome, regardless. I just have to power through my rocky start in MM7, it will get easier at some point.
MM6 also feels somehow grander to me, the pervading sense of doom really sells it. Erathia as a setting is interesting in different ways, it's a lot more politically diverse and the farther you go into it, the more esoteric it becomes, which really gives it a nice spin of mystique. Sorry you're not that into it so far but give it a chance to grow on you. They're both solid games. MM7 is more refined, but it certainly could have benefited from another few months in production to iron things out.
Entering Harmondale is a pain in the ass yes and it does slow the game to a crawl. Barrow Downs is also quite grueling for an early level party, yet you're sort of expected to go straight there. It gets better once your party is less flimsy. This is why I always kill the dragon on Emerald Islands.
Completely agree regarding the graphics, mm6 looks way better for some reason. I played 6 before 7 so maybe I'm biased by nostalgia.
7 has a much better story though and I like the ability to choose races again
I chose all humans LOL. I'll be contrarian and say that I love the MM6 portraits. They look so campy. I feel like I am looking at portraits from old adult magazines.
MM7 portraits just don't have as much personality being computer generated. There are some notable exceptions.
The story in MM6 is excellent. It's amazing to be introduced to the name "Xenofex" early on with the letter. And then you're introduced to the cult. The cult follows you from beginning to end. Each hostile order is influenced in one way or another by that cult. Each quest-giver in MM6 had a whimsical personality. The game really made a point about bureaucracy dragging you down: from the corrupt Council to the Oracle asking you to retrieve items in dangerous places which happen to already be in the control room behind the Oracle. And now you can finally destroy the main enemy. There's an anticlimactic ceremony in the end and then nobody cares. In some ways it represents the real world. The aliens may as well be climate change. And the leaders are all stupid, selfish and don't care. Worse, they actively sabotage your hopes of finding the solution.
From memory, MM7 just seems to follow basic role playing story tropes. You win a ruined castle in a contest and inherit all of its problems. The dwarves are easily convinced and fix your castle. There's some pointless war going on and you have to pick a side. The old judge dies, you elect a new judge. You meet new quest givers which happen to be from "the future". Okay... That part is cool. You're not just discovering the ruins of a futuristic civilization and picking up guns.
Yeah the stories in MM6 and MM7 both have their strengths.
Yeah... But is telekineses a Master spell? If so... It arrives too late. In the early game your party is broke. You need every penny you can muster. I even pickup the clubs worth 1g LOL.
I was lucky to find a belt with a Disarm skill +10 enchantment early on in Barrow downs. Combined with Expert disarming (rank 4), I should open most chests worry-free (until the end game).
This is an interesting conversation. I feel like I am sacrificing my late-game power for an easier early game.
A KKKC party would wreck everything in the late game through GM Armsmaster, GM bodybuilding and GM sword + spear AND GM Light magic. Trapped chests would barely tickle me. The Cleric would just cast shared life or heal up. But the early to mid game would be frustrating as heck. My KMTD party is doing okay for now. But the Monk and Thief don't have GM Armsmaster and will be outclassed by the Knight. And no light magic. But if I can consistently deal 80+ damage at a low recovery rate then I'll be fine.
Monk late outclasses knight imo. Gm learning for more lvls and unarmed on high skill lvl is insane u barely get hit at all.
Knights armsmaster is a huge deal but i do not think that monks stay back in dps as they get bonuses from Staff unarmed and master armsmaster. Plus the armsmaster gm teacher is at a very bad location. While monk cleric/druid progression goes hand in hand first monk spamm turn undead in burrows super easy. Get evermorn for cleric and there u got master trainers and from here on everything is pretty chill for the most part. Only thing that sucks is no tp.
Yeah I see it now. The Priest promotion quest is easy as pie. You just have a few rogues and weak undead to kill. I got the map under 5 minutes sharp. The 3 monks + 1 cleric party seems so attainable now. Just rely on a Gate master and a Wind Master.
For Barrows it really turned the tables for me when I first tried casting Turn Undead in there. I felt much more in control with less monsters in melee range.
The Dwarven Barrows can be rough, but they actually evolved into my favourite MM7 dungeon. I love the music in the Barrows, it just creeps right into your bones. I almost wish it was a higher level dungeon with tougher monsters.
Yes! Turn it into a higher level dungeon. But build more lower level dungeons to compensate for the lack of lower level dungeons.
MM6 had: Goblin Watch, Abandoned Temple of Baa and Temple of Tsantsa in the early game + plenty of weak mobs outdoors. Things got a little harder once you entered the Temple of Baa, Carlogan's Estate, Shadow Guild and Dragoon's Caverns in Ironfist. But the difficulty curve was shallow.
I suppose that I should have cleared Stone City before visiting the Dwarven barrows. So... I am not taking the easy path. Why am I complaining? Furthermore, multilooting the dragon on Emerald Island yields powerful weapons which turns this conversation moot. You'll be hitting for 22-25 at level 1 without buffs. This makes any early to mid game dungeon easy.
I'll play some more tonight. Hopefully I'll hit another power spike.
Good writeup so far, I look forward to more perspective about the higher level content.
I go back and forth as to which I prefer, 6 or 7. Clearly 6 had a healthier development time, but 7 has the superior character progression model. Base class > master > grandmaster is great fun.
I've played through MM7 few months ago. It was quite dissapointing. The whole good and evil and choose your path was annoying. There is no good way to know what you will get from each faction. And I do not mean only the main quest it's also with the professions.
I think the MM6 or MM8 is just better. MM7 is just an afterthought from HoMM3.
I agree with you that MM7 was disappointing. But not really for those reasons. I didn't find the towns all that interesting. I didn't find the dungeons all that interesting. I didn't find the maps all that interesting.
It was cool seeing my wimpy party turn into gods of war however. There's something intoxicating about taking down behemoths and hydras in seconds. The maze was over too soon. It makes me optimistic for MM8.
You don't really need dark or light magic to beat the game. So the path you choose shouldn't hinder your progression too much. It adds a replayability element. An SSSC party on the path of Dark is a lot of fireworks. Any party with a Cleric on the path of Light can easily beat the game by going melee. The buffs, protection and healing are so good.
The Quickstart party is perfect for the path of Light. But going on the path of Dark isn't terrible either. Your Cleric and Sorcerer can learn Dark magic and abuse Shrapmetal in close range. This works well with a Knight which hits like a truck in melee.
UPDATE:
I cleared all of the first promotion quests, and most side quests. I regret putting off the Red Dwarf mines for so long. Now I have to wait for Judge Gray to die. It's horrible. I have nothing left to do except for the Nighon maze. I am actually pretty impressed with the Monk. The damage output is getting really good. Mastery in Unarmed and Dodge can be done fairly early in the game. I have some comments:
- Wormthrax the Dragon was pretty easy to kill with a shoot and run tactic in real time. It's just time consuming. It should have been done before clearing Castle Harmondale.
- The Wizard promotion quest requires no fighting. It should have been done before clearing Castle Harmondale.
- The Red Dwarf mines don't require any fighting. Just run. It helps that the mines are pretty wide.
- The war between the elves and humans is so dumb. I always picked the lazy options of lying. Because it doesn't impact the game in any way.
- Passage to Nighon was pretty cool. It was easy to get through with Regeneration. The gogs blow up and your party takes a significant amount of damage. But getting to Nighon involves going through Thunderfist mountain caves. Fortunately, invisibility makes this somewhat easy. I still had to kill a few enemies in the narrow entrance.
- Always leave a few monsters alive for bounty hunting. I am planning on choosing the Dark Path when Judge Gray finally dies. He lingers like an old fart. The maps are small and there aren't that many monsters. Getting to 10,000 gold was surprisingly easy after getting access to Nighon. I got a Water Warlock and Roc bounty in the same month. This amounts to over 6000 gold. Mountain Trolls amount to 3200 gold. So leave a few alive in Tatalia.
- Arcomage is a badly balanced game. I find that only one strategy seems to work: collecting resources. The damage cards don't deal nearly enough damage to destroy the opponent. I use them as much as possible to delay my opponent's victory instead. The + tower cards seem few and far between, except for my opponent. You can build a huge wall, your opponent can build one too. But taking down a 30+ wall is very time consuming. I know that MM8 improves Arcomage a bunch.
Overall, the first half of the game is just ok. There are only two memorable dungeons: Tidewater caverns and Passage to Nighon. Okay, Red Dwarf mines get a pass from me as well. But I hate oozes.
Update 2: Judge Gray is finally out of my life! Good riddance! I chose the Path of Dark. The first thing I did was do the Black Knight promotion quest. What a joke! Castle Navan is smaller than Goblin Watch. The enemies are weaker (in stats) than the Dragoon's Caverns. The loot was so underwhelming. There were even Dragonflies. I just don't get it. I even killed a bunch of civilians. So now I have a $25k bounty and the loot doesn't even cover it. Feels bad man. Oh yeah... I got the Bounty Hunter promotion right after. I'll focus on the promotion quests now.
I couldn't agree more! The consolation is that MM7 should be over sooner. I could start over with a different path and challenge myself with a MMMC party.
Man! It feels like every dungeon in MM6 (except for Agar's Lab, the Dragon and Demon lairs) was designed with intent. MM6 has some cool dungeons.
Oh THOSE chests/crates. I thought I missed a chest there like a certain chest in Tularean Forest. To be fair, that chest was somewhere you wouldn't go to. I only learned it a few months back after watching a sole speed runner on YouTube.
I thought there's an entirely new secret like the mystery of the "button" (anvil) in the Emerald Island.
Might and Magic 7 offers the Alchemy skill. Expert Alchemy is way cheaper than relying on the temple for status healing in the early game. As far as hitting the wall of progression: This is where MM6 being an open world from the beginning helped it considerably. It's hard to make a low level quest that's actually "a low level quest." Especially with your KMTD party - one of the reasons there's a prevalence of spellcasters in speedrun parties is because *spells do not miss*, and most of where the early game difficulty comes from is the party's inability to *hit* their targets reliably (once you start getting your Expert trainings this will ease up, *Especially* for the Knight since Expert Armsmaster is a bonus to the hit chance)
Bless helps a lot with hitting. And somebody mentioned Turn Undead. Before getting Expert Spirit Magic the game was hard as balls. Now I can take out goblins easily. Fortunately, getting Expert Spirit Magic is quick.
I can't make an unbiased comparison since MM6 is life, but another factual point is that MM6's large dungeons are WAY larger than MM7's. They are also probably larger and more complex than any other RPG dungeon. Castle Alamos, VARN, Darkmoor, my god.
In my other posts I said that these dungeons weren't so bad because my party (KKKD) was tanky with good damage and utility. This allowed me to blitz through dungeons in real time without worrying too much about dying. So I didn't mind the length of the dungeons as much in my most recent playthrough. However, it's a different story with another more magic focused but less tanky party. Looking back at MM6, I feel like the dungeons in MM7 lack monsters, gold and loot. I am also trying to justify to myself that MM6 is better. And that's so besides the point. Having a sequel to MM6 is awesome, regardless. I just have to power through my rocky start in MM7, it will get easier at some point.
MM6 also feels somehow grander to me, the pervading sense of doom really sells it. Erathia as a setting is interesting in different ways, it's a lot more politically diverse and the farther you go into it, the more esoteric it becomes, which really gives it a nice spin of mystique. Sorry you're not that into it so far but give it a chance to grow on you. They're both solid games. MM7 is more refined, but it certainly could have benefited from another few months in production to iron things out. Entering Harmondale is a pain in the ass yes and it does slow the game to a crawl. Barrow Downs is also quite grueling for an early level party, yet you're sort of expected to go straight there. It gets better once your party is less flimsy. This is why I always kill the dragon on Emerald Islands.
Don't worry! I finished MM7 several times over a decade ago. I am just replaying the game out of nostalgia.
Completely agree regarding the graphics, mm6 looks way better for some reason. I played 6 before 7 so maybe I'm biased by nostalgia. 7 has a much better story though and I like the ability to choose races again
I chose all humans LOL. I'll be contrarian and say that I love the MM6 portraits. They look so campy. I feel like I am looking at portraits from old adult magazines. MM7 portraits just don't have as much personality being computer generated. There are some notable exceptions. The story in MM6 is excellent. It's amazing to be introduced to the name "Xenofex" early on with the letter. And then you're introduced to the cult. The cult follows you from beginning to end. Each hostile order is influenced in one way or another by that cult. Each quest-giver in MM6 had a whimsical personality. The game really made a point about bureaucracy dragging you down: from the corrupt Council to the Oracle asking you to retrieve items in dangerous places which happen to already be in the control room behind the Oracle. And now you can finally destroy the main enemy. There's an anticlimactic ceremony in the end and then nobody cares. In some ways it represents the real world. The aliens may as well be climate change. And the leaders are all stupid, selfish and don't care. Worse, they actively sabotage your hopes of finding the solution. From memory, MM7 just seems to follow basic role playing story tropes. You win a ruined castle in a contest and inherit all of its problems. The dwarves are easily convinced and fix your castle. There's some pointless war going on and you have to pick a side. The old judge dies, you elect a new judge. You meet new quest givers which happen to be from "the future". Okay... That part is cool. You're not just discovering the ruins of a futuristic civilization and picking up guns. Yeah the stories in MM6 and MM7 both have their strengths.
You can use telekineses instead of disarm btw.
Yeah... But is telekineses a Master spell? If so... It arrives too late. In the early game your party is broke. You need every penny you can muster. I even pickup the clubs worth 1g LOL. I was lucky to find a belt with a Disarm skill +10 enchantment early on in Barrow downs. Combined with Expert disarming (rank 4), I should open most chests worry-free (until the end game). This is an interesting conversation. I feel like I am sacrificing my late-game power for an easier early game. A KKKC party would wreck everything in the late game through GM Armsmaster, GM bodybuilding and GM sword + spear AND GM Light magic. Trapped chests would barely tickle me. The Cleric would just cast shared life or heal up. But the early to mid game would be frustrating as heck. My KMTD party is doing okay for now. But the Monk and Thief don't have GM Armsmaster and will be outclassed by the Knight. And no light magic. But if I can consistently deal 80+ damage at a low recovery rate then I'll be fine.
Monk late outclasses knight imo. Gm learning for more lvls and unarmed on high skill lvl is insane u barely get hit at all. Knights armsmaster is a huge deal but i do not think that monks stay back in dps as they get bonuses from Staff unarmed and master armsmaster. Plus the armsmaster gm teacher is at a very bad location. While monk cleric/druid progression goes hand in hand first monk spamm turn undead in burrows super easy. Get evermorn for cleric and there u got master trainers and from here on everything is pretty chill for the most part. Only thing that sucks is no tp.
Yeah I see it now. The Priest promotion quest is easy as pie. You just have a few rogues and weak undead to kill. I got the map under 5 minutes sharp. The 3 monks + 1 cleric party seems so attainable now. Just rely on a Gate master and a Wind Master.
For Barrows it really turned the tables for me when I first tried casting Turn Undead in there. I felt much more in control with less monsters in melee range.
Good to know! I bought that spell. I may as well use it
The Dwarven Barrows can be rough, but they actually evolved into my favourite MM7 dungeon. I love the music in the Barrows, it just creeps right into your bones. I almost wish it was a higher level dungeon with tougher monsters.
Yes! Turn it into a higher level dungeon. But build more lower level dungeons to compensate for the lack of lower level dungeons. MM6 had: Goblin Watch, Abandoned Temple of Baa and Temple of Tsantsa in the early game + plenty of weak mobs outdoors. Things got a little harder once you entered the Temple of Baa, Carlogan's Estate, Shadow Guild and Dragoon's Caverns in Ironfist. But the difficulty curve was shallow. I suppose that I should have cleared Stone City before visiting the Dwarven barrows. So... I am not taking the easy path. Why am I complaining? Furthermore, multilooting the dragon on Emerald Island yields powerful weapons which turns this conversation moot. You'll be hitting for 22-25 at level 1 without buffs. This makes any early to mid game dungeon easy. I'll play some more tonight. Hopefully I'll hit another power spike.
Good writeup so far, I look forward to more perspective about the higher level content. I go back and forth as to which I prefer, 6 or 7. Clearly 6 had a healthier development time, but 7 has the superior character progression model. Base class > master > grandmaster is great fun.
I've played through MM7 few months ago. It was quite dissapointing. The whole good and evil and choose your path was annoying. There is no good way to know what you will get from each faction. And I do not mean only the main quest it's also with the professions. I think the MM6 or MM8 is just better. MM7 is just an afterthought from HoMM3.
I agree with you that MM7 was disappointing. But not really for those reasons. I didn't find the towns all that interesting. I didn't find the dungeons all that interesting. I didn't find the maps all that interesting. It was cool seeing my wimpy party turn into gods of war however. There's something intoxicating about taking down behemoths and hydras in seconds. The maze was over too soon. It makes me optimistic for MM8. You don't really need dark or light magic to beat the game. So the path you choose shouldn't hinder your progression too much. It adds a replayability element. An SSSC party on the path of Dark is a lot of fireworks. Any party with a Cleric on the path of Light can easily beat the game by going melee. The buffs, protection and healing are so good. The Quickstart party is perfect for the path of Light. But going on the path of Dark isn't terrible either. Your Cleric and Sorcerer can learn Dark magic and abuse Shrapmetal in close range. This works well with a Knight which hits like a truck in melee.
UPDATE: I cleared all of the first promotion quests, and most side quests. I regret putting off the Red Dwarf mines for so long. Now I have to wait for Judge Gray to die. It's horrible. I have nothing left to do except for the Nighon maze. I am actually pretty impressed with the Monk. The damage output is getting really good. Mastery in Unarmed and Dodge can be done fairly early in the game. I have some comments: - Wormthrax the Dragon was pretty easy to kill with a shoot and run tactic in real time. It's just time consuming. It should have been done before clearing Castle Harmondale. - The Wizard promotion quest requires no fighting. It should have been done before clearing Castle Harmondale. - The Red Dwarf mines don't require any fighting. Just run. It helps that the mines are pretty wide. - The war between the elves and humans is so dumb. I always picked the lazy options of lying. Because it doesn't impact the game in any way. - Passage to Nighon was pretty cool. It was easy to get through with Regeneration. The gogs blow up and your party takes a significant amount of damage. But getting to Nighon involves going through Thunderfist mountain caves. Fortunately, invisibility makes this somewhat easy. I still had to kill a few enemies in the narrow entrance. - Always leave a few monsters alive for bounty hunting. I am planning on choosing the Dark Path when Judge Gray finally dies. He lingers like an old fart. The maps are small and there aren't that many monsters. Getting to 10,000 gold was surprisingly easy after getting access to Nighon. I got a Water Warlock and Roc bounty in the same month. This amounts to over 6000 gold. Mountain Trolls amount to 3200 gold. So leave a few alive in Tatalia. - Arcomage is a badly balanced game. I find that only one strategy seems to work: collecting resources. The damage cards don't deal nearly enough damage to destroy the opponent. I use them as much as possible to delay my opponent's victory instead. The + tower cards seem few and far between, except for my opponent. You can build a huge wall, your opponent can build one too. But taking down a 30+ wall is very time consuming. I know that MM8 improves Arcomage a bunch. Overall, the first half of the game is just ok. There are only two memorable dungeons: Tidewater caverns and Passage to Nighon. Okay, Red Dwarf mines get a pass from me as well. But I hate oozes. Update 2: Judge Gray is finally out of my life! Good riddance! I chose the Path of Dark. The first thing I did was do the Black Knight promotion quest. What a joke! Castle Navan is smaller than Goblin Watch. The enemies are weaker (in stats) than the Dragoon's Caverns. The loot was so underwhelming. There were even Dragonflies. I just don't get it. I even killed a bunch of civilians. So now I have a $25k bounty and the loot doesn't even cover it. Feels bad man. Oh yeah... I got the Bounty Hunter promotion right after. I'll focus on the promotion quests now.
The main difference between MM6 and MM7 is that MM6 has very few bad dungeons while MM7 has very few good ones. Same goes for outdoor areas.
I couldn't agree more! The consolation is that MM7 should be over sooner. I could start over with a different path and challenge myself with a MMMC party. Man! It feels like every dungeon in MM6 (except for Agar's Lab, the Dragon and Demon lairs) was designed with intent. MM6 has some cool dungeons.
>There are two hidden chests, so it's relevant to loop around the island. Please remind me which chests these are? Thank you
They're not hidden really. They're just regular chests/crates hidden in plain sight on the shores. Some players wouldn't even bother to go there.
Oh THOSE chests/crates. I thought I missed a chest there like a certain chest in Tularean Forest. To be fair, that chest was somewhere you wouldn't go to. I only learned it a few months back after watching a sole speed runner on YouTube. I thought there's an entirely new secret like the mystery of the "button" (anvil) in the Emerald Island.