Monday, April 15, 2013

Game 13: Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (NES) - Won! by Werdna

"There I was, just hanging out with some buddies playing Vampire the Masquerade, when all of a sudden a band of adventurers proclaimed I had stolen Trebor's amulet and they were there to reclaim it. While true, I couldn't stand the transgression. Really Trebor, is this the best you can do?"
At least someone won Wizardry last night. Werdna was at the top of his game with a first turn, very first action, Tiltowait. The most powerful spell in the game, and here I thought I was hot stuff having two mages with a few of these in reserve. This spell has the potential to obliterate my entire party with a max damage of 150. Each character ranged 70 to 130 HP.
Nooooo! I'm supposed to cast that
I started the session with some glimmer of hope that I might put this game behind me. I hadn't considered the possibility that Werdna would lead with such a devastating spell. At level 13 my mages and cleric gained their most powerful spells, which I tried to use during the final fight.

Looking back, I didn't see much need to change my class when I felt like the characters were at the top of their game. Alex, the lead fighter was sporting nearly 130 HP and had acquired some exceptional equipment.
Blade Cusinart is awesome, or I should say... was
Sean and Flewin also gained some good equipment such as an Epee of Excellence, Tanned Leather (better than padded), and 1st Class Plate. Having even my thief with negative AC was a nice sight, but my confidence didn't match reality.
Thankfully the run option has succeeded the majority of the time
I should have known better; I was constantly assailed by enemies that posed a greater threat than I knew how to handle. Especially those that were resistant to magic. The benefits from fighting these tough battles were tiny compared to the risks. Most of the time it was still better to grind against Murphy's Ghost.
Of all the fights I've won, Frost Giants were the only ones award this amount
It was nearing the end of my play session; I adopted a now-or-never mentality and pushed forward, towards Werdna's lair. Did I feel completely prepared? No. Did I feel like I stood a chance? Yes, obviously. So, I headed in after healing up.
I'm pretty sure it was after 3, which may explain why he was so mad... also I didn't have an appointment
I took a deep breath followed by a resounding sigh of consternation. Werdna was surrounded by what looked like a dangerous group of vampires. I was certain their level draining would give me trouble. What I didn't expect, as mentioned before, was the first volley of Tiltowait.

I still held out hope as one of my mages had miraculously survived and had his own Tiltowait queued. Alex, the lead fighter was drained and paralyzed. My remaining party members fell to more party damaging spells delivered by the vampires. The following turn the game knowingly taunted my lack of options.
Would you like to die or stare at the screen?
Dying at Werdna is the worst place. Not only is my party gone they are virtually unreachable. I would need to defeat Werdna to collect them. This would also require taking less than six characters as that's the only way to gather up the fallen character, one-by-one. I might as well have teleported into a wall.
You will be avenged!
I blame my poor luck on turning off the solid walls for the more classic feel of a lined dungeon. A classic look was a nice thought, but now I realize this must have also turned up the difficulty to 11.
A hidden difficulty setting... not really
So, what now? I have characters available to grind against Murphy, but I want to mitigate the risk of Tiltowait. I figure over 200 HP for each character is a necessity. I may make all new characters to focus ability points on vitality and fighters to maximize damage soaking potential.

I'll start with a group of fighters, change classes 4 - 5 times through cleric and mage for spells, and finally arrive at a party of fighters/ninjas (if I'm lucky enough, a thief if I'm not), a cleric, a mage, and a wizard.

I can't imagine anyone watching such obscene amounts of grinding for 8+ hours, so I'm not going to bore anyone other than myself. I'll stream my progress again once I've finished and start collecting treasure.
Poor Murphy, what did he do to deserve this fate?
I'll alleviate the strain of grinding solely on Wizardry by also playing Star Saga 2 at the same time. A slow turn based text adventure should fit nicely with the braindead button mashing on the NES.
Session Time: 4h00m (Total Time: 22h20m

15 comments:

  1. Good job Werdna! I knew you could do it. After watching Choas fail on RPG boss consoler I knew a final boss would be getting the win! Really though after watching I read a few guids and they all pretty much say that you have to be minimum level 13 and level 15 party should dispatch him with not too much effort. Also was reading that you get some really good equipment by taking out all the hard encounters in the 10 th level so that should help. But ya that was a quick fight. Still hoping you do Super Hydlide next as that game should be a piece of cake compared to this.

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    1. I could do that. Not many people seem interested in Crystalis, so I'll swap them if no one objects.

      My party was level 13 - 14, so unless my HP jumps 30 - 40 in a single level (hasn't happened yet) I don't see how that extra level or two would have helped in this case.

      The majority of my exceptional equipment came from all the necessary fights as I made my way to Werdna each time.

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  2. Ah, tiltowait :)

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  3. Werdna spams Tiltowait basically the whole battle. You need to silence him immediately and always have someone silencing him. I also had two mages casting tiltowait and one mage casted the lvl draining spell once. If you do that the vampires and vampire lord should be dead and then everyone can gang up on Werdna. To grind a party on murphys ghost will take around 600 kills with normal classes.

    Good luck!

    Pacpix

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    1. Well, that wouldn't have helped in this case, but I'll keep it mind next attempt.

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    2. Yeah you had pretty bad luck on that encounter...

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  4. I've been playing, but not much to report. 10 hours of grinding behind me and I might put in another 5 before I dive back into the game. I managed enough luck to have one of my clerics upgrade to ninja. I only hope his agility and luck raise high enough to disarm traps reliably. My samurai and wizard are going to stick to their classes even though I don't expect them to get their highest level spells. The other three characters are making their way through cleric and mage, and I'll choose one to switch back to fighter to even out the front line. Yeah, 5 - 6 more hours should do, then gather treasure for another 3 - 4, and finally try to get Werdna again.

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    1. GAH! TEN HOURS! I guess back then developers really did think that the more grinding the more off-and-on months of play-time the game would last. I admire your addiction (or is it guilt and tears?) to get an actual "Won!" posting for this slot-machine of a CRPG D8>

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    2. It's been more than that now. Addiction for completing the games. Although, I have reached the last fight and really after that there's only a few screens to congratulate me. I don't think I'll do this again if Werdna wins a second time.

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  5. Eagerly awaiting your finish. As you may or may not know Retronauts had a kickstarter to fund their operation now that 1-up has shutdown. I won one of there reward tiers to choose the topic of an episode. I chose an episode on chronogaming. Anyway I mentioned this site in my request as one of the few active chronogaming sites. So if they decide to cover it maybe it will lead some traffic your way.

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    1. That's awesome! Thanks for the vote of confidence. This is a busy weekend for me, but I still hope to finish off Wizardry by May.

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  6. BTW, even if you think it will be boring, why don't you stream? At least then we can provide amusing commentary, or at least try to...

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    1. I plan to stream, but sometimes it's just easier to play the game without worrying about setting and monopolizing the computer. In this case, while grinding, I was also playing a computer game. I'm not sure how that would have fit with streaming as well.

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  7. I commend your persistence. I would have said "**** this" and adopted something akin to the CRPG Addict's "I can ditch any game after enduring at least 6 hours of its BS" rule long ago, in your place.

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    1. I'm not sure I would have kept going if I didn't manage it on the second try.

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