Posted April 12, 2019
Here me out: Half of the classes don't seem to have any real purpose other than to lead you away from better classes (Druid vs. Cleric, Archer vs. Sorcerer, Knight vs. Paladin, etc.).
If you don't powergame and look up the math (most of it only available this century thanks to Grayface— if this was 1998, you'd be spinning your wheels with wasted slots), then gearing is very misleading. At first stats are great, but then the diminishing returns make them mostly worthless if you get light/dark magic and your only mid-game power increasers are +HP and SP, but you reach a point that a few extra HP or SP don't really matter and all you want is +AC, "Of Power" and "Of Recovery".
Your non-tank classes end up being your tanks. In my current party, my Knight only ever receives AoE damage. Instead, because of target preferences of end-game mobs, my Cleric is basically only wearing +AC, +Resistance and +Endurance gear because mobs only ever attack them and they spend 90% of their time healing themselves. In terms of combat flow, that frees up the other three to attack non-stop. That just feels boring and wrong.
Then you have your relic and artifact limits which leave you loading and running across maps to chests over and over and over to complete your wishlist before you reach your limit.
With reputation requirements for light/dark magic, if you don't plan your quests ahead you can easily deny yourself one or the other (although many say they don't bother getting them, anyway).
And finally, Castle Darkmoor. The mini-map is spaghetti, you can't use Wizard Eye or Torchlight and there are rooms full of zomgwtfbbq mobs that zerg you. Oh, and no buffs. Of course there are other annoying dungeons such as Castle Alamos with all the mobs shooting you through holes in the walls and the Hall of the Firelord which requires a sideview of the cinder cone to efficiently understand the elevation drops. I did it all by trial and error, but then I found a map online that would have made it a five minute dungeon.
Finally, you can only play as humans and the only non-human mortal you can speak with is a single dwarf?
Don't get me wrong: MM7 and forward have their issues, too. But at least the archer is actually the best archer. Mobs will target your knights and paladins and there is no equivalent to the spaghetti-like halls of Castle Darkmoor. But I've found that you can bumble your way through the later games and be fine, while MM6 requires you to powergame and plan ahead in a way that utterly annihilates the fourth wall and any sense of roleplaying mystique.
Alright, you caught me. Those other things annoy me: MM7-9 having their own unique annoyances, too. By today's RPG standards, there's a lot to question and scratch your head over. But things were different in 1996-7. I'm mostly just mad at Castle Darkmoor. WHY DOES CASTLE DARKMOOR EXIST!?! It's a joke on gamers, right? Right? Or did someone think that was a good idea?
If you don't powergame and look up the math (most of it only available this century thanks to Grayface— if this was 1998, you'd be spinning your wheels with wasted slots), then gearing is very misleading. At first stats are great, but then the diminishing returns make them mostly worthless if you get light/dark magic and your only mid-game power increasers are +HP and SP, but you reach a point that a few extra HP or SP don't really matter and all you want is +AC, "Of Power" and "Of Recovery".
Your non-tank classes end up being your tanks. In my current party, my Knight only ever receives AoE damage. Instead, because of target preferences of end-game mobs, my Cleric is basically only wearing +AC, +Resistance and +Endurance gear because mobs only ever attack them and they spend 90% of their time healing themselves. In terms of combat flow, that frees up the other three to attack non-stop. That just feels boring and wrong.
Then you have your relic and artifact limits which leave you loading and running across maps to chests over and over and over to complete your wishlist before you reach your limit.
With reputation requirements for light/dark magic, if you don't plan your quests ahead you can easily deny yourself one or the other (although many say they don't bother getting them, anyway).
And finally, Castle Darkmoor. The mini-map is spaghetti, you can't use Wizard Eye or Torchlight and there are rooms full of zomgwtfbbq mobs that zerg you. Oh, and no buffs. Of course there are other annoying dungeons such as Castle Alamos with all the mobs shooting you through holes in the walls and the Hall of the Firelord which requires a sideview of the cinder cone to efficiently understand the elevation drops. I did it all by trial and error, but then I found a map online that would have made it a five minute dungeon.
Finally, you can only play as humans and the only non-human mortal you can speak with is a single dwarf?
Don't get me wrong: MM7 and forward have their issues, too. But at least the archer is actually the best archer. Mobs will target your knights and paladins and there is no equivalent to the spaghetti-like halls of Castle Darkmoor. But I've found that you can bumble your way through the later games and be fine, while MM6 requires you to powergame and plan ahead in a way that utterly annihilates the fourth wall and any sense of roleplaying mystique.
Alright, you caught me. Those other things annoy me: MM7-9 having their own unique annoyances, too. By today's RPG standards, there's a lot to question and scratch your head over. But things were different in 1996-7. I'm mostly just mad at Castle Darkmoor. WHY DOES CASTLE DARKMOOR EXIST!?! It's a joke on gamers, right? Right? Or did someone think that was a good idea?