A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
Aldeb
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A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Aldeb » 04 Feb 2016, 09:41

Hey there. I'm new to Might and Magic. I've played 7 for about 30 levels and now I'm wrestling with Mandate of Heaven. It's a fun game, I'll admit it. I have a few questions.

Exactly how feasible is it to use the Learning skill? In my Party, I've boasted Learning to 8 pts from about level 25-30. How many extra levels may I earn until the game ends? (Sorry, I'm terrible at math). If it helps with anything ... I'm currently wrestling Fire Drakes in Blackshite, my party is at level 48 and I'm in Year 4

Is there any specific reason to upgrade weapon and armor skills beyond their Master rating? Although magic skills have a continual benefit in damage and effectiveness from increasing it, I've noticed that there isn't much point increasing Axe, Sword, Spear, Leather or Chain etc since it only reduces recovery time and offers no extra damage.

Is there any reason for reputations - "Bad", "Respectable" "Good", etc. I have not encountered a problem where this is a factor yet.

Are most artifacts spawned randomly in the game world, or are they located in specific locations?

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Arret
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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Arret » 04 Feb 2016, 18:45

Nice, but not neccesary. You get maybe an extra 5-10 levels because it only boosts monster xp not quests xp. There is no reason to skip level 1 because that gets you 10% with no skill points, but dumping points into it can be a waste.

No, aside from maybe blaster at the end. Get sword master first, and anything else later.

Reputation affects how you deal with peasants. Also Saintly reputation is required for light magic master and Notorious is required for dark magic master. If you enter a castle at Notorious reputation you are thrown in jail for a year.

Both. A couple quests have set artifact locations, but they are available from any rank 6 treasure(dragons, supreme titans, great wyrms) aside from the circus.

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Phobos
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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Phobos » 04 Feb 2016, 19:37

1) I've never thought about the learning skill very analytically, but I'll try to do that now. Maybe this will be helpful.

Basic Learning gives a 10% boost to experience gained from killing enemies (1*1% + 9%). This is a skill that should be learned as quickly as possible because it costs you no skill points at all and it is quite a nice bonus. Master Learning at level 7 gives you a 30 % boost to experience (7*3% + 9%). It costs 27 skill points to get the skill to this level. You will get the invested skill points back from future level-ups when this 20% gain over basic Learning lets you do the necessary levels of extra training. Actually, I should say 18,181818...% gain over basic learning, because 1,30 is that much more than 1,10. I can't come up with an exact formula for how many extra levels you get during the game or for when the skill will have paid off, but here's a simplified example:

Let's say that you learn the Learning skill at the beginning of the game, for an immediate experience boost of 10%. At level 10, you decide to get Master Learning. For simplicity's sake, let's say you invest the necessary 27 skill points all at once and master the skill. You will be gaining 18,1818...% more experience from now on, as discussed before. Let's assume that your characters have 55,000 experience at this point, the minimum required for level 10. Then they go on to fight some monsters to return the investment in Learning skill. According to my estimation, this will happen at level 40, which takes 820,000 experience points (a gain of 765,000 compared to the starting situation). With only Basic Learning (skill level 1), you would have gained 647,308 points of experience, for a total of 702,308 experience, leaving you at level 36 (622 points short of level 37). This difference will give your characters 33 skill points over Basic Learning (8 for each level in the thirties and 9 for the 40th level), so you will have gained back your investment plus some HP and SP from the extra levels.

At level 39, you won't quite have the skill point investment back yet: it takes 780,000 experience to reach, a difference of 725,000 from level 10. Basic Learning would have given you 613,462 points for a total of 668,462 points, which is level 36. A three-level difference in the thirties amounts to 24 skill points, not quite the 27 that were invested. You will have 3 levels worth of extra HP and SP though.

As the game goes on, you will keep gaining even more experience and extra HP, SP and skill points. So Master Learning (7) sounds like a good investment in the long run, but it will take quite a few levels for you to get the skill point investment back. The immediate drawbacks are clear, as you delay development of other skills. You'll have to consider how much you value skill points compared to HP/SP. Also, the situation I described above is hypothetical, because all of the experience was assumed to come from monster killings. In reality, a large part of the experience comes from quests, which learning doesn't affect at all. This makes not investing in Learning more favourable but doesn't change the fact that the investment will pay itself back eventually (although sometimes very late).

But should you invest more than 7 points? Master 8 brings the total experience boost to 1,33x, which is 2,3 % more than the 1,30x provided by Master 7. If this 2,3 % grants your characters an extra level over the course of the game, the long-term investment will be worth it (the upcoming level up brings back the lost skill points and then some). I think this will happen around level 86, which requires 3,741,000 experience to reach. But this approximation only works when all the experience has come from killing monsters, which is never the case.

You seem to have invested 35 points in Learning at a later stage in the game, so I don't think the skill point investment will ever pay itself back completely (but you will gain HP and SP benefits). I could be wrong, though. But let's imagine what would have happened if you had invested 27 points for Master Learning (7) at level 30, and that you had just Basic Learning (1) before that. You would have had about 465,000 experience at this point. By level 48, which takes 1,176,000 exp to reach, the skill would have helped you get 109,385 extra points over Basic Learning. This translates to 2 extra levels, 18 skill points in the forties. Over the course of the game, the 27-point investment would probably have paid itself back, just not as quickly as the early investment I talked about in my example. But also consider that some of the experience you gained between levels 30 and 48 must have come from completing quests. This means that Learning would have contributed less than my optimistic estimation suggests.

To put it simply: Yes, Learning is feasible. Learn it immediately and get Master 7 as soon as you can spare the skill points. Definitely get Master 7 before engaging in major monster-killing operations (so definitely before clearing Dragonsand, Hermit's Isle and Paradise Valley). This way you'll make the most out of the skill. Also, consider hiring the Instructor and Teacher NPCs for even more experience points.

I used the following experience formula, provided by the great GrayFace: Total experience for N'th level: TotalExp(N) = N*(N+1)*500) Source: https://sites.google.com/site/sergroj/mm/mechanics

2) Upgrading armor skills beyond master doesn't seem useful to me. It only adds to armor class. Weapons, on the other hand, should be improved for the characters that rely on them. So definitely Knights, and I'd say Paladins and Archers too, unless you're going heavy on magic. Extra points increase the damage of Axes, Spears and Maces, gives an extra attack bonus to all weapons and usually decreases the recovery time too. Points to Axe are especially good since they affect all three of these aspects. For a Knight, the best way to do more damage is to invest points in a suitable weapon skill. Clerics, Druids and Sorcerers should at most Expert their weapon of choice and focus the rest of their skill points on magic.
Last edited by Phobos on 10 Dec 2017, 13:28, edited 1 time in total.

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Jacko
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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Jacko » 05 Feb 2016, 09:54

I always do some quests that require no killing level water to master for tp and lb and then master learning + instructor and than killing spree. In solo games high learning makes a big difference.

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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Aldeb » 08 Feb 2016, 21:19

Thank you so much for your input. If you don't mind I would further like to probe people here for some more info

Namely, is it generally useful to have either an Archer, Paladin or Druid inside a party? From my experience I've noticed that it's best to have three of the 'main' classes in a party - Knight, Cleric, Wizard to cover all facets of combat, and one of the three mixed classes. Out of the three, which one is the weakest and which is the strongest to have around?

Does Personality affect the Merchant skill in any way?

I've found some gems in the game. I'm having flashbacks of playing Diablo 2 and I'm not eager to sell them. Can they be useful in any way or are they to be sold?

I've noticed Luck is primarily aimed at avoiding traps and absorbing damage. Is it really worth boosting it beyond 50-60 with rings and armor or is that good enough for the duration of the game?

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Arret
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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Arret » 09 Feb 2016, 03:09

There is no reason to ever use a knight. A paladin has the exact same skills plus body/mind/spirit magic and all you lose are hit points. An archer has the exact same skills aside from plate and shield (don't ever use a shield when you can learn master sword) but gets Fire/Air/Water/Earth. In later games hybrids don't scale well, but in MM6 the standard parties are PACS and CCSS. Druids are good outdoors, but suffer indoors where most of your fights occur. This is before we get to how frustrating the promotions are for druids.

No, other than the requirement to have 30 personality when you get master. Just get an item that increases the stat and pass it around to your merchant(s).

No. They are just expensive rocks, sell them. In MM1-5 gems were a resource required for most spells but are just rocks in all the later games.

Stats scale poorly after 30 and terribly after 50. Luck is no exception. Day of the Gods fixes any stats that are low.

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Macros the Black
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Re: A Few Newb M&M 6 Questions

Unread postby Macros the Black » 09 Feb 2016, 16:51

Luck is no better or worse than any of the other stats. What it primarily does is protect you from conditions caused by enemies (ex. poison, disease, instant death, etc), so it is more useful than it may at first appear but like all the stats it scales badly at higher levels.

As for Learning, like the third post proved it can pay itself back if you invest early enough, but I see it mostly as a way to reach higher levels at the cost of skill points. Since higher level mostly just means more hit- and spell points (aside from skill points) it means that investing in learning is in investment of skill points early on to gain more hit- and spell points later on. Conversely, investing in other skills mostly means increasing your damage output.

Keep in mind that if you have access to master water magic you can just town portal back to a temple and return immediately when you run out of hit- and spell points, so increasing your damage output is more valuable in most cases (as long as your character who can cast Lloyd's Beacon stays alive).

The other thing to keep in mind is that master water magic is the most important skill to get early on since it allows you to travel around quickly. Other skills like disarm trap and identify item and such are also important to focus on early on, which means there's only a short interval where investing in learning will pay off fast enough for it to still be worth it. Still, get basic learning as soon as possible.
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