Looking for recommendations on other games. I've been playing Might & Magic for years. I want to try a new series that has similar mechanics. Party development and advancement are key to my enjoyment. I hear good things about Wizardry and Arkania. What do other people like and why?

I'm not familiar with Wizardry, but I've also heard it plays similarly to Might and Magic.

Maybe you could give Ultima Underworld a try. It plays from a first person perspective, there's inventory management (weight based instead of the grid inventory of MM6/7/8), puzzles, and exploration. There's only the one character, but you'll gain XP and levels, and you'll have skills that you invest (unlisted) points into. Granted, the skill points are basically spent on a very small list of skills if you want to optimize, but it's there. If you enjoy UU1, then UU2 offers more of the same. The combat is a little more active than MM tends to be, and moving in and out of melee range is a standard part of fighting to manually evade attacks.

Wizardry I'm familiar with. The early games in the series (1-5, but note that 4 is different) and the Japanese spin-offs tend to be more focused on the combat aspect of the game; there's no overworld, town is just a menu, and the game is almost entirely taking your party through the dungeon. The games do feature permadeath and forced autosaving (I always cheat the latter by copying saves or using save states, as I dislike the mechanic). The Dark Savant triligy (6-8) gets rid of forced autosave, changes the way character builds work (adding a skill system, as well as new races/classes), and adds some NPC interaction (though 5 does that).

Bard's Tale 1-3 is like early Wizardry, but less harsh; there's no forced auto-saves (though some versions of 1 may cause you to lose your gold if you turn off the game without saving), and resurrection is always successful with no lasting harm. Also, no aging in these games (except for a certain status ailment that's annoying to cure). There's also a town to explore. 2 adds multiple towns and a wilderness area, while 3 adds multiple dimensions with multiple wilderness areas (not to mention taking you to high levels; killing the first boss takes you to level 35, and it's easy to reach 60 by endgame and still find it difficult).

As for the Wizardry games available on GOG:
* 6+7 are the first 2 games in the Dark Savant trilogy. You get new features like a skill system, with some skills improving by use. Class changing is heavily rewarded in these games. 6 is basically dungeon (there are apparently outdoor areas, but they look no different from indoor areas), while 7 has an overworld, with various locations to explore. Note that, in 7, it's possible for NPCs to beat you to certain items, one of which you need to complete the game, so you may need to figure out which NPC has it and retrieve it from them. Also, some of the internal mechanics are ugly, the "base miss chance" being the worst of them.
* 8's growth system is more like 6 and 7's but refined. Class changing is possible but usually not beneficial, and all skills can improve through use. (In fact, using a skill is the only way to boost it past 75.) In terms of party development, this is one of the best games out there. You can move your party as a unit during combats (unlike the other games in the series that have no combat positioning). Most of the remaining harsh mechanics are gone (resurrection doesn't have permanent impact) only disease remains), as is all the RNG in character creation.
* Labyrinth of Lost Souls is a Japanese spin-off. While I enjoyed it, it suffers from combat being too deadly later on, your offensive ability being entirely dependent on being able to find a rare drop, and the fact that it feels a bit limited in party options, despite not being that old. If you want something like a Japanese spin-off to try, I'd say that Elminage Gothic (far more content, and cheap, but quite brutal) and Stranger of Sword City Revisited (not cheap, but gives you a bigger variety of non-magic skills, plus it comes with Saviors of Sapphire Wings) are better choices.
* Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord is a remake of the first game. Not a terrible game, though keep in mind that it still plays like a game released in 1981, even if there's been a major upgrade in graphics, and the music is really good. (Note that the original game predates Might & Magic by several years.)

Wizardry and Bard's Tale are like the direct ancestors of Might and Magic. Dungeon Master was very influential to M&M3 and beyond. Eye of the Beholder has a fair bit in common too. Jumping ahead a few decades, Legend of Grimrock is quite nice.

To me, Wizardry was a slog.

Here's Steams suggestions
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/10580792-Grid-based-first-person-RPGs/

I'd agree for the most part, but they certainly do share "DNA" so to speak.

you didn't mention first person view being a requirement so baldurs gate, pathfinder kingmaker and dragon age come to mind. if you do want first person view, well lmk if you find any good games there cause I sure as hell haven't.

Yep.

It might just be me, but I've found that those games fail to scratch the itch that earlier WRPGs did. Aside from having real time with pause combat, which I find just doesn't work for me, they also tend to get bogged down with dialog and choices, to a much greater extent than the earlier games. Also, said games revolve around a single created character who recruits a bunch of pre-made characters, in contrast to the older approach of letting you create your entire party.

I am with you I started my CRPG career playing M&M6 and then all the subsequent releases. I really could not get into the early releases as the graphics were just too primitive.

I concur with the comments on Wizardry 8 as being the closest thing to the later M&M series. Myriad options for party forming and development.

I will make a pitch for the early Baldur's gate franchise. It is true you play with a single character but you do form a party of characters when you meet up with various NPCs and then can perform character development with them in your party.

The Icewind Dale franchise allows you to start fully formed with a party and it is very combat heavy. I have to admit that I really love the combat in ID. One of my favourite tactics was to find a choke point in a cave/dungeon system and then have a character agro the monsters who tend to mass charge the character retreating back to the choke point. Then I would lay down Web or Entangle followed up with some Spike Growth. The rest of the party would then pepper the hapless bastards stuck in the minefield with ranged attacks and the tank would deal with anyone that managed to exit it.

Another time my high level cleric activated Turn Undead and went invisible and then just walked past rows of Wights and literally exploded them all as they were completely oblivious to her presence.

Problem with Wizardry 8 is the combat is so excruciatingly slow. You're always stuck waiting for 30 enemies to shimmy around one-by-one. The instant you finish one battle you can already see the next one headed straight for you, and there's often no avoiding it. High level magic would solve this, but then they stop you from spending points on skills above 75, and from there they only increase very slowly through use. Considering you need another 50 points to reliably cast the good stuff, you're either in for the mother of all grinding or you're forced to slog through without.

The spell that helps you avoid battles (by revealing them on the minimap even if you can't see them) is X-Ray, which is 4th level and therefore only requires 45 skill to learn.

As for the problem of raising the skill above 75:
* Specialist casters get a 25% bonus to their spellbook skill, which raises it to 93. 90 (actually slightly less if you have some realm skill) is enough to learn even the most powerful of spells.
* If you actually use your skills regularly, they will increase fast enough. That is, if you want to cast powerful spells, just use the spells you can cast constantly. (I actually like this sort of mechanic; it makes your actions in combat consequential for your growth, while avoiding the "missable stats" issue that many games have.
* Also, those other 50 points would be to your realm skill, not your spellbook skill, and realm skills increase much faster through use.

It doesn't matter if you X-Ray. When one battle starts the next one is already homing in on your position, and very rarely can you maneuver around it.

It's not just a matter of learning a spell. You also have to choose the power level to cast it at, which requires extremely high skill to successfully cast at meaningful power levels. Spellcasting skills advance painfully slowly even when you're using them often. By the end of the game I was lucky if anyone had cracked 100 skill, which sounds like a lot but is still not enough for high level encounters to be dealt with smoothly.

Another big problem is if you imported characters from previous games, which encouraged you to multiclass, your multiclass skills are essentially useless in this one. So if you imported spellcasters who are not currently in the "correct" class, they won't get that bonus you mentioned. Of course the game won't tell you any of this upfront...

100 is mastery. It is enough; in fact, it doesn't even need to be 100 to be enough. It may be a pain to get that last point, but you don't really need that last point, to be honest.

If you are having trouble with high level encounters, and your skills are close to 100, then there's some other issue. Perhaps you need to raise a different skill, perhaps your stat allocation is poor, or perhaps, you are missing an expert skill you should have. (Mages, Alchemists, Psionics, and Bishops, should nearly *always* go for Power Cast, which is earned by raising base Intelligence to 100.) Or if your skills are high but you can't reliably cast spells at higher power levels, your level is probably too low.

Some suggestions for RPGs that allow you to create a full party:
Avernum series(I only played 1 and 2)
Deep Sky Derelicts
Legend of Grimlock 1 & 2
Lords of Xulima
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (part of NWN2 complete)
The Temple of Elemental Evil
Wasteland 2

Main char + premade companions:
Fallout Tactics
Dungeon Rats
Jade Empire
Star Wars: KotOR 1 & 2
Ravenloft 1 & 2

Thea 2 might also scratch your itch (I haven't played the first game)