Why are Mages so underrated in video games?
Why are Mages so underrated in video games?
Alexander Ortiz
Other urls found in this thread:
stardust-rider.com
raphkoster.com
twitter.com
Benjamin Moore
Because they are not as powerful as they should be and even if they were they would be too overpowered. Imagine that mage is casting a mega fireball at the enemy warrior. What should happen? This warrior should explode or even vanish. What really happens? Warrior loses like 15% of his hp then he charges at the mage and quickly deals 5 hits and boom mage is dead. Magic classes will always be shitty because you can't balance them. They are either op or shit.
Jose Jackson
Mages are the most creative classes in any vidya.
Christian Cox
>no god tier outfits that let me show off my feet
Logan Barnes
This. Rogues always get the good feet armor while mages get endless amounts of brown boots.
Adam Thompson
Which is why they're shit. People always make mages the most derivative shit instead of actually being original.
Nicholas Garcia
Wasn't there that one Star Wars MMO a while ago that only let a few (very lucky) players be force sensitive at first? They were generally OP, but the balance was maintained because of scarcity.
In any cases, you can throw balance out the window the moment you stop caring about the MMO Holy Triangle and allowing or asymmetric power balance.
Magic users should be able to steamroll pretty much anyone, but in videogames you usually have to think about balance, especially if there's a multiplayer component.
Hunter Cooper
They were OP but revealing yourself carelessly could lead to you be hunted down like a dog
Jackson Ross
Because of Logically a mage would stomp anyone, and you can't have that or the other classes become non-choices, which leads to heavily neutered wizards or very boring magic which has you sit behind long casting times.
I think the solution is to pretty much make mage-only games to really go nuts with it. There's this little game I really liked, Mages of Mystralia that ran with it and had you create your own spells among a plethora of modifiers and it was a lot of fun because of that, there was no need to accommodate for other playstyles so it got all the love.
Carson Peterson
That sounds so good, it's such a shame that that ended up being canned because everyone wanted to be the Jedi so they made it so much more accessible.
Jordan Ross
user... this a stealth homosuck thread
someone post the quiz
Brandon Wood
REMINDER: Pic related is the only good magic system. Everything else is rule-less deus ex machinas flung by bad writers.
Wyatt Anderson
We all know and no one cares, mage threads are more important.
Everyone shill good wizard games.
Isaiah Diaz
Brown boots are comfy, get your nasty feet out of here.
Parker White
Aiden Rodriguez
So I'm a Prince of Doom apparently. Not quite sure what that means yet, but it sounds cool.
Parker Russell
you either destroy doom or destroy through doom
Blake Ward
Eridan certainly didn't destroy through Hope. The signature of Princes is that they lack their element.
How so? The setting is well realized, but the bending itself isn't that spectacular.
Nolan Thompson
Yeah, but... how exactly does one destroy doom?
Levi Stewart
>Wasn't there that one Star Wars MMO a while ago that only let a few (very lucky) players be force sensitive at first?
Yes, SWG.
raphkoster.com
Whole article is a very interesting read.
Elijah Ramirez
doom is essentially death
so you destroy death, so that nobody dies
Nolan Harris
It hurts that the Star Wars IP will never be this great again.
Carter Foster
Legend of korra screwed up a ton of shit
David Thomas
What if he becomes undying no matter how hard he tries? He won't be able to ascend to God Tier.
Gavin Lee
So I'm basically a necromancer. Cool.
Isaiah Ortiz
>nobody dies
>I'm a necromancer
This is not how it works
Isaac Campbell
The clear cut answer is balance. Realistically speaking, mages can control the foundational principles of the universe, a fighter can swing a sword. So in order to make games playable for non mages you basically turn magic into ranged sword swinging. Also, play Arx Fatalis.
Aiden Barnes
Another thing SS13 manages to get right.
Tyler Bailey
>So in order to make games playable for non mages you basically turn magic into ranged sword swinging.
That's not the reason. Most games are fundamentally about combat and offer a variety of approaches to combat, themed around different fantasy archetypes. It's the same reason why "Thief" classes in a lot of games don't do much actual stealing - it's not because of balance, it's because stealing is outside the scope of the core gameplay. Or why when you play as an "Engineer" in Team Fortress 2 you don't actually design anything. It's not what the game is about. 99% of RPGs are just about killing shit so the mage fits into that mold.
If mages were going to be something else aside from "fighter who uses magic to kill shit", you'd need to figure out a completely different gameplay loop.
Jayden Martinez
Eh, in a good setting magic is highly volatile and leaves you very vulnerable.
Noah Howard
Yet within the scope of fighting that is the case, gameplay balance dictates that a mage be cast into a specific role to not overshadow the rest of classes.
Caleb Parker
How so?
Mages are a mainstay in virtually every fantasy RPG. Necromancers are the real criminally underrated RPG vocation. Almost never playable and on the very rare occasion they are all you do is summon one or two skeletons or some shit.
Only a handful of games have done a necromancer class right.
Ryder Martin
Even within the scope of just killing shit, a mage can instagib you with a word, a fighter is still restricted to swording. It has always been about balance when it comes to multiplayer.
Austin Fisher
wait a minute thats fucking homestuck
Ethan Roberts
Retook the quiz, this is what I got. What does a witch do? I'm assuming time is just time.
Isaac Green
iirc witches create their aspect
Henry Bell
Well, I think that's mostly an 'untapped well' kind of deal, not that combat is absolutely the only core gameplay direction there can be. Star Wars Galaxies is one kinda-iffy example of a game branching out from being an overdesigned wack-a-mole simulator.
Thief builds are absolutely possible even in games in which they weren't designed to let you be an actual thief. Skyrim with the Ordinator mod comes to mind here: unlike vanilla, you could actually make a character that couldn't sneak-bow his way past whole dungeons and where actual thieving was rewarding and useful. I actually had a whole lot of fun playing as one, even though I couldn't kill ANY dragons even by the time I hit level 40. I was too squishy, and dragon's don't have pockets.
Sure, I understand that designing a game with divergent gameplay mechanics might be a lot of trouble, but I also think that there's a lot of potential to explore. There's only one true problem that gets in the way when you start thinking about making a game that truly lets you do whatever you want, however you want, and not be rewarded for it equally either. The average gamer. The casual. The cold-handed pussyfooter.
They ruin everything.
Mason Miller
A witch manipulates through use of their element, but you'll be a smelly girl.
Brody Thomas
>and where actual thieving was rewarding and useful
But thievery is really useful in vanilla Skyrim. Just put a bucket on their head and steal everything they're wearing.
Elijah Gutierrez
what did they mean by this
Ayden Brown
He's getting thrown off the window and falling into Earth, that's how the next Hiveswap will start.
John Williams
>Even within the scope of just killing shit, a mage can instagib you with a word, a fighter is still restricted to swording.
Even before you get into class balance, a mage being able to instagib enemies would make the core gameplay pretty pointless when most games are about combat. I'm saying the class needs to make sense in the confines of the general framework of the game, not only with respect to other classes (which have the same limitations in mind). Being slashed in the face with a sword is often fatal, but most RPGs don't make being hit with a sword an instakill. There's a lot of shit that gets abstracted to make gameplay work the way developers intend.
With mages there's the added bonus that if being instagibbed doesn't fit the gameplay, the devs can just say "no, magic in this setting can't do that".
I'd like to see that, but it takes a lot of extra developer resources to do. Even with mods, playing Skyrim as a thief falls a long way short of an actual game designed for stealth. If the devs were willing to put in the effort it would be great if every city had mansions with unique security systems to bypass and burgle, but even if Bethesda weren't lazy that would be a lot of extra work they could be putting into dungeons that all types of players would enjoy. For magic, they'd have to come up with a whole new approach to gameplay that is somehow unique to mages.
Easton Ward
the tags in the instagram post didn't have hiveswap in them but instead friendsim, also it's the MSPA reader there which is also the protag of friendsim while Hiveswap has defined protags
it's probably friendsim 2
Austin Nelson
>friendsim
I recall some user saying lewd things about that game, how is it?
David Martin
its a dating sim with stupid trolls that might appear in hiveswap
it sucks if you aren't a trollmance ficionado
Landon Smith
feasible =/= useful
In vanilla, pickpockets don't make a good living unless you savescum. Stealing in general doesn't earn you much, especially when you compare it to the amount of money you can make just from selling normal loot.
>For magic, they'd have to come up with a whole new approach to gameplay that is somehow unique to mages.
It'd help if they hadn't gimped the fuck out of Magic for TESIV and removed THE utilitarian magic school from existence. Bethesda is also absolutely incapable of creating a good class progression system, and the perk system for Skyrim was so badly done as to make it completely unpalatable to me.
Oliver Johnson
Easton Robinson
Supposed to be TESV there, not 'TESIV (Oblivion)
I feel bad for people who are into that shit.