Being completely objective, there’s really no way that warriors can feel superior to mages in the strictest sense of superior. Pretty much the only reason the warriors are thought of as superior isn’t because they’re given more chances to strut their stuff than the magician, but because for them there isn’t a key component of their power that is missing.
In the current game, warriors are given no more opportunities than magicians, but the thing is warriors require no knowledge and understanding of magic, just combat. Combat can be learned with no prior knowledge of Olympus or the Essence; magic cannot.
The feeling of magicians being underpowered compared to the warriors is a disadvantage borne out of convenience at this point. When the rewrite is rolled out to the playable stage, the difference will be evident.
Honestly, I think Mage Bearers (along with possible stat balancing), just need more possible moments to shine outside of the encounter with Saxon and the door scene.
Maybe having a moment earlier on (maybe before the encounter with Saint’s Seeker group) where they are trying to focus their Essence into some form by focusing on the particular emotion that they noticed they felt the strongest during the fight against Saxon (they seem observant enough that they could potentially notice what they were mainly feeling when the Essence got triggered during the fight). And maybe during the school day (or days; don’t know if @Rohie plans extending our time at the school before we encounter Aeson), giving them a moment where they can test out how their Demigod body can handle the Essence now if they’re a Mage (or doing some type of shadow combat practice as a Warrior). Or even changing the training scene at the Institute into being a little more, like the Bearer choosing a weapon and somehow using their combat skills or Essence abilities to win the fight (like if they chose a bow and arrow, a Warrior Bearer uses regular arrows while a Mage Bearer uses arrows created by their Essence during the fight). Maybe even having characters react strongly to the display of the Mage Bearer’s magic abilities (which could give us more insight on how Olympus may view such skills or have a character compare the Bearer’s usage of their magic to being somewhat on a similar level as Aeson’s displays to a extent).
Again, just an idea; I have no idea what type of changes the new revision will be bring to the stroy at the moment.
If I could get one thing from @Rohie with the rewrite it would be more chances for different kinds of bearers to shine. Maybe if I have high enough combat skills I could turn the tables on Sage when she tries to strangle me. If I have higher magic I could use some type of hold spell on the possessed student before he can commit suicide. They don’t need to change the story, the scooby gang pulls you off Sage, the student still commits suicide when you’re distracted etc. It’s just flavor text, but it still makes the player feel powerful and rewarded for their decisions.
And for the people that rather use their wily ways, to outfox an opponent? Beside the flavoring, the text is just that subtle flavoring fleshing the MC out.
The point to this whole debate is; that Magic focused MCs are getting snipped (who likes nerfs besides, we have yet to actually let loose with magic at all). It looks like @Rohie is planning something nice for the mages, but to spoilery reasons she will not let the cat out of the bag as to what she will allow mages to do. Both classes are death dealers one uses pointy objects the other essence of magic.
But the third class of the pretty MCs with Allure as their primary focus looks to me to be getting the short end of the stick. Some people do love charming their way out of tight situations. These characters as it looks now are at an extreme disadvantage, more likely than not failing stat checks due to the MC’s focus.
For example how it should work in a gladiator cage match:
Essence based MC: The MC surveys the 300 gathered in the pit, snaps their fingers and states “sleep.” The sound of three hundred men and women snoring reverberate throughout the coliseum.
Combat based MC: The MC cracks their knuckles and does a come get some gesture. The MC moves faster than greased quicksilver moving faster than mere mortal eyes can track quickly dispatching the 300 gladiators while side stepping to the style of an old 80’s song “You Can’t Touch This.”
Allure based MC: Waves to the crowd and blows kisses to them getting them on their side; the MC tosses their weapon to the ground, and states, “Oh dear I’ve seemed to have dropped my weapon, would someone be a dear and fetch it for me?”, While striking a seductive pose. The 300 quickly converge on the discarded weapon in a massive scrum until one battered victor emerges holding the weapon out for the MC to take. Who rewards the winner with a blown kiss which makes the victor pass out due to the adoration of the MC.
What could be done is making sure that the secondary stats are used too, to change things up a bit and give different flavoring text. @Rohie as the author should know what is plausible or not and be able to stat check and with understanding the plotline and recent actions. should tell the player that their limits and may want to rethink the current strategy after 3 days of battling any mage or fighter would be tired and to continue pressing forward, in the same manner, means consequences. (People can only fall for the same tricks only some many times too, so the lovelies will have to goto plan B too.)
My mc is even worse in that regard he was a moderately social geek in his ordinary American childhood, so while he may be able to sum up and go all geeky or academic about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the Katana versus the European Broadsword, he wouldn’t actually be able to use either of them in actual combat with any proficiency or hope of success at all.
Worse his knowledge of magic currently also seems to be almost purely theoretical as well, until he learns that one trick that warriors and Mara’s seductress also learn just as fast and well as he does.
Yep, warriors have got exactly the same magical potential as “mages” do and at the moment even the same amount of “control”, which is next to none, over their “magic”.
Where warriors can use weapons and their physical abilities and Mara can seduce people into being her meatshields my mc can do exactly squat at the moment.
The other way in which the Wit stat could shine other than magic is of course either Macgyvering solutions (which needs actual components to work with and time and then maybe we could build ourselves a killer robot out of school electronics or devise some other gadgets to give us an advantage). Another way in which the Wit stat could be highly useful is for “cheating” or figuring out loopholes in those trials that would help us “win”, but that requires information and since no-one ever tells us anything that’s actually relevant and we don’t get the time go off and gather intel for ourselves the chances of figuring anything like that out are slim to none.
I think most of the argument is based on the fact that there really haven’t been many opportunities for mages to stand out, which is a valid point and a huge oversight. Think of it like this; there’s a part of the overall plot that suits each class and really allows them to shine. For warriors, it’s the upcoming war aspect. For mages, it’s the Essence aspect (and arguably the war too). I don’t think there’s a canon MC; my goal is that whether you play a mage or a warrior, it’ll seem fair. Obviously, that isn’t evident in the current version of the game. You can only use a magical item to fight Saint’s squadron, you can only summon a shield to defend yourself against Saxon, you can’t use magic against Virginia during the observed fight (even though it was clearly stated that there were “no rules”). I get it, seriously; why even have magic as an option if you can’t use it?
That being said, without going into detail, the only reason I suggested mana was because there are now a lot more specific hints in the text/more choices regarding your class. However, that also means mages, specifically, are recognized as stepping stones to Ultimate Power…there has to be some form of restraint, or the game will be too redundant, too simple. I’ll admit that there really isn’t much differentiating between the two classes; which is my fault. I always play as a mage, and so the warrior class kind of lacks the same restraints due to my neglect.
I’m working on it.
Also, I’ll leave the poll up for a few more hours to get the full 24 hr opportunity.
On a not-so-magic related note, I just realized another possible awkward situation for the Bearer to experience besides reliving a moment where they were in a relationship with Aeson while in a relationship with a different RO: reliving a moment where they were in something of a relationship (or at least implied feelings on both ends. but it doesn’t come to fruition like with Helen) with one of the RO’s parents or one of the Gods in general (especially if it’s one of the Gods who want the Bearer dead). It could have happen; the Bearer/Bestower has been reborn a number of times. Whose to say one (or more) of the Gods didn’t end up getting a crush on them (or vice versa) and something about the Bearer reminds them of that person they knew in the past?
I sincerely hope that isn’t the case; if so, it seems that even the Gods aren’t immune from turning everything into a rom-com. That would also make it especially awkward if you were planning to romance Calypso. I’m not entirely sure that “your dad tried to bang me” would go over swimmingly as a conversation starter.
@idonotlikeusernames may approve of such a history though; the lust for Ares is real with this one.
Beautiful, IMO. I don’t want to see it happen because, like, for why but it reminded me of tht time Rohie mentioned you can flirt with Aphrodite in front of Adonis.
Zeus’s innumerable affairs already sound like the plot of a bad sitcom, they could be a running gag @ this point.
‘At least buy me dinner first.’
Didn’t cross my mind, but trying to possibly romance Calypso suddenly got even more awkward than before. (as if the situation with Aeson doesn’t feel awkward enough, now I have to add in her dad).
Funny as that is, there could of also been a chance that the reason the feelings never came to fruition (even if they were feelings that were ultimately mutual in some way, whether romantic or platonic) could be more tragic. After all, the Bearer/Bestower are not know to live long all that often; so the Gods could’ve ended up losing them due to a death that felt like it happened too soon, even by human standards. So The Gods would have firsthand experience on how daunting it was to be so affected by this human’s death (who they may not have known to be the Bearer at the time). For someone immortal, it is sometimes terrifying to suddenly get hit in the face with such a force of nature that effects your life so deeply (whether they were a friend or someone they harbored deeper feelings for), and then having them ripped away from you all too soon, and suddenly being even more aware of how fragile yet distinctive human life could be. And the Bearer/Bestower’s life are quite fragile compared to most humans.
Like imagine we were Orion in a past life and happened to have the chance to be close friends to both Apollo and Artemis (possibly even harboring feelings for one or both of them in a platonic manner). And then Orion died because of the Scorpion for some reason and all the twins could do was watch their close friend possibly die a painful death right before their eyes and being able to do nothing to save Orion. Artemis reacts in denial, not wanting to believe that her friend is dying in front of her and she can’t do a thing about it; Apollo responds solemnly after realizing that he has no means to cure Orion from the poison, and stays closely to the hunter until he is able to pass on (or one of the twins choose to end Orion’s pain more swiftly at the hunter’s request). And imagine it was the first true human friend (or something borderlining romance) they bonded deeply with. Or imagine Aphrodite enjoying a simple close friendship (or possible love) with a past Bearer, only for them to be taken from her so quickly, which ended up making the Goddess keep more of a emotional distant in her relationship with humans due to not wanting to experience that level of loss again.
It’s likely not going to happen, but it does seem like it would be a awkward situation to be one of the Gods, meeting the Bearer when they are older and suddenly thinking when they watch them doing something eerily familiar “Wait, that’s what THEY used to do. Could the Bearer have possibly been…?”
Well, we already know the bearer has been at the center of several significant historical events. Continuing that train of thought, it’s possible to imagine a complex chain of events throughout the bearer’s many incarnations where all of the twelve has had their lives irrevocably altered by the bearer at one point and their currents personalities and outlooks and the entire political climate on Olympus is a direct consequence of the bearer’s actions.
Of course this is kinda far fetched and easily veers more into comedy territory, like @Sherlock221B pointed out. I’m not seriously suggesting this.
But then again, maybe the bearer has, in much more subtle ways, had a much larger influence on the events currently unfolding than we might have thought?
Well I’m just messing around with the whole ‘had a past relationship with some God’ possibility. I was just randomly thinking back to the whole idea of the possible awkward tension that could be brought up with Aeson and a RO that the Bearer is already dating and wondered ‘What would be more awkward: learning you’ve dated Aeson in the past while you see him as a brother/just a friend and/or are romantically interested in a different RO. Or learning you were once the object of affection in some way to one of the Gods?’ Figured it’d be an amusing idea to bring up while we wait for the next update.
Though I would like to say…
As incredibly awkward as that is I feel like telling Adonis (while you’re romancing him) “your mom tried to bang me” would be 10x more awkward for both of him and the Bearer (I already think him learning about ANY romance that the Bearer has ha in the past will lead to a good deal of awkwardness as it is).
The only idea I’ve actually been thinking about seriously is possible ways that playing a Mage or Warrior Bearer could be more balanced so that others don’t feel like they’ve got the short end of the stick in either class and will be more willing to play either class in multiple playthrough. I’ll admit, I often more of the warrior type in most RPGs, but the mark of some good RPGs is when it gets its players interested enough to get out of their comfort zone and try multiple classes. I remember playing Dragon’s Dogma and actually enjoying switching between different classes and being rewarded by being given interesting cross/advanced class because of it and the Persona series is all about switching between different types of Personas that are more suited for each possible battle. And while I won’t say Mage is my favorite class to play (usually like being int the heat of battle or drawing attention away from Mage type characters so they can do their devastating spells or heal), I did do a few Mage playthroughs in the Dragon Age series because I enjoyed the lore behind them and how the world viewed those who had their powers.
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