and into wrote:Why is there an MP cap at all, though? Well because magic should be made to be different from melee. If you could get arbitrarily large MP pools you might as well just make casting spells cost nothing at high levels. As it stands you have to work with the MP you are given, and contrary to what you are saying there are many ways to do that (not just worshiping sif or vehumet).
Magic is extremely different from melee, and would continue to be different even if there was no cap. This statement makes no sense.
Mana pools could never be 'arbitrarily' large by virtue of the way the game is built. If you stacked every single MP item you could get your hands on, you wouldn't come even remotely close to the average endgame health pool. And 9s add up to that very quickly, meaning you'd still run out if you overused it. And in the context of a given fight, you would get more mana out of casting Sublimation twice with a few chunks on hand than you would having an extra couple MP in your total pool. So balancewise there is no actual issue unless Sublimation, Crystal Ball, etc are all massively overpowered.
As for a 'magic sword', very few games have what you're describing. In most games that give a magic option, that is what it is. Magic. You use magic as you are a magic-user. If you want to not use magic, you don't have to. If you want to not entirely use magic, you don't have to. But most mages in most games never wield a sword or an axe, they merely use magic(Hint: there's a reason why none of the magic classes in this game start with a weapon...and yet also have no skills in unarmed combat). Most games that do have some melee option for mages is in much the same variety as Infusion or Song of Slaying, but they are rarely if ever used by pure casters. In fact I'm hard pressed to think of more than a handful of games that suddenly convert Intelligence into melee skill. Most, as I've said, merely allow you to use your magic...as that is what you designed your character around.
Defenses are different than Offenses. I'm not sure why you even decided to bring this up, as it is more completely irrelevant information. This is concerning offenses. Of course everyone needs defenses(Actually, that's debatable, as I've seen people with 80 health, 3 AC, and 12 EV clear the game). But 'defenses' and 'ability to fight in melee' are two entirely different things.
As far as actively gimping myself for trying to be a mage. That is what this game is about. Doing DIFFERENT things. If you wanted to do the same thing every time, you'd be a MiBe and tear everything apart(well, actually you probably wouldn't play this game at all. You'd choose a non-randomized game with no choice given to the player). The game actively encourages you to play many different strategies, and it is on the devs to balance those strategies to make as many viable as possible.
But once again, I have still yet to see any actual reason as to "WHY." Just a lot of "It has to be this way" and some <insert irrelevant information here> and <gross exaggeration like suggesting MP would be as high as HP>
and into wrote:All that being said, I agree that maxing at 50 is bad, but for reasons quite different from the reasons you've offered.
Could you kindly point to any reasons I offered. Because I didn't. I merely asked the question 'why'(which has yet to be answered), and shot down all the false and irrelevant responses as...either false or irrelevant. I have not made any arguments of my own. I am merely the inquisitor, so I find it highly curious that you can disagree with something I have never said. My reasons were(in the few moments that I eluded to them), the same as yours. That a lot of would-be-interesting racial and itemization choices are nullified for...a reason that has yet to be made clear other than "Because that's the way it is." If there is a blockade put up to ham-fistedly 'solve' a problem in game balance, it should be on the artificial wall to demonstrate why its existence is needed, and not on the general principle of the game to show why its not.
To draw a hypothetical corollary, which are so relevant for debates, let's consider for a second. Let us say that for whatever reason the developers decided that there would be a heavy damage penalty when wielding a dagger and a shield at the same time. Now, if I were to step into your shoes, I could point to plenty of anecdotal evidence of people with daggers and shields ascending. I could say "you're playing wrong" for wanting to use a shield and a dagger, and that you should either pick a different weapon to go with your shield or abandon your shield altogether. I could tell you that daggers attack faster than broadswords and that's why this exists(an example of irrelevant data that doesn't say anything). But ultimately, this would be a mistake of game design. And in a reasonable world there is no way to 'prove' that this penalty shouldn't be in place(other than to say it doesn't make sense). But the burden would be on the limit penalty to prove that it should. And in terms of the MP cap, the burden is still on it to prove itself necessary with some actual logical reasoning.