Why do I always keep making mages?

[Xonok]

I've been a mapper for around 3 years now or so and started to realize something - I am quite bad at creating non-mage skillsets. Over the years I've designed many heroes and by now I make most of my abilities myself. Thus, I don't have the usual limitations that could force me to make mage skillsets. Yet, somehow I still make more mage abilities than any others.

What could be the reason? Does anyone else have similar problems?

 

[Arad MNK]

You are asking why you have a Problem? (Yeah I Have this problem too but answering you is weird)

 

[Xonok]

Well yes. I find it interesting to wonder why it's so. It's not really a big problem because mage spells can be very varied too, but I do want to know what might cause this.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Perhaps you just like the concept of mages as a whole--a ranged caster with the potential for many eye-candy magical abilities. And you aren't limited much in theme. I think I prefer thinking up ideas for wizards/mages as well. Magic is pretty cool, after all.

 

[VeljkoM]

Could be because Mages give you more freedom. Physical abilities tend to be more dull and simple in comparison and lack the eye candy everyone loves. Maybe you are filthy magophiliac and racist against mugles. Of course I have no idea what gameplay you are even working on.

I personally hate designing heroes so can't say I share the problem. I do usually make Mage Hero first when making a custom race so maybe I do have a problem just never noticed.

 

[Xonok]

This thing has actually persevered through many types of maps for me. It might actually be related to the thing that WC3 itself is designed to be fantasy. Many hero abilities could very well be dressed as magical by simply changing missile arts.

Then again when playing I actually tend to like tanky characters more.(In Gaias' I played Crusader). Tanky, but high damage.

 

[Kino]

As I am not you, I cannot say what the root cause of the "problem" is.
However, from personal experience there are 2 main factors.
1) How you define "mage"
2) How combat works in most games with a high camera view (RTS, isometric RPG etc.)

The first one is self explanatory. Is any character that has magic a mage? or does it have to fulfill a very strict set of other criteria? (robe-wearing, ranged combat etc.) If you choose the more open definition, then naturally more character types will qualify as mages.

As for 2, it boils down to physical skill-sets being about "how many ways you slap someone", while magical abilities give you quite a lot more freedom with both presentation and mechanics. Ultimately it may also be because such games offer very little finesse for melee combat (if units in engage in melee, they will always end up hitting each other. Kiting/evading blows at a range that can be considered melee requires you to ham in extra mechanics like block/evade etc. which feels less natural than being able to simply position well, something that ranged characters can)

 

[jopi]

ok, I myself don't see any problems with creating 'non-mages' aka. warriors, rangers, rogues.

Are you talking about meele only or any (AoS) hero concept?

What I mostly do is thinking of one cool way a hero could play. Something like a main gameplay feature, even if it's only one ability. Or sometimes I see a model and just think of how a skillset could look like to use the model to it's full extent.

Another thing is how you define a 'mage'. For me it is a hero that relies heavily on his abilities, so also meele heroes can be 'mages' or rather 'casters'. A good way to for example make a hero that focuses on auto attacks, is not to give him abilities that represent 'special attacks'. This would end up in a 'caster' like hero.
One way would be passives, but this ends up being pretty boring. The way I mostly go with 'warrior' heroes is to think of abilities that either rely on the hero to attack, become more efficient when attacking (e.g. by prolonged duration) or encourage the player in any other way to fight.

If you want to see how it might look like, take a look at my profile's albums. There is one with some WoW themed hero sheets I made for fun long ago ^^

 

[Xonok]

I mostly make maps that are at least somewhat toward RPG. The points brought out so far are good though, especially mage spells being more flashy.

For reference, I consider mages to be the kinds of units that rely on non-mundane means to achieve what they want. By this definition many kinds of units can be considered mages, so it's also true that my definition is a bit skewed.

@jopi - The skills in your albums are quite good and I might copy them somewhat, but the problem for me isn't really thinking up skills, but rather the framework for a specific character's skills. For example, I have this page that I haven't updated for a long time. I've learned that simply brainstorming skills doesn't have much value. Rather it's about creating combinations of skills that feel good. I used to only be able to make them as predefined kits(that is, switching abilities could easily break them), but now I've reached the point of being able to provide pools viable of abilities to choose from.

Example:
I have imagined the sorcerer class as talented mages who haven't needed to learn magic due to their innate proficiency at it. For that reason they are powerful, but bad at controlling their power accurately, which makes most of their abilities have area effects.
Their abilities are grand in effect and due to their innate connection with magic they are able to instinctively understand many different kinds of magic, albeit with the limitation mentioned beforehand. This means that a single sorcerer rarely has to limit himself to a single school of magic.
The sorcerer spell pool is mostly made up of flashy area damage spells.

Well, I've realized that making tons of mage spells isn't really a problem as long as I am capable of making other kinds of spells too(I am). It will eventually balance out in one way or another.

 

[Zwiebelchen]

The explanation is actually pretty simple:

It's easy to justify a mage to be able to do anything, but it isn't so for non-magical classes.

So, any imaginable spell X makes sense for a mage.
But not every imaginable spell X makes sense for a warrior.


A melee attack that deals damage?
-> enchanted weapon attacks
A ranged arrow attack?
-> summoned magical arrow
A melee fist attack?
-> magical touch spell

All these are typical theme territories of other classes, yet you could find easy explanations for why mages have these powers. On the contrary, it's hard to justify a ranged missile spell for a warrior or something fancy like a damage absorption shield.

 

[Xonok]

Well, perhaps the key to this is accepting that most classes are mages somewhat and using this to add flavor. For instance, there's a distinct difference between a character that uses flashy ranged abilities(Mage), a character that unleashes devastating combos(Rogue), a class that likes to overpower opponents(Warrior), or a...
Yet, they could all be explained by magic in one way or another.
There's so many choices that perhaps it's not a problem at all if everything can be explained by magic. Perhaps it's actually good.