I can only assume you're trolling with parts of this, but here's something to tackle a few of your concerns:

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Infi
Meanwhile, village inducts liberally at around level 20 or so. This takes a pre-existing imbalance (warriors dominate mages at low levels) and adds a snowball effect (village warriors clusterfuck mages at low levels).

This is just blatantly untrue. I screw villagers from about 15 upwards with my mages. They're easy meat, as long as you're careful. Especially if you bring someone who can trip. I also don't know of a single one that was inducted pre-25. And do you even know what level you get truesight at?

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Infi
As far as game balance, the immortals have clearly balanced the game for level 51.

They've never claimed the game was 'balanced', at any level. Players will choose and weigh their strengths/weaknesses themselves. This is reflected somewhat in terms of 'balance' in things like the vulnerabilities of their tactics/race/class, and their exp penalty. But overall, certain things will always be amazingly strong while others are ridiculously weak (if we're talking just pure killing power, there are many other aspects to CF that you seem to ignore). Those mages who have 400hp must know sod all in hp gear, because I can get about 400hp from gear solo at lvl 30 with a dark-elf necromancer. So that probably puts his total hp at 440 :P

I do agree people should be inducting at far lower levels, but your reasoning is a little off.

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Infi
A) fight marginally better.
B) be more useful for ranking groups.
C) *gasp* possibly pvp at low ranks + strike fear into the hearts of lowbies + noobs in the name of Scion?

A) Most scion powers can't be used at 25. Let alone 20.
B) See above.
C) See above.

Simply put - If you suck at lowbie killing, having a nightwalker circa lvl27 will not help matters. You will still suck, you'll just get lucky sometimes. Despoil will give you about +40-50hp when you get it, because it's level dependant and requires a strong target to despoil (which no lowbie will have a good supply of - if they even have a supply at all).

As I said above, your idea merits attention but not for ANY of the reasons you stated. Which are all poorly founded on your inexperience/disillusionment, I'm affraid. Try some creative thinking with lowbie-pk, roll a good few different mages and test it out for yourself. I've done a lot of lowbie pking, even racking up a minimum of 15+ kills with all the classes except shifters (I'm sure I could, but powerranking is so much more attractive) - and with practice so can you.

Edit: That done with, I should probably say that a great reason for cabals inducting earlier is Roleplay, Fun and Familiarity. People growing up in that family-cabal environment are far more likely to find unique niches in the cabal than people who have tried to develop a character outside it, then parallel slide into the cabal. This makes a lot more cookie-cutters because it's more important they fit into the cabal (and what is seen as a typical member of said cabal) than develop their own unique role. From the fun side, it's just cool to be involved in cabalness earlier. Whether it's scouting for huge clashing raids, or just doing the mundane cabal chat.

Yhorian



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/07/2007 12:56PM by yhorian.