I think alot of people's complaints indicate that they do infact like tedious.

Yup. People complained when we made it impossible to improve skills from 1%, because practicing it once and going from there meant 1 fewer hp later. People routinely pick 5/5/5/5/5/5/5 affinity distributions. People spam-practice all sorts of garbage despite incentives to do otherwise. The bulk of the changes we've made to the practice system were aimed at making tedious strategies less optimal. There is generally a greater preference for tedium than I would have predicted.

I've always thought it interesting that CF apparently doesn't strive for the kind of balance where all race/class combinations are equally matched 1 vs 1.. Instead there's a huge amount of imbalances that eventually kinda evens out...

I agree the problem exists, though I do think the class gap is smaller at low levels than it used to be. The issue is complex, and we've always approached it iteratively-- tone down low-level Bash/Trip, see how it shakes out.... give mages a few more combat utilities at low levels... see how it shakes out...

I think we're conscious of that issue, and at least I believe that the typical RPG imbalances (where high-level magi dominate high-level warriors, and low-level warriors dominate low-level magi) are a terrible idea. Why create two lopsided fights instead of two even ones? I think we've done a great job of evening out the higher ranks, but we have a ways to go before the "king of the 11-25 hill" could really be any class.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com