this isn't related to any one particular game but many I've played over the past few years in many RPGs magic users are becoming less and less effective compared to their melee counter-part.
Even going back to older RPGs I use to play. Games like FF6 where genji glove/offering was king of x8 9999 damage
in Chrono Trigger it was all about rainbow sword, confuse, robo's uzi-punch and Ayla's Triple Kick
Xenosaga games were pretty bad, magic costing MP(consumable source) only to be completely and utterly out damaged by physical attacks that were free
I think it goes without saying at the state FFXI has been in for years now, mages still have their niche uses
again in FF13, by design the commando role(physical) is designs to deal much higher damage then the Ravager(magic)
I'm now playing White Knight Chronicles and after reading up on some builds for high end play: it is ALL about melees killing bosses before a magic user can even prepare to do their best damage(which is still less then the melees who do so quickly)
I could go on and on with games I've played lately that have this same power difference between magic users and melees, but I have few examples where magic users over-power the melees. What gets me is how many of these games put so much emphasis the power of magic and how wars are started over obtaining magic so that one could control the world.... only to have the final battle ended purely through swords.
is it intentional design by game makers these days? or a huge oversight of unintended melee damage growth scaling at ill proportional rates compared to magic scaling.
It's something that's been on my mind as a gamer for awhile, and wonder if people share my thoughts or wanna add other insight into this. I'd appreciate any input.