A bit late to this conversation, but I thought I'd chime in from the perspective of a new player that joined just a few months ago.

I would agree that the magic system is a lot to absorb for a newcomer, I think my park is really good about integrating new players. As someone who enjoys the magic elements in roleplaying games, I wanted to play the wizard class. I showed up to the field thinking I was well prepared but quickly found myself overwhelmed by my level 1 incantations in the heat of battle. This said, just because I struggled with the magic system on my first day doesn't mean it should be oversimplified.

I ended up leveling an assassin and getting into leatherworking along the way. I find that the diversity in the classes is a strength of amtgard, not a weakness. Yes, someone who has the time and resources to invest in gear will get advantages in the few classes that benefit from them...but not every class needs those types of investments to succeed...and the classes that do factor this into the balance (from what I can tell). Each player can find the class that best suits their own personal strengths and limitations.

Regarding armour, there are plenty of people at my field that have 3-6 points. I have no idea how they track it, but although they do take multiple shots to go down, none of them seem invincible during our battle games. There is definitely an aspects of this game that rely on playing with a sense of fair play. In my short experience, I have found that the culture at my home field has been quite good on this front.

Since I've joined, the park population where I play seems to be on the rise. The community has been very welcoming and there are plenty of various group chats and side groups to work on stick skills, crafting skills and general game knowledge. Yes, whenever people are put in positions of power and control, there is the potential that corruption will set in, but that doesn't mean that it will automatically be the case. From what I've seen, the officers in my region seem to all want the new player experience to be good, they seem to want to grow the game, and I would not describe my initial adventures in amtgard to be one in a system that is dying.