Interesting answer.

I'm just more about making the class fun to play, not about builds and effectiveness in a small area somewhere at the very end.

Since I'm not that familiar with the classes, I just noticed how far the Red Mage is basically a missed opportunity.

No I don't want to play a ninja, it's way too hectic and colorful for me as a rogue class.
I'm not a fan of all classes having magic effects anyway, because that's not good for an RPG and it also devalues the wizard classes like the combat classes trying to merge everything.

But especially with the red mage, I have a completely different basic idea of the playstyle.

Yes, the red mage should already make something with his swordsmanship and here you should drill a bit and expand. But still, there should clearly always be the noticeable break in the fight to the caster.

Exactly this mixture would do the red mage good.
Fast graceful rapier thrusts and swings, gladly with a magical flair, like tracing the rapier movement with magic and symbols, and then back and into the magic phase, which is in no way inferior to fencing combat, but still very different.
Magic effects that then also incorporate the image of a fencing master and don't seem absolutely alien suddenly would also be better.

But first of all, this clumsy kind of magic must be corrected in the red mage. It just doesn't play very well, nor is it really motivatingly fun.

Since I'm not a pro here, but rather fresh come in, I also know nothing of the wishes of other players who have apparently already called for more melee.

But just exactly my unconsumedness, makes me completely unbiased. And therefore I can evaluate the red mage also much more neutrally and I say, and feel immediately, that he could be better than he is from the game fun.

I myself have 30 years of gaming experience, certainly 25 of them strongly focused on role-playing games of any kind. So I recognize very quickly possibilities and have a good feel for these things.

The red mage, can be made much more attractive in any case. The gameplay is much too rigid especially in the area of magic. It just seems bad and for it to be the core aspect, it just doesn't achieve the power, but even behaves very conspicuously like a pure battery that generates juice for melee combat, which can then also be drilled up.
There are many possibilities in the red mage, one does not use them.
And the effects of magic, are partly also too little in relation to the class. There is also a much better design, which makes the name of the class all honor and also affects this interpretation as a fencing mage.

I didn't choose the red mage as my class for nothing. I was thrilled with the idea and still am. However, in practice clearly improvable and with a lot of potential.

This is not meant to sound bad. I am on the side of the red mages. All I see is an unfinished somewhat wooden class that contains far more material than it delivers.