It won't for groups you will still need someone that tanks, DPS, support and heals. People act as if dynamic events will end the quest grind when the reality of it is, it's the same old thing they just remove the need to go talk too a quest giver first.
Originally posted by Rockgod99
Im not wrong because i didnt go into detail on dynamic events im aware they are deeper than a quest flashing onto my screen. im looking forward to them. To say i wont need to talk to a quest giver is true.
I will run into an area and then a quest objective will pop onto my screen just like it did in WAR, Just like it does in Rift.
Even though the event presists its still just a group focused quest that saved me the trouble of clicking a NPC.
There's a world of difference between your second characterization of dynamic events and your first. To say that you won't need to talk to a quest giver is indeed true. To say they are "the same old thing" except for that is completely untrue for the reasons I've already laid out.
Originally posted by Rockgod99
Also the holy trinity will be present.
Yeah you can heal yourself, but people also have options to use spells to heal you. Sure everyone can soak up damage or grab the attention of a mob, that doesnt mean it isnt still required, Dps is a given and people will have support abilities that go beyond self bufing.
If someone is taking Mob hate, if someone is Dpsing, If someone is tossing out buffs and debuffing and if someone has the ability to heal someone else in "Oh shit situations" what is that called? The holy trinity.
Now this is just arguing semantics, what it means to be the holy trinity. I define the HOLY trinity of tank/dps/heal to be situations where the tank is forced by game mechanics/mob difficulty to focus on nothing but defensive measures, and in which they only maintain aggro by the means of additional threat. A situation where healers do nothing but heal because it is most efficient, and likewise DPS do nothing but DPS and occassionally CC. A situation where DPS or healers could not tank a mob for more than 2 seconds.
You want to talk about the holy trinity just being that there is tanking, there is dpsing, and there is healing. Ok, fine, it's a combat based game. In that regard, anybody who is getting hit by a mob for any extended period of time, well, they're a tank by definition. I guess we'll have to wait for Kirby's Epic Yarn: The MMO to find one with no tanking and no healing.
I don't want to just argue semantics, so as long as you can see that there are huge fundamental differences in gameplay between what GW2 is offering and what a game like WoW is offering in terms of being able to go into a dungeon with any 5 people instead of exactly one tank, exactly one healer, all completely geared, spec'ed, enchanted, and gemmed for one role and one role only, then I'd say we can drop the debate.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Someones going to need to soak up damage, someone will need to do damage, someone will need to support.
It doesnt matter if everyone could fill all roles, what matters is that all roles are required.
Except you're missing the main point... there won't be individuals assigned to one role. Martin himself said that anyone trying to use the guardian purely as a tank will spend most of the time on his back screaming for help. Everyone will have to take some part of every role, hence the lack of a "trinity" where person A tanks, person B heals the tank and Persons C thru E pew-pew from a safe distance. You'll be primarily responsible for your own heals with some abilities to share lesser heals with allies. You'll share in the controlling of the enemy to prevent damage, not absorb it. And yes, you'll share in the damaging of the enemies. There are no tanks standing there sucking it all up. There are no dedicated healers keeping one person alive through massive damage. There are no purely dps people hiding in the back pew-pewing away.
There is no trinity.
Fullfilling multiple roles with one character doesnt mean the mechanics dont call for the holy trinity. Ill agree its kinda cool that you could do everything but im sure as the event progresses you will have to change shit up to fill a role even if its for a few seconds.
Its a fact we will never get rid of the holytrinity when it comes to pve encounters. The best we can do is let everyone fill all roles on the fly. If encounters truely needed no roles full filled then all anyone would need to do is Dps and self heal... it would be boring.
Everyone does need to do dps and self heal. In addition, you share in the controlling of the enemy, spread some extra heals to your allies, take up better positioning against the enemy, revive fallen comrades, ...
Because you place a snare on an enemy, that does not mean you've taken on a tank role. It means you snared the enemy so he can't hurt anyone for the moment, period. It's all part of the package. There are no healers that can focus on healing someone else enough to keep them alive while they absord damage. There are no tanks that can stand there and eat it all while being healed from an outside source. There are no characters that will only stand back and dps.
This, by definition, is as far from the trinity model as you can get.
The removal of the "the HOLY trinity" doesn't remove the trinity!
the removal of dedicated healers, tanks and pure dps doesn't remove the fundementals in the design behind it !
Roles based upon support, control and damage! Heavy armour allows you to be a front line character, and light armour puts you in the back. Its actual quite simple. and if you don't get it medium put you in the middle. And from there there is support ,damage, controll roles to pick based on design.
Any efficient group in PvE or PvP will require its members to fullfill a role and play the position its character allows. And thesse will be based on support , control and damage. There should be no surprise in this!
What we can and should ekspect is 2 thing but none of them change the fundementals above.
1) is that classes can be designed to different roles.
2) because of skills and energy management classes will be able to sub for each other at cruical moments.
so in short, during combat a dps, or a support role can be designed to also be able to step up and take a controll role while needed, maybe relieving a preasured frontline controller a little while.
All this doesn't remove the trinity, but it makes for another gameplay than the HOLY trinity! A far more dynamic and interesting gameplay thats what we all hope for! But its still a trinity!
Yep, I agree with this, not completely, but I agree.
Why not completely? It's not because of the armour the characters have that they have the tendency to go to different lines of the battlefield. As you said before, it depends on the situation, in new trinity of support, control and damage, and in tactics.
In an all-out battlefield, specially in PVP, the things can go crazy and comes the confusion. Having the role of support, control and damage becomes a matter of beeing effective no matter where you are and no matter your armour. You just do what you want to do, and probably do best, using different roles depending on your surroundings.
I can use, for PVE, the example of the Shatterer, where he (supposedly the front line) had minions all around the battlefield attacking everyone, and it became an all-out battlefield where the confusion was everywhere. If there wasn't melee classes and heavy armours attacking the minions too and having other kinds of support, other classes might have more difficulty in killing those minions.
But in different situations of gameplay the things change.
For example: the GW2 devs already said that WxWxW has another things to do besides attacking keeps and castles, like getting supplies to hold your keep and, consequently, attack your enemies supplies (in different ways). In this case, there isn't only a front line but other ways to defeat your enemies, and that's where the classes and roles do matter. Sending sentries and spies (like rangers, assassins, and maybe mesmers or necromancers) is an important mission that can save your guild keep (or the keep you are defending in case you don't have a guild) from bad situations. Those sentries and spies can go alone or in teams, depending on the difficulty of the mission, and that means that some of those teams must have other classes that give an advantage to the team in running away when they are caught or in saving the supplies when they are attacked. But all those sentry/spy characters need to have different roles even if the mission is the same, because what you said about crucial moments and because of unprepared situations.
On the other side, there should be rangers, assassins and the sort near/inside the keeps to protect them too. If a big number of enemies attacks a keep directly, we might get an advantage surrounding them with rangers and assassins in the keeps and in the back of the attackers, with other classes making harder for the enemy to attack or run away.
My conclusion is that in this game, with this new trinity of support, control and damage, we don't have necessarily to separate classes into different battlefield positions because of their armours and role. Although some classes might be better for some situations, each situation should have all the classes (independent of the armours) and all the roles if we want to be succesfull and not be caught unprepared.
We don't know much more about WxWxW so I can't say what other tactics could be done, which means, different situations, but I think I made my point.
I have, like many, have been following this MMORPG for quite some time. The initial interest became like an intense overload of curiosity, followed by the world preview of GW2, and now a cooling of the embers as I see it.
I had to write something on here, even if it was only to satisfy myself, that as one poster has put up recently, is GW 2 here to save us?
Save us from what, you may ask?
Have we been so conditioned through our over indulgent habits of MMORPG gaming that we have burnt outselves out of the mainstream MMORPGs and this is why we are turning to GW2 to give us life to the drowning man or woman?
It's probably not as bad as that, but as I step back now and what I admit as a stage of not even seeing or playing an MMORPG that I realise that are people expecting too much from GW2?
We know so much but so little, in terms of how we will relate to the content of the game and how we feel when we actually get to play it on live. This part is scary, if not in the sense that will we really be playing at the edge of our seats or not?
I have to remind myself, that despite what it is claiming and proving itself to be, it is not virtual reality. It is not a concept in gaming so out of sight that we have not experienced to some degree in this year of 2011 so far.
My words of wisdom I give myself: Avoid this genre until it either comes out or that you find another MMORPG that captivates your attention and holds your attention, without you getting burnt out. I think I will play as little as I can of any type of MMORPG until the close release date of GW2. After all, I want to be prepared. A long break is needed. A revitalisation is crucial to get back those "rose coloured glasses."
I think it is as much a thought process of that the genre of MMORPG is new to you as that GW2 is new to you. It is of no point if you have been hacking and slogging through MMORPGs right upto GW2's release.
Give yourself time to recapture that feeling again, that "newness" of MMORPG gaming, you owe it to yourself to get yourself prepared. Sounds fair?
You mean we should all be playing RIFT,right? From your posts in the RIFT forums it seems you are quite happy playing MMOs.
Anyway , like the post below you said: "you lost me half way"
OP is just a wall of text which summs to "yadda yadda... my words of wisdom... yadda yadda yadda..... take a break." , and this whole discussion developed around this nonsense... You people waste too much time and energy trying to impress one another with fancy words while discussing nonsense.
I just don't understand other peoples need to negate a person's hype for a game. If a person is hyped for a game, let them. It should make no difference to you. I think hype is fun, and learning more about the game during the development stage is exciting. I love the MMO genre, and have played more than my fair share of MMO's. I'm excited (hyped, maybe) about GW2.
Do I think it will completely revolutionize the genre? Most likely not. It's still going to be fun to play and a bit different from other MMO's. It's that bit of difference that excites me. We need to see some good changes in the genre and I think that ANET knows how to deliver.
I've been burned, like others, by MMO's that promised to deliverand didn't. It still didn't change my love for the genre, though. I just moved to a previous game I loved or found a new one.
Thanks for the advice of taking a break, but I think I'll keep playing in the genre that I love and keep the hype I want for any game I see fit.
The major feature of "holy trinity" is that you can negate incoming damage for extended period of time. And this is not the problem with tanks, tanks are fine, it is problem with healers.
I love healers, they allow for most interesting design, but they are responsible for the rigid setup. Even in game like DDO where most of time you do not have tank and the rest of time you just have guy with highest DPS and enough HP as tank, you have this phenomenon, because you have sustained heals (surprisingly this is not issue of the base game of DnD, it is something Turbine deliberately introduced and it did not bring anything fun).
Even game like WoW breaks the tanking role with the random damage and AOE damage. But it keeps the heals.
Making heals weak but avaible to everyone is major change in MMO paradigm, you are not giving ANet enough credit.
I see a lot of confirmation bias taking place when it comes to Guild Wars 2. Peoople think that "everyone" expects GW2 to "revolutionize" gaming or for GW2 to "save" us from something because that's either the responses they're looking for, or they're only hanging around people who are saying those things. ArenaNet doesn't even use the term "revolutionary" to describe its own game, and I must say, neither do the GW2 fans I associate with. This makes me cock an eyebrow when well-meaning (?) pundits post threads telling fans to temper their expectations. What, exactly, do YOU think I expect from this game?
I'm not an achievement junkie, which means the current crop of MMOs holds no long-term allure for me. I am currently playing Rift with my husband, and I expect I'll be playing it for some time, if only because we are slow to level. I don't expect to spend much time in the end-game because participating in end-game, appointment-gaming, guild-heavy content could not be further from our gaming goals. Our goals are meaningful story-based gameplay. So, do I expect Guild Wars 2 to offer this? You bet, in the vein of GW1 only with story-impacting choices.
I hate grind - in the sense of repeating dungeons a dozen times in the hopes of acquiring that 0.0001% chance to drop uber leet gear (see: end game commentary above). Guild Wars 1 did not possess such requirements, and ANet has declared that this philosophy will continue in GW2. Do I expect them to deliver on that? Absolutely. Do I consider questing in itself to be a grind? On occasion, which is why I enjoy other activities to break up the single-minded pursuit of quest objectives. Which - hey, Guild Wars 2 purports to have that in the form of crafting, mini-games, and PvP! Is that new or revolutionary? Hardly; just an adherence to a philosophy that I share.
I don't like being locked into a class role. I don't want to always have to be the healer in the back of a group just because I like to heal myself when solo. I don't like the concept of "aggro" as handled in most traditional MMOs, and always preferred GW1's method of making the AI go after squishies in an attempt to mimic player behavior. I expect GW2 to continue in this vein because they have declared their intent to do away with mandatory classes, and re-iterated their stance on "traditional" aggro. I expect GW2 to enable me to heal myself when alone, and fulfil another role in a group situation, as I desire. Is this revolutionary? Hardly, although it is an Evolution. But is it what I WANT in a game? Yes, yes, and yes again.
The reason I am interested in GW2 is not because I am burned out on today's MMO mechanics and yearn for something different. The reason I am interested in GW2 is because I am primarily a GW1 fan, can't stop observing all the things that today's MMOs do that I think GW1 does better, and I want to see GW1's younger, sexier and more flexible sibling follow through on GW1's promise so that I can finally stop playing games that lock storyline behind raid dungeons and clashing playstyles with achievers who don't understand I don't give a rat's arse about chasing carrots on the ends of sticks.
Regardless of who you are and how long youv been following GW2 your still wrong. There is no healer class. There are classes that can heal, but its been specifically said that those heals will in NO way get you through group content. You have to rely on yourself to heal and others to support.
Welcome to the holy trinity people!!!!!
Someones going to need to soak up damage, someone will need to do damage, someone will need to support.
It doesnt matter if everyone could fill all roles, what matters is that all roles are required.
It has been clearly stated that they have gotten rid of the traditional trinity - Tank, DPS and heal and replaced it with a new trinity - Damage, Support and Control. Therefore what you're saying isn't news and shouldn't be news to anyone.
Regardless of who you are and how long youv been following GW2 your still wrong. There is no healer class. There are classes that can heal, but its been specifically said that those heals will in NO way get you through group content. You have to rely on yourself to heal and others to support.
Welcome to the holy trinity people!!!!!
Someones going to need to soak up damage, someone will need to do damage, someone will need to support.
It doesnt matter if everyone could fill all roles, what matters is that all roles are required.
It has been clearly stated that they have gotten rid of the traditional trinity - Tank, DPS and heal and replaced it with a new trinity - Damage, Support and Control. Therefore what you're saying isn't news and shouldn't be new to anyone.
The removal of the "the HOLY trinity" doesn't remove the trinity!
.......
All this doesn't remove the trinity, but it makes for another gameplay than the HOLY trinity! A far more dynamic and interesting gameplay thats what we all hope for! But its still a trinity!
Yep, I agree with this, not completely, but I agree.
...........................
i think your logic in the eksample fails. Just because there is different things to do in WvWvW doesn't change that any and i mean ANY encounter of an opposite force that is around equal strength will enforce trinity gameplay.
I definitely don't look at GW2 as the savior of MMOs. If it's done well, it will be something I play and that's it. I'm looking forward to a good game without a monthly fee, plain and simple. I don't think it's doing enough differently for me to be THAT excited about it.
One class that holds as many members of a mob in a single point, being healed constantly by another class, so that the rest of the classes can hit with DPS.
So, GW 2 has promised to do away with this trinity. How? First they took away the ability to heal anyone specifically. There are no skills that allow any PC to target any other PC. SO how do you heal others? There ARE some weak AoE heals, but that is all they have. Although self heals are on any classes bar, none can withstand high DPS for any length of time, so a tank can't withstand aggro.
Now is there a need for this trinity in all MMO's? There's the rub! Here's the logic being used:
All MMO's use game mechanics that require the use of Trinities to maximize efficiency
GW2 is an MMO
Therefore,
To be efficient there must be a Trinity in there somewhere.
Unfortunately, this game is supposed to played more efficiently without a Trinity than with. So the logic of the above statement breaks down, IF the developers are being truthful. Only gameplay and time will tell!
I'm not clear on what the objective of eliminating the trinity is. Is it:
Design a different style of group gameplay.
Eliminate the downtime associated with finding a tank and healer for you group.
My sense is that it started with #2 because that's a big point of frustration in a lot of games. It then evolved into #1.
I think the biggest risk is that if all classes are pretty much equal in terms of their utility then one losses the motivation to specialize and ends up feeling just like every other class. But if specialization is an advantage on other variables (e.g. CC, or guardian protection) then you're just ending up with similar situations of limited class populations. Might not have such deep population problems but they'd still be there.
Regardless of who you are and how long youv been following GW2 your still wrong. There is no healer class. There are classes that can heal, but its been specifically said that those heals will in NO way get you through group content. You have to rely on yourself to heal and others to support.
Welcome to the holy trinity people!!!!!
Someones going to need to soak up damage, someone will need to do damage, someone will need to support.
It doesnt matter if everyone could fill all roles, what matters is that all roles are required.
It has been clearly stated that they have gotten rid of the traditional trinity - Tank, DPS and heal and replaced it with a new trinity - Damage, Support and Control. Therefore what you're saying isn't news and shouldn't be new to anyone.
Again, so much hype (and more often, anti-hype) seems to be built around claims ANet hasn't made for GW2.
What claims has Anet not made for GW2 are you talking about. If you are replying to Zeroxin's post about Anet saying they are using Damage, Support and Control instead of Tank, Heal, and DPS, then you should read the article he linked, because Anet has said that.
The big problem is that everyone eventually becomes a casual player or leaves the game. So to make a long lasting/enjoyable game the devs have to keep this in mind.
I know that the downtime waiting for respeccing/looking for X was hard to deal with a lot of the times due to time constraints in my life...i.e. I have 2 hours to play, it takes 30 extra minutes to be sure everyone is ready, or finding that extra someone, cut my fun time down by 30 minutes.
To accomplish the desire of both of these pressures Anet has decided to try something very different, change the games mechanics and requirements. By making the game 'more fun (more accessible, others might say easier)' and limiting the neccessary waiting time to do something you want to do(beside spam x looking for y), they are providing a larger market for themselves, thus in a BtP title, more money.
I'm not wrong you will need people to switch their skill sets around to fullfill needs in challenging pve situations. If you think your going to tackle hard dungons or really challenging events with everyone DpSing and self healing your on drugs. That would make everything trivial and people will get bored of doing the same shit all the time.
Good to see that someone gets it. Teamwork is what drives MMO's, and the 'holy trinity system' is the fuel. The hardcore Guild Wars 2 followers act like it's dooming the MMO genre, when it's not. Because there are millions MMO fans that disagree. You don't need to completely change the structure of an MMO to innovate. An all DPS group will not keep things interesting and fresh, and would ultimately destroy the game.
I'm not wrong you will need people to switch their skill sets around to fullfill needs in challenging pve situations. If you think your going to tackle hard dungons or really challenging events with everyone DpSing and self healing your on drugs. That would make everything trivial and people will get bored of doing the same shit all the time.
Good to see that someone gets it. Teamwork is what drives MMO's, and the 'holy trinity system' is the fuel. The hardcore Guild Wars 2 followers act like it's dooming the MMO genre, when it's not. Because there are millions MMO fans that disagree. You don't need to completely change the structure of an MMO to innovate. An all DPS group will not keep things interesting and fresh, and would ultimately destroy the game.
But you don't need trinity to make a team oriented game though.
I'm not wrong you will need people to switch their skill sets around to fullfill needs in challenging pve situations. If you think your going to tackle hard dungons or really challenging events with everyone DpSing and self healing your on drugs. That would make everything trivial and people will get bored of doing the same shit all the time.
Good to see that someone gets it. Teamwork is what drives MMO's, and the 'holy trinity system' is the fuel. The hardcore Guild Wars 2 followers act like it's dooming the MMO genre, when it's not. Because there are millions MMO fans that disagree. You don't need to completely change the structure of an MMO to innovate. An all DPS group will not keep things interesting and fresh, and would ultimately destroy the game.
Teamwork and challenging PVE has nothing to do with the Trinity Gameplay.
Also it has never been stated that the game will be all dps, quite the contrary, most of the talk involved with GW2 is about control and support, both of which are innerent to teamwork.
Step outside of your box and consider other options...
I'm not wrong you will need people to switch their skill sets around to fullfill needs in challenging pve situations. If you think your going to tackle hard dungons or really challenging events with everyone DpSing and self healing your on drugs. That would make everything trivial and people will get bored of doing the same shit all the time.
Good to see that someone gets it. Teamwork is what drives MMO's, and the 'holy trinity system' is the fuel. The hardcore Guild Wars 2 followers act like it's dooming the MMO genre, when it's not. Because there are millions MMO fans that disagree. You don't need to completely change the structure of an MMO to innovate. An all DPS group will not keep things interesting and fresh, and would ultimately destroy the game.
aaannnd this is where i cant keep reading this thread..
Every last one of you that has been argueing the trinity here are forgetting one major diference in combat with gw2.
Active dodge/block. This isent your run of the mill combat system here. run up to mob a and spam 123 alot and not move at all wont exist here. The illusion of teamwork genereated by the 'holy trinity' here is being replaced by a new form of trinity.
If you need that to feal good about your time fine, but dont damn the thought of how gw2 is handleing combat here, read and learn.
For one, there is no taunts here. There is no mechanic telling the mob, or MOBS your figting that the guy in plate armor of whom has the most defence is threatening because of taunt or attacks that 'increase hate'. Infact if you guys ever played the original traditional tanks had a wake up call when the ran in to attack a group of mobs and to find they all ran around him to get the the healer and high dps cloth casters. There is a similar advanced ai in gw2, sure you can use skills that will prevent those mobs from running past you, but they only last a few seconds. Position matters, movemnet matters... and far beyond "ok so im wearing cloth so i should stay in the back at max casting distiance so im safe". THIS RIGHT HERE, takes the traitional tank out of the tank/heals/dps. leaving a 'holy duo'
Now for the healers. Well there is obviously no didicated healer, there will be no priest/cleric behind you healing and you wont be standing there watchign health bars. Instead the normal role of the healer is replaced by support, which in that the only form of healing others is threw suppoting magic, as mentiond before with rain. Ele cats a deadly rain spell that does aoe damage to foes but heals allies. Dont fool yourself thoe, this wont we some magical healing spell that will be esentail, its a verry minor heal to help the teamates. To add to this, arenanet (i forget where they said it but i know it was in one of their sitdownds or blogs)they have stated that if you spec into more of a healing class, your pary actualy has more of a chance to fail. Removign the healer takes another piece out of the holy trinity.
The only piece to the holy trinity they are carrying over is dps, and they are replacing it with a new trinity, so saying there is no trinity is wrong. Imho i think they are removing the older one, to add a new, and better trinity.
Now to go back to my statement of active dodge. This is one HUGE key in what normal mmo's dont accomplish. Combat will be more realistic in a way, Instead of hoping for that lucky roll from the RnG you will be instead acting. You see that huge ball of fire comign at you? dodge.. roll jump behind a big rock, you wont be magicly 'resisting' a flaming ball of death for no reason. Support has play in this too (as we have seen in the guardian release moreso than before).
However our dungeion delving encounters will be more chalangeing than before. Changing the base mechanics allow alot of things that can NOT be pulled off with a tank/heal/dps set up, along with no active dodge. Think of it this way, traditional holy trinity mmos, the healers are the ones that can rez (not all games are like this but most that i have played) You walk threw a dungeion, while walking into a room, tank is up front while the others follow. Tank walks too far and sets off a pressure plate trap, which triggers a load of arows to shoot from the walls. With active dodge you can duck/roll so on out of the way of iminant danger, without you would get pummeld by arrows and guess what? party wipe. Also consider if that caused stone colems to crash from one side of the room to the other, and then retract.. healer was standing in the way and gets mushed.. OH NO, dungean over, have to restart cuz healer is now dead and no one else can rez..
That is just an example, it can go deaper but this is already a massive wall of text.
To conclude gw2 combat will rely on skill instead of mechanics. And what i mean by skill of course does not include how good you are at wack-a-mole healing or how well your taunt rotaion goes, or watching your dps as no to steal agro from a tank. <-- trditional trinity mmo. Skill and chalange will now be judged by how well you can judge a situation, and work together as a whole team instead of how good a tank is and how good a healer is. Gw2 changes this while side of gaming which is one of the MANY reasons people are so hyped over it.. its new the the genre and people are exited. GET OVER IT! also get over the whole " i cant wait to see your flames of dissopointement" its old.. and dispite weather or not people will be, those posts are nothing more than baiting and trolling, and you know that. If you dont like gw2 or dont think it deserves the hype, good for you, keep it to yourself.. you dont see somone like me jumping over to rift forums and bashing it do you? I dont like the game.. Doesnt mean it will fail or is in anyway a bad game.
Regardless of who you are and how long youv been following GW2 your still wrong. There is no healer class. There are classes that can heal, but its been specifically said that those heals will in NO way get you through group content. You have to rely on yourself to heal and others to support.
Welcome to the holy trinity people!!!!!
Someones going to need to soak up damage, someone will need to do damage, someone will need to support.
It doesnt matter if everyone could fill all roles, what matters is that all roles are required.
It has been clearly stated that they have gotten rid of the traditional trinity - Tank, DPS and heal and replaced it with a new trinity - Damage, Support and Control. Therefore what you're saying isn't news and shouldn't be new to anyone.
Again, so much hype (and more often, anti-hype) seems to be built around claims ANet hasn't made for GW2.
What claims has Anet not made for GW2 are you talking about. If you are replying to Zeroxin's post about Anet saying they are using Damage, Support and Control instead of Tank, Heal, and DPS, then you should read the article he linked, because Anet has said that.
I was actually AGREEING with Zeroxin's post. Feel free to place an "exactly." right before my last response.
Comments
There's a world of difference between your second characterization of dynamic events and your first. To say that you won't need to talk to a quest giver is indeed true. To say they are "the same old thing" except for that is completely untrue for the reasons I've already laid out.
Now this is just arguing semantics, what it means to be the holy trinity. I define the HOLY trinity of tank/dps/heal to be situations where the tank is forced by game mechanics/mob difficulty to focus on nothing but defensive measures, and in which they only maintain aggro by the means of additional threat. A situation where healers do nothing but heal because it is most efficient, and likewise DPS do nothing but DPS and occassionally CC. A situation where DPS or healers could not tank a mob for more than 2 seconds.
You want to talk about the holy trinity just being that there is tanking, there is dpsing, and there is healing. Ok, fine, it's a combat based game. In that regard, anybody who is getting hit by a mob for any extended period of time, well, they're a tank by definition. I guess we'll have to wait for Kirby's Epic Yarn: The MMO to find one with no tanking and no healing.
I don't want to just argue semantics, so as long as you can see that there are huge fundamental differences in gameplay between what GW2 is offering and what a game like WoW is offering in terms of being able to go into a dungeon with any 5 people instead of exactly one tank, exactly one healer, all completely geared, spec'ed, enchanted, and gemmed for one role and one role only, then I'd say we can drop the debate.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
Everyone does need to do dps and self heal. In addition, you share in the controlling of the enemy, spread some extra heals to your allies, take up better positioning against the enemy, revive fallen comrades, ...
Because you place a snare on an enemy, that does not mean you've taken on a tank role. It means you snared the enemy so he can't hurt anyone for the moment, period. It's all part of the package. There are no healers that can focus on healing someone else enough to keep them alive while they absord damage. There are no tanks that can stand there and eat it all while being healed from an outside source. There are no characters that will only stand back and dps.
This, by definition, is as far from the trinity model as you can get.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Yep, I agree with this, not completely, but I agree.
Why not completely? It's not because of the armour the characters have that they have the tendency to go to different lines of the battlefield. As you said before, it depends on the situation, in new trinity of support, control and damage, and in tactics.
In an all-out battlefield, specially in PVP, the things can go crazy and comes the confusion. Having the role of support, control and damage becomes a matter of beeing effective no matter where you are and no matter your armour. You just do what you want to do, and probably do best, using different roles depending on your surroundings.
I can use, for PVE, the example of the Shatterer, where he (supposedly the front line) had minions all around the battlefield attacking everyone, and it became an all-out battlefield where the confusion was everywhere. If there wasn't melee classes and heavy armours attacking the minions too and having other kinds of support, other classes might have more difficulty in killing those minions.
But in different situations of gameplay the things change.
For example: the GW2 devs already said that WxWxW has another things to do besides attacking keeps and castles, like getting supplies to hold your keep and, consequently, attack your enemies supplies (in different ways). In this case, there isn't only a front line but other ways to defeat your enemies, and that's where the classes and roles do matter. Sending sentries and spies (like rangers, assassins, and maybe mesmers or necromancers) is an important mission that can save your guild keep (or the keep you are defending in case you don't have a guild) from bad situations. Those sentries and spies can go alone or in teams, depending on the difficulty of the mission, and that means that some of those teams must have other classes that give an advantage to the team in running away when they are caught or in saving the supplies when they are attacked. But all those sentry/spy characters need to have different roles even if the mission is the same, because what you said about crucial moments and because of unprepared situations.
On the other side, there should be rangers, assassins and the sort near/inside the keeps to protect them too. If a big number of enemies attacks a keep directly, we might get an advantage surrounding them with rangers and assassins in the keeps and in the back of the attackers, with other classes making harder for the enemy to attack or run away.
My conclusion is that in this game, with this new trinity of support, control and damage, we don't have necessarily to separate classes into different battlefield positions because of their armours and role. Although some classes might be better for some situations, each situation should have all the classes (independent of the armours) and all the roles if we want to be succesfull and not be caught unprepared.
We don't know much more about WxWxW so I can't say what other tactics could be done, which means, different situations, but I think I made my point.
You mean we should all be playing RIFT,right? From your posts in the RIFT forums it seems you are quite happy playing MMOs.
Anyway , like the post below you said: "you lost me half way"
OP is just a wall of text which summs to "yadda yadda... my words of wisdom... yadda yadda yadda..... take a break." , and this whole discussion developed around this nonsense... You people waste too much time and energy trying to impress one another with fancy words while discussing nonsense.
I just don't understand other peoples need to negate a person's hype for a game. If a person is hyped for a game, let them. It should make no difference to you. I think hype is fun, and learning more about the game during the development stage is exciting. I love the MMO genre, and have played more than my fair share of MMO's. I'm excited (hyped, maybe) about GW2.
Do I think it will completely revolutionize the genre? Most likely not. It's still going to be fun to play and a bit different from other MMO's. It's that bit of difference that excites me. We need to see some good changes in the genre and I think that ANET knows how to deliver.
I've been burned, like others, by MMO's that promised to deliverand didn't. It still didn't change my love for the genre, though. I just moved to a previous game I loved or found a new one.
Thanks for the advice of taking a break, but I think I'll keep playing in the genre that I love and keep the hype I want for any game I see fit.
The major feature of "holy trinity" is that you can negate incoming damage for extended period of time. And this is not the problem with tanks, tanks are fine, it is problem with healers.
I love healers, they allow for most interesting design, but they are responsible for the rigid setup. Even in game like DDO where most of time you do not have tank and the rest of time you just have guy with highest DPS and enough HP as tank, you have this phenomenon, because you have sustained heals (surprisingly this is not issue of the base game of DnD, it is something Turbine deliberately introduced and it did not bring anything fun).
Even game like WoW breaks the tanking role with the random damage and AOE damage. But it keeps the heals.
Making heals weak but avaible to everyone is major change in MMO paradigm, you are not giving ANet enough credit.
I see a lot of confirmation bias taking place when it comes to Guild Wars 2. Peoople think that "everyone" expects GW2 to "revolutionize" gaming or for GW2 to "save" us from something because that's either the responses they're looking for, or they're only hanging around people who are saying those things. ArenaNet doesn't even use the term "revolutionary" to describe its own game, and I must say, neither do the GW2 fans I associate with. This makes me cock an eyebrow when well-meaning (?) pundits post threads telling fans to temper their expectations. What, exactly, do YOU think I expect from this game?
I'm not an achievement junkie, which means the current crop of MMOs holds no long-term allure for me. I am currently playing Rift with my husband, and I expect I'll be playing it for some time, if only because we are slow to level. I don't expect to spend much time in the end-game because participating in end-game, appointment-gaming, guild-heavy content could not be further from our gaming goals. Our goals are meaningful story-based gameplay. So, do I expect Guild Wars 2 to offer this? You bet, in the vein of GW1 only with story-impacting choices.
I hate grind - in the sense of repeating dungeons a dozen times in the hopes of acquiring that 0.0001% chance to drop uber leet gear (see: end game commentary above). Guild Wars 1 did not possess such requirements, and ANet has declared that this philosophy will continue in GW2. Do I expect them to deliver on that? Absolutely. Do I consider questing in itself to be a grind? On occasion, which is why I enjoy other activities to break up the single-minded pursuit of quest objectives. Which - hey, Guild Wars 2 purports to have that in the form of crafting, mini-games, and PvP! Is that new or revolutionary? Hardly; just an adherence to a philosophy that I share.
I don't like being locked into a class role. I don't want to always have to be the healer in the back of a group just because I like to heal myself when solo. I don't like the concept of "aggro" as handled in most traditional MMOs, and always preferred GW1's method of making the AI go after squishies in an attempt to mimic player behavior. I expect GW2 to continue in this vein because they have declared their intent to do away with mandatory classes, and re-iterated their stance on "traditional" aggro. I expect GW2 to enable me to heal myself when alone, and fulfil another role in a group situation, as I desire. Is this revolutionary? Hardly, although it is an Evolution. But is it what I WANT in a game? Yes, yes, and yes again.
The reason I am interested in GW2 is not because I am burned out on today's MMO mechanics and yearn for something different. The reason I am interested in GW2 is because I am primarily a GW1 fan, can't stop observing all the things that today's MMOs do that I think GW1 does better, and I want to see GW1's younger, sexier and more flexible sibling follow through on GW1's promise so that I can finally stop playing games that lock storyline behind raid dungeons and clashing playstyles with achievers who don't understand I don't give a rat's arse about chasing carrots on the ends of sticks.
I lost faith in mmo community a long time ago, so whatever...
I look to research about a game to know what to expect and what to not expect, and maybe even get surprised, so I never have a true disappointment...
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
It has been clearly stated that they have gotten rid of the traditional trinity - Tank, DPS and heal and replaced it with a new trinity - Damage, Support and Control. Therefore what you're saying isn't news and shouldn't be news to anyone.
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
This is not a game.
Again, so much hype (and more often, anti-hype) seems to be built around claims ANet hasn't made for GW2.
i think your logic in the eksample fails. Just because there is different things to do in WvWvW doesn't change that any and i mean ANY encounter of an opposite force that is around equal strength will enforce trinity gameplay.
I definitely don't look at GW2 as the savior of MMOs. If it's done well, it will be something I play and that's it. I'm looking forward to a good game without a monthly fee, plain and simple. I don't think it's doing enough differently for me to be THAT excited about it.
I can't belive you can guys can discuss something like "the holy trinity" and not notice that you are all using different definitions of what it is.
Quite alot of problems with this thread.
The first is that the OP states an opinion as an "honest truth".
Then theres the people that somehow can't envision a game without trinity gameplay, and finally the game isn't even in beta stage.
Trinity of MMO's:
One class that holds as many members of a mob in a single point, being healed constantly by another class, so that the rest of the classes can hit with DPS.
So, GW 2 has promised to do away with this trinity. How? First they took away the ability to heal anyone specifically. There are no skills that allow any PC to target any other PC. SO how do you heal others? There ARE some weak AoE heals, but that is all they have. Although self heals are on any classes bar, none can withstand high DPS for any length of time, so a tank can't withstand aggro.
Now is there a need for this trinity in all MMO's? There's the rub! Here's the logic being used:
All MMO's use game mechanics that require the use of Trinities to maximize efficiency
GW2 is an MMO
Therefore,
To be efficient there must be a Trinity in there somewhere.
Unfortunately, this game is supposed to played more efficiently without a Trinity than with. So the logic of the above statement breaks down, IF the developers are being truthful. Only gameplay and time will tell!
I'm not clear on what the objective of eliminating the trinity is. Is it:
Design a different style of group gameplay.
Eliminate the downtime associated with finding a tank and healer for you group.
My sense is that it started with #2 because that's a big point of frustration in a lot of games. It then evolved into #1.
I think the biggest risk is that if all classes are pretty much equal in terms of their utility then one losses the motivation to specialize and ends up feeling just like every other class. But if specialization is an advantage on other variables (e.g. CC, or guardian protection) then you're just ending up with similar situations of limited class populations. Might not have such deep population problems but they'd still be there.
Will be interesting to see how things turn out.
What claims has Anet not made for GW2 are you talking about. If you are replying to Zeroxin's post about Anet saying they are using Damage, Support and Control instead of Tank, Heal, and DPS, then you should read the article he linked, because Anet has said that.
Here's an article that shows what devs are dealing with when designing an MMO.
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001588.php
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001646.php
The big problem is that everyone eventually becomes a casual player or leaves the game. So to make a long lasting/enjoyable game the devs have to keep this in mind.
I know that the downtime waiting for respeccing/looking for X was hard to deal with a lot of the times due to time constraints in my life...i.e. I have 2 hours to play, it takes 30 extra minutes to be sure everyone is ready, or finding that extra someone, cut my fun time down by 30 minutes.
To accomplish the desire of both of these pressures Anet has decided to try something very different, change the games mechanics and requirements. By making the game 'more fun (more accessible, others might say easier)' and limiting the neccessary waiting time to do something you want to do(beside spam x looking for y), they are providing a larger market for themselves, thus in a BtP title, more money.
Good to see that someone gets it. Teamwork is what drives MMO's, and the 'holy trinity system' is the fuel. The hardcore Guild Wars 2 followers act like it's dooming the MMO genre, when it's not. Because there are millions MMO fans that disagree. You don't need to completely change the structure of an MMO to innovate. An all DPS group will not keep things interesting and fresh, and would ultimately destroy the game.
But you don't need trinity to make a team oriented game though.
Teamwork and challenging PVE has nothing to do with the Trinity Gameplay.
Also it has never been stated that the game will be all dps, quite the contrary, most of the talk involved with GW2 is about control and support, both of which are innerent to teamwork.
Step outside of your box and consider other options...
aaannnd this is where i cant keep reading this thread..
Every last one of you that has been argueing the trinity here are forgetting one major diference in combat with gw2.
Active dodge/block. This isent your run of the mill combat system here. run up to mob a and spam 123 alot and not move at all wont exist here. The illusion of teamwork genereated by the 'holy trinity' here is being replaced by a new form of trinity.
If you need that to feal good about your time fine, but dont damn the thought of how gw2 is handleing combat here, read and learn.
For one, there is no taunts here. There is no mechanic telling the mob, or MOBS your figting that the guy in plate armor of whom has the most defence is threatening because of taunt or attacks that 'increase hate'. Infact if you guys ever played the original traditional tanks had a wake up call when the ran in to attack a group of mobs and to find they all ran around him to get the the healer and high dps cloth casters. There is a similar advanced ai in gw2, sure you can use skills that will prevent those mobs from running past you, but they only last a few seconds. Position matters, movemnet matters... and far beyond "ok so im wearing cloth so i should stay in the back at max casting distiance so im safe". THIS RIGHT HERE, takes the traitional tank out of the tank/heals/dps. leaving a 'holy duo'
Now for the healers. Well there is obviously no didicated healer, there will be no priest/cleric behind you healing and you wont be standing there watchign health bars. Instead the normal role of the healer is replaced by support, which in that the only form of healing others is threw suppoting magic, as mentiond before with rain. Ele cats a deadly rain spell that does aoe damage to foes but heals allies. Dont fool yourself thoe, this wont we some magical healing spell that will be esentail, its a verry minor heal to help the teamates. To add to this, arenanet (i forget where they said it but i know it was in one of their sitdownds or blogs)they have stated that if you spec into more of a healing class, your pary actualy has more of a chance to fail. Removign the healer takes another piece out of the holy trinity.
The only piece to the holy trinity they are carrying over is dps, and they are replacing it with a new trinity, so saying there is no trinity is wrong. Imho i think they are removing the older one, to add a new, and better trinity.
Now to go back to my statement of active dodge. This is one HUGE key in what normal mmo's dont accomplish. Combat will be more realistic in a way, Instead of hoping for that lucky roll from the RnG you will be instead acting. You see that huge ball of fire comign at you? dodge.. roll jump behind a big rock, you wont be magicly 'resisting' a flaming ball of death for no reason. Support has play in this too (as we have seen in the guardian release moreso than before).
However our dungeion delving encounters will be more chalangeing than before. Changing the base mechanics allow alot of things that can NOT be pulled off with a tank/heal/dps set up, along with no active dodge. Think of it this way, traditional holy trinity mmos, the healers are the ones that can rez (not all games are like this but most that i have played) You walk threw a dungeion, while walking into a room, tank is up front while the others follow. Tank walks too far and sets off a pressure plate trap, which triggers a load of arows to shoot from the walls. With active dodge you can duck/roll so on out of the way of iminant danger, without you would get pummeld by arrows and guess what? party wipe. Also consider if that caused stone colems to crash from one side of the room to the other, and then retract.. healer was standing in the way and gets mushed.. OH NO, dungean over, have to restart cuz healer is now dead and no one else can rez..
That is just an example, it can go deaper but this is already a massive wall of text.
To conclude gw2 combat will rely on skill instead of mechanics. And what i mean by skill of course does not include how good you are at wack-a-mole healing or how well your taunt rotaion goes, or watching your dps as no to steal agro from a tank. <-- trditional trinity mmo. Skill and chalange will now be judged by how well you can judge a situation, and work together as a whole team instead of how good a tank is and how good a healer is. Gw2 changes this while side of gaming which is one of the MANY reasons people are so hyped over it.. its new the the genre and people are exited. GET OVER IT! also get over the whole " i cant wait to see your flames of dissopointement" its old.. and dispite weather or not people will be, those posts are nothing more than baiting and trolling, and you know that. If you dont like gw2 or dont think it deserves the hype, good for you, keep it to yourself.. you dont see somone like me jumping over to rift forums and bashing it do you? I dont like the game.. Doesnt mean it will fail or is in anyway a bad game.
Rant over!
I was actually AGREEING with Zeroxin's post. Feel free to place an "exactly." right before my last response.