Your last paragraph points it out: the holy trinity exists merely because of artificial aggro-mechanics for npcs.
the "tank" dude, which in your imagination is supposed to be a mighty warrior, is nothing but a loudmouth (taunttaunttaunt) in a steelcan (mitigation)
--> boring
your dps-guy, which in your imagination is supposed to be a mighty mage or a berserker, is a glass cannon, that falls apart if npcs only scowl at him
--> boring
your healer is service-personell with a masochistic helper-syndrome who is a helpless victim when he get's slapped
--> boring and frustrating
you really want to tell me that this is the very top of the evolution of mmo game design? i beg to differ
that trinity is some sort of artificial bullcrap you see in pvp, since taunt does not work on PCs -> and thus the healer dies first, then the dps and the tank get's ignored because he is not dangerous without the other 2
after so many hours it eventually gets boring to fight against stupid automatons that are driven by an aggrolist and not the slightest notion of AI. no matter how challenging it might be in terms of npc-damage, hp, numbers, loot etc.
i remember from my wow days as a holy priest, how incredibly boring and unrewarding it felt to be in a raid. for hours you don't see anything else than healthbars. for you the game is about making short yellow and red healthbars into longer green healthbars. tetris is more exiting than that.
also you talk about loot drama, if all classes is hybrid. that shows what a narrow tunnel perspective you have on the concept of mmos. to you it's all about raids and gear. pshh. maybe for 13years old. mmos can be much more than that. even blizzard has noticed that mere 5% of their customers are actually doing raids. so if the majority does something else, and there is no need for big raids with utterly specialized individuals that are only able to perform one dimension in a multi-dimensional space of possible activities, then maybe there is no need for stupidified ai and the holy trinity at all?
humans want to have challenges in games, yes, but the challenge should come from an unexpected situation and lie in the ability of the players to adapt to that situation in order to prevail and succeed.
todays raid mechanics give you a "groundhog day" feeling, where the challenges lie in the big numbered properties of the opponents (hp, damage, ae-effects) and raidgroups do nothing but empirically (trial and error) approach the optimal solution to the raid by optimizing their group, equipment, etc, and repeat the ever the same raid situation until success.
this is like training a dog to hop through a static sequence of fire rings and obstacles, only here the dogs train themselves. there is no demand for situational creativity because the situation is ever the same and varies only slightly at best. in the end we are all well-trained doggies who flawlessly hop through the molten core parcours and get a shiny purple bone for it - or not :-P
summary: the holy trinity is great for ppl, that want to be a well-trained doggie with lots of purple bones to gnaw on
This post imo shows how poorly the gaming community - blizzard especially - is being treated today. I'm an older gamer - 41 - and find it sad that the imagination is completely left out of todays games and guys 16-25 are not being rewarded like this.
Playing a priest or healer shouldn't be a game of making yellow and red bars into green ones.
It's honestly getting to the point where it's just not even worth the cash for the games.
If any of you DO remember vanilla wow, there were micro-games in the game. Finding keys, getting that "special" recipe for crafting that hardly anyone had and that you got your name put into the crafting threads for having.
All these things made your character unique, needed in particular occasions despite class and was hence thrown out because people didn't want keys, recipes were too hard to get.
I love the days of EQ, great community and great classes. I for one enjoy the holy trinity, I for revel in the idea that you can excel at one singular set of abilities, I also gave always wished you had the ability to cross class. What's wrong with a thieving cleric, or an arcane warrior? In many attempts I also enjoyed the idea of a no class, skill/feat based character (which is why secret world is on my to do list). The holy trinity is GREAT but some flexibility set in so you can customize your character, well then you REALLY have a unique character that can be talked about!
OMFG, THEFINN, that's what online gaming is ... Original EQ, original WOW. When did things go wrong, when did things become MORE about grinding than player interaction? What's the point in paying to do mindless tasks over and over when you can pick ANY facebook game and do that with yourself. The magic of online gaming is gone all that's left is Zul.
I deplore the trinity mostly because of the requirement for a dedicated healer. The entire task requires him or her. They are the most vital part. You can possibly remove the tank, or remove the DPSers. Its not optimal but it can be done. But you can not run anything without a dedicated healer.
For years there have been different game mechanics that do not require a healer. So this is just unnessary and highly annoying. I want to play with my friends and I want them to be able to play the classes they have chosen no matter what they are.
the problem sometimes with the trinity concept is that often in higher end content some players are left in the cold because it is hard to find that healer or tank when everyone is wanting to lay some smackdown on the bad guys. Also often rogues/assassin and other specialists are often purposely kept out of raids.
I totally agree about the problems related to the trinity concept. Not only does it present difficulty when organizing events and raid/quest type events, but every developer who implements the trinity based system into his or her game will ultimately face complaints of one or other of the vocations/classes being unbalanced, overpowered (aka OP) or weak. That's why in the new open source game server I am currently developing, I have eliminated 4 previous classes and instead created a master class that could do everything that the previous 4 could. No one will complain of being unbalanced, of having to wait for a certain class so that the event could start, etc etc etc. The quests/events still need a group of players to successfully complete the event, but it will be simpler and easier, and it will not be as boring as before, which is the common cause of quitting any mmo. I hope to have my game up within a few months, updates at http://mmo-chronicles.blogspot.com/
"then ask yourself, what IS teamwork?? For example, if you have to make a project with a team of 4 persons in RL, and you divide the hole project in 4 pieces, so every person is doing 1 part. Those person's don't speak with each other during the hole project, so they work only on their part and when that's finished, they just put everything together. Do you call that? teamwork? Because that's how most MMORPG's works. CrypteX250"
I agree the holy trinity has its issues, No 1 for me being the difficulty find people to fill all the roles.
Recently i went back to my first mmo for a stint: Everquest 1. Something struck me I liked the fact people had less hybridised more defined roles and the abilities they had were significiant. After having a good think about it i realised that was something that had been lost from mmo's over the years. Now its seems every class must be able to do most things and abilities are more and more marginal so as to make balance easier to achieve for developers.
What i would really like to see is mmo with a fresh approach:
Well defined roles and minimal hybridizations.
NPCs hirelings, mercs etc able to fill a role on most occasions to cover a shortage
A radical new agro system. multiple agro mechanics and groups of mobs randomly choosing which mechanic they are going to follow. for example, 1 agro mechanic could be CC the tank and burst down the healer, focus fire anyone wearing a robe, over extend the tank by fleeing then other mobs in the pack ambush the healer as he runs to catch up. Many many methods to make this work.
Positioning being a factor, don't expose your back
Powerful significant abilities and talents, none of this 0.1 sec casting speed increase on a 3sec spell, or 0.5% damage reduction. If a game is hard (which alot of people want) their is no reason to keep everything so minimal.
As far as I'm concerned, the sooner MMOs move away from the holy trinity, the better.
At least in many games, when you want/need to group, there's often a lot of waiting for a healer or tank type to be available. This is quite annoying and not fun.
I would prefer being able to grab X people (friends, randoms, guildies, whatever) and go. If a game must have the trinity, then everyone should have the ability to "re-spec" their character to fulfill the specific role - no matter what class they are. At least then, you can change from waiting for people to negotiating (bitching ) about who does what.
I like trinity gameplay. With a great group that knows the full set of roles with things like cc, off-tanks, off-heals etc, it's not at all the overly restrictive system some describe. Know your job, do your job.
It's also not an easy system to master. This is proved on a daily basis in PUGs by players who don't know what they are doing, or who refuse to work with the team.
Agree. Actually is only NATURAL thing to be. Is like in real life. Or like in real army. No one does everything. Only problem I see, but also here is same as in real life, is hard to get enough workers/soldiers for hard and dirty jobs. And tanking is like this. Is hard to be good tank, can be very frustrating, nearly whole instance you just see feet or ass of tanked mob (more or less however as mele DPS). Healer is in much better position, can enjoy look of areas. Same as ranged DPS. But when failure occure all blame only first two. But many times is up to player ... have seen many times dps die while waiting for healer with 1% of mana left stuggling to keep tank alive instead to heal themselves when they could as hybrid class.
Right, you love playing a game where you are continually in a straight jacket with your limited predefined abilities and every other player your profession is exactly like you.
/sarcasm off
All I saw in the article was a bunch of brain dead reasons with very weak reaoning behind them. What you did say is that you are one lazy player who does not want to take the time to make a unique character, you want the developer to do it for you. Why not just admit it?
In my very insignificant opinion, MOST people who attack the Trinity in real hate to cooperate. They loath the feeling of depening on someone else, and thus prefer to be Gods: omnipotent chars which can do ALL thing alone by themselves. Chars that can tank, dmg and heal all at the same time. And to hell with teamwork and cooperation. It's the trend of our days, everywhere.
Judging from my own personality I disagree. I am very much a cooperative player and usually choose support classes. but is it my fault, that this choice makes me play the healthbar-tetris and feeling bored in doing so? does this make me antisocial?
I don't understand, why ppl think, that leaving the HT automatically means to turn everyone into a soloing, antisocial demigod? this (wrong) conclusion has quite some dogmatic, semi-religious tendencies.
my main criticism on the trinity is that it stem's from the aggro-mechanics, which again was SEEN NECESSARY at this time because mmos did not have collision detection and thus there was no way for a protector (tank) to physically shield a protectee from attacks. thus they came up with the "shout/taunt draw mobs away" mechanic. or so the designers thought. actually daoc did it somewhat differently by giving warriors the guard ability which allowed them to protect groupmates by blocking attacks on them with their shield.
and this totally makes sense! it resembles the archetypical idea of a protecting warrior. there is actually no real need for taunts-mechanics. i never understood why i haven't seen a similar feature in later games? can some1 explain?
then let's talk about specializations: normally we have tank, dps, heal and cc. (i do not consider buffing and debuffing a fullfledged combat role, since there is no skill needed, you just press the button). why is it so hard to imagine combat roles, than can not just fulfill one of these but 2? is a cc-healer a an antisocial demigod, or a dps-tank or a dps-cc? yes, everyone of these might have a better chance at soloing than a 1-role-class, but none of these would be invincible. even if you give them 3 out of 4 roles. and then one dps class is not like another one. a fire mage is not an archer is not a rogue. i can not see the argument "hybrid classes make everyone feel and play the same" being true.
also with more detailed combat mechanics you can put even more diversity into these archetypes.
let's take a warrior: equipped with sword and shield he is good at melee, but has problems against cavalry and might be unaffected by archers at best (unless he get's close then he would win), with a halberd he is good against cavalry but has problems against melee and is very prone to ranged attacks. with a bow he is good at anyone who is far away and doesnt have a shield but is dead meat if any melee comes by, with a shield, shortsword & javelins he is a skirmisher who can harrass heavier melee troops, with curved blades (saber) he has better chances against shielded foes etc. etc.
so in principle we can design a warrior as one class, that changes his combat role just by using different equipment!
of course we could design a class man-at-arms, axefighter, archer, helbardier, knight, horse-archer, skirmisher instead, but why should we? all we have to do is not to allow, that every warrior runs around with a backpack filled with swords, sabrers, axes, shields, halberds, bows, xbows, and horses! give him some weapon slots: scabbard left/right for 1h-weapons or shortbows/quiver, 2 at the back for shield, longbow, 2h weapon, maybe one at the belt for daggers, buckler etc. and these slots he can fill however he likes and this loadout defines his tactical options: some out of many. there is still enough room for specializations that give bonuses and special abilities, WHEN he uses a certain weapon.
and since AoC we have collision in mmos, so we can replace the stupid taunt by other options, like holding a doorway just by standing there with 2 shieldbearers with the softies behind (tank), catching the leg of an opponent with a hookbill to make him fall (cc), thrusting with a spear at the mob between the two tanks and whatnot. and these are just examples from non-magic fights, now just make up some magic abilities, can't be so hard.
The Trinity is not solo friendly so as far as MMO companies are concerned it must go. Check out any MMO’s official forums, see how many players are asking for more solo options and how many are asking for more grouping options.
MMO’s have been overwhelmed by those who do not want to group, so the trinity or anything else which says ‘Group!’ in a MMO is on its way out.
It is a real shame, but we have already seen far less reliance on grouping in modern MMO’s and that process will just continue.
The thing about The Holy Trinity that makes it appealing is the need for cooperation between the group members.
I am yet to see a concrete alternative to this method.
GW2 may have it, but I have not read anywhere detailing the system besides the need to position yourself and use your skills to help other party members etc, no solid system, sounds like everyone acts in a solo capacity to the betterment of the group. This is different to the Holy Triinty where you act for the group and solo secondary, there in lies the appeal of the Holy Trinty, it a group thing foremost and not chaotic with players running here and there acting indpendantly.
Hope to see an alternative system where the sum of the group is greater than its individual parts, where the a group can take on a monster that canhit for 1000s of damage etc and sruvive. .... ...
PS: @Scot the whole idea of an MMO is to play with other players not solo, those that want solo should really play a mp or single player game, point being MMOs should cater to groups of players first and solo secondary, no reason why you cannot have both though.
The holy trinity. I believe its a fairly logical combat tactic. You get a mix of characters who have specialized skills who support each other. In the military, we have infantry units, medical units, and a host of other specialized skill sets in order to maximize efficiency in combat.
Having said that, each soldier is trained to a certain extent in general healing, general combat, and a general amount in other fields so that he can do a bit of everything and be a bit self sufficient. However, given the opportunity, he will fall into his specialized role when grouped with other soldiers. Its only natural.
I believe its the same in MMOs. In GW2 for example where characters are designed to be a bit more self sufficient will tend to try and specialize when grouped together. After all, its still about mashing buttons. It will be easier for one character to concentrate mashing 3 or 4 DPS buttons while a tank mashes 3 or 4 other buttons, plus whatever other general skill sets are needed.
Is the trinity bad. I don't think so. I don't think its that great for solo play, but I do think it makes sense for group play/.
In Lineage 2 the holy trinity works, and it works quite well, even in pvp, i have yet to see a game that handles it that well.Im a tank, i love protecting people, i love pulling miracles out of my ass whenever someone screws up.
The concept in wich you play the "son of a god that can do everything" dont work in mmo (you do know what mmo means, right?), besides you cant make everyone special, because then no one is... and then you are better off playing a single player game, that actually has better single player content and is a better single player experience.... because you know, its a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.
Specialization is here to stay, no matter how many of you are tired of it, it simply works.
The very fact of being able to sacrifice fire power for defense, or healing capabilities for DPS when you build your character ensures those roles will remain untouched, and we all know that character customization is actually a must in today MMORPG´s, the ones that dont have a certain degree of it cant succed.
^--- part of the problem is that so many people are so accustomed to the tank fo mainstream MMOs that the concept of such a design, as bizarre and illogical as it is, being removed from a game is completely alien to them.
Trinity gameplay is based on mobs attacking the guy who is commanding them to attack him. That guy is a beefed up pile of hitpoints. To not make that character overpowered, they make him less effective a damage dealing and limit his ranged attack ability.
Collision detection, removing the leash from mobs, giving mobs logical attack decisions, and many other mechanics that would add depth to gameplay would completely break the trinity, a design centered around static spawns and stat-based aggro.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The trinity is an outdated system that has run it's course. That's why GW2 is abolishing it, replacing your Tank/Healer/DPS specialists with Control/Support and Damage that everyone contributes to. In GW2, every character will have a self-heal in slot six. In addition, you can support your allies with skills/spells that have splash AoE healing effects (there's no friendly targeting in GW2), help control the enemy with various shields, cripples, snares, slows, knockdowns and knockbacks etc. as well as deliver damage. When you work together with your allies, you'll find your skills compliment and enhance theirs. Elementalist threw up a fire wall? Shoot your arrows through it at the enemy to add fire damage for example. By giving every profession their share of damage, control and support, any group of people can get together on their favorite characters and hit the world fully capable of handing what comes at them by working together. There will be no more of the above endless calls of LFG.
A lot of ppl are pointing to GW2 and using it as proof that we are moving away from the trinity. However, I would point out, that GW2 has yet to prove it works better or that ppl still won't find a way to specialize when it comes to groups. I'm not saying it will fail in that respect, but I would wait until you taste the new pudding before saying its better than the old pudding.
1/ its taken alot away from the mmo genre. its made thinking about your charecter build obsolete as now its all pre-defined for you (idiot proof)
2/ its a massive chunk of the customisation of your charecters to decide what type of charecter he/she/it will be and the role you intend for it to play. (every one know's in mmo's!! you cant be a jack of all trades) players shoul;d be given the freedom for the start to design and build their own UNIQUE!!!!! charecters. (this means the players decide the class of his charecter, not some stupid option you click before you play) it means you can plan your char ahead based off what your learning about the game as you play.
3/ holy trinity dictates what kind of role you play on the battle field and their fore dictates what your char will look like.. tanks = heavy armour huge bulky weapons. melee= heavy/medium armour duel weapons. rdps = light armour bows/ranged magic/projectile weapons. healers = light/no armour buff spells and healing spells for group play with very limited offencive abilities.
now ok so the holy trinity works by means of letting the player know what his intended role is before he even starts playing the game, the holy trinity also tells that player, while he's useing this charecter he can only be that one very specific class. so a tank will tank all the way to end game. a healer will heal all the way to end game. melee will dps all the way to end game and so on and so fourth.
the problem is. no variety or change in mommentum. its the same old same thing all the time with each class and to be quite frank!!! its BOARING!!
with the holy trinity you are effectively making the game incredibly overly user friendly and removing one of the most important and main features and reasons why people play mmo's in the first place!!! CHARECTER CUSTOMISATION!!!.
you can find these threads every where. litterally thousands upon thousands of players screaming out for more charecter control and more customisation, and what are the games developers doing today?? they are really milking the holy trinity system and it is one of the main reasons why mmo's released of late are so bland so boaring so dull so un-eventful and mind numbimg!!
simply put! support this rediculous and stupid charecter definition system is causing more harm than good to the entire mmo crop.
also.. this diffrence between holy trinity and no holy trinity is where people get their ideas of what a sandbox is and isnt. lol just think about. stick holy trinity into a sandbox enviroment and oh look!!! you have yet another themepark with sandbox like features.
holy trinity is watering down our beloved mmo's and alot of people are too hung up in games such as wow and lotro and sto to even notice the things they are missing out on.
thats right our mmo's can be a hell of alot more emersive more eventful. you would feel more connection to your charecter. you would feel more connection to the game world and most of all. you would feel a sense of achievment within the game as your developing your charecter.
it would also give good reason to have indepth forum conversations into charecter builds. and not like the kind of reads we are getting now. lmao tank forums.. errr so we only talk about the tank class and its already worked out best setup for every single player that every one wants to emulate other wise they suck as a tank. its the same old story in all the forums for each type of class. one way or the high way. some games may have 2 ways that work.
they really need to role things back a few years and focuss more on player charecter control and development rather than trying to stick leeds on us and walk us down the path to the place where we will do our business, makes you feel like a dog doesnt it!! some one telling you to sit lie down roll over. go to bed. and to just genrally have what your given and be happy with it!!
The Trinity is not solo friendly so as far as MMO companies are concerned it must go. Check out any MMO’s official forums, see how many players are asking for more solo options and how many are asking for more grouping options.
MMO’s have been overwhelmed by those who do not want to group, so the trinity or anything else which says ‘Group!’ in a MMO is on its way out.
It is a real shame, but we have already seen far less reliance on grouping in modern MMO’s and that process will just continue.
dont be rediculous lol.. trinity is the king of solo play!! its so king infact!! its the only reason you can solo an entire story line of any mmo's todate.. your class that you choose is designed in such a way that you can do all the quests and stories and reach the end game content. and only then do you need to start working with other players in raids and instances to get your oh so very specific class gear so you can do your single one thing better than you have ever been able to do it before....
reason the mmo's are overwhelmed with none groupers is because of advertiseing.. like all things new, it eventualy over time becomes well known. and things that are well known tend to become common place. i rememeber when mmo's were a new idea, good god how great they used to be! now its just an empty feeling i get when i log onto my tank or my knight. or when i log onto my healer lol so so so crap.
but then you have eve online!! now thats a game thats hanging onto the old values of mmo charecter development. no classes!! your char is what ever you decide its going to be and guess what!! you can even switch out to provide another role if you so please and if you have worked on your charecter to allow you to do that.. or you could even perform 2 maybe even 3 roles on the battle field. or maybe even do all roles to a limited degree in a solo capacity and still be of use in group enguagments. and at the same time being incredibly unique to the next man with your own strengths.. ya see in eve its not just the skills and how you build your charecter. its the ships you choose and the geer you equip them with, its also your style of play!! no other mmo allows for this kind of flexibility in game play.
your either a tank with a ton of hit points and lots of mitigation or a melee with lots of dps potential or a healer for maximum group support, or your a nuker range dmg dealer.
some games have been trying to break free from the traditional holy trinity idea. games like wow runes of magic rift and other such duel classing systems.. but not exactly in the best way. its alsmost as if they just woke up one day and said lets try and change our game, i hate wakeing up logging in and deciding if ill tank today or heal. why cant i tank and heal lol and so fourth the duel classing was born hahaha.
Comments
I’d much rather play a game that challenged me than one that, due to a trinity mechanic, forced me to write another Healbot script.
This post imo shows how poorly the gaming community - blizzard especially - is being treated today. I'm an older gamer - 41 - and find it sad that the imagination is completely left out of todays games and guys 16-25 are not being rewarded like this.
Playing a priest or healer shouldn't be a game of making yellow and red bars into green ones.
It's honestly getting to the point where it's just not even worth the cash for the games.
If any of you DO remember vanilla wow, there were micro-games in the game. Finding keys, getting that "special" recipe for crafting that hardly anyone had and that you got your name put into the crafting threads for having.
All these things made your character unique, needed in particular occasions despite class and was hence thrown out because people didn't want keys, recipes were too hard to get.
Blame the forum kids.
My EVE YouTube Channel
Holy generalizations batman.
I deplore the trinity mostly because of the requirement for a dedicated healer. The entire task requires him or her. They are the most vital part. You can possibly remove the tank, or remove the DPSers. Its not optimal but it can be done. But you can not run anything without a dedicated healer.
For years there have been different game mechanics that do not require a healer. So this is just unnessary and highly annoying. I want to play with my friends and I want them to be able to play the classes they have chosen no matter what they are.
the problem sometimes with the trinity concept is that often in higher end content some players are left in the cold because it is hard to find that healer or tank when everyone is wanting to lay some smackdown on the bad guys. Also often rogues/assassin and other specialists are often purposely kept out of raids.
I totally agree about the problems related to the trinity concept. Not only does it present difficulty when organizing events and raid/quest type events, but every developer who implements the trinity based system into his or her game will ultimately face complaints of one or other of the vocations/classes being unbalanced, overpowered (aka OP) or weak. That's why in the new open source game server I am currently developing, I have eliminated 4 previous classes and instead created a master class that could do everything that the previous 4 could. No one will complain of being unbalanced, of having to wait for a certain class so that the event could start, etc etc etc. The quests/events still need a group of players to successfully complete the event, but it will be simpler and easier, and it will not be as boring as before, which is the common cause of quitting any mmo. I hope to have my game up within a few months, updates at http://mmo-chronicles.blogspot.com/
quoting a youtube comment:
"then ask yourself, what IS teamwork?? For example, if you have to make a project with a team of 4 persons in RL, and you divide the hole project in 4 pieces, so every person is doing 1 part. Those person's don't speak with each other during the hole project, so they work only on their part and when that's finished, they just put everything together. Do you call that? teamwork? Because that's how most MMORPG's works. CrypteX250"
I agree the holy trinity has its issues, No 1 for me being the difficulty find people to fill all the roles.
Recently i went back to my first mmo for a stint: Everquest 1. Something struck me I liked the fact people had less hybridised more defined roles and the abilities they had were significiant. After having a good think about it i realised that was something that had been lost from mmo's over the years. Now its seems every class must be able to do most things and abilities are more and more marginal so as to make balance easier to achieve for developers.
What i would really like to see is mmo with a fresh approach:
Well defined roles and minimal hybridizations.
NPCs hirelings, mercs etc able to fill a role on most occasions to cover a shortage
A radical new agro system. multiple agro mechanics and groups of mobs randomly choosing which mechanic they are going to follow. for example, 1 agro mechanic could be CC the tank and burst down the healer, focus fire anyone wearing a robe, over extend the tank by fleeing then other mobs in the pack ambush the healer as he runs to catch up. Many many methods to make this work.
Positioning being a factor, don't expose your back
Powerful significant abilities and talents, none of this 0.1 sec casting speed increase on a 3sec spell, or 0.5% damage reduction. If a game is hard (which alot of people want) their is no reason to keep everything so minimal.
As far as I'm concerned, the sooner MMOs move away from the holy trinity, the better.
At least in many games, when you want/need to group, there's often a lot of waiting for a healer or tank type to be available. This is quite annoying and not fun.
I would prefer being able to grab X people (friends, randoms, guildies, whatever) and go. If a game must have the trinity, then everyone should have the ability to "re-spec" their character to fulfill the specific role - no matter what class they are. At least then, you can change from waiting for people to negotiating (bitching
) about who does what.
Agree. Actually is only NATURAL thing to be. Is like in real life. Or like in real army. No one does everything. Only problem I see, but also here is same as in real life, is hard to get enough workers/soldiers for hard and dirty jobs. And tanking is like this. Is hard to be good tank, can be very frustrating, nearly whole instance you just see feet or ass of tanked mob (more or less however as mele DPS). Healer is in much better position, can enjoy look of areas. Same as ranged DPS. But when failure occure all blame only first two. But many times is up to player ... have seen many times dps die while waiting for healer with 1% of mana left stuggling to keep tank alive instead to heal themselves when they could as hybrid class.
Right, you love playing a game where you are continually in a straight jacket with your limited predefined abilities and every other player your profession is exactly like you.
/sarcasm off
All I saw in the article was a bunch of brain dead reasons with very weak reaoning behind them. What you did say is that you are one lazy player who does not want to take the time to make a unique character, you want the developer to do it for you. Why not just admit it?
Judging from my own personality I disagree. I am very much a cooperative player and usually choose support classes. but is it my fault, that this choice makes me play the healthbar-tetris and feeling bored in doing so? does this make me antisocial?
I don't understand, why ppl think, that leaving the HT automatically means to turn everyone into a soloing, antisocial demigod? this (wrong) conclusion has quite some dogmatic, semi-religious tendencies.
my main criticism on the trinity is that it stem's from the aggro-mechanics, which again was SEEN NECESSARY at this time because mmos did not have collision detection and thus there was no way for a protector (tank) to physically shield a protectee from attacks. thus they came up with the "shout/taunt draw mobs away" mechanic. or so the designers thought. actually daoc did it somewhat differently by giving warriors the guard ability which allowed them to protect groupmates by blocking attacks on them with their shield.
and this totally makes sense! it resembles the archetypical idea of a protecting warrior. there is actually no real need for taunts-mechanics. i never understood why i haven't seen a similar feature in later games? can some1 explain?
then let's talk about specializations: normally we have tank, dps, heal and cc. (i do not consider buffing and debuffing a fullfledged combat role, since there is no skill needed, you just press the button). why is it so hard to imagine combat roles, than can not just fulfill one of these but 2? is a cc-healer a an antisocial demigod, or a dps-tank or a dps-cc? yes, everyone of these might have a better chance at soloing than a 1-role-class, but none of these would be invincible. even if you give them 3 out of 4 roles. and then one dps class is not like another one. a fire mage is not an archer is not a rogue. i can not see the argument "hybrid classes make everyone feel and play the same" being true.
also with more detailed combat mechanics you can put even more diversity into these archetypes.
let's take a warrior: equipped with sword and shield he is good at melee, but has problems against cavalry and might be unaffected by archers at best (unless he get's close then he would win), with a halberd he is good against cavalry but has problems against melee and is very prone to ranged attacks. with a bow he is good at anyone who is far away and doesnt have a shield but is dead meat if any melee comes by, with a shield, shortsword & javelins he is a skirmisher who can harrass heavier melee troops, with curved blades (saber) he has better chances against shielded foes etc. etc.
so in principle we can design a warrior as one class, that changes his combat role just by using different equipment!
of course we could design a class man-at-arms, axefighter, archer, helbardier, knight, horse-archer, skirmisher instead, but why should we? all we have to do is not to allow, that every warrior runs around with a backpack filled with swords, sabrers, axes, shields, halberds, bows, xbows, and horses! give him some weapon slots: scabbard left/right for 1h-weapons or shortbows/quiver, 2 at the back for shield, longbow, 2h weapon, maybe one at the belt for daggers, buckler etc. and these slots he can fill however he likes and this loadout defines his tactical options: some out of many. there is still enough room for specializations that give bonuses and special abilities, WHEN he uses a certain weapon.
and since AoC we have collision in mmos, so we can replace the stupid taunt by other options, like holding a doorway just by standing there with 2 shieldbearers with the softies behind (tank), catching the leg of an opponent with a hookbill to make him fall (cc), thrusting with a spear at the mob between the two tanks and whatnot. and these are just examples from non-magic fights, now just make up some magic abilities, can't be so hard.
The last picture of your article is also a very fitting summary of its quality. I know why I usually skip them.
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As far as gear drama goes in the dissolving of the holy trinity, there's one simple solution: class specific gear. SWTOR is doing it. Resolved.
You're an old dog stuck on your ways while things slowly (too slowly in my opinion) change.
The Trinity is not solo friendly so as far as MMO companies are concerned it must go. Check out any MMO’s official forums, see how many players are asking for more solo options and how many are asking for more grouping options.
MMO’s have been overwhelmed by those who do not want to group, so the trinity or anything else which says ‘Group!’ in a MMO is on its way out.
It is a real shame, but we have already seen far less reliance on grouping in modern MMO’s and that process will just continue.
The thing about The Holy Trinity that makes it appealing is the need for cooperation between the group members.
I am yet to see a concrete alternative to this method.
GW2 may have it, but I have not read anywhere detailing the system besides the need to position yourself and use your skills to help other party members etc, no solid system, sounds like everyone acts in a solo capacity to the betterment of the group. This is different to the Holy Triinty where you act for the group and solo secondary, there in lies the appeal of the Holy Trinty, it a group thing foremost and not chaotic with players running here and there acting indpendantly.
Hope to see an alternative system where the sum of the group is greater than its individual parts, where the a group can take on a monster that canhit for 1000s of damage etc and sruvive. .... ...
PS: @Scot the whole idea of an MMO is to play with other players not solo, those that want solo should really play a mp or single player game, point being MMOs should cater to groups of players first and solo secondary, no reason why you cannot have both though.
The holy trinity. I believe its a fairly logical combat tactic. You get a mix of characters who have specialized skills who support each other. In the military, we have infantry units, medical units, and a host of other specialized skill sets in order to maximize efficiency in combat.
Having said that, each soldier is trained to a certain extent in general healing, general combat, and a general amount in other fields so that he can do a bit of everything and be a bit self sufficient. However, given the opportunity, he will fall into his specialized role when grouped with other soldiers. Its only natural.
I believe its the same in MMOs. In GW2 for example where characters are designed to be a bit more self sufficient will tend to try and specialize when grouped together. After all, its still about mashing buttons. It will be easier for one character to concentrate mashing 3 or 4 DPS buttons while a tank mashes 3 or 4 other buttons, plus whatever other general skill sets are needed.
Is the trinity bad. I don't think so. I don't think its that great for solo play, but I do think it makes sense for group play/.
I self identify as a monkey.
In Lineage 2 the holy trinity works, and it works quite well, even in pvp, i have yet to see a game that handles it that well.Im a tank, i love protecting people, i love pulling miracles out of my ass whenever someone screws up.
The concept in wich you play the "son of a god that can do everything" dont work in mmo (you do know what mmo means, right?), besides you cant make everyone special, because then no one is... and then you are better off playing a single player game, that actually has better single player content and is a better single player experience.... because you know, its a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.
Specialization is here to stay, no matter how many of you are tired of it, it simply works.
The very fact of being able to sacrifice fire power for defense, or healing capabilities for DPS when you build your character ensures those roles will remain untouched, and we all know that character customization is actually a must in today MMORPG´s, the ones that dont have a certain degree of it cant succed.
Its just my point of view tho.
^--- part of the problem is that so many people are so accustomed to the tank fo mainstream MMOs that the concept of such a design, as bizarre and illogical as it is, being removed from a game is completely alien to them.
Trinity gameplay is based on mobs attacking the guy who is commanding them to attack him. That guy is a beefed up pile of hitpoints. To not make that character overpowered, they make him less effective a damage dealing and limit his ranged attack ability.
Collision detection, removing the leash from mobs, giving mobs logical attack decisions, and many other mechanics that would add depth to gameplay would completely break the trinity, a design centered around static spawns and stat-based aggro.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
LFG Healer!
LFG Healer!
LFG Healer to go!
<Priest joins>
Yay! Alright, we ready... wait, where's the tank?
He left, we took too long getting a healer.
<Priest> By the way, I'm smite.
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The trinity is an outdated system that has run it's course. That's why GW2 is abolishing it, replacing your Tank/Healer/DPS specialists with Control/Support and Damage that everyone contributes to. In GW2, every character will have a self-heal in slot six. In addition, you can support your allies with skills/spells that have splash AoE healing effects (there's no friendly targeting in GW2), help control the enemy with various shields, cripples, snares, slows, knockdowns and knockbacks etc. as well as deliver damage. When you work together with your allies, you'll find your skills compliment and enhance theirs. Elementalist threw up a fire wall? Shoot your arrows through it at the enemy to add fire damage for example. By giving every profession their share of damage, control and support, any group of people can get together on their favorite characters and hit the world fully capable of handing what comes at them by working together. There will be no more of the above endless calls of LFG.
Oderint, dum metuant.
A lot of ppl are pointing to GW2 and using it as proof that we are moving away from the trinity. However, I would point out, that GW2 has yet to prove it works better or that ppl still won't find a way to specialize when it comes to groups. I'm not saying it will fail in that respect, but I would wait until you taste the new pudding before saying its better than the old pudding.
I self identify as a monkey.
ok this is why i dont like the holy trinity -
1/ its taken alot away from the mmo genre. its made thinking about your charecter build obsolete as now its all pre-defined for you (idiot proof)
2/ its a massive chunk of the customisation of your charecters to decide what type of charecter he/she/it will be and the role you intend for it to play. (every one know's in mmo's!! you cant be a jack of all trades) players shoul;d be given the freedom for the start to design and build their own UNIQUE!!!!! charecters. (this means the players decide the class of his charecter, not some stupid option you click before you play) it means you can plan your char ahead based off what your learning about the game as you play.
3/ holy trinity dictates what kind of role you play on the battle field and their fore dictates what your char will look like.. tanks = heavy armour huge bulky weapons. melee= heavy/medium armour duel weapons. rdps = light armour bows/ranged magic/projectile weapons. healers = light/no armour buff spells and healing spells for group play with very limited offencive abilities.
now ok so the holy trinity works by means of letting the player know what his intended role is before he even starts playing the game, the holy trinity also tells that player, while he's useing this charecter he can only be that one very specific class. so a tank will tank all the way to end game. a healer will heal all the way to end game. melee will dps all the way to end game and so on and so fourth.
the problem is. no variety or change in mommentum. its the same old same thing all the time with each class and to be quite frank!!! its BOARING!!
with the holy trinity you are effectively making the game incredibly overly user friendly and removing one of the most important and main features and reasons why people play mmo's in the first place!!! CHARECTER CUSTOMISATION!!!.
you can find these threads every where. litterally thousands upon thousands of players screaming out for more charecter control and more customisation, and what are the games developers doing today?? they are really milking the holy trinity system and it is one of the main reasons why mmo's released of late are so bland so boaring so dull so un-eventful and mind numbimg!!
simply put! support this rediculous and stupid charecter definition system is causing more harm than good to the entire mmo crop.
also.. this diffrence between holy trinity and no holy trinity is where people get their ideas of what a sandbox is and isnt. lol just think about. stick holy trinity into a sandbox enviroment and oh look!!! you have yet another themepark with sandbox like features.
holy trinity is watering down our beloved mmo's and alot of people are too hung up in games such as wow and lotro and sto to even notice the things they are missing out on.
thats right our mmo's can be a hell of alot more emersive more eventful. you would feel more connection to your charecter. you would feel more connection to the game world and most of all. you would feel a sense of achievment within the game as your developing your charecter.
it would also give good reason to have indepth forum conversations into charecter builds. and not like the kind of reads we are getting now. lmao tank forums.. errr so we only talk about the tank class and its already worked out best setup for every single player that every one wants to emulate other wise they suck as a tank. its the same old story in all the forums for each type of class. one way or the high way. some games may have 2 ways that work.
they really need to role things back a few years and focuss more on player charecter control and development rather than trying to stick leeds on us and walk us down the path to the place where we will do our business, makes you feel like a dog doesnt it!! some one telling you to sit lie down roll over. go to bed. and to just genrally have what your given and be happy with it!!
its a very very sad time for mmo's!
dont be rediculous lol.. trinity is the king of solo play!! its so king infact!! its the only reason you can solo an entire story line of any mmo's todate.. your class that you choose is designed in such a way that you can do all the quests and stories and reach the end game content. and only then do you need to start working with other players in raids and instances to get your oh so very specific class gear so you can do your single one thing better than you have ever been able to do it before....
reason the mmo's are overwhelmed with none groupers is because of advertiseing.. like all things new, it eventualy over time becomes well known. and things that are well known tend to become common place. i rememeber when mmo's were a new idea, good god how great they used to be! now its just an empty feeling i get when i log onto my tank or my knight. or when i log onto my healer lol so so so crap.
but then you have eve online!! now thats a game thats hanging onto the old values of mmo charecter development. no classes!! your char is what ever you decide its going to be and guess what!! you can even switch out to provide another role if you so please and if you have worked on your charecter to allow you to do that.. or you could even perform 2 maybe even 3 roles on the battle field. or maybe even do all roles to a limited degree in a solo capacity and still be of use in group enguagments. and at the same time being incredibly unique to the next man with your own strengths.. ya see in eve its not just the skills and how you build your charecter. its the ships you choose and the geer you equip them with, its also your style of play!! no other mmo allows for this kind of flexibility in game play.
your either a tank with a ton of hit points and lots of mitigation or a melee with lots of dps potential or a healer for maximum group support, or your a nuker range dmg dealer.
some games have been trying to break free from the traditional holy trinity idea. games like wow runes of magic rift and other such duel classing systems.. but not exactly in the best way. its alsmost as if they just woke up one day and said lets try and change our game, i hate wakeing up logging in and deciding if ill tank today or heal. why cant i tank and heal lol and so fourth the duel classing was born hahaha.