Well, from what I'm seeing from GW2 and some of the post here I agree with the Advocate. Frankly the only thing I see happening when you give everyone the skills to do everything sooner or later it gonna get to the point where no one does anything together other than a few rare times IF the game forces them too.
Personally, I enjoyed being the bad ass mofo tank in my guild. It was awesome knowing that I had worked hard enough that when shit hit the fan my guild knew I could handle it and pull us out. Saddly, the "every class is awesome at everything route" that some players want so bad may just as well kill the very notion of "guilds" as well. Why bother when everyone can do everything and anything and no one has to depend on anyone else?
You know, I've heard that when teams play basketball with each other, they only need a single player.
Because everybody can shoot, block, dribble, pass and steal, they don't really need other players.
Having no unique roles in basketball has killed all concept of teamwork. I mean, they let ANYBODY pass, so might as well just have one player passing to himself, right?
... ...
If you're wondering why I said something so ridiculous, well, I'm wondering the same about what you said. If something requires multiple people to do, that is a seperate concept from needing tank/dps/healer. The two can overlap, but they're not the exact same thing.
Also, no class in GW2 can do everything and anything. Even if you're just talking about roles (They can do dps, supporting and controlling), they can only focus effectively on a couple at a time. ... and have you ever wondered what the point is to team supporting skills if you're by yourself? They're actually not fully effective unless you... well, have a team.
I'm not sure which of these two problems applies to you:
Either you don't understand what GW2 is trying to do...
... or you think the holy trinity is the only method of having teamwork.
Maybe it's both. Hopefully you'll understand a little better now. Maybe.
Funny that you mention basketball, cause when I played in highschool our coach basically preached about the holy trinity of any solid team. That being the guard, forward, and center. Funny too how some of the greastest teams in basketball over the past few decades usually had.... yea, a great guard, forward, and center.
Yea, you see in team sports you have these things called positions that people called athletes fill. Sure, everyone on lets say a football team can most likely throw a football, yet they have the guys who is the quarterback do it. Why? Because thats what he does best, that is his main and only real goal, throw the damn ball better than anyone else on the team.
Frankly, why you would choose sports off all things to try to make a point is beyond me since if theres anything that makes the arguement for specialized classes (or positions sinced you used sports to try to make a point) I dont know what it is. The real world is filled with with people doing something better than most people and thus being a specialist in that field. Sure, a army sniper might know how to use a bandaid but I would rather have the guy thats the trained medic treat me for my wounds anyday of the week first.
The "Holy Trinity" in WoW revolves around people being forced to specialize to be able to do one thing and one thing only. If you're a tank, every choice you make maximizes tanking, if you're a DPS, every choice you make maximizes DPS. You don't do other legs of the trinity ever, hybrids do not exist.
The notion of "trinity" gameplay is in itself ridiculous because it's not actually a thing. You can design a game around anything, it could have just as easily been "damage, healing, crowd control", or "damage, healing, debuffing", or it could require five things to succeed, or only one. It's only because WoW has so warped our perceptions of what an MMO is that we talk about the "Holy Trinity" being tank, healer, dps, when in reality, it means "tank, healer, dps to the exclusion of all else."
In Meowhead's basketball example, it would be Holy Trinity if guards only dribbled, passed, and stole, forwards only shot and set picks, and centers only rebounded and blocked and nobody ever did any of those other things.
In GW2, any of the classes could do any kind of role, at least somewhat or in their own way. They can't do everything at once due to the limited skillbar and the way weapons determine half your active abilities. The pure power is also not there, so you couldn't be a pure healer or pure tank even if you wanted. I'll admit the basketball analogy isn't perfect, but it makes some sense. You can have a great scorer, but they aren't going to score all your points, you can have a great rebounder but others will grab them as well.
In GW2, you can still be a great player. You can still spec to bring a lot of controlling abilities and be a "tank" and save a lot of people's butts. People will want you around because they know you're skilled. The difference is that nobody will be able to carry all the weight. It may seem like a bad thing, but you also don't necessarily fail just because one person didn't do their job. It gives you the tools to be able to get in trouble but still rally out of it.
using GW2 is probably a bad example.. its sort of like the difference between a gladiator, and a soldier, gladiators fight as individuals, really well, but not as part of a team, which is where the trinity and by definition, the soldier, excels, you can base a game on individuals and it will probably work in that sense, but.. if you want to join a team based game, then inevitably, you need to have a role within the group, and that means, the trinity.. because that is the formula that works best. at least in level based themepark games, but even sandbox games use the mechanic to some degree, take Eve online, in fleet actions, you need to have logistics to repair damage in battle, or EW ships to CC.. its not exact as Eve has far more variations that even the 'trinity' doesnt recognise, its probably no surprise either that SW;TOR will be using the 'trinity' its the most popular play style that currently exists after all, WoW has proved that relentlessly.. GW2 ... will no doubt shine for its PVP options, but i seriously doubt it will do so for any other reason.. and certainly not for its lack of a 'trinity' .. which might even be viewed as a hindrance to those who prefer to play as part of a team.. Arenanet may yet invoke the trinity in their game though.. after all, the game is still in development.
The "Holy Trinity" in WoW revolves around people being forced to specialize to be able to do one thing and one thing only. If you're a tank, every choice you make maximizes tanking, if you're a DPS, every choice you make maximizes DPS. You don't do other legs of the trinity ever, hybrids do not exist.
The notion of "trinity" gameplay is in itself ridiculous because it's not actually a thing. You can design a game around anything, it could have just as easily been "damage, healing, crowd control", or "damage, healing, debuffing", or it could require five things to succeed, or only one. It's only because WoW has so warped our perceptions of what an MMO is that we talk about the "Holy Trinity" being tank, healer, dps, when in reality, it means "tank, healer, dps to the exclusion of all else."
In Meowhead's basketball example, it would be Holy Trinity if guards only dribbled, passed, and stole, forwards only shot and set picks, and centers only rebounded and blocked and nobody ever did any of those other things.
In GW2, any of the classes could do any kind of role, at least somewhat or in their own way. They can't do everything at once due to the limited skillbar and the way weapons determine half your active abilities. The pure power is also not there, so you couldn't be a pure healer or pure tank even if you wanted. I'll admit the basketball analogy isn't perfect, but it makes some sense. You can have a great scorer, but they aren't going to score all your points, you can have a great rebounder but others will grab them as well.
In GW2, you can still be a great player. You can still spec to bring a lot of controlling abilities and be a "tank" and save a lot of people's butts. People will want you around because they know you're skilled. The difference is that nobody will be able to carry all the weight. It may seem like a bad thing, but you also don't necessarily fail just because one person didn't do their job. It gives you the tools to be able to get in trouble but still rally out of it.
using GW2 is probably a bad example.. its sort of like the difference between a gladiator, and a soldier, gladiators fight as individuals, really well, but not as part of a team, which is where the trinity and by definition, the soldier, excels, you can base a game on individuals and it will probably work in that sense, but.. if you want to join a team based game, then inevitably, you need to have a role within the group, and that means, the trinity.. because that is the formula that works best. at least in level based themepark games, but even sandbox games use the mechanic to some degree, take Eve online, in fleet actions, you need to have logistics to repair damage in battle, or EW ships to CC.. its not exact as Eve has far more variations that even the 'trinity' doesnt recognise, its probably no surprise either that SW;TOR will be using the 'trinity' its the most popular play style that currently exists after all, WoW has proved that relentlessly.. GW2 ... will no doubt shine for its PVP options, but i seriously doubt it will do so for any other reason.. and certainly not for its lack of a 'trinity' .. which might even be viewed as a hindrance to those who prefer to play as part of a team.. Arenanet may yet invoke the trinity in their game though.. after all, the game is still in development.
It should come as no surprise that I'm going to disagree with everything you just said.
Please, please, please understand that there is no magical thing called "trinity" gameplay. It's entirely arbitrary. If you had an MMOFPS where everyone had a shotgun, that would be Unity gameplay. Add in guys with riot shields for them to hide behind, you'd have a tank/dps Binary, or add guys with medkits to have a dps/healer Binary.
If instead you have a "trinity" MMO but with huge packs of mobs that required a dedicated CC class, you'd have a Quadricity. Make the mobs hit so hard that you needed a dedicated debuffing class too in addition to the healing and tanking, you'd have a Quintricity (or whatever these would be called).
I say again like in my last post, WoW has so warped our perceptions of what constitutes an MMO with its version of "Holy Trinity" (meaning not only only having three roles, but also forcing people to specialize in them to the exclusion of all else) that you're literally arguing that you cannot have any concept of teamwork without it.
Guild Wars 2 has roles. There are damaging abilities. There are healing and buffing abilities. There are debuffing and incapacitating abilities. What it does not have is the holy trinity of forcing people to do one thing only. Pure power is not there so you couldn't even if you wanted to. Dungeons especially will be very hard. You're forced to work together with your group and determine who is doing what and what you're going to put on your limited skillbars, perhaps even trying to take advantage of cross profession combos to maximize your abilities. Look at this quote from this post.
When I played it on Fanday, the explorable version WAS hard. It was 3+ hours of wipefest. You don't just have to learn the fights, you also have to fine-tune your group synergy. Any combination of professions can beat it, but you absolutely HAVE to work together to make it happen. Honestly, I never had so much fun in a dungeon before, even with the wipes.
It's true that the holy trinity system of WoW is the most popular system, but that's only because WoW is the most popular MMO. No other game yet has proven that it's the preferred system for MMOs, otherwise perhaps some of its competitors would have been more popular. Perhaps SWTOR will be popular because of it, or perhaps it will be popular in spite of it.
As far as GW2 "not shining for any other reason", is that a necessary comment to make? I'd hate to be accused of bashing some other game if I were to respond to that.
"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
Personally, I enjoyed being the bad ass mofo tank in my guild. It was awesome knowing that I had worked hard enough that when shit hit the fan my guild knew I could handle it and pull us out. Saddly, the "every class is awesome at everything route" that some players want so bad may just as well kill the very notion of "guilds" as well. Why bother when everyone can do everything and anything and no one has to depend on anyone else?
Well I almost felt sorry for you ... but then i started to laugh . You know, thats maybe your dream that there is another X ppl that depend on you, that fear the day you decide to change the guild becouse the current one is not up to your ambition. But its not their dream .
GW2 is not removing roles from combat - they are still there, they just remove dedicated healing and tanking role. Imo dedicated tanking role is most stupid one in trinity . It doesnt exist in PvP ( you can tank only idiots) so why it is required for PvE ? It felt realy stupid when you have uber boss mashing into 1 guy in front and ignoring those 5 behind that keep him alive and trinity proponents dare to even call this kind of fights tactical ...
" It doesnt exist in PvP ( you can tank only idiots) so why it is required for PvE ?"
This right here is why I cant stand most GW players. If something isnt made just for PvP it must be fail. There's more than just PvP. Get a life.
" It felt realy stupid...." "ppl that depend on you, that fear the day you decide to change the guild becouse"
Lol. Frankly, I almost felt sorry for you till I realized you were just another fail "GW2 is/will be the greatest thing ever" troll most likely. Here's a tip, learn to spell/type before you start running your mouth about things being "stupid", ok?
LOL , mister uber tank and cant take some bad spelling ? I see, when true arguments doesnt exist anything is good :P Learn to live with that or dont read my posts :P. Dedicated tank role is nonsense in any PvP game no just gw, you would know that if you would dare to do some PvP and not just scripted PvE mofos with x healers on your ass and then brag how YOU saved the day ... lol
It should come as no surprise that I'm going to disagree with everything you just said.
I keep on seeing posts on my phone (Check forums occasionally at work), and thinking 'I should really respond to that when I get home...', and then you respond with pretty much exactly what I was going to say anyway.
Oh well. Good job! Save me a lot of work!
... and yes, the basketball analogy isn't perfect, but that's because it isn't an analogy for why basketball is like GW2...
... it's analogy for why basketball is not the holy trinity (yet still has teamwork).
Which it isn't. If there's three roles in it, that's completely unconnected to the holy trinity, unless somebody can tell me which basketball player is spamming heals.
Even if having exactly three (No more, no less) roles was a prerequisite for teamwork... hey, GW2 has three roles, coincidentally (Three is a convenient number, so you see it a lot), so problem solved, and I don't know what that guy is complaining about.
I don't agree with the idea "The Holy Trinity is a dated flawed dynamic that needs replacing". I would agree that anything in gaming, including something we call "the holy trinity", should evolve.
So the question becomes, is hybridization that evolution? I'm not entirely sure it is. It's likely a mechanism that allows more people to "get stuff done" without as high an effort to formulate necessary groups . . . at the expense of more intelligent, or even expert, game play.
Over the past 5 years or so I've seen more and more of the following: Everyone sees a mob, runs at it, and starts mashing buttons. A progressive degradation of aggro control and awareness, degradation of CC use or awareness of why a CC'd target shouldn't be hit. A progression into mindless pew-pewism. More and more I see major Elites that require a group, or outright bosses, running hither and yon, back and forth, chasing down whoever's yanked aggro in those moments, healers and squishies trashed in the process as the aggro-magnet of the moment KITES said boss through the group as he/she runs for it.
While the "holy trinity" did make forming groups for group content more difficult, it absolutely DID promote the need to learn your classes, learn the strats, become adept at TEAMWORK. Because, no, a Quarterback isn't going to fill in for a Linebacker.
Something important to every player, as a basic human factor, is this sense of "ownership". Ownership takes many forms, but that's something else the "holy trinity" fosters, at one level anyway: Being a great Tank. Or Healer. or DPS. Or CC/Crowd control.
Not only from the perspective of dishing it out . . . but from the EXPERT game play that required you to know enough to NOT do something (Anyone here a police officer, or a family member as Police? Ask them what the "Shoot / Don't Shoot" training sessions do). Examples in game would be: The Tank pulls, not the Mage. Those mobs are CC'd so DON'T AoE near them or shoot them. Don't keep shooting the DPS mob, Silence his healer first.
Hybridization, when taken too far, basically breaks the need for real teamwork. Players can run at a mob and flail away like hysterical 10 years olds fighting in the schoolyard on recess, and because "everyone can do everything", who really cares. Pew-pew-pew, it'll all work out in the end.
Does the Holy Trinity need to evolve as a dynamic? Ok, sure, I can buy that. Is the current trend representative of that evolution? I'm feeling it's not. It feels more along the lines of simply jumping from one side of the scales to the other.
Because if mindless pew-pewism is where MMOs are headed, it's a sad day.
Why do people want to say that "The Holy Trinity" is antiquated, out dated, not needed, poor game mechanics in the Genre that IS mmoRPG (emphasis on the RPG)
The warrior that has spent his life building his strength and sword arm is going to do his best to shield his companions and take a brunt of the beating.
The Wizard that has spent his/her entire life studying, isn't going to have the physical strength to wear heavier armor that would protect him/her more against physical attack. (S)He is going to be wearing lighter, cloth armors and will need protecting because they are more vulnerable and squishy to attack.
Likewise with the Priest, depending on the setting, many have spent their life in meditation and prayer, seeking the blessing of their god. Most have not trained their bodies, as well as they have their spirit. They are going to be about as squishy as the Wizard. But they are going to be able to bless and heal their party from a distance.
Let's be realistic, you aren't going to be able do bandage yourself in the heat of battle. "Hey monster/bad guy/critter Stop attacking a second, I need to set my sword and shield down so I can heal myself" Or better yet, how does someone with two hands occupied in battle manage to reach into their bag/pouch, bring that potion to their lips, tilt their head back and take a swig...
Why do people want to say that "The Holy Trinity" is antiquated, out dated, not needed, poor game mechanics in the Genre that IS mmoRPG (emphasis on the RPG)
The warrior that has spent his life building his strength and sword arm is going to do his best to shield his companions and take a brunt of the beating.
The Wizard that has spent his/her entire life studying, isn't going to have the physical strength to wear heavier armor that would protect him/her more against physical attack. (S)He is going to be wearing lighter, cloth armors and will need protecting because they are more vulnerable and squishy to attack.
Likewise with the Priest, depending on the setting, many have spent their life in meditation and prayer, seeking the blessing of their god. Most have not trained their bodies, as well as they have their spirit. They are going to be about as squishy as the Wizard. But they are going to be able to bless and heal their party from a distance.
Let's be realistic, you aren't going to be able do bandage yourself in the heat of battle. "Hey monster/bad guy/critter Stop attacking a second, I need to set my sword and shield down so I can heal myself" Or better yet, how does someone with two hands occupied in battle manage to reach into their bag/pouch, bring that potion to their lips, tilt their head back and take a swig...
Holy Trinity makes perfect RPG sense.
Holy trinity has nothing to do with RPG, back in old days when i played pen and paper RPGs i dont remmember ever to aproach creating group by saying : now we need healer and now we need tank , we could play as 5 thiefs and we could have a fun. Obviously having characters capable of healing was nice to have, but sorry i realy dont remmember ever to have classic trinity tank and spank fight.
Examples you provide are examples from trinity based computer games. If you design game with trinity ofc it seems hard to imagine working it without. But if you look your examples they dont make sense and there is tons of counter-examples.
Why would wizard spending whole life with books or priest (btw clerics in D&D were wearing the plate - hardly cloth squishies... ) who spent whole life in meditation and prayers go suddenly to dungeon and expecting to survive without any combat experience ? Thats just stupid, yes you can create such character but they would badly incompetent in any fight .
For every pure scholar you can create experienced adventurer who understands that training just spirit and mind is not enough when you are going to fight. For every priest you can have plated cleric or paladin, for every wizard - battle mage who just make much more sense in group attempting to slay dragon or loot treasures from some forgotten crypt,
Trinity as you portray it would never work with any of my dungeon masters in pen and paper RPGs, it has nothing to do with RPGs, its just simplified computer implementation.
I don't agree with the idea "The Holy Trinity is a dated flawed dynamic that needs replacing". I would agree that anything in gaming, including something we call "the holy trinity", should evolve.
So the question becomes, is hybridization that evolution? I'm not entirely sure it is. It's likely a mechanism that allows more people to "get stuff done" without as high an effort to formulate necessary groups . . . at the expense of more intelligent, or even expert, game play.
Over the past 5 years or so I've seen more and more of the following: Everyone sees a mob, runs at it, and starts mashing buttons. A progressive degradation of aggro control and awareness, degradation of CC use or awareness of why a CC'd target shouldn't be hit. A progression into mindless pew-pewism. More and more I see major Elites that require a group, or outright bosses, running hither and yon, back and forth, chasing down whoever's yanked aggro in those moments, healers and squishies trashed in the process as the aggro-magnet of the moment KITES said boss through the group as he/she runs for it.
While the "holy trinity" did make forming groups for group content more difficult, it absolutely DID promote the need to learn your classes, learn the strats, become adept at TEAMWORK. Because, no, a Quarterback isn't going to fill in for a Linebacker.
Something important to every player, as a basic human factor, is this sense of "ownership". Ownership takes many forms, but that's something else the "holy trinity" fosters, at one level anyway: Being a great Tank. Or Healer. or DPS. Or CC/Crowd control.
Not only from the perspective of dishing it out . . . but from the EXPERT game play that required you to know enough to NOT do something (Anyone here a police officer, or a family member as Police? Ask them what the "Shoot / Don't Shoot" training sessions do). Examples in game would be: The Tank pulls, not the Mage. Those mobs are CC'd so DON'T AoE near them or shoot them. Don't keep shooting the DPS mob, Silence his healer first.
Hybridization, when taken too far, basically breaks the need for real teamwork. Players can run at a mob and flail away like hysterical 10 years olds fighting in the schoolyard on recess, and because "everyone can do everything", who really cares. Pew-pew-pew, it'll all work out in the end.
Does the Holy Trinity need to evolve as a dynamic? Ok, sure, I can buy that. Is the current trend representative of that evolution? I'm feeling it's not. It feels more along the lines of simply jumping from one side of the scales to the other.
Because if mindless pew-pewism is where MMOs are headed, it's a sad day.
Agree 100%. Saddly these GW ADD kids dont seem to have the time or patience to do or learn anything well anymore. If they aren't running around like suger crazed crack addicts spamming a hundred buttons at once then the game must be to slow and stupid. Frankly, the sooner GW2 comes out the better. That way their little minds will be too busy "pew-pewing" ( love how you put that btw, lol), and being distracted by all the pretty colors to bitch and whine at the top of their lungs about anything and everything that doesn't have the words "guild wars" in it anymore.
Let the tools have their PvP fest game. I'll be laughing with each 50 dollar xpac that arenanet spams out every 4-6 months just to catch up with other mmo's.
This should tell you everything you will ever need to know about the "Holy Trinity:" The wait for DPS players in World Of Warcraft averages right around ten times as long as the wait for healers and tanks.
And, just on the off chance that somebody out there STILL can't figure it out, here's the dirty little secret:
In combat, what most players want to do is...
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO LEARN THE SECRET OF MMORPGs THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS.
OK, here you go: What most players want to do in combat is ...
...(wait for it) ...
...combat.
That's right. Combat.
Most people don't really enjoy standing there watching red bars go up and down, or running around acting like a two-legged bizarrely-magnetized punching bag. And, even among the small number of people who do that, only a tiny fraction of that minority are doing it because, all else being equal, that's the part of the game they enjoy the most. Even most of them are just doing it because it's the only way to keep the game moving.
Disagree 100% because the simple fact of the matter is until an MMO has only ONE form of content, then the Trinity will be pigeon holing classes into certain specific jobs.
i.e. Healers and Tanks sucking at content not suited for groups. Healers and Tanks are usually bad at doing dailys, farming consumables, or PvPing(tanks), or Soloing things in the world meant to give a solo class a semi-hard experience (named mini world bosses). ETC. ETC.
As long as there is only group content and nothing else then yea I agree the trinity works, but as soon as you divert from and add other forms of content then the trinity falls behind. This is where GW2 comes in and rectifies the situation. Now everyone can do all 3 things, but not at the same time and you have to use judicious and liberal use of your entire toolbag and pay attention.
I envision GW2 making or breaking the players most likely getting yelled out over vent: GET OUT OF THE FIRE!!!
and this is a damn good thing. Not to mention its a breath of fresh air in the stale 11+ year old genre.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Agree 100%. Saddly these GW ADD kids dont seem to have the time or patience to do or learn anything well anymore. If they aren't running around like suger crazed crack addicts spamming a hundred buttons at once then the game must be to slow and stupid. Frankly, the sooner GW2 comes out the better. That way their little minds will be too busy "pew-pewing" ( love how you put that btw, lol), and being distracted by all the pretty colors to bitch and whine at the top of their lungs about anything and everything that doesn't have the words "guild wars" in it anymore.
Let the tools have their PvP fest game. I'll be laughing with each 50 dollar xpac that arenanet spams out every 4-6 months just to catch up with other mmo's.
Do you have ANY idea of what GW2 is about?
Do you realize that GW2 will actually be harder than a holy trinity game because you'll have to switch what you're doing on the fly instead of being locked into one role?
Do you realize that GW2 has a limited skillbar forcing you to plan ahead of time what you might need rather than having everything available? 100 buttons at once is more like 15-25 total available.
Do you realize that it's not a PVP game and will have a huge PVE world? 1500+ dynamic events, a personal story for each character with 3x replayability, 32 dungeon paths, 5 huge racial cities each with their own leveling zones.
I'll be laughing with each $50 xpac too, when I'm getting more content than a P2P MMO for less money, and the option to only purchase what I want to buy rather being forced to take whatever I'm given.
Why don't you look at it with an open mind? It might surprise you.
"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
I recall from playing guildwars 1 you have a fixed number skills you can take with you at any one time like 8 I think. So you are locked into those choices and unlike some other game where you might have access to way more skills as your actions bars can hold Guildwars is not really that flexible is it ? You have to decide on those 8 skills before you start so you cannot like you say switch on the fly.
While you might enjoy flexibility before you start a quest or area you are then locked to those choices. I can see how one might argue that you can play any role but once you pick a role you are bound to it until you go and change the skills out.
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
? This doesn't actually make sense, because you don't appear to know what people mean by the holy trinity OR understand how you can avoid it.
Here, I'll help you out a little. First of all, the trinity specifically refers to DPS (Self-evident), a healer (Which is easy to understand), and a tank (Specifically, a tank that has aggro-management skills like taunt).
It's easy to get rid of a healer. Just make it so healing is no longer a powerful enough role to exist as 1/3rd of the gameplay (Hence trinity.).
It's easy to get rid of the aggro-managing tank. Don't give aggro-management abilities. Give the AI a more realistic target selection criteria like 'Hit the guy who looks easy to kill'.
In a holy trinity game, the tank is not defined as 'The person who is taking damage', it's 'The person who needs to be taking damage, otherwise you're failing'. If a monster is constantly attacking your DPS and healers, and the person in the tank role ends up being ignored (.. he's heavily armored, and doesn't hit hard. I think I can ignore him), he's failing his job, and the encounter will probably end up wiping.
... but that's a game design thing. SImply by changing the AI, and changing the tools that characters use to deal with problems, you can move away from that.
Also, you should probably read the topic 'Things that are in GW2 that you might not know it has'. 'A trinity' is in there.
People can't look at ANY gameplay design with roles and say 'that's holy trinity', because that's not what people are talking about when they say the holy trinity. :T
The moment you have less roles, more roles, or different roles, it's no longer the Holy Trinity. Even if you change the proportions (Making tanking a subset of control and healing a minor subset of support), it's no longer the holy trinity, it's something different.
You can't simply define the holy trinity as 'all gameplay design that exists' just to cram every game under it.
I recall from playing guildwars 1 you have a fixed number skills you can take with you at any one time like 8 I think. So you are locked into those choices and unlike some other game where you might have access to way more skills as your actions bars can hold Guildwars is not really that flexible is it ? You have to decide on those 8 skills before you start so you cannot like you say switch on the fly.
While you might enjoy flexibility before you start a quest or area you are then locked to those choices. I can see how one might argue that you can play any role but once you pick a role you are bound to it until you go and change the skills out.
In GW1, you'd be right. GW2 is a totally different game though. There's virtually nothing carried over from GW1 except for the lore, and even that is moved 250 years in the future. Even if a person absolutely hated GW1, they should still check out GW2.
GW2 is more complicated than just a fixed 8 slot skillbar.
In GW2, you have a 10 slot skillbar. The first half of your skill bar is determined by your weapon/class combination. Most classes have a second weapon in reserve, giving them a minimum of 15 skills available. The skills change drastically depending on your weapon, that's primarily where the notion of switching on the fly comes from, as you can swap weapons in combat with only a small delay. Dual axes might be considered a high DPS option, where mace and shield provides control through stuns. A greatsword gives you AOE attacks, etc.
You can change your weapons or other 5 skills anytime out of combat. There's also traits (like WoW's glyphs only more in depth) that can modify your skills or weapons.
Some classes, like the elementalist, have more options. Only one weapon, but fire (damage), water (healing), air (control), and earth (tanking) attunements available to switch on the fly, for a total of 25 skills.
"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
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
? This doesn't actually make sense, because you don't appear to know what people mean by the holy trinity OR understand how you can avoid it.
Here, I'll help you out a little. First of all, the trinity specifically refers to DPS (Self-evident), a healer (Which is easy to understand), and a tank (Specifically, a tank that has aggro-management skills like taunt).
It's easy to get rid of a healer. Just make it so healing is no longer a powerful enough role to exist as 1/3rd of the gameplay (Hence trinity.).
It's easy to get rid of the aggro-managing tank. Don't give aggro-management abilities. Give the AI a more realistic target selection criteria like 'Hit the guy who looks easy to kill'.
In a holy trinity game, the tank is not defined as 'The person who is taking damage', it's 'The person who needs to be taking damage, otherwise you're failing'. If a monster is constantly attacking your DPS and healers, and the person in the tank role ends up being ignored (.. he's heavily armored, and doesn't hit hard. I think I can ignore him), he's failing his job, and the encounter will probably end up wiping.
... but that's a game design thing. SImply by changing the AI, and changing the tools that characters use to deal with problems, you can move away from that.
Also, you should probably read the topic 'Things that are in GW2 that you might not know it has'. 'A trinity' is in there.
People can't look at ANY gameplay design with roles and say 'that's holy trinity', because that's not what people are talking about when they say the holy trinity. :T
The moment you have less roles, more roles, or different roles, it's no longer the Holy Trinity. Even if you change the proportions (Making tanking a subset of control and healing a minor subset of support), it's no longer the holy trinity, it's something different.
You can't simply define the holy trinity as 'all gameplay design that exists' just to cram every game under it.
I'm going to assume you misunderstood pretty much everything I wrote , so I'll try not to be as condescending with this reply as yours.
As long as you have someone tanking, someone or mechanic healing that damage, and someone doing damage .. the trinity is intact. PERIOD .... you can't get around it. Playing scemantics with the term "Holy Trinity" as it only consisting of an aggro management tank, a dedicated pure healer, and a dedicated pure dps is folly. There are very few games which still adher to that original Trinity concept. Every popular ( subjective ) mmorpg to date consists of a hybridized system of the trinity where every character has aggro management mechanics, dps, and in some parts healing. Which is the way its going to stay , and is currently what the "holy Trinity" defines. Adding diffrent roles does not break the trinity as long as SOMEONE is fulfulling the roles defined by the Holy Trinity. We can debate the scemantics of it all night , its pointless though. The only wild cards are support roles I.E CC and Buffs/Debuffs.
Now go back and read my first message , it should make a touch more sense.
Just to paraphrase ... if someone is tanking the damage, someone of something is healing the damage, and someone is dpsing ... Its the holy trinity.
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
? This doesn't actually make sense, because you don't appear to know what people mean by the holy trinity OR understand how you can avoid it.
Here, I'll help you out a little. First of all, the trinity specifically refers to DPS (Self-evident), a healer (Which is easy to understand), and a tank (Specifically, a tank that has aggro-management skills like taunt).
It's easy to get rid of a healer. Just make it so healing is no longer a powerful enough role to exist as 1/3rd of the gameplay (Hence trinity.).
It's easy to get rid of the aggro-managing tank. Don't give aggro-management abilities. Give the AI a more realistic target selection criteria like 'Hit the guy who looks easy to kill'.
In a holy trinity game, the tank is not defined as 'The person who is taking damage', it's 'The person who needs to be taking damage, otherwise you're failing'. If a monster is constantly attacking your DPS and healers, and the person in the tank role ends up being ignored (.. he's heavily armored, and doesn't hit hard. I think I can ignore him), he's failing his job, and the encounter will probably end up wiping.
... but that's a game design thing. SImply by changing the AI, and changing the tools that characters use to deal with problems, you can move away from that.
Also, you should probably read the topic 'Things that are in GW2 that you might not know it has'. 'A trinity' is in there.
People can't look at ANY gameplay design with roles and say 'that's holy trinity', because that's not what people are talking about when they say the holy trinity. :T
The moment you have less roles, more roles, or different roles, it's no longer the Holy Trinity. Even if you change the proportions (Making tanking a subset of control and healing a minor subset of support), it's no longer the holy trinity, it's something different.
You can't simply define the holy trinity as 'all gameplay design that exists' just to cram every game under it.
I'm going to assume you misunderstood pretty much everything I wrote , so I'll try not to be as condescending with this reply as yours.
As long as you have someone tanking, someone or mechanic healing that damage, and someone doing damage .. the trinity is intact. PERIOD .... you can't get around it. Playing scemantics with the term "Holy Trinity" as it only consisting of an aggro management tank, a dedicated pure healer, and a dedicated pure dps is folly. There are very few games which still adher to that original Trinity concept. Every popular ( subjective ) mmorpg to date consists of a hybridized system of the trinity where every character has aggro management mechanics, dps, and in some parts healing. Which is the way its going to stay , and is currently what the "holy Trinity" defines. Adding diffrent roles does not break the trinity as long as SOMEONE is fulfulling the roles defined by the Holy Trinity. We can debate the scemantics of it all night , its pointless though. The only wild cards are support roles I.E CC and Buffs/Debuffs.
Now go back and read my first message , it should make a touch more sense.
Just to paraphrase ... if someone is tanking the damage, someone of something is healing the damage, and someone is dpsing ... Its the holy trinity.
It's not just semantics. People need to agree on the definition of what we're talking about in order to talk about them. Until that happens, debate is pointless. You and Meowhead do not agree on definitions.
"trinity" gameplay could be defined as having three important elements, tank, healer and dps.
"Holy Trinity", as used by Meowhead (and myself) is when you have three roles and those people do those things and those things only. DPS never tank or heal. Healers never dps or tank. "Holy Trinity" is a subset of "trinity". Just having tanks, healers and dps doesn't mean you have Holy Trinity as it is used in WoW.
That's how Meowhead and I define it. You define it differently. Until we agree, we're going in circles.
Meowhead's (and my) first point is that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever magical about the concept of a "trinity." Imagine an MMO where tanks just have crazy health regeneration but there was no healers. The game would revolve around tank rotations to keep people able to regenerate without dying before going back to tank. Or any other number of ways that you could have more or fewer necessary roles in order to complete group encounters.
The other point is that GW2 allows people to swap roles with weapon switches, or take utility skills that fill different roles (a snaring skill for control next to a party regeneration skill for support). You can call it a "trinity" game of damage, control, and support if you want, but it's not a "Holy Trinity" game according to our definition because to us, Holy Trinity means only being able to do one thing and one thing only.
"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
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
Asherons Call has no trinity. And it is the funnest MMO I have ever played, in fact I still play it to this day even though the gfx is dated the gameplay is 2nd to none IMO.
You escape the trinity by allowing every class to do everything, throw that i na group setting and change the AI of the mobs and you can escape the trinity entirely.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Its a moot point no matter which definition you subscribe to really.
Using yours and Meow : The markets no longer making games based on that design.
The whole point for my post was taking into account that no current developer in the last 7 years has made a ( using your strict definition) Holy Trinity game. Thus all the debate and arguements currently associated with the term by default must be based on the hybrid system now being used. Hence my reasoning that the abolition of it just will not happen , its as defined and unchanging as the forms of theater. ( I'm missing a word here )
To the above poster .... even in sandboxs the trinity is intact, like was pointed out to me it hinges on which definition you hold.
You cant make up definitions to fit your argument. There is only 1 trinity in the MMO world. Its an all or nothing model, you have DPS, Healers, and Tanks. And your role is defined by which of those you perfrom while in a group setting. Your misnomer of the use of trinity is false and lacks merit. Anything that changes from having different roles is hence forth not a trinity or a hybrid or anything else you wish to fantasize it to be. If you can perfrom any single role at the same time, or via switching on the fly you are in a non trinity system. And the majority of all AAA MMO's over the course of the last 11 years have NOT had this system in place, which is why GW2 is trying to change it up.
Playing: GW2 Waiting on: TESO Next Flop: Planetside 2 Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
You cant make up definitions to fit your argument. There is only 1 trinity in the MMO world. Its an all or nothing model, you have DPS, Healers, and Tanks. And your role is defined by which of those you perfrom while in a group setting. Your misno0mer of the use of trinity is false and lacks merit. Anything that changes from having different roles is hence forth not a trinity or a hybrid or anything else you wish to fantasize it to be. If you can perfrom any single role at the same time, or via switching on the fly you are in a non trinity system. And the majority of all AAA MMO's over the course of the last 11 years have had this system in place, which is why GW2 is trying to change it up.
Well, there is a little bit of flexibiity to the term or few games would fit it.
But yes, the basics are tanks, DPS and support. And in the classic triad you can't change role on the spot if it even is possible to change at all.
Brad McQuaid as Aradune used to call the Holy Trinity as Tank, Cleric and Enchanter . I suppose it evolved into the current form substituting Enchanter for DPS but when I played Everquest on their old forums the discussion always talked about enchanters not DPS.
You cant make up definitions to fit your argument. There is only 1 trinity in the MMO world. Its an all or nothing model, you have DPS, Healers, and Tanks. And your role is defined by which of those you perfrom while in a group setting. Your misnomer of the use of trinity is false and lacks merit. Anything that changes from having different roles is hence forth not a trinity or a hybrid or anything else you wish to fantasize it to be. If you can perfrom any single role at the same time, or via switching on the fly you are in a non trinity system. And the majority of all AAA MMO's over the course of the last 11 years have NOT had this system in place, which is why GW2 is trying to change it up.
I'll ignore the meat of your reply as its argueing definitions.
The majority of all AAA mmo's in the past seven years HAVE had a hybrid system, therefore this arguement is moot. You can't claim that "holy trinity" is a strict term on one hand then claim the inability to switch roles in hybrid models via switching on the fly still falls under your strict definition yet being able to then would not be a trinity.
You spelled it out yourself " And your role is defined by which of those you perform while in a group setting" ; it couldn't be more cut and dry than that.
Its a moot point no matter which definition you subscribe to really.
Using yours and Meow : The markets no longer making games based on that design.
The whole point for my post was taking into account that no current developer in the last 7 years has made a ( using your strict definition) Holy Trinity game. Thus all the debate and arguements currently associated with the term by default must be based on the hybrid system now being used. Hence my reasoning that the abolition of it just will not happen , its as defined and unchanging as the forms of theater. ( I'm missing a word here )
To the above poster .... even in sandboxs the trinity is intact, like was pointed out to me it hinges on which definition you hold.
I disagree that the market is no longer making games based on the holy trinity design. The potential for flexibility may exist, just like it does in WoW. When you're leveling, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Even WoW offers dual specs, and classes (druid in particular) that can play any role. When you get to endgame though, you must specialize. You can bring two different specs and two different sets of gear, but for any encounter attempt you can only do one role at a time.
To use another example, Rift offers even more flexibility than WoW, but I would also call it a holy trinity game due to being forced to specialize at endgame. Even classes that blur the lines, like a Chloromancer (healing as a result of damage dealt) are trying to be the best "healer as a result of damage dealt" they can be. It still requires specialization. It's true that I don't have personal endgame experience in Rift, but googling turns up this page, which lists endgame dps and tank specs that are very singleminded in their approach. http://www.awakenedonline.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6519102
As far as "trinity" goes, I can only say again and again that there is nothing universal about a trinity of damage, healing, and tanking, it all depends on the mechanics of the game and what is necessary to do a particular game's group content. In EQ1, an Enchanter was all but completely mandatory in every 6 man group. They were so incredibly valuable despite that they could go entire nights and never tank anything, never damage anything, and never heal anything. Their worth was entirely based on their crowd control (5-6 mobs at a time and you needed it), massive mana and haste buffs, and pretty strong debuffs. I can only keep throwing out example after example of why the notion of a trinity in our minds is only there because of WoW has a stranglehold on the MMO market, uses a Holy Trinity, and is so successful that a great many other MMOs are inspired by its mechanics to the point where some people believe it's the only possible way to do things.
"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
Its a moot point no matter which definition you subscribe to really.
Using yours and Meow : The markets no longer making games based on that design.
The whole point for my post was taking into account that no current developer in the last 7 years has made a ( using your strict definition) Holy Trinity game. Thus all the debate and arguements currently associated with the term by default must be based on the hybrid system now being used. Hence my reasoning that the abolition of it just will not happen , its as defined and unchanging as the forms of theater. ( I'm missing a word here )
To the above poster .... even in sandboxs the trinity is intact, like was pointed out to me it hinges on which definition you hold.
I disagree that the market is no longer making games based on the holy trinity design. The potential for flexibility may exist, just like it does in WoW. When you're leveling, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Even WoW offers dual specs, and classes (druid in particular) that can play any role. When you get to endgame though, you must specialize. You can bring two different specs and two different sets of gear, but for any encounter attempt you can only do one role at a time.
To use another example, Rift offers even more flexibility than WoW, but I would also call it a holy trinity game due to being forced to specialize at endgame. Even classes that blur the lines, like a Chloromancer (healing as a result of damage dealt) are trying to be the best "healer as a result of damage dealt" they can be. It still requires specialization. It's true that I don't have personal endgame experience in Rift, but googling turns up this page, which lists endgame dps and tank specs that are very singleminded in their approach. http://www.awakenedonline.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6519102
As far as "trinity" goes, I can only say again and again that there is nothing universal about a trinity of damage, healing, and tanking, it all depends on the mechanics of the game and what is necessary to do a particular game's group content. In EQ1, an Enchanter was all but completely mandatory in every 6 man group. They were so incredibly valuable despite that they could go entire nights and never tank anything, never damage anything, and never heal anything. Their worth was entirely based on their crowd control (5-6 mobs at a time and you needed it), massive mana and haste buffs, and pretty strong debuffs. I can only keep throwing out example after example of why the notion of a trinity in our minds is only there because of WoW has a stranglehold on the MMO market, uses a Holy Trinity, and is so successful that a great many other MMOs are inspired by its mechanics to the point where some people believe it's the only possible way to do things.
Thats what I'm not getting ... I thought you ( pardon if it wasn't you ) specified that the holy trinity by your definition was designated tanks, healers, and dps. The line is blured in WoW, Rift, Warhammer, etc etc. Can some classes/specs tank/heal/dps better ... why of course, but almost every "class" can hold a different role.
Breaking that down a bit ... if every class can fullfil multiple roles when simple changes, then the Trinity boils down to basically this : Someone is tanking, someone is healing, and someone is damaging. You can simplfy that even further by removing set aggro and healing spells and substitute them for smart damage rotations and regeneration out of combat. The trinity is still intact ... its just blured, you still have a tank, healer, and dps.
Thus my confusion ... the market is not making games on the "Holy Trinity" that I assumed you were explaining to me a few posts back ... it is in fact making hybrid trinitys where one can change their role mostly on the fly.
Comments
using GW2 is probably a bad example.. its sort of like the difference between a gladiator, and a soldier, gladiators fight as individuals, really well, but not as part of a team, which is where the trinity and by definition, the soldier, excels, you can base a game on individuals and it will probably work in that sense, but.. if you want to join a team based game, then inevitably, you need to have a role within the group, and that means, the trinity.. because that is the formula that works best. at least in level based themepark games, but even sandbox games use the mechanic to some degree, take Eve online, in fleet actions, you need to have logistics to repair damage in battle, or EW ships to CC.. its not exact as Eve has far more variations that even the 'trinity' doesnt recognise, its probably no surprise either that SW;TOR will be using the 'trinity' its the most popular play style that currently exists after all, WoW has proved that relentlessly.. GW2 ... will no doubt shine for its PVP options, but i seriously doubt it will do so for any other reason.. and certainly not for its lack of a 'trinity' .. which might even be viewed as a hindrance to those who prefer to play as part of a team.. Arenanet may yet invoke the trinity in their game though.. after all, the game is still in development.
It should come as no surprise that I'm going to disagree with everything you just said.
Please, please, please understand that there is no magical thing called "trinity" gameplay. It's entirely arbitrary. If you had an MMOFPS where everyone had a shotgun, that would be Unity gameplay. Add in guys with riot shields for them to hide behind, you'd have a tank/dps Binary, or add guys with medkits to have a dps/healer Binary.
If instead you have a "trinity" MMO but with huge packs of mobs that required a dedicated CC class, you'd have a Quadricity. Make the mobs hit so hard that you needed a dedicated debuffing class too in addition to the healing and tanking, you'd have a Quintricity (or whatever these would be called).
I say again like in my last post, WoW has so warped our perceptions of what constitutes an MMO with its version of "Holy Trinity" (meaning not only only having three roles, but also forcing people to specialize in them to the exclusion of all else) that you're literally arguing that you cannot have any concept of teamwork without it.
Guild Wars 2 has roles. There are damaging abilities. There are healing and buffing abilities. There are debuffing and incapacitating abilities. What it does not have is the holy trinity of forcing people to do one thing only. Pure power is not there so you couldn't even if you wanted to. Dungeons especially will be very hard. You're forced to work together with your group and determine who is doing what and what you're going to put on your limited skillbars, perhaps even trying to take advantage of cross profession combos to maximize your abilities. Look at this quote from this post.
When I played it on Fanday, the explorable version WAS hard. It was 3+ hours of wipefest. You don't just have to learn the fights, you also have to fine-tune your group synergy. Any combination of professions can beat it, but you absolutely HAVE to work together to make it happen. Honestly, I never had so much fun in a dungeon before, even with the wipes.
It's true that the holy trinity system of WoW is the most popular system, but that's only because WoW is the most popular MMO. No other game yet has proven that it's the preferred system for MMOs, otherwise perhaps some of its competitors would have been more popular. Perhaps SWTOR will be popular because of it, or perhaps it will be popular in spite of it.
As far as GW2 "not shining for any other reason", is that a necessary comment to make? I'd hate to be accused of bashing some other game if I were to respond to that.
"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
LOL , mister uber tank and cant take some bad spelling ? I see, when true arguments doesnt exist anything is good :P Learn to live with that or dont read my posts :P. Dedicated tank role is nonsense in any PvP game no just gw, you would know that if you would dare to do some PvP and not just scripted PvE mofos with x healers on your ass and then brag how YOU saved the day ... lol
I keep on seeing posts on my phone (Check forums occasionally at work), and thinking 'I should really respond to that when I get home...', and then you respond with pretty much exactly what I was going to say anyway.
Oh well. Good job! Save me a lot of work!
... and yes, the basketball analogy isn't perfect, but that's because it isn't an analogy for why basketball is like GW2...
... it's analogy for why basketball is not the holy trinity (yet still has teamwork).
Which it isn't. If there's three roles in it, that's completely unconnected to the holy trinity, unless somebody can tell me which basketball player is spamming heals.
Even if having exactly three (No more, no less) roles was a prerequisite for teamwork... hey, GW2 has three roles, coincidentally (Three is a convenient number, so you see it a lot), so problem solved, and I don't know what that guy is complaining about.
I don't agree with the idea "The Holy Trinity is a dated flawed dynamic that needs replacing". I would agree that anything in gaming, including something we call "the holy trinity", should evolve.
So the question becomes, is hybridization that evolution? I'm not entirely sure it is. It's likely a mechanism that allows more people to "get stuff done" without as high an effort to formulate necessary groups . . . at the expense of more intelligent, or even expert, game play.
Over the past 5 years or so I've seen more and more of the following: Everyone sees a mob, runs at it, and starts mashing buttons. A progressive degradation of aggro control and awareness, degradation of CC use or awareness of why a CC'd target shouldn't be hit. A progression into mindless pew-pewism. More and more I see major Elites that require a group, or outright bosses, running hither and yon, back and forth, chasing down whoever's yanked aggro in those moments, healers and squishies trashed in the process as the aggro-magnet of the moment KITES said boss through the group as he/she runs for it.
While the "holy trinity" did make forming groups for group content more difficult, it absolutely DID promote the need to learn your classes, learn the strats, become adept at TEAMWORK. Because, no, a Quarterback isn't going to fill in for a Linebacker.
Something important to every player, as a basic human factor, is this sense of "ownership". Ownership takes many forms, but that's something else the "holy trinity" fosters, at one level anyway: Being a great Tank. Or Healer. or DPS. Or CC/Crowd control.
Not only from the perspective of dishing it out . . . but from the EXPERT game play that required you to know enough to NOT do something (Anyone here a police officer, or a family member as Police? Ask them what the "Shoot / Don't Shoot" training sessions do). Examples in game would be: The Tank pulls, not the Mage. Those mobs are CC'd so DON'T AoE near them or shoot them. Don't keep shooting the DPS mob, Silence his healer first.
Hybridization, when taken too far, basically breaks the need for real teamwork. Players can run at a mob and flail away like hysterical 10 years olds fighting in the schoolyard on recess, and because "everyone can do everything", who really cares. Pew-pew-pew, it'll all work out in the end.
Does the Holy Trinity need to evolve as a dynamic? Ok, sure, I can buy that. Is the current trend representative of that evolution? I'm feeling it's not. It feels more along the lines of simply jumping from one side of the scales to the other.
Because if mindless pew-pewism is where MMOs are headed, it's a sad day.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Why do people want to say that "The Holy Trinity" is antiquated, out dated, not needed, poor game mechanics in the Genre that IS mmoRPG (emphasis on the RPG)
The warrior that has spent his life building his strength and sword arm is going to do his best to shield his companions and take a brunt of the beating.
The Wizard that has spent his/her entire life studying, isn't going to have the physical strength to wear heavier armor that would protect him/her more against physical attack. (S)He is going to be wearing lighter, cloth armors and will need protecting because they are more vulnerable and squishy to attack.
Likewise with the Priest, depending on the setting, many have spent their life in meditation and prayer, seeking the blessing of their god. Most have not trained their bodies, as well as they have their spirit. They are going to be about as squishy as the Wizard. But they are going to be able to bless and heal their party from a distance.
Let's be realistic, you aren't going to be able do bandage yourself in the heat of battle. "Hey monster/bad guy/critter Stop attacking a second, I need to set my sword and shield down so I can heal myself" Or better yet, how does someone with two hands occupied in battle manage to reach into their bag/pouch, bring that potion to their lips, tilt their head back and take a swig...
Holy Trinity makes perfect RPG sense.
Holy trinity has nothing to do with RPG, back in old days when i played pen and paper RPGs i dont remmember ever to aproach creating group by saying : now we need healer and now we need tank , we could play as 5 thiefs and we could have a fun. Obviously having characters capable of healing was nice to have, but sorry i realy dont remmember ever to have classic trinity tank and spank fight.
Examples you provide are examples from trinity based computer games. If you design game with trinity ofc it seems hard to imagine working it without. But if you look your examples they dont make sense and there is tons of counter-examples.
Why would wizard spending whole life with books or priest (btw clerics in D&D were wearing the plate - hardly cloth squishies... ) who spent whole life in meditation and prayers go suddenly to dungeon and expecting to survive without any combat experience ? Thats just stupid, yes you can create such character but they would badly incompetent in any fight .
For every pure scholar you can create experienced adventurer who understands that training just spirit and mind is not enough when you are going to fight. For every priest you can have plated cleric or paladin, for every wizard - battle mage who just make much more sense in group attempting to slay dragon or loot treasures from some forgotten crypt,
Trinity as you portray it would never work with any of my dungeon masters in pen and paper RPGs, it has nothing to do with RPGs, its just simplified computer implementation.
Agree 100%. Saddly these GW ADD kids dont seem to have the time or patience to do or learn anything well anymore. If they aren't running around like suger crazed crack addicts spamming a hundred buttons at once then the game must be to slow and stupid. Frankly, the sooner GW2 comes out the better. That way their little minds will be too busy "pew-pewing" ( love how you put that btw, lol), and being distracted by all the pretty colors to bitch and whine at the top of their lungs about anything and everything that doesn't have the words "guild wars" in it anymore.
Let the tools have their PvP fest game. I'll be laughing with each 50 dollar xpac that arenanet spams out every 4-6 months just to catch up with other mmo's.
This should tell you everything you will ever need to know about the "Holy Trinity:" The wait for DPS players in World Of Warcraft averages right around ten times as long as the wait for healers and tanks.
And, just on the off chance that somebody out there STILL can't figure it out, here's the dirty little secret:
In combat, what most players want to do is...
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
SPOILER ALTERT!
WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU WANT TO LEARN THE SECRET OF MMORPGs THAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS.
OK, here you go: What most players want to do in combat is ...
...(wait for it) ...
...combat.
That's right. Combat.
Most people don't really enjoy standing there watching red bars go up and down, or running around acting like a two-legged bizarrely-magnetized punching bag. And, even among the small number of people who do that, only a tiny fraction of that minority are doing it because, all else being equal, that's the part of the game they enjoy the most. Even most of them are just doing it because it's the only way to keep the game moving.
Disagree 100% because the simple fact of the matter is until an MMO has only ONE form of content, then the Trinity will be pigeon holing classes into certain specific jobs.
i.e. Healers and Tanks sucking at content not suited for groups. Healers and Tanks are usually bad at doing dailys, farming consumables, or PvPing(tanks), or Soloing things in the world meant to give a solo class a semi-hard experience (named mini world bosses). ETC. ETC.
As long as there is only group content and nothing else then yea I agree the trinity works, but as soon as you divert from and add other forms of content then the trinity falls behind. This is where GW2 comes in and rectifies the situation. Now everyone can do all 3 things, but not at the same time and you have to use judicious and liberal use of your entire toolbag and pay attention.
I envision GW2 making or breaking the players most likely getting yelled out over vent: GET OUT OF THE FIRE!!!
and this is a damn good thing. Not to mention its a breath of fresh air in the stale 11+ year old genre.
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Do you have ANY idea of what GW2 is about?
Do you realize that GW2 will actually be harder than a holy trinity game because you'll have to switch what you're doing on the fly instead of being locked into one role?
Do you realize that GW2 has a limited skillbar forcing you to plan ahead of time what you might need rather than having everything available? 100 buttons at once is more like 15-25 total available.
Do you realize that it's not a PVP game and will have a huge PVE world? 1500+ dynamic events, a personal story for each character with 3x replayability, 32 dungeon paths, 5 huge racial cities each with their own leveling zones.
I'll be laughing with each $50 xpac too, when I'm getting more content than a P2P MMO for less money, and the option to only purchase what I want to buy rather being forced to take whatever I'm given.
Why don't you look at it with an open mind? It might surprise you.
"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
I recall from playing guildwars 1 you have a fixed number skills you can take with you at any one time like 8 I think. So you are locked into those choices and unlike some other game where you might have access to way more skills as your actions bars can hold Guildwars is not really that flexible is it ? You have to decide on those 8 skills before you start so you cannot like you say switch on the fly.
While you might enjoy flexibility before you start a quest or area you are then locked to those choices. I can see how one might argue that you can play any role but once you pick a role you are bound to it until you go and change the skills out.
Most of you are pretty silly...
As long as we are fighting A.I there will always be some form of the "Holy Trinity". Even in Sandboxs you still have cycles of Tank>Dps>Heals .... you CAN'T escape it. The nonsense that GW2 won't have a trinity is laughable , there will always be a trinity. Even if its simply gamers chosen play styles, in groups or competitive pvp the trinity will thrive. No one has found a system to replace it because you absolutely can't ; someone will always be taking the damage, someone will always be healing the damage taken, and someone will always be doing the damage.
The real debate is how well the lines can be blured so players don't actively think of the trinity. That is where I suspect Gw2 will have a fair amount of sucess.
Why do I also get the distinct impression that the casual user base ( yes I know you are the majority now ) are the ones so deadset to find a replacement for the Trinity?
? This doesn't actually make sense, because you don't appear to know what people mean by the holy trinity OR understand how you can avoid it.
Here, I'll help you out a little. First of all, the trinity specifically refers to DPS (Self-evident), a healer (Which is easy to understand), and a tank (Specifically, a tank that has aggro-management skills like taunt).
It's easy to get rid of a healer. Just make it so healing is no longer a powerful enough role to exist as 1/3rd of the gameplay (Hence trinity.).
It's easy to get rid of the aggro-managing tank. Don't give aggro-management abilities. Give the AI a more realistic target selection criteria like 'Hit the guy who looks easy to kill'.
In a holy trinity game, the tank is not defined as 'The person who is taking damage', it's 'The person who needs to be taking damage, otherwise you're failing'. If a monster is constantly attacking your DPS and healers, and the person in the tank role ends up being ignored (.. he's heavily armored, and doesn't hit hard. I think I can ignore him), he's failing his job, and the encounter will probably end up wiping.
... but that's a game design thing. SImply by changing the AI, and changing the tools that characters use to deal with problems, you can move away from that.
Also, you should probably read the topic 'Things that are in GW2 that you might not know it has'. 'A trinity' is in there.
People can't look at ANY gameplay design with roles and say 'that's holy trinity', because that's not what people are talking about when they say the holy trinity. :T
The moment you have less roles, more roles, or different roles, it's no longer the Holy Trinity. Even if you change the proportions (Making tanking a subset of control and healing a minor subset of support), it's no longer the holy trinity, it's something different.
You can't simply define the holy trinity as 'all gameplay design that exists' just to cram every game under it.
In GW1, you'd be right. GW2 is a totally different game though. There's virtually nothing carried over from GW1 except for the lore, and even that is moved 250 years in the future. Even if a person absolutely hated GW1, they should still check out GW2.
GW2 is more complicated than just a fixed 8 slot skillbar.
In GW2, you have a 10 slot skillbar. The first half of your skill bar is determined by your weapon/class combination. Most classes have a second weapon in reserve, giving them a minimum of 15 skills available. The skills change drastically depending on your weapon, that's primarily where the notion of switching on the fly comes from, as you can swap weapons in combat with only a small delay. Dual axes might be considered a high DPS option, where mace and shield provides control through stuns. A greatsword gives you AOE attacks, etc.
You can change your weapons or other 5 skills anytime out of combat. There's also traits (like WoW's glyphs only more in depth) that can modify your skills or weapons.
Some classes, like the elementalist, have more options. Only one weapon, but fire (damage), water (healing), air (control), and earth (tanking) attunements available to switch on the fly, for a total of 25 skills.
"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
I'm going to assume you misunderstood pretty much everything I wrote , so I'll try not to be as condescending with this reply as yours.
As long as you have someone tanking, someone or mechanic healing that damage, and someone doing damage .. the trinity is intact. PERIOD .... you can't get around it. Playing scemantics with the term "Holy Trinity" as it only consisting of an aggro management tank, a dedicated pure healer, and a dedicated pure dps is folly. There are very few games which still adher to that original Trinity concept. Every popular ( subjective ) mmorpg to date consists of a hybridized system of the trinity where every character has aggro management mechanics, dps, and in some parts healing. Which is the way its going to stay , and is currently what the "holy Trinity" defines. Adding diffrent roles does not break the trinity as long as SOMEONE is fulfulling the roles defined by the Holy Trinity. We can debate the scemantics of it all night , its pointless though. The only wild cards are support roles I.E CC and Buffs/Debuffs.
Now go back and read my first message , it should make a touch more sense.
Just to paraphrase ... if someone is tanking the damage, someone of something is healing the damage, and someone is dpsing ... Its the holy trinity.
It's not just semantics. People need to agree on the definition of what we're talking about in order to talk about them. Until that happens, debate is pointless. You and Meowhead do not agree on definitions.
"trinity" gameplay could be defined as having three important elements, tank, healer and dps.
"Holy Trinity", as used by Meowhead (and myself) is when you have three roles and those people do those things and those things only. DPS never tank or heal. Healers never dps or tank. "Holy Trinity" is a subset of "trinity". Just having tanks, healers and dps doesn't mean you have Holy Trinity as it is used in WoW.
That's how Meowhead and I define it. You define it differently. Until we agree, we're going in circles.
Meowhead's (and my) first point is that there is absolutely nothing whatsoever magical about the concept of a "trinity." Imagine an MMO where tanks just have crazy health regeneration but there was no healers. The game would revolve around tank rotations to keep people able to regenerate without dying before going back to tank. Or any other number of ways that you could have more or fewer necessary roles in order to complete group encounters.
The other point is that GW2 allows people to swap roles with weapon switches, or take utility skills that fill different roles (a snaring skill for control next to a party regeneration skill for support). You can call it a "trinity" game of damage, control, and support if you want, but it's not a "Holy Trinity" game according to our definition because to us, Holy Trinity means only being able to do one thing and one thing only.
"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
Asherons Call has no trinity. And it is the funnest MMO I have ever played, in fact I still play it to this day even though the gfx is dated the gameplay is 2nd to none IMO.
You escape the trinity by allowing every class to do everything, throw that i na group setting and change the AI of the mobs and you can escape the trinity entirely.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Its a moot point no matter which definition you subscribe to really.
Using yours and Meow : The markets no longer making games based on that design.
The whole point for my post was taking into account that no current developer in the last 7 years has made a ( using your strict definition) Holy Trinity game. Thus all the debate and arguements currently associated with the term by default must be based on the hybrid system now being used. Hence my reasoning that the abolition of it just will not happen , its as defined and unchanging as the forms of theater. ( I'm missing a word here )
To the above poster .... even in sandboxs the trinity is intact, like was pointed out to me it hinges on which definition you hold.
You cant make up definitions to fit your argument. There is only 1 trinity in the MMO world. Its an all or nothing model, you have DPS, Healers, and Tanks. And your role is defined by which of those you perfrom while in a group setting. Your misnomer of the use of trinity is false and lacks merit. Anything that changes from having different roles is hence forth not a trinity or a hybrid or anything else you wish to fantasize it to be. If you can perfrom any single role at the same time, or via switching on the fly you are in a non trinity system. And the majority of all AAA MMO's over the course of the last 11 years have NOT had this system in place, which is why GW2 is trying to change it up.
Everything you need to know about Elder Scrolls Online
Playing: GW2
Waiting on: TESO
Next Flop: Planetside 2
Best MMO of all time: Asheron's Call - The first company to recreate AC will be the next greatest MMO.
Well, there is a little bit of flexibiity to the term or few games would fit it.
But yes, the basics are tanks, DPS and support. And in the classic triad you can't change role on the spot if it even is possible to change at all.
Brad McQuaid as Aradune used to call the Holy Trinity as Tank, Cleric and Enchanter . I suppose it evolved into the current form substituting Enchanter for DPS but when I played Everquest on their old forums the discussion always talked about enchanters not DPS.
See here too it says this
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Videogame/EverQuest
I'll ignore the meat of your reply as its argueing definitions.
The majority of all AAA mmo's in the past seven years HAVE had a hybrid system, therefore this arguement is moot. You can't claim that "holy trinity" is a strict term on one hand then claim the inability to switch roles in hybrid models via switching on the fly still falls under your strict definition yet being able to then would not be a trinity.
You spelled it out yourself " And your role is defined by which of those you perform while in a group setting" ; it couldn't be more cut and dry than that.
Edited for clarity.
I disagree that the market is no longer making games based on the holy trinity design. The potential for flexibility may exist, just like it does in WoW. When you're leveling, you can do pretty much whatever you want. Even WoW offers dual specs, and classes (druid in particular) that can play any role. When you get to endgame though, you must specialize. You can bring two different specs and two different sets of gear, but for any encounter attempt you can only do one role at a time.
To use another example, Rift offers even more flexibility than WoW, but I would also call it a holy trinity game due to being forced to specialize at endgame. Even classes that blur the lines, like a Chloromancer (healing as a result of damage dealt) are trying to be the best "healer as a result of damage dealt" they can be. It still requires specialization. It's true that I don't have personal endgame experience in Rift, but googling turns up this page, which lists endgame dps and tank specs that are very singleminded in their approach. http://www.awakenedonline.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6519102
As far as "trinity" goes, I can only say again and again that there is nothing universal about a trinity of damage, healing, and tanking, it all depends on the mechanics of the game and what is necessary to do a particular game's group content. In EQ1, an Enchanter was all but completely mandatory in every 6 man group. They were so incredibly valuable despite that they could go entire nights and never tank anything, never damage anything, and never heal anything. Their worth was entirely based on their crowd control (5-6 mobs at a time and you needed it), massive mana and haste buffs, and pretty strong debuffs. I can only keep throwing out example after example of why the notion of a trinity in our minds is only there because of WoW has a stranglehold on the MMO market, uses a Holy Trinity, and is so successful that a great many other MMOs are inspired by its mechanics to the point where some people believe it's the only possible way to do things.
"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
Thats what I'm not getting ... I thought you ( pardon if it wasn't you ) specified that the holy trinity by your definition was designated tanks, healers, and dps. The line is blured in WoW, Rift, Warhammer, etc etc. Can some classes/specs tank/heal/dps better ... why of course, but almost every "class" can hold a different role.
Breaking that down a bit ... if every class can fullfil multiple roles when simple changes, then the Trinity boils down to basically this : Someone is tanking, someone is healing, and someone is damaging. You can simplfy that even further by removing set aggro and healing spells and substitute them for smart damage rotations and regeneration out of combat. The trinity is still intact ... its just blured, you still have a tank, healer, and dps.
Thus my confusion ... the market is not making games on the "Holy Trinity" that I assumed you were explaining to me a few posts back ... it is in fact making hybrid trinitys where one can change their role mostly on the fly.