A good argument against it that isn't subjective? I highly doubt you'll find one that will satisfy you. There is nothing technically wrong with it. It has worked in one form or another for many, many years. Of course what argument would you give for it? What makes the holy trinity "right?" I have mostly played Healers and Tanks since EQ back in '99. I am now 13 years older and would much prefer a game that did not use outdated mechanics to appeal to a mass player base. In your op, you spoke of the need to "reach mass mediocrity population." Well, for anyone who played EQ 13 years ago, with very little change, they could pick up a holy trinity MMO today and already know what it is they would have to do based on their character selection. They would fall into the norm of needing certain gear, having certain skills maxed leveled, and ignoring everything else. If your ok doing things the same way for an extending period of time, then there is nothing wrong with the trinity (as long as you spec and play like every other tank/healer/dps.) Once you have the thought while standing in a raid and spamming heals, that you could train a monkey to do the same damn thing, MMO's lose their appeal.
Trinity is not about bad, boring game design, and EQ back in '99 had lots of diversity. Problem is that recent MMO-s striped everything to the bare basics tank/heal/dps and that became boring and tedious.
If you make any new system with different roles than holy trinity, you will get just the new system but with the same problem over time(lfg, boredom,...).
Well, let me tell you from one healer's perspective what the "deal" is for me. I would love to play a healer in GW2 (of course, we can't). I really enjoy healing, BUT.....and this is a big but.....it gets VERY focking old being the one to take the blame (either me or the tank) for every stupid thing wrong some braindead DPS does and ends up dead. Now if you've never healed, you might not understand what I just said, but if you have....I don't really need to say much more. I am relieved to not have to face years of, "omg I waz jest standing in the fire, joo shud be able to healz me threw dat." Seriously dude, WTF? Or the lovely dps proud mofos who like to spam their highest dps spell over and over and over and over or their highest ultimate dps rotation repeatedly and as fast as they can fire it off..... and then wonder how they pulled aggro and then get pissed at me for not healing them instead of someone who is NOT doing that or is the tank. Those are two generic examples. I could write a book FULL of examples.
In MY opinion, that is part of the "deal" with the trinity. Two people (or maybe 4 if it's a raid) taking blame for what myriads of other people are doing. It's bullshit. Tanks are not infallible and perfect super heroes and neither are your healers, but many "teammates" treat them badly and don't take responsibility for ANYthing. I'm anxious to actually be one of a TEAM and not the oftentimes scapegoat.
For me its because with a trinity set up we move out of the realm of fantasy and into the realm of the rediculous. Why?
The mobs are SO stupid they ignore all the guys shooting them full of arrows, stabbing them in the back and flinging fireballs at them and carry on hitting the shield being held up in front of them by the big, butch, heavily armoured warrior dude. The one they can't seem to kill, no matter how hard they try, because of the other dude in the dress who keeps healing him.
Yeah, great idea that.
That's pretty much the root of the issue. It has resulted in a very contrived system (taunt and boss rage attacks, to name two gems in the trinity's crown), and then mob and world design being built around that contrived system. It has spiraled to a point where in many MMOs a group not optimized for the trinity cannot succeed, no matter how hard they try. This makes LFG almost mandatory in many MMOs and frustrates players that attempt to try to find more creative group configurations as they are forced to actively work against the mechanics of the game.
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
What I have read from this forums, in majority of posts, main reason against holy trinity is LFG?! IMHO this is not argument at all, it's pure convenience. Majority of players hate to take group responsibility to heal or are scared to take lead and tank, to learn every dungeon and encounter, what they really want is easy run without any responsibility and secure shiny loot.
I'm not against trinity, also not against any other system as long as such provides diversity and distinctive role/profession, but I’m really confused when some players hate trinity and don’t have any real argument aside subjective ones.
After mass popularization of MMO-s, every new game tends to minimize those roles, it's the natural process if you want to reach mass mediocrity population, at the end of this process, mainstream MMO-s will only have jack of all trades and master of none type of role/professions. Something when you have left only pawns and than pretend to play chess, with only two options: move and capture.
So tell me your reason against holy trinity, real reason pls?
It doesn't actually exist. It's a made up term to describe the "need" for a "Tank, Dps, and Healer" for a group to work properly. The only difference is that this doesn't actually happen. The "perfect" group for a game will differ based on the game itself, how its structured, and the encounter itself.
What i've found is that a fullgroup of DPS, or a fullgroup of healing oriented classes that can do a moderate amount of dps, is better than Tank, Dps, Healer, (Dps/Control), (Dps/Control), (Dps/Control).
The actual group setup for most games is normally Tank, Healer, Dps, Dps, Control for 5man group games, and Tank, Healer, Dps, dps, Dps, Control for 6man group games.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity: Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
1) By having Tanks and Heals and DPS, you only need three players in a party and each one is as important as the other, therefore there is no need for a 4th player or an 5th player, the whole game can be beaten with just these three class working together. But thats it, no diversity no tactics.
2) By specializing roles you limit the player classes. White Mage who are made to be healer will be the top healer in any game. Guardian Tanks will always out tank any other classes, and Assassin DPS will always out dps other classes. Therefore why have any other combinations or hybrids when these will be the only three that will ever be invited in any raid or group.
3) The roles of an Tank is to stand there, know the encounters and press taunt at an specific time to allow maximum aggro.
The roles of an Healer is to stand there, watch the health bar of the tank and heal at an specific pattern to allow maximum mana usage.
The roles of an DPS is to stand there, wacking away as fast as possible with every skill on and doing at specific patterns to allow maximum damage output.
In an trinity game, none of these roles will ever change, once you have the pattern remembered and programmed into your auto attack Macros, you the player are no longer needed. The computer can take it from there.
4) Those that likes the Holy Trinity, likes to not think about anything else except the patterns of their skills and their skill cool downs. Its allows them to have the control of the situations without surprises and without having to react to whats happening to the game. How many healers actually knows what the dungeon looks like, I believe the most dedicated Healers have been playing a Health bar game, and not an MMO that everyone else is playing.
If Tanks and Healers are still in the game in any form , the Holy Trinity will always exist, as long as someone can heal, that class will always be the most wanted class in the game, same for tanks.
To truly eliminate Trinity, Healing others must be taken out, same as Taunts. Self Heals can exist, HOT can exist as well, but anything more powerful than that will bring the Trinity back to the game.
Jack of all Trades aren't a bad thing, it all depends on the encounter, because soon someone will realize that althought their character are great at everything, the players themselves excel at one specific role, and that person will become known as the Healer, not the Avatar but the actual Player themselves and that is what eliminating Trinity will bring.
Because its no longer the Class that heals, its the player's skill that mattered, and player skills varies based on the number of people on this Earth. Therefore, by creating one mediocre Jack of All Trades class, you will actually have Millions of classes reflected by the players themselves.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Only gripe I have with it is healing. I feel bad for em. IMO I find healing very boring. Tanking and dps is fun. Idk I haven't played a game where healing's fun. Granted I dont play many MMOs but in the big ones like WoW and GW1, it just felt like I was always staring at little boxes and I had to click it in a particular way everytime the green color kept getting drained. Same with GW1. Idk that's just my opinion
What I have read from this forums, in majority of posts, main reason against holy trinity is LFG?! IMHO this is not argument at all, it's pure convenience. Majority of players hate to take group responsibility to heal or are scared to take lead and tank, to learn every dungeon and encounter, what they really want is easy run without any responsibility and secure shiny loot.
I'm not against trinity, also not against any other system as long as such provides diversity and distinctive role/profession, but I’m really confused when some players hate trinity and don’t have any real argument aside subjective ones.
After mass popularization of MMO-s, every new game tends to minimize those roles, it's the natural process if you want to reach mass mediocrity population, at the end of this process, mainstream MMO-s will only have jack of all trades and master of none type of role/professions. Something when you have left only pawns and than pretend to play chess, with only two options: move and capture.
So tell me your reason against holy trinity, real reason pls?
My main argument is that tanking makes combat boring and predictable.
All mobs are seriously retarded, even dragons, wizards and other one would assume to be smart.
In pen and player RPGs combat is a lot about tactics and no DM would let the players just tank the mobs there. That it is hard to find certain roles is not really a problem for me.
Another reason is that trinity combat makes all games using it be rather similar.
Trinity combat was invented in Meridian 59, a game made a couple on inexperienced guys with a low budget for fun. To think that they accidentely stumbled on the ultimate combat system seems very unlikely. So my third argument against trinity is that just using it have stopped MMOs from evolving.
MMO combat should be tactical with a lot of focus on using the enviroment to your advantage, together with quick thinking and constantly noticing what is happening around you. It should not just be about having quick reactions but it should neither be about standing still and using a macro either.
There are many possibilities but as long as everyone is more or less using the same mechanics all MMOs will feel like M59/EQ/Wow and that is bad news for new games. Most common reason to not stay in the new game around here is that it just feels like Wow.
Agree with you, combat should be more tactical and mobs AI unpredictable and smart. Dungeons should be dungeons, places where you can get lost and be eaten. But trinity is just three basic types of many roles, nothing wrong with them at all.
Tell me, that you can't design encounters or dungeon that can be done without tank but with different tactics on same level of difficulty, or without healer relying on environment and so on. I think that is possible and will be lots of fun, in the same time too hard for today average player. That's the real problem, recent MMO-s designed to cater more players and publishers cant afford 'mistakes'.
Historically specialization is more effective than generalization. This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat. It makes more sense to have dedicated roles.
Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.
Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles. Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
Historically specialization is more effective than generalization. This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat. It makes more sense to have dedicated roles.
Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.
Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles. Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.
But isn't that what GW2 is trying to do, to become the first game to take upon the dedicated roles and said that I will prove it otherwise.
So whats the point of this thread then, GW2 is trying to show the world that MMO arn't limited into Tank, Heal, Dps roles anymore, and that they can become entirely something different. But I will wager that GW2 is just doing a small change, the real innovation of the Trinity won't be coming out until GW2 is released and a few month have passed.
Game companies that is secretly developing an MMO will wait, when players are more comfortable, they will come out with entirely different combat mechanics. Something entirely not the Trinity. Because you can never skip evolution, just like computers, you can't go from 1 core computers to 10 core computers, you have to go through dual core, quad core, before you go all the way to 10 core computers.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Well, let me tell you from one healer's perspective what the "deal" is for me. I would love to play a healer in GW2 (of course, we can't). I really enjoy healing, BUT.....and this is a big but.....it gets VERY focking old being the one to take the blame (either me or the tank) for every stupid thing wrong some braindead DPS does and ends up dead. Now if you've never healed, you might not understand what I just said, but if you have....I don't really need to say much more. I am relieved to not have to face years of, "omg I waz jest standing in the fire, joo shud be able to healz me threw dat." Seriously dude, WTF? Or the lovely dps proud mofos who like to spam their highest dps spell over and over and over and over or their highest ultimate dps rotation repeatedly and as fast as they can fire it off..... and then wonder how they pulled aggro and then get pissed at me for not healing them instead of someone who is NOT doing that or is the tank. Those are two generic examples. I could write a book FULL of examples.
In MY opinion, that is part of the "deal" with the trinity. Two people (or maybe 4 if it's a raid) taking blame for what myriads of other people are doing. It's bullshit. Tanks are not infallible and perfect super heroes and neither are your healers, but many "teammates" treat them badly and don't take responsibility for ANYthing. I'm anxious to actually be one of a TEAM and not the oftentimes scapegoat.
Human factor and recent average player base mentality catered with lazy game design spoiled your role, you become just a healing bot, someone they are waiting in LFG, an obstacle.
My most frequent role is healer or some healing hybrid, so I understand your pain perfectly. I'm afraid that distinctive role and complex encounters/environment game design became niche domain.
Only a matter of time when the latter becomes the same "topic of hatred", it's new now, like EQ was back in the day, but you just wait and see
So after the latter has been crucified, whats next? i don't really see other ways of doing MMORPG's to ve realistic
None trinity are all kinds of possible mechanics, unorganized and organized.
If MMOs always stuck with the same mechanics the combat in thegames just don´t become more fun. And we fight a lot so the games needs to experiement more.
I do not mean that GW2 or any other none trinity game have the perfect mechanics but trying out new thins is the only way to evolve the MMOs.
The trinity have basically been the same since 1996, just like the class and leveling systems. There are room for improvement in all those things.
And yeah, the trinity works but a Ford model T works as well. We would still be driving in those if automobile companies thought like MMO devs.
Human factor and recent average player base mentality catered with lazy game design spoiled your role, you become just a healing bot, someone they are waiting in LFG, an obstacle.
My most frequent role is healer or some healing hybrid, so I understand your pain perfectly. I'm afraid that distinctive role and complex encounters/environment game design became niche domain.
Nah, that is just because MMOs just like most other computer games have become a lot easier the last 12 years or so.
In most games you can play your healer more, but you don´t have to so few ever do.
But distinct roles and complex encounters are 2 very different things, you can easily have one without the other.
I think the biggest issue with "trinity" is that it got severely dumbed down as a way to simplify game mechanics in group gameplay. There were many roles outside of the base three, and roles overlapped in small groups. Combat was more than tank-n-spank because it was nearly impossible to hold aggro with DPS going all out.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Agree with you, combat should be more tactical and mobs AI unpredictable and smart. Dungeons should be dungeons, places where you can get lost and be eaten. But trinity is just three basic types of many roles, nothing wrong with them at all.
Tell me, that you can't design encounters or dungeon that can be done without tank but with different tactics on same level of difficulty, or without healer relying on environment and so on. I think that is possible and will be lots of fun, in the same time too hard for today average player. That's the real problem, recent MMO-s designed to cater more players and publishers cant afford 'mistakes'.
The real problemis that most MMOs try to be for everyone. That in itself is a losing tactic that not even Wow pulled off.
The market have room for few really hard AA MMOs just like it have for a few really easy ones. But games trying to be everything kinda turns off people from both camps.
Look on WAR, it could have easily gotten 400K old DaoC players or even a few million Warhammer fans that play computergames, but instead it went for all Wows players (or that is at least what Barnett said before launch).
I think the biggest issue with "trinity" is that it got severely dumbed down as a way to simplify game mechanics in group gameplay. There were many roles outside of the base three, and roles overlapped in small groups. Combat was more than tank-n-spank because it was nearly impossible to hold aggro with DPS going all out.
That is a part of the problem yes. But as I see it, tanking and taunts is the big problem in themselves.
They took out a lot of the surprises out of combat, and you rarely need to think fast in a trinity game, you handle almost 100% of all encounters the same (not counting trashmobs).
Historically specialization is more effective than generalization. This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat. It makes more sense to have dedicated roles.
Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.
Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles. Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.
In science, what you are saying is not true. Why would I say that? I am a Ph.D. scientist that has a broad background. If you are really specialized you are pidgeonholed into one area and cannot move out. More and more, it takes a generalist to get things to work well and the specialist are stuck.
You really should say it this way, 'The only roles offered in MOST MMO's is the trinity - successful or not'. Just because it has always been that way DOES NOT mean it is the best. It is the easiest road but I think it is not the best way to go.
Nah, that is just because MMOs just like most other computer games have become a lot easier the last 12 years or so.
I don't agree with this, although it probably depends on what games you're playing.
For me, 12 years ago a challenging encounter meant an unlimited number of players shooting a mob for 2 hours while it's massive HP crawls down. I mostly stayed away from these types of "challenging encounters" and focused more on soloing and other things.
For me today, a challenging encounter means 24 people who have trained to work well together in 10-20 minute encounters. 24 people who are all performing a variety of their individual tasks well, adjusting to changing conditions and if any of them fail, we likely lose. I love it.
Back to the point.. there is no way that I could take a random 24 of the 200 people doing those encounters 12 years ago and get them to do some of the complex encounters of today. Those people could barely do one thing right at time, whereas today they need to do multiple thing, react and interact.
So to me, the games HAVE become harder.
You can talk about how it was "hard" to solo a Gnoll in EQ1 because it took like 5 minutes and then you had to rest for 10. But i don't consider that to be difficulty. That was just different game design and even back then games were catching onto the fact that there was nothing cool about waiting for 10 minutes between encounters or spending 2 hours recovering ones corpse.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
I wonder how many of the people who said the trinity is boring, ever tanked. Tanking is not boring. It can be frustrating tho, with some nutty pew pew DPS screwing the fight up.
Originally posted by Gorilla My argument against the holy trinity is this....a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. As evil and suffering exists there can be no god. If there is no god there can be no holy trinity. QED.
I know I shouldn't but what the heck
How about God that practices freedom of choice instead "making" everyone exactly the same goody-two-shoes with no opposing beliefs?
LOL To put in game terms, a God who built a sandbox world and lets the players do as they may instead of making the themepark game on rails, forcing players to play a certain way
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I wonder if ti's possible to make a decent NPC Tank and Healer that could join the group in dungeons. Could a fight be made interesting/challenging with these non-player henchmen?
Then the only thing needed to run the dungeons is gathering the group that could be made up of anyone.
For me its because with a trinity set up we move out of the realm of fantasy and into the realm of the rediculous. Why?
The mobs are SO stupid they ignore all the guys shooting them full of arrows, stabbing them in the back and flinging fireballs at them and carry on hitting the shield being held up in front of them by the big, butch, heavily armoured warrior dude. The one they can't seem to kill, no matter how hard they try, because of the other dude in the dress who keeps healing him.
That analogy is great. The total massacre of suspension of disbelief when playing the game.
To further comment on that analogy, I would say that the holy trinity breaks the game experience down to balancing mathematical equations between three points in the most efficient way. You don't need a graphical interface to do the trinity because the trinity was designed for text MUDs where it was nothing but number crunching and text output.
Now that we've (arguably) evolved beyond math numbers and text echos for RPGs, it makes sense to create more dynamic systems for combat that feel closer to living, thinking opponents than the traditional number crunch game with text values in a chat log.
Comments
Trinity is not about bad, boring game design, and EQ back in '99 had lots of diversity. Problem is that recent MMO-s striped everything to the bare basics tank/heal/dps and that became boring and tedious.
If you make any new system with different roles than holy trinity, you will get just the new system but with the same problem over time(lfg, boredom,...).
---
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Well, let me tell you from one healer's perspective what the "deal" is for me. I would love to play a healer in GW2 (of course, we can't). I really enjoy healing, BUT.....and this is a big but.....it gets VERY focking old being the one to take the blame (either me or the tank) for every stupid thing wrong some braindead DPS does and ends up dead. Now if you've never healed, you might not understand what I just said, but if you have....I don't really need to say much more. I am relieved to not have to face years of, "omg I waz jest standing in the fire, joo shud be able to healz me threw dat." Seriously dude, WTF? Or the lovely dps proud mofos who like to spam their highest dps spell over and over and over and over or their highest ultimate dps rotation repeatedly and as fast as they can fire it off..... and then wonder how they pulled aggro and then get pissed at me for not healing them instead of someone who is NOT doing that or is the tank. Those are two generic examples. I could write a book FULL of examples.
In MY opinion, that is part of the "deal" with the trinity. Two people (or maybe 4 if it's a raid) taking blame for what myriads of other people are doing. It's bullshit. Tanks are not infallible and perfect super heroes and neither are your healers, but many "teammates" treat them badly and don't take responsibility for ANYthing. I'm anxious to actually be one of a TEAM and not the oftentimes scapegoat.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
That's pretty much the root of the issue. It has resulted in a very contrived system (taunt and boss rage attacks, to name two gems in the trinity's crown), and then mob and world design being built around that contrived system. It has spiraled to a point where in many MMOs a group not optimized for the trinity cannot succeed, no matter how hard they try. This makes LFG almost mandatory in many MMOs and frustrates players that attempt to try to find more creative group configurations as they are forced to actively work against the mechanics of the game.
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
It's a stale mechanic.
Yeah, it is a very gamey system.
It doesn't actually exist. It's a made up term to describe the "need" for a "Tank, Dps, and Healer" for a group to work properly. The only difference is that this doesn't actually happen. The "perfect" group for a game will differ based on the game itself, how its structured, and the encounter itself.
What i've found is that a fullgroup of DPS, or a fullgroup of healing oriented classes that can do a moderate amount of dps, is better than Tank, Dps, Healer, (Dps/Control), (Dps/Control), (Dps/Control).
The actual group setup for most games is normally Tank, Healer, Dps, Dps, Control for 5man group games, and Tank, Healer, Dps, dps, Dps, Control for 6man group games.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
The real reason for Why I dislike Trinity!
1) By having Tanks and Heals and DPS, you only need three players in a party and each one is as important as the other, therefore there is no need for a 4th player or an 5th player, the whole game can be beaten with just these three class working together. But thats it, no diversity no tactics.
2) By specializing roles you limit the player classes. White Mage who are made to be healer will be the top healer in any game. Guardian Tanks will always out tank any other classes, and Assassin DPS will always out dps other classes. Therefore why have any other combinations or hybrids when these will be the only three that will ever be invited in any raid or group.
3) The roles of an Tank is to stand there, know the encounters and press taunt at an specific time to allow maximum aggro.
The roles of an Healer is to stand there, watch the health bar of the tank and heal at an specific pattern to allow maximum mana usage.
The roles of an DPS is to stand there, wacking away as fast as possible with every skill on and doing at specific patterns to allow maximum damage output.
In an trinity game, none of these roles will ever change, once you have the pattern remembered and programmed into your auto attack Macros, you the player are no longer needed. The computer can take it from there.
4) Those that likes the Holy Trinity, likes to not think about anything else except the patterns of their skills and their skill cool downs. Its allows them to have the control of the situations without surprises and without having to react to whats happening to the game. How many healers actually knows what the dungeon looks like, I believe the most dedicated Healers have been playing a Health bar game, and not an MMO that everyone else is playing.
If Tanks and Healers are still in the game in any form , the Holy Trinity will always exist, as long as someone can heal, that class will always be the most wanted class in the game, same for tanks.
To truly eliminate Trinity, Healing others must be taken out, same as Taunts. Self Heals can exist, HOT can exist as well, but anything more powerful than that will bring the Trinity back to the game.
Jack of all Trades aren't a bad thing, it all depends on the encounter, because soon someone will realize that althought their character are great at everything, the players themselves excel at one specific role, and that person will become known as the Healer, not the Avatar but the actual Player themselves and that is what eliminating Trinity will bring.
Because its no longer the Class that heals, its the player's skill that mattered, and player skills varies based on the number of people on this Earth. Therefore, by creating one mediocre Jack of All Trades class, you will actually have Millions of classes reflected by the players themselves.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
No thinking at all, just learn the routine.
Only gripe I have with it is healing. I feel bad for em. IMO I find healing very boring. Tanking and dps is fun. Idk I haven't played a game where healing's fun. Granted I dont play many MMOs but in the big ones like WoW and GW1, it just felt like I was always staring at little boxes and I had to click it in a particular way everytime the green color kept getting drained. Same with GW1. Idk that's just my opinion
Agree with you, combat should be more tactical and mobs AI unpredictable and smart. Dungeons should be dungeons, places where you can get lost and be eaten.
But trinity is just three basic types of many roles, nothing wrong with them at all.
Tell me, that you can't design encounters or dungeon that can be done without tank but with different tactics on same level of difficulty, or without healer relying on environment and so on. I think that is possible and will be lots of fun, in the same time too hard for today average player. That's the real problem, recent MMO-s designed to cater more players and publishers cant afford 'mistakes'.
---
"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Historically specialization is more effective than generalization. This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat. It makes more sense to have dedicated roles.
Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.
Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles. Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
But isn't that what GW2 is trying to do, to become the first game to take upon the dedicated roles and said that I will prove it otherwise.
So whats the point of this thread then, GW2 is trying to show the world that MMO arn't limited into Tank, Heal, Dps roles anymore, and that they can become entirely something different. But I will wager that GW2 is just doing a small change, the real innovation of the Trinity won't be coming out until GW2 is released and a few month have passed.
Game companies that is secretly developing an MMO will wait, when players are more comfortable, they will come out with entirely different combat mechanics. Something entirely not the Trinity. Because you can never skip evolution, just like computers, you can't go from 1 core computers to 10 core computers, you have to go through dual core, quad core, before you go all the way to 10 core computers.
Life is a Maze, so make sure you bring your GPS incase you get lost in it.
Human factor and recent average player base mentality catered with lazy game design spoiled your role, you become just a healing bot, someone they are waiting in LFG, an obstacle.
My most frequent role is healer or some healing hybrid, so I understand your pain perfectly. I'm afraid that distinctive role and complex encounters/environment game design became niche domain.
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"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
None trinity are all kinds of possible mechanics, unorganized and organized.
If MMOs always stuck with the same mechanics the combat in thegames just don´t become more fun. And we fight a lot so the games needs to experiement more.
I do not mean that GW2 or any other none trinity game have the perfect mechanics but trying out new thins is the only way to evolve the MMOs.
The trinity have basically been the same since 1996, just like the class and leveling systems. There are room for improvement in all those things.
And yeah, the trinity works but a Ford model T works as well. We would still be driving in those if automobile companies thought like MMO devs.
Nah, that is just because MMOs just like most other computer games have become a lot easier the last 12 years or so.
In most games you can play your healer more, but you don´t have to so few ever do.
But distinct roles and complex encounters are 2 very different things, you can easily have one without the other.
I think the biggest issue with "trinity" is that it got severely dumbed down as a way to simplify game mechanics in group gameplay. There were many roles outside of the base three, and roles overlapped in small groups. Combat was more than tank-n-spank because it was nearly impossible to hold aggro with DPS going all out.
The real problemis that most MMOs try to be for everyone. That in itself is a losing tactic that not even Wow pulled off.
The market have room for few really hard AA MMOs just like it have for a few really easy ones. But games trying to be everything kinda turns off people from both camps.
Look on WAR, it could have easily gotten 400K old DaoC players or even a few million Warhammer fans that play computergames, but instead it went for all Wows players (or that is at least what Barnett said before launch).
People are scared of change.
That is a part of the problem yes. But as I see it, tanking and taunts is the big problem in themselves.
They took out a lot of the surprises out of combat, and you rarely need to think fast in a trinity game, you handle almost 100% of all encounters the same (not counting trashmobs).
In science, what you are saying is not true. Why would I say that? I am a Ph.D. scientist that has a broad background. If you are really specialized you are pidgeonholed into one area and cannot move out. More and more, it takes a generalist to get things to work well and the specialist are stuck.
You really should say it this way, 'The only roles offered in MOST MMO's is the trinity - successful or not'. Just because it has always been that way DOES NOT mean it is the best. It is the easiest road but I think it is not the best way to go.
I don't agree with this, although it probably depends on what games you're playing.
For me, 12 years ago a challenging encounter meant an unlimited number of players shooting a mob for 2 hours while it's massive HP crawls down. I mostly stayed away from these types of "challenging encounters" and focused more on soloing and other things.
For me today, a challenging encounter means 24 people who have trained to work well together in 10-20 minute encounters. 24 people who are all performing a variety of their individual tasks well, adjusting to changing conditions and if any of them fail, we likely lose. I love it.
Back to the point.. there is no way that I could take a random 24 of the 200 people doing those encounters 12 years ago and get them to do some of the complex encounters of today. Those people could barely do one thing right at time, whereas today they need to do multiple thing, react and interact.
So to me, the games HAVE become harder.
You can talk about how it was "hard" to solo a Gnoll in EQ1 because it took like 5 minutes and then you had to rest for 10. But i don't consider that to be difficulty. That was just different game design and even back then games were catching onto the fact that there was nothing cool about waiting for 10 minutes between encounters or spending 2 hours recovering ones corpse.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
I wonder how many of the people who said the trinity is boring, ever tanked. Tanking is not boring. It can be frustrating tho, with some nutty pew pew DPS screwing the fight up.
Plus most wipes are the healer's fault... ;-)
How about God that practices freedom of choice instead "making" everyone exactly the same goody-two-shoes with no opposing beliefs?
LOL To put in game terms, a God who built a sandbox world and lets the players do as they may instead of making the themepark game on rails, forcing players to play a certain way
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I wonder if ti's possible to make a decent NPC Tank and Healer that could join the group in dungeons. Could a fight be made interesting/challenging with these non-player henchmen?
Then the only thing needed to run the dungeons is gathering the group that could be made up of anyone.
That analogy is great. The total massacre of suspension of disbelief when playing the game.
To further comment on that analogy, I would say that the holy trinity breaks the game experience down to balancing mathematical equations between three points in the most efficient way. You don't need a graphical interface to do the trinity because the trinity was designed for text MUDs where it was nothing but number crunching and text output.
Now that we've (arguably) evolved beyond math numbers and text echos for RPGs, it makes sense to create more dynamic systems for combat that feel closer to living, thinking opponents than the traditional number crunch game with text values in a chat log.