The Trinity began with Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, etc. Pen and Paper didn't really have it since "tanks" was an idea conjured up in video games. You could argueably build a "tank", but being a tank is both keeping the enemies attention AND soaking damage.
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Without sifting through this entire thread, I'll first post my own initial response.
There are two main observations I would make. The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI). The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity.
Concerning my first observation, I definitely never encountered the term "tank" until I began playing MMOs. However, after being exposed to the system, I began to see how the concept could be applied to older RPGs. I would now play Final Fantasy 7, for example, by giving one party member the cover materia, very little magic, high evasion and as much HP as possible. Voila! A tank! And of course healing magic, potions and damage dealing abilities (or more simply put, stuff that removes and restores hit points)have always been staples of RPGs. So it would seem to me that the only unique concept out of the 3 is the tank, which requires some way of forcing enemies to somewhat reliably attack defensive-oriented characters while leaving defensively weaker characters alone. In MMOs, this has been called "aggro."
Concerning my second observation, prior to a game trying to explicitly deviate from "the trinity", players had no reason to give a name to the tank/heal/damage trio. Names are only given to differentiate between different things. If there's nothing to differentiate, nothing to distinguish between, there's no use for a name. In all my years playing FFXI and WoW, I never once heard a player refer to the combat system as being a standard trinity. Every game used the trinity. Therefore it wasn't the trinity; it was just MMO combat.
There are two main observations I would make. The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI). The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity.
You really should have browsed the older posts. The term has been in use long before the GW2 marketing machine started up -- the earliest that everyone in this thread seems to agree on was 1999 (Everquest). The first time I personally heard it was in 2002, when I started playing Dark Age of Camelot.
Actually, the "Holy Trinity" has been around for some time. I remember the term flying around in Everquest. Many games have tried to move away from it, but mostly they failed. GW2 is the first successful attempt to do so (out of the MMOs I've played)
Raquelis in various games Played: Everything Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6 Wants: The World Anticipating:Everquest NextCrowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Maybe no aggro mechanics as such, but there definitely was screening tactics. Classic 10 foot wide corridor, 2-3 heavy armor wearers shoulder to shoulder, and behind them the people with spears, bows, casters and healers. We did that 35+ years ago when dwarf and elf were classes not races, just a variant of battlefield tactics.
Not arguing any of those points -- a lot of people did what you're describing. But a guy in armor up front does not a trinity make.
The reason this thread is 8 pages long is that no one has bothered to define the "Holy Trinity." If there aren't any objections, let me take a stab:
Tank /taNGk/ (noun): a heavilly armored character who hits like 9 year-old girl with rickets, but somehow manages to compel violence against themself through some variant of the Jedi Mind Trick.
Damage /deePEEess/ (noun): a character who can rain death upon selected targets, but somehow manages not to be noticed by the same. Should those enemies so much as glower in their direction, they explode.
Healer /HEELehr/ (noun): a character who sits around waiting for little green bars to shrink, so they can waggle their fingers and re-embiggen them; serves a secondary function as the target of scorn should either the DPS or Tank die; will also explode if glowered upon.
Compare that to D&D:
The armored characters did damage. Lots of it. They usually did this by sticking enemies with pointy things, which meant they had to stand close to the orcs. Therefore, armor. Some of them could cast healing spells though -- the trade off being that they were not allowed pointy things, and had to beat enemies over the head with blunt instruments. Healing spells were limited in number and were typically saved for emergencies or for after combat.
The cool kids wore leather jackets. Since leather jackets are bad at repelling axe blows, the cool kids had to hide whenever there was a fight. Sometimes, they managed to sneak close enough to stick something pointy into the bad guy. This rarely made any difference to the outcome of the conflict. No one laughed at them, though, because they were the only ones who could open the treasure chest after the fight, usually while the armored guys were casting healing spells/getting healed.
Other guys got to use magic to set the bad guys on fire from across the room. Sometimes they also set the armored characters on fire. They could do this once or twice per fight. Distance was their main form of defense, but they could also defend themselves by putting enemies to sleep, turning them into chickens, or cowering in a corner. They were not cool enough to wear leather jackets, so they just wore bathrobes.
As you can see, this is not the same thing as the "Holy Trinity" found in modern MMO games. Yes, there are three items on each list, but they aren't the same three things. I had a great uncle with three nipples, and they weren't an early form of the "Holy Trinity" either.
I hope this clears everything up.
I feel like a great many arguments ignite on these forums because different posters operate under different definitions of key terms. 8 pages are often spent on nothing other than finally identifying where the core disagreement lies. And it's almost always on a simple definition. It can be incredibly frustrating, but it's an inescapable part of communicating through language.
That said, I have no role in the DnD debate, as I never got to play much of it. But I would like to amend your role definitions, as entertaining as yours are. Here are my much simpler takes on the 3 classic combat roles:
Tank - the act of building defensively and intentionally and (somewhat) reliably taking hits.
Damage - the removal of health.
Healing - the restoration of health.
As I mentioned in my post above, damage and healing are present in nearly every single RPG ever. There are a very few games that don't allow healing, but instead have you manage your damage intake by spreading it out across your party's hit points, but those were in the extreme minority. I think damage and healing can safely be called staples of RPGs, inherent and necessary components to the part of the game we call combat. I think tanking is the added element that makes the thing we've come to call "the trinity" what it is. Also as I said in my above post, I never encountered the term "tanking" until I played my first MMO (FFXI). But once I knew of the term, I saw how I could go back to many old RPGs and effectively have a character tank. I also explained how I never heard of the term "trinity," and I believe we never really had a use for the term, until an MMO came along that tried to explicitly deviate from what had become the MMO combat standard (damage, healing--the givens--and tanking).
I agree that there are 2 primary components to tanking: being defensive enough to absorb blows and being able to somehow force enemies to attack that defensive character. If whatever you're debating doesn't feature tanking (by this definition, if all parties involve agree upon this definition), then it doesn't have "the trinity" (if all parties agree that the trinity is comprised of these 3 roles.)
I would also like to amend your implication that tanks cannot deal substantial damage, or that damage dealers cannot take any damage at all. I don't think anyone could argue that WoW's combat is not a quintessential example of the trinity, and yet tanks in WoW can do obscene amounts of damage, and non-tanks can usually do something to mitigate several blows if the need arises.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
There are two main observations I would make. The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI). The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity.
You really should have browsed the older posts. The term has been in use long before the GW2 marketing machine started up -- the earliest that everyone in this thread seems to agree on was 1999 (Everquest). The first time I personally heard it was in 2002, when I started playing Dark Age of Camelot.
Well I did try to make the stipulation that those were MY first exposures to those terms, and that there very well may have been--indeed it was very well likely--that those terms were used before I first heard it. (It would be quite arrogant of me to presume with certainty that I was around for the very first use of the term.) I also included the stipulation that I hadn't read the whole thread for this very reason. And I hadn't read the whole thread because I'm at work and don't have time at the moment, in case that was your next suggestion.
GW2 or no GW2, I believe it remains true that the term has no practical use whatsoever if it doesn't differentiate from a different type of MMO combat. The point was less about GW2 and more about whatever the first MMO to attempt to try non tank/healer/dps combat was.
Well I did try to make the stipulation that those were MY first exposures to those terms, and that there very well may have been--indeed it was very well likely--that those terms were used before I first heard it. (It would be quite arrogant of me to presume with certainty that I was around for the very first use of the term.) I also included the stipulation that I hadn't read the whole thread for this very reason. And I hadn't read the whole thread because I'm at work and don't have time at the moment, in case that was your next suggestion.
Fair enough.
Originally posted by Homitu
I would also like to amend your implication that tanks cannot deal substantial damage, or that damage dealers cannot take any damage at all. I don't think anyone could argue that WoW's combat is not a quintessential example of the trinity, and yet tanks in WoW can do obscene amounts of damage, and non-tanks can usually do something to mitigate several blows if the need arises.
I think we must have played WoW at different times. When I was raiding most heavilly (circa Burning Crusade), the tanks did next to no damage and the DPS was dead in one shot. It was so extreme, someone had to invent the threat meter.
I would also like to amend your implication that tanks cannot deal substantial damage, or that damage dealers cannot take any damage at all. I don't think anyone could argue that WoW's combat is not a quintessential example of the trinity, and yet tanks in WoW can do obscene amounts of damage, and non-tanks can usually do something to mitigate several blows if the need arises.
I think we must have played WoW at different times. When I was raiding most heavilly (circa Burning Crusade), the tanks did next to no damage and the DPS was dead in one shot. It was so extreme, someone had to invent the threat meter.
No we played at the same time. My raiding glory days in WoW were from vanilla through BC, then to a lesser extent in Wrath of the Lich King. I haven't played since then. But from watching the occasional stream and also from experience in WotlK, I can say with utmost confidence that tanks presently deal tons of damage, particularly concerning AoE pulls (which is pretty much all that exists anymore.) At some point going into WotlK, Blizzard decided that the primary means by which tanks will generate threat would be through dealing damage (Ie. no longer through stacking sunders and such). I think they felt players who were "forced" into the tank role didn't enjoy it as much as they could have because they were putting out much smaller numbers, and so made the change.
But none of that really matters. The point is that tanks in WoW (and many others games) DO deal damage, and quite significantly. The main point I was eventually approaching is that I think the definitions of those roles are (or should be) almost entirely about what they can do and not what they cannot do. A tank can take hits and force enemies to attack him. I don't think it has to necessarily be so that they therefore cannot deal damage or heal at all. Even in FFXI, my first MMO, paladins were tanks who largely generate threat through healing.
This has been a very interesting year in MMOs. Bioware attempted to bring the RPG back into the genre with story....
Except that story has little to do with RPG, and the story actually hindered this. You arent playing your role, you are playing the role someone determined for you.
You want to bring back the RPG, look to EQ and SWG (among other old school games). These games didnt start with saving the world, they started with just inhabiting the world and making your way in it best you could.
Yeah thats the problem right there. Everyone is now a superhuman hero in every MMO. Back in EQ and early EQ2 you needed a group to accomplish anything at the right level. You were pretty much less powerful than anything you encountered, but you overcame them by teamwork. That was the core of a MMO, and is what has been forgotten in catering to the non-socials.
Maybe no aggro mechanics as such, but there definitely was screening tactics. Classic 10 foot wide corridor, 2-3 heavy armor wearers shoulder to shoulder, and behind them the people with spears, bows, casters and healers. We did that 35+ years ago when dwarf and elf were classes not races, just a variant of battlefield tactics.
Not arguing any of those points -- a lot of people did what you're describing. But a guy in armor up front does not a trinity make.
The reason this thread is 8 pages long is that no one has bothered to define the "Holy Trinity." If there aren't any objections, let me take a stab:
Tank /taNGk/ (noun): a heavilly armored character who hits like 9 year-old girl with rickets, but somehow manages to compel violence against themself through some variant of the Jedi Mind Trick.
Damage /deePEEess/ (noun): a character who can rain death upon selected targets, but somehow manages not to be noticed by the same. Should those enemies so much as glower in their direction, they explode.
Healer /HEELehr/ (noun): a character who sits around waiting for little green bars to shrink, so they can waggle their fingers and re-embiggen them; serves a secondary function as the target of scorn should either the DPS or Tank die; will also explode if glowered upon.
Compare that to D&D:
The armored characters did damage. Lots of it. They usually did this by sticking enemies with pointy things, which meant they had to stand close to the orcs. Therefore, armor. Some of them could cast healing spells though -- the trade off being that they were not allowed pointy things, and had to beat enemies over the head with blunt instruments. Healing spells were limited in number and were typically saved for emergencies or for after combat.
The cool kids wore leather jackets. Since leather jackets are bad at repelling axe blows, the cool kids had to hide whenever there was a fight. Sometimes, they managed to sneak close enough to stick something pointy into the bad guy. This rarely made any difference to the outcome of the conflict. No one laughed at them, though, because they were the only ones who could open the treasure chest after the fight, usually while the armored guys were casting healing spells/getting healed.
Other guys got to use magic to set the bad guys on fire from across the room. Sometimes they also set the armored characters on fire. They could do this once or twice per fight. Distance was their main form of defense, but they could also defend themselves by putting enemies to sleep, turning them into chickens, or cowering in a corner. They were not cool enough to wear leather jackets, so they just wore bathrobes.
As you can see, this is not the same thing as the "Holy Trinity" found in modern MMO games. Yes, there are three items on each list, but they aren't the same three things. I had a great uncle with three nipples, and they weren't an early form of the "Holy Trinity" either.
I hope this clears everything up.
You sir, have hit the nail right on the head. Very eloquently put what I was trying to say earlier.
In DnD, they werent wearing plate because they were there to soak up damage for the rest of the group. They were wearing plate because it was part of how the class functioned. They were close melee warriors, they needed more melee protection because they were in range of it. Leather wearers got around that by being sneaky, and plate would impare the stealth or dextrous attributes of those classes. Cloth wearers had to wear cloth so that it didnt impact on their magic, but they had the advantage of distance. Each character was balanced around their own survival. So to be honest, GW2 is the closest we have had to DnD from a MMO. It was about team work, not trinity.
That being said, I dont mind a trinity as long as the fights are well scripted. Also my partner refuses to play any games which dont have healers hahaha.
Maybe no aggro mechanics as such, but there definitely was screening tactics. Classic 10 foot wide corridor, 2-3 heavy armor wearers shoulder to shoulder, and behind them the people with spears, bows, casters and healers. We did that 35+ years ago when dwarf and elf were classes not races, just a variant of battlefield tactics.
Not arguing any of those points -- a lot of people did what you're describing. But a guy in armor up front does not a trinity make.
The reason this thread is 8 pages long is that no one has bothered to define the "Holy Trinity." If there aren't any objections, let me take a stab:
Tank /taNGk/ (noun): a heavilly armored character who hits like 9 year-old girl with rickets, but somehow manages to compel violence against themself through some variant of the Jedi Mind Trick.
Damage /deePEEess/ (noun): a character who can rain death upon selected targets, but somehow manages not to be noticed by the same. Should those enemies so much as glower in their direction, they explode.
Healer /HEELehr/ (noun): a character who sits around waiting for little green bars to shrink, so they can waggle their fingers and re-embiggen them; serves a secondary function as the target of scorn should either the DPS or Tank die; will also explode if glowered upon.
The "Holy Trinity" as you describe it is the trinity, and waynejr2 linked to a description of it:
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
I t was different in D&D vs AD&D too. (yes I go back to the D&D pamphlet with the "Chainmail" book).
Groups played differently too but there was a trinity of sorts - quite different than what you see in games.
Fighter, Magic-user, Thief. A thief wasn't so optional in our dungeons. Lots of traps, secret doors and such that had to be found. Someone who could buy & sell some things that others couldn't -- it was a team effort.
Magic-Users - some healing but when folks didn't want to play a priest type role, we'd make sure we had enough potions and how one memorized spells, cast them and regained the use of them -- memorization and resting was involved vs a brief wait.
Items were of great importance to magic users - wands, staves, etc. They could use them, most others couldn't and they allowed them to cast spells without the need to rememorize and rest.
Thief abilities were, again, very important - nothing like MMO classes these days. Each dungeon we used and built had traps and secret doors in them that had to be found and these guys were the ones that did that stuff.
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With AD&D it was changed around a bit and a lot of things adjusted from the old "dungeon crawler" days of mostly combat types.
Magic users were diversified more and split up, archers became more powerful, etc. Old D&D days, a bowman vs a wizard was scortched meat. Vs a warrior? Ground meat. The bow as more "value add" back in D&D than the ultra-powerful tool it became in MMO's.
Some things got better, some worse. Most things simply changed and a different layout came to be. The MMO trinity of tank, DPS & Healer took off.
It took a while for me to figure out why and how one of the most essential roles in old D&D days ended up as a 'trash" role -- the thief.
That happened because finding traps = pain in the butt and slows movement. Finding secret doors - again, pain in the butt and slowed movement. As such, they pretty much gutted one of the more crucial roles of the old game. It was a very important thing to be able to do back then.
It took a while for me to figure out why and how one of the most essential roles in old D&D days ended up as a 'trash" role -- the thief.
That happened because finding traps = pain in the butt and slows movement. Finding secret doors - again, pain in the butt and slowed movement. As such, they pretty much gutted one of the more crucial roles of the old game. It was a very important thing to be able to do back then.
It was also because a lot of the older skills don't work well with the standard loot system of today's MMOs. Item ID, value assessment, trapped chests, cursed items... hard to find these things in many MMOs anymore. Outside of Wizardry Online, I don't know of many MMOs that have features like that anymore. There's no reason to have party members that contribute to anything but the combat aspect.
Deep sea fishing in UO is a great example of the usefulness of a mixed party. While one person can do it all himself, it's helpful to have a navigator/captain, a GM fisherman, a good mage and a few archers. If you pull up a high level treasure map, tackling that map and finding the treasure would require a cartographer, a decent lockpicker that can also detect/disarm traps, and several combat folks.
Most MMOs have reduced the entire game to combat, specifically combat made to accommodate a certain size group, so exploration and utility roles have long since disappeared.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The first I ever heard of the phrase "holy trinity" referred to Everquest; and it wasn't Tank/Healer/DPS... It was Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter, specifically. People would say you need the holy trinity before filling the rest of the group; and in most max level dungeons, it was true.
Though I don't believe the phrase existed prior to that, the concept of tanking healing and support or dps existed in early Final Fantasy games, as well.
I also think people need to understand that spellcasting was a very scarce resource in AD&D. Because the system used Vancian magic (you forget or lose the spell once it is cast), the group really had to manage their big spells because you couldn't just camp and relearn them by resting/praying/studying anywhere you wanted. There was no such thing as mana.
Heals weren't done much in combat, so I'm surprised so many old PnP posters state otherwise. They were done if party members were in trouble. Heck, I played a cleric a lot and most of the time I was wading into the front with my mace and shield and occasionally tossing a heal spell if someone was about to die. Heals usually came AFTER the battle and even then used sparingly.
I remember so many times when our group was dungeon crawling with half HP because we knew we had to save our critical spells for the major monsters (and how so much more exciting it was). Most of the time, it was pure physical fighting because swords didn't cost the party any resources. Magic users held back with their spells. They didn't go around tossing fireballs left and right. They saved them for key moments.
If you look at old modules you will see that a lot of treasure had healing potions and scrolls of spells. Using items allowed the group to venture forward without using memorized spells. Heck, there were items solely for the purpose of healing or buffing or casting fireballs.
MMOs really brought healing into the forefront. Tanks are expected to take damage. In D&D armor didn't reduce damage, it prevented it. And even mages could prevent damage with spells like stoneskin during emergencies. Everyone was capable of handling monsters by themselves if necessary. That's why the trinity wasn't needed. A group of all fighters could go dungeon crawling with enough healing potions and equipment. Tactics and resource management played a significant role in PnP.
I just wish MMOs could do the same but sadly it seems the trinity is ingrained in the genre right now.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
In classic PnP, there's tons of overlap. In MMOs, classes are pigeonholed into very specific roles and are unable to deviate from it. A tank is expected to tank and tank only. A healer is to heal. DPS does DPS. That's not how PnP characters played. They were much more flexible and switch roles when necessary.
In WoW a warrior can DPS but they give up the right to tank. A priest can DPS but can't really heal in a group setting. MMOs restrict roles to severely and as a result we got the trinity.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
In classic PnP, there's tons of overlap. In MMOs, classes are pigeonholed into very specific roles and are unable to deviate from it. A tank is expected to tank and tank only. A healer is to heal. DPS does DPS. That's not how PnP characters played. They were much more flexible and switch roles when necessary.
In WoW a warrior can DPS but they give up the right to tank. A priest can DPS but can't really heal in a group setting. MMOs restrict roles to severely and as a result we got the trinity.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. I'd argue that there is significant overlap of these 3 roles in MMOs too. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but tanks in many MMOs (cited modern WoW) do significant damage. Then there's the classic Final Fantasy XI paladin, which generates aggro by healing so that it can tank. There are classes in Rift that need to deal damage in order to power up their heals. And so on and so on. So there's obvious overlap in MMOs too, which was the whole reason I wrote the part you quoted.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
In classic PnP, there's tons of overlap. In MMOs, classes are pigeonholed into very specific roles and are unable to deviate from it. A tank is expected to tank and tank only. A healer is to heal. DPS does DPS. That's not how PnP characters played. They were much more flexible and switch roles when necessary.
In WoW a warrior can DPS but they give up the right to tank. A priest can DPS but can't really heal in a group setting. MMOs restrict roles to severely and as a result we got the trinity.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. I'd argue that there is significant overlap of these 3 roles in MMOs too. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but tanks in many MMOs (cited modern WoW) do significant damage. Then there's the classic Final Fantasy XI paladin, which generates aggro by healing so that it can tank. There are classes in Rift that need to deal damage in order to power up their heals. And so on and so on. So there's obvious overlap in MMOs too, which was the whole reason I wrote the part you quoted.
The overlap in MMOs is minor at best. Sure a tank can do damage but you must compare it to true DPS classes. Compared to a pure DPS, a tank can never put out equal damage unless the person opts to spec out of tanking and into DPS (ie WoW). Doing damage to perform skills for other roles is only a mechanic to perform their main role; they still do less damage than the ones that are grouped for DPS. The overlap is inconsequential because in the context of the game, it is just a diversion to perform their real roles. That wasn't the case in PnP.
In PnP, you could make a full group of fighters or just clerics and still dungeon crawl. Sure the fighters might have a harder time but with good tactics and good equipment they could do it. In MMOs, it is simply impossible to run any group content without a tank, healer, DPS makeup.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
In classic PnP, there's tons of overlap. In MMOs, classes are pigeonholed into very specific roles and are unable to deviate from it. A tank is expected to tank and tank only. A healer is to heal. DPS does DPS. That's not how PnP characters played. They were much more flexible and switch roles when necessary.
In WoW a warrior can DPS but they give up the right to tank. A priest can DPS but can't really heal in a group setting. MMOs restrict roles to severely and as a result we got the trinity.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. I'd argue that there is significant overlap of these 3 roles in MMOs too. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but tanks in many MMOs (cited modern WoW) do significant damage. Then there's the classic Final Fantasy XI paladin, which generates aggro by healing so that it can tank. There are classes in Rift that need to deal damage in order to power up their heals. And so on and so on. So there's obvious overlap in MMOs too, which was the whole reason I wrote the part you quoted.
The overlap in MMOs is minor at best. Sure a tank can do damage but you must compare it to true DPS classes. Compared to a pure DPS, a tank can never put out equal damage unless the person opts to spec out of tanking and into DPS (ie WoW). Doing damage to perform skills for other roles is only a mechanic to perform their main role; they still do less damage than the ones that are grouped for DPS. The overlap is inconsequential because in the context of the game, it is just a diversion to perform their real roles. That wasn't the case in PnP.
In PnP, you could make a full group of fighters or just clerics and still dungeon crawl. Sure the fighters might have a harder time but with good tactics and good equipment they could do it. In MMOs, it is simply impossible to run any group content without a tank, healer, DPS makeup.
Just curious, is this going somewhere or was that just a side comment you wanted to toss in? You don't seem to be disagreeing with anything I ever said, especially as I never made any commentary on PnP games (since I never played them myself.) In fact, you only seem to be reaffirming the definitions of tank, healer and damage dealer that I proposed. I'm just asking because your posts are presented as an objection or argument, but I can't identify a point of contention between us as we both seem to be discussing differerent aspects of different things.
Everyone hates trinity but no one is offering an alternative thought. The trinity was created to get rid of self reliance and to force peeps to play together because they would need each other to survive in battle. What made players stick together in a D&D pen-n-paper game? Maybe only that the GM wouldn't be able to keep track of them going in ten different directions?
The first I ever heard of the phrase "holy trinity" referred to Everquest; and it wasn't Tank/Healer/DPS... It was Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter, specifically. People would say you need the holy trinity before filling the rest of the group; and in most max level dungeons, it was true.
Though I don't believe the phrase existed prior to that, the concept of tanking healing and support or dps existed in early Final Fantasy games, as well.
The idea of "this class heals, this class melees and this class casts spells" is a pretty core AD&D mechanic - though as another poster mentioned, spell casting was quite limited in earlier incarnations of D&D. Ironically, AD&D implemented the "healing surge" in it's 4th edition rules, (aka MMO Rules) which was pretty blatantly ripped off by GW2 in an effort to get away from the healing class being a set requirement for groups.
Ultima 3 (1983) and Wizardry (1982) were the frist CRPG's that I know of that used the mechanic. Ultima 3 did it via positioning, similar to the Gold Box games which people may be more familiar with. Wizardry had you set your characters so that the first 3 were subject to melee attacks, and the "back row" could only be hit by some special long range attacks and area of effect spells. Both of those games had melee and caster classes.
The idea of "this class heals, this class melees and this class casts spells" is a pretty core AD&D mechanic - though as another poster mentioned, spell casting was quite limited in earlier incarnations of D&D. Ironically, AD&D implemented the "healing surge" in it's 4th edition rules, (aka MMO Rules) which was pretty blatantly ripped off by GW2 in an effort to get away from the healing class being a set requirement for groups.
Ultima 3 (1983) and Wizardry (1982) were the frist CRPG's that I know of that used the mechanic. Ultima 3 did it via positioning, similar to the Gold Box games which people may be more familiar with. Wizardry had you set your characters so that the first 3 were subject to melee attacks, and the "back row" could only be hit by some special long range attacks and area of effect spells. Both of those games had melee and caster classes.
Again, those roles have existed for as long has there has been conflict - basically since the beginning of time. The trinity in MMOs is specifically the set and system designed to counter taunt in the absence of other mechanics.
Wizardry is a perfect example - mobs targetted your front row unless they had reach to do otherwise. This is because character position is the phased-game version of CD. Without CD, taunt and aggro have been used which creates the trinity - tank (ridiculous role), dps and healer.
The trinity exists solely because of taunt and lack of CD. Remove the former and add the latter, and NO ONE would ever want a trinity tank in their party. The character class would simply be useless.
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
Just curious, is this going somewhere or was that just a side comment you wanted to toss in? You don't seem to be disagreeing with anything I ever said, especially as I never made any commentary on PnP games (since I never played them myself.) In fact, you only seem to be reaffirming the definitions of tank, healer and damage dealer that I proposed. I'm just asking because your posts are presented as an objection or argument, but I can't identify a point of contention between us as we both seem to be discussing differerent aspects of different things.
I'm disagreeing with your statement that there is overlap between roles in MMOs. Roles in MMOs are strictly defined especially compared to PnP and once you are designated a role in a group, you cannot perform other roles efficiently or effectively. I bring up PnP because the thread involves the discussion of PnP which was the framework that MMOs evolved from.
I also want to mention I am in no way singling you out. I tend to reply to posts that catch my eye here.
Originally posted by Rhazmuz Only thing I know is that if GW2 represents the "alternative" to this trinity, I will take the trinity any day, any time.
I think the only way to remove trinity in MMOs is to have collision detection. It would have to be modified in some fashion as CD can lead to griefing if exploited but it is necessary if devs want to remove taunting from the game mechanic.
I would even suggest limiting or removing healing during combat. That way the front line fighters wouldn't just be meat shields. They would have to dish out heavy damage like everyone else. Healing could be done out of combat. It certainly would create a whole different tactical strategy. This is of course off the top of my head. I'm sure there may be lots of problems with this type of mechanic.
Comments
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Without sifting through this entire thread, I'll first post my own initial response.
There are two main observations I would make. The first is that the concept of "tank" didn't really emerge for me until I played my first MMO (Final Fantasy XI). The second is that the term "Trinity" didn't seem to emerge until a game (namely GW2) attempted to make an MMO that explicitly did not have the standard tank/heal/dps trinity.
Concerning my first observation, I definitely never encountered the term "tank" until I began playing MMOs. However, after being exposed to the system, I began to see how the concept could be applied to older RPGs. I would now play Final Fantasy 7, for example, by giving one party member the cover materia, very little magic, high evasion and as much HP as possible. Voila! A tank! And of course healing magic, potions and damage dealing abilities (or more simply put, stuff that removes and restores hit points)have always been staples of RPGs. So it would seem to me that the only unique concept out of the 3 is the tank, which requires some way of forcing enemies to somewhat reliably attack defensive-oriented characters while leaving defensively weaker characters alone. In MMOs, this has been called "aggro."
Concerning my second observation, prior to a game trying to explicitly deviate from "the trinity", players had no reason to give a name to the tank/heal/damage trio. Names are only given to differentiate between different things. If there's nothing to differentiate, nothing to distinguish between, there's no use for a name. In all my years playing FFXI and WoW, I never once heard a player refer to the combat system as being a standard trinity. Every game used the trinity. Therefore it wasn't the trinity; it was just MMO combat.
You really should have browsed the older posts. The term has been in use long before the GW2 marketing machine started up -- the earliest that everyone in this thread seems to agree on was 1999 (Everquest). The first time I personally heard it was in 2002, when I started playing Dark Age of Camelot.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
I feel like a great many arguments ignite on these forums because different posters operate under different definitions of key terms. 8 pages are often spent on nothing other than finally identifying where the core disagreement lies. And it's almost always on a simple definition. It can be incredibly frustrating, but it's an inescapable part of communicating through language.
That said, I have no role in the DnD debate, as I never got to play much of it. But I would like to amend your role definitions, as entertaining as yours are. Here are my much simpler takes on the 3 classic combat roles:
Tank - the act of building defensively and intentionally and (somewhat) reliably taking hits.
Damage - the removal of health.
Healing - the restoration of health.
As I mentioned in my post above, damage and healing are present in nearly every single RPG ever. There are a very few games that don't allow healing, but instead have you manage your damage intake by spreading it out across your party's hit points, but those were in the extreme minority. I think damage and healing can safely be called staples of RPGs, inherent and necessary components to the part of the game we call combat. I think tanking is the added element that makes the thing we've come to call "the trinity" what it is. Also as I said in my above post, I never encountered the term "tanking" until I played my first MMO (FFXI). But once I knew of the term, I saw how I could go back to many old RPGs and effectively have a character tank. I also explained how I never heard of the term "trinity," and I believe we never really had a use for the term, until an MMO came along that tried to explicitly deviate from what had become the MMO combat standard (damage, healing--the givens--and tanking).
I agree that there are 2 primary components to tanking: being defensive enough to absorb blows and being able to somehow force enemies to attack that defensive character. If whatever you're debating doesn't feature tanking (by this definition, if all parties involve agree upon this definition), then it doesn't have "the trinity" (if all parties agree that the trinity is comprised of these 3 roles.)
I would also like to amend your implication that tanks cannot deal substantial damage, or that damage dealers cannot take any damage at all. I don't think anyone could argue that WoW's combat is not a quintessential example of the trinity, and yet tanks in WoW can do obscene amounts of damage, and non-tanks can usually do something to mitigate several blows if the need arises.
So, in the simplest forms, I would contest that tanking, healing and damage dealing are only defined by what the can do, not necessarily what they cannot do. That is, there can be some overlap in their roles.
Well I did try to make the stipulation that those were MY first exposures to those terms, and that there very well may have been--indeed it was very well likely--that those terms were used before I first heard it. (It would be quite arrogant of me to presume with certainty that I was around for the very first use of the term.) I also included the stipulation that I hadn't read the whole thread for this very reason. And I hadn't read the whole thread because I'm at work and don't have time at the moment, in case that was your next suggestion.
GW2 or no GW2, I believe it remains true that the term has no practical use whatsoever if it doesn't differentiate from a different type of MMO combat. The point was less about GW2 and more about whatever the first MMO to attempt to try non tank/healer/dps combat was.
Fair enough.
I think we must have played WoW at different times. When I was raiding most heavilly (circa Burning Crusade), the tanks did next to no damage and the DPS was dead in one shot. It was so extreme, someone had to invent the threat meter.
No we played at the same time. My raiding glory days in WoW were from vanilla through BC, then to a lesser extent in Wrath of the Lich King. I haven't played since then. But from watching the occasional stream and also from experience in WotlK, I can say with utmost confidence that tanks presently deal tons of damage, particularly concerning AoE pulls (which is pretty much all that exists anymore.) At some point going into WotlK, Blizzard decided that the primary means by which tanks will generate threat would be through dealing damage (Ie. no longer through stacking sunders and such). I think they felt players who were "forced" into the tank role didn't enjoy it as much as they could have because they were putting out much smaller numbers, and so made the change.
But none of that really matters. The point is that tanks in WoW (and many others games) DO deal damage, and quite significantly. The main point I was eventually approaching is that I think the definitions of those roles are (or should be) almost entirely about what they can do and not what they cannot do. A tank can take hits and force enemies to attack him. I don't think it has to necessarily be so that they therefore cannot deal damage or heal at all. Even in FFXI, my first MMO, paladins were tanks who largely generate threat through healing.
Yeah thats the problem right there. Everyone is now a superhuman hero in every MMO. Back in EQ and early EQ2 you needed a group to accomplish anything at the right level. You were pretty much less powerful than anything you encountered, but you overcame them by teamwork. That was the core of a MMO, and is what has been forgotten in catering to the non-socials.
You sir, have hit the nail right on the head. Very eloquently put what I was trying to say earlier.
In DnD, they werent wearing plate because they were there to soak up damage for the rest of the group. They were wearing plate because it was part of how the class functioned. They were close melee warriors, they needed more melee protection because they were in range of it. Leather wearers got around that by being sneaky, and plate would impare the stealth or dextrous attributes of those classes. Cloth wearers had to wear cloth so that it didnt impact on their magic, but they had the advantage of distance. Each character was balanced around their own survival. So to be honest, GW2 is the closest we have had to DnD from a MMO. It was about team work, not trinity.
That being said, I dont mind a trinity as long as the fights are well scripted. Also my partner refuses to play any games which dont have healers hahaha.
The "Holy Trinity" as you describe it is the trinity, and waynejr2 linked to a description of it:
http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2010/QBlog190810A.html
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
I t was different in D&D vs AD&D too. (yes I go back to the D&D pamphlet with the "Chainmail" book).
Groups played differently too but there was a trinity of sorts - quite different than what you see in games.
Fighter, Magic-user, Thief. A thief wasn't so optional in our dungeons. Lots of traps, secret doors and such that had to be found. Someone who could buy & sell some things that others couldn't -- it was a team effort.
Magic-Users - some healing but when folks didn't want to play a priest type role, we'd make sure we had enough potions and how one memorized spells, cast them and regained the use of them -- memorization and resting was involved vs a brief wait.
Items were of great importance to magic users - wands, staves, etc. They could use them, most others couldn't and they allowed them to cast spells without the need to rememorize and rest.
Thief abilities were, again, very important - nothing like MMO classes these days. Each dungeon we used and built had traps and secret doors in them that had to be found and these guys were the ones that did that stuff.
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With AD&D it was changed around a bit and a lot of things adjusted from the old "dungeon crawler" days of mostly combat types.
Magic users were diversified more and split up, archers became more powerful, etc. Old D&D days, a bowman vs a wizard was scortched meat. Vs a warrior? Ground meat. The bow as more "value add" back in D&D than the ultra-powerful tool it became in MMO's.
Some things got better, some worse. Most things simply changed and a different layout came to be. The MMO trinity of tank, DPS & Healer took off.
It took a while for me to figure out why and how one of the most essential roles in old D&D days ended up as a 'trash" role -- the thief.
That happened because finding traps = pain in the butt and slows movement. Finding secret doors - again, pain in the butt and slowed movement. As such, they pretty much gutted one of the more crucial roles of the old game. It was a very important thing to be able to do back then.
It was also because a lot of the older skills don't work well with the standard loot system of today's MMOs. Item ID, value assessment, trapped chests, cursed items... hard to find these things in many MMOs anymore. Outside of Wizardry Online, I don't know of many MMOs that have features like that anymore. There's no reason to have party members that contribute to anything but the combat aspect.
Deep sea fishing in UO is a great example of the usefulness of a mixed party. While one person can do it all himself, it's helpful to have a navigator/captain, a GM fisherman, a good mage and a few archers. If you pull up a high level treasure map, tackling that map and finding the treasure would require a cartographer, a decent lockpicker that can also detect/disarm traps, and several combat folks.
Most MMOs have reduced the entire game to combat, specifically combat made to accommodate a certain size group, so exploration and utility roles have long since disappeared.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The first I ever heard of the phrase "holy trinity" referred to Everquest; and it wasn't Tank/Healer/DPS... It was Warrior/Cleric/Enchanter, specifically. People would say you need the holy trinity before filling the rest of the group; and in most max level dungeons, it was true.
Though I don't believe the phrase existed prior to that, the concept of tanking healing and support or dps existed in early Final Fantasy games, as well.
I also think people need to understand that spellcasting was a very scarce resource in AD&D. Because the system used Vancian magic (you forget or lose the spell once it is cast), the group really had to manage their big spells because you couldn't just camp and relearn them by resting/praying/studying anywhere you wanted. There was no such thing as mana.
Heals weren't done much in combat, so I'm surprised so many old PnP posters state otherwise. They were done if party members were in trouble. Heck, I played a cleric a lot and most of the time I was wading into the front with my mace and shield and occasionally tossing a heal spell if someone was about to die. Heals usually came AFTER the battle and even then used sparingly.
I remember so many times when our group was dungeon crawling with half HP because we knew we had to save our critical spells for the major monsters (and how so much more exciting it was). Most of the time, it was pure physical fighting because swords didn't cost the party any resources. Magic users held back with their spells. They didn't go around tossing fireballs left and right. They saved them for key moments.
If you look at old modules you will see that a lot of treasure had healing potions and scrolls of spells. Using items allowed the group to venture forward without using memorized spells. Heck, there were items solely for the purpose of healing or buffing or casting fireballs.
MMOs really brought healing into the forefront. Tanks are expected to take damage. In D&D armor didn't reduce damage, it prevented it. And even mages could prevent damage with spells like stoneskin during emergencies. Everyone was capable of handling monsters by themselves if necessary. That's why the trinity wasn't needed. A group of all fighters could go dungeon crawling with enough healing potions and equipment. Tactics and resource management played a significant role in PnP.
I just wish MMOs could do the same but sadly it seems the trinity is ingrained in the genre right now.
In classic PnP, there's tons of overlap. In MMOs, classes are pigeonholed into very specific roles and are unable to deviate from it. A tank is expected to tank and tank only. A healer is to heal. DPS does DPS. That's not how PnP characters played. They were much more flexible and switch roles when necessary.
In WoW a warrior can DPS but they give up the right to tank. A priest can DPS but can't really heal in a group setting. MMOs restrict roles to severely and as a result we got the trinity.
I wouldn't necessarily say that. I'd argue that there is significant overlap of these 3 roles in MMOs too. I think I mentioned this in an earlier post, but tanks in many MMOs (cited modern WoW) do significant damage. Then there's the classic Final Fantasy XI paladin, which generates aggro by healing so that it can tank. There are classes in Rift that need to deal damage in order to power up their heals. And so on and so on. So there's obvious overlap in MMOs too, which was the whole reason I wrote the part you quoted.
The overlap in MMOs is minor at best. Sure a tank can do damage but you must compare it to true DPS classes. Compared to a pure DPS, a tank can never put out equal damage unless the person opts to spec out of tanking and into DPS (ie WoW). Doing damage to perform skills for other roles is only a mechanic to perform their main role; they still do less damage than the ones that are grouped for DPS. The overlap is inconsequential because in the context of the game, it is just a diversion to perform their real roles. That wasn't the case in PnP.
In PnP, you could make a full group of fighters or just clerics and still dungeon crawl. Sure the fighters might have a harder time but with good tactics and good equipment they could do it. In MMOs, it is simply impossible to run any group content without a tank, healer, DPS makeup.
Just curious, is this going somewhere or was that just a side comment you wanted to toss in? You don't seem to be disagreeing with anything I ever said, especially as I never made any commentary on PnP games (since I never played them myself.) In fact, you only seem to be reaffirming the definitions of tank, healer and damage dealer that I proposed. I'm just asking because your posts are presented as an objection or argument, but I can't identify a point of contention between us as we both seem to be discussing differerent aspects of different things.
The idea of "this class heals, this class melees and this class casts spells" is a pretty core AD&D mechanic - though as another poster mentioned, spell casting was quite limited in earlier incarnations of D&D. Ironically, AD&D implemented the "healing surge" in it's 4th edition rules, (aka MMO Rules) which was pretty blatantly ripped off by GW2 in an effort to get away from the healing class being a set requirement for groups.
Ultima 3 (1983) and Wizardry (1982) were the frist CRPG's that I know of that used the mechanic. Ultima 3 did it via positioning, similar to the Gold Box games which people may be more familiar with. Wizardry had you set your characters so that the first 3 were subject to melee attacks, and the "back row" could only be hit by some special long range attacks and area of effect spells. Both of those games had melee and caster classes.
Again, those roles have existed for as long has there has been conflict - basically since the beginning of time. The trinity in MMOs is specifically the set and system designed to counter taunt in the absence of other mechanics.
Wizardry is a perfect example - mobs targetted your front row unless they had reach to do otherwise. This is because character position is the phased-game version of CD. Without CD, taunt and aggro have been used which creates the trinity - tank (ridiculous role), dps and healer.
The trinity exists solely because of taunt and lack of CD. Remove the former and add the latter, and NO ONE would ever want a trinity tank in their party. The character class would simply be useless.
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
I'm disagreeing with your statement that there is overlap between roles in MMOs. Roles in MMOs are strictly defined especially compared to PnP and once you are designated a role in a group, you cannot perform other roles efficiently or effectively. I bring up PnP because the thread involves the discussion of PnP which was the framework that MMOs evolved from.
I also want to mention I am in no way singling you out. I tend to reply to posts that catch my eye here.
I think the only way to remove trinity in MMOs is to have collision detection. It would have to be modified in some fashion as CD can lead to griefing if exploited but it is necessary if devs want to remove taunting from the game mechanic.
I would even suggest limiting or removing healing during combat. That way the front line fighters wouldn't just be meat shields. They would have to dish out heavy damage like everyone else. Healing could be done out of combat. It certainly would create a whole different tactical strategy. This is of course off the top of my head. I'm sure there may be lots of problems with this type of mechanic.