I'm curious, knowing not having the combat model or the classes you enjoy why did you purchase?
Well, speculation is just that, I didn't actually know for sure how it would turn out. They might have pulled it off and revolutionized the industry. It was also one of the biggest releases of 2012 and the PvP promises were too good to pass up.
I put a good 400 hours into it and enjoyed it up until about then, it took about that long before I started to dislike the combat and repetitiveness of PvP. So yeah, in my eyes, a good buy none the less; it just didn't have the staying power I expected beyond that because of above reasons.
Well I dont know about others, but I have to actually try things before I know for sure. Im very hands on, so even if something seems like I wont like it, I have to be sure, and give the benefit of the doubt. Played it for a month, didnt like it much, and didnt grow to love it either. But I did like the "concept" of dynamic events (FFXI's Campaign system was infinitely more fun). And I am a huge fan of exploration (I played the first 2 days of Tera like normal, after which I gave up on the "gameplay" and instead spent 2 weeks exploring all maps (including under and over it, and in areas that were still under development lol)
Originally posted by Dibdabs Trinity is so stale and uninteresting.
Yes... well, God forbid an MMO is introduced after several years of the same thing that has mobs in it that have realistic aggro mechanics that don't center around one slow guy that does no damage yelling obscenities about its mother. This radical change that no one is actually forced to play is surely a sign of the end-times.
You heard it here first. Variety is the DEVIL, Bobby Bushea!!
Well if the alternative is the dance contest that is "action combat", please keep the holy trinity!!
However if we could move in a different direction that could be interesting,
Proper Collision detection to prevent "puppy piles"
space players out based on the swing of the weapon they are using (a two hander takes more room than a short sword).
Defense bonuses for having someone standing to your shield side.
Ranged classes standing at range to inflict damage and behind the "shield wall" of the mellee classes.
Removal of game mechanics that cause people to run around like headless chickens rather than standing and fighting like medievel men at arms.
Encounters with larger numbers of MOBs rather than the stupidity of named "Boss" fights where the "Boss" dies over and over again every day like a theme park event.
Yeah, Fivoroth's post confused me as well. I mean sure, roles in GW2 are less obvious, but that's the point. It is NOT all DPS. There were times in the few dungeon runs I've done where I had to stop and place protection or healing on my party or we would have had more wipes. The reason? Well, I was actually thinking for once. As a healer in WoW, or even a tank (though tanking was more fun to me.. aside from the yelling), I'd get bored. In every trinity game since WoW, I'd get bored.
Support roles are not just something ANet made up to sound trendy. You just have to know what you're doing. The great thing to me is, if you aren't needed for support at that precise moment, you can still do something else. As a healer in WoW, if no one was losing health, you were just eye candy - and after Cata, you almost didn't need healers in dungeons til level 60. I heard from a friend who quit WoW recently that things are so easy now it's not worth playing. I blame that reason on a poorly implimented trinity system... and of course, nerfs.
Yes, but the same is true in games with a Trinity.
I play a bear tank in WOW. My DPS is significant, and on many fights surpasses everyone else because I am hitting more targetst than they should be. I also have 3 or 4 different CCs that I use, some are simple knockbacks, some are interrupts, some are roots. I have buffs I cast before fights, and after fights I have a Rez. When I am being hardcore, I even have an in-battle rez.
My second character is a Discipline Priest. On almost all content, I spend about half my time DPSing which generates random heals to my party. The other part of the time I directly shield or heal my party. I also have a silence that I use regularly, a pet that I can pull out occassionally, I have a root CC against everyone and a specific long-term CC against undead.
The problem with these type of debates is people like ´a game´ more than another game, and then twist the argument to make their game sound better. Yes, if you take the most absolute most boring gamestyle of a healer ( just casting one spell to heal one person) it is boring as heck, and then in favor of your game, you give this elaborate description of how a non-trinity character can do a million things to save the day... of course your game sounds better. But trinity roles are not as boring as you make them out to be, and conversely, many players (as evidence in this thread) only play GW2 as basically a straight DPS without really doing much else.
My argument in favor of trinity games is just in the mechanisms of boss fights. Devs can be a lot more creative with a trinity setup. Players in WOW are getting to experience non-trinity type grouping with the new Scenerios... and while they are fun to zerg through, there can be no type of ´boss´encounter that requires very much coordination.
_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.
_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!
_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.
_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.
_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.
In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.
I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together. What do you prefer to hear :
Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"
or :
Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."
_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.
_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!
_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.
_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.
_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.
In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.
I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together. What do you prefer to hear :
Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"
or :
Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."
?
very much agreed nice post.. healer in PVP can be a mess at times as well.. in Rift they had such a hard time balancing heals in PVP it ends up being whoever had more healers won most every time. But again having classes with non set roles is another good way to go ala Rift then at least you open yourself up to a lot more options has multiple classes can tank or heal.. But others games that lock you into a single role for that character then it really becomes an issue with trying to find tanks and healers
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The thing is, I kind of like the trinity but I think a "softer" trinity is needed.
I don't really believe in the whole "use a skill and you have threat all of a sudden, especially stacking every piece of threat gear imaginable. Threat should be real.
What ends up happening is that any tank worth his salt will maximize this and the entire encounter just ends up being him absorbing/blocking damage and everyone else burning down the boss. That's pretty boring.
I like how tera does it in that the tank can stun and pull a boss and that you have to actively manage blocking and your resources. Still, there is a hate mechanic there but I can get between a boss and his target and stop him in his tracks with a large hit or a pull. but again, this is the direction I think it should go, Tera's system isn't perfect.
Perhaps allowing squishier opponents such as mages and clerics to activate shields when they have the enemy's attention but maybe then disallowing them to use their skills when they do this.
Allow warriors to position themselves between the enemy and the warrior's allies.
Making healing and buffiing active. Again, I kind of like the direction that tera goes with this.
And of course make it so that players who don't have a tank or healer or many damage dealers can still do things, but with greater difficulty or perhaps smarter playing.
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The only real situations where the Holy Trinity is useful is in "End Game Content" for games. Before then, it's generally something you don't want to fit in. Tanks, Healers and DPS should be all playable from every class in the pre-"End Game Content" material. You can't heal those rats to death for quests nor can you heal enemies to death. You can't DPS yourself back to life nor can you DPS a mob into dealing less damage to you. You can't aggro yourself back to life nor can you taunt a mob to death. You have to have elements of every piece of the trinity in order to play successfully into the "End Game Content".
I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift. I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough. I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
Holy trinity is a game developers' conveniance, developed when internet speeds were serious issues. Collision detection was hard, so a simple workaround developed.
You might like it, you might not.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Maybe something better than the trinity will come out in the future, but GW2 wasn't it. The lack of class identity was a huge turn-off for me. Also, I'm not a fan of the action-y direction new MMOs are heading in. Strategic combat, please.
Holy trinity is a game developers' conveniance, developed when internet speeds were serious issues. Collision detection was hard, so a simple workaround developed.
You might like it, you might not.
Well, the first MMO I played had collision detection and did not have the trinity (UO). Not sure what the two have to do with one another...
I've never understood why trinity and classes are linked. I think that's the major issue. If all classes have the ability to perform all roles then you certainly would have more choice. I know there are mage archtype players that wouldnt mind tanking, but they cant because the game is designed against it. And yet, in high fantasy it is OBVIOUSLY possible for a mage to manifest layer upon layer of arcane protection becoming at times more untouchable than even a fighter (thinking back to ad&d here).
Let all classes do all roles ( or at least expand a bunch) and i think alot of LFHealer/tank issues get resolved. No reason a tank fighter cant exist in the same game as tank rogue/mage/cleric, etc. Rift gets close for sure, though still applies unnecessary restrictions.
I dont know if trinity is the best system, but it seems fairly simple to make it better.
Get rid of classes all together. Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want. Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.
GW2 went half way. Someone else needs to bring it full circle.
What we have in GW2 is kinda meh PvE wise. In GW2 you have no roles.
what are you talking about? and if you are just running around a dungeon doing dps and nothing else i bet you guys are wiping a lot or people are getting angry with you.. or you are just grouping with some people that really know how to play gw2 roles well.. also no healing at all in any form? have you really not played the game at all and are making blind assumptions based on a very limited amount of play?
And what exactly are the roles in GW 2? And dont say support because there is no class which can do full support, you still need to do a lot of DPS inbetween the cooldowns.
In GW 2 you have to take turns doing support and most of the time you just do DPS DPS DPS. Boring.
Well someone argued just above that DPS in most MMO's can CC... does that mean there are no classes that are full DPS in those games? Your argument is based on your opinion which is great, but I don't think you're looking at the whole picture. Even a priest in WoW can dps with offensive spells on the disc tree, does that mean they're not full healer classes? Your logic is off. I've played a support role in GW2.
Now what?
You are twisting my argument. I am saying that classes which cannot consistently do something, such as healing or CC, cannot claim to fill that role properly. Classes in GW 2 cannot consistently do anything but DPS so they are all, more or less, DPS with a bit of support/healing/CC thrown in.
Great if you like DPSing, not so much if you dont (and I dont).
_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.
_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!
_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.
_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.
_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.
In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.
I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together. What do you prefer to hear :
Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"
or :
Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."
?
And that really is the beauty of the Trinity.. the devs can always throw in 1 of 20 bosses that has a special flavor like Galaron or the others you mentioned. But even with Galaron, yes, the tanks are not holding aggro, but you still need them to be ´tanks´ in that they have to absorb the big hits in front of the boss.
And I am not sure what world you are living in if you think you can do current heroic dungeons without a tank. Maybe if you outlevel them, but nobody is going to clear even the 5 month old heroics we have now without being in a tank spec and healing spec. It maybe doable with a group with a lot of Blood dks, but it certainly wouldn´t be faster.
As far as PVP and Questing... wow, good thing we have duel specs, huh? But even then, questing in tank specs is actually faster for some people, I know a lot of people prefer Blood or Bear for instance.
And your last comment is a joke about UO and EVE.. UO and EVE really have no group content, and certainly no ´boss´ fights. But again, that really is what it comes down to. If you want vibrant and interesting boss fights, you need the trinity. If all you want is diablo-style dungeons, you don´t need it. Two completely different gamestyles, take what you like and play it, one is not right or wrong. I personally prefer having the memorable, and very different boss fights.
Get rid of classes all together. Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want. Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.
GW2 went half way. Someone else needs to bring it full circle.
Darkfall. In that game you used to be able to be Master of All. It was considered boring as everyone could do everything, hence why they are rehauling it now.
AC 1 had a better approach. There you had a set number of skill points and you could then build whatever character you wanted but since there was a limit on skill points, you could not be Master of All.
So it has been done but for some reason class based MMO's are dominating and have been since the rise of EQ 1. Probably such a system is much easier for the devs. to balance.
Holy trinity is a game developers' conveniance, developed when internet speeds were serious issues. Collision detection was hard, so a simple workaround developed.
You might like it, you might not.
Well, the first MMO I played had collision detection and did not have the trinity (UO). Not sure what the two have to do with one another...
I found his comment funny also. I played UO back on a 28.8k modem. Mobs either had AI where they would chase the person who hit them last, so two ranged classes could play ´monkey in the middle´ with mob or else the mob always chased the person who hit them first, which meant everyone stood in the middle while one person ran in a big circle around them.
i dont want trinity back. But of course what GW2 did can always be improved upon without forcing trinity on classes.
Im currently playing Tera and i havent given up on their heavy trinity because i love the graphics (not enough to stay long here) so im playing some pve only content here as strictly dps for a while. I cant really stand heavy trinity imposed to players anymore.
Whatever class i choose, i want to be able to hybridize it or i wont last long in that game.
What we have in GW2 is kinda meh PvE wise. In GW2 you have no roles.
what are you talking about? and if you are just running around a dungeon doing dps and nothing else i bet you guys are wiping a lot or people are getting angry with you.. or you are just grouping with some people that really know how to play gw2 roles well.. also no healing at all in any form? have you really not played the game at all and are making blind assumptions based on a very limited amount of play?
And what exactly are the roles in GW 2? And dont say support because there is no class which can do full support, you still need to do a lot of DPS inbetween the cooldowns.
In GW 2 you have to take turns doing support and most of the time you just do DPS DPS DPS. Boring.
Well someone argued just above that DPS in most MMO's can CC... does that mean there are no classes that are full DPS in those games? Your argument is based on your opinion which is great, but I don't think you're looking at the whole picture. Even a priest in WoW can dps with offensive spells on the disc tree, does that mean they're not full healer classes? Your logic is off. I've played a support role in GW2.
Now what?
You are twisting my argument. I am saying that classes which cannot consistently do something, such as healing or CC, cannot claim to fill that role properly. Classes in GW 2 cannot consistently do anything but DPS so they are all, more or less, DPS with a bit of support/healing/CC thrown in.
Great if you like DPSing, not so much if you dont (and I dont).
you have some options to play almost full support in gw2 some classes have more options for it than others ie guardian and ele but doesn't mean it can't be done.. but gw2 combat was made for everyone to play all the roles at any given time and up to the players to be able to adapt to that.. just seems some don't seem to be able to do that or some just need that set role to enjoy themselves
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I've never understood why trinity and classes are linked. I think that's the major issue. If all classes have the ability to perform all roles then you certainly would have more choice. I know there are mage archtype players that wouldnt mind tanking, but they cant because the game is designed against it. And yet, in high fantasy it is OBVIOUSLY possible for a mage to manifest layer upon layer of arcane protection becoming at times more untouchable than even a fighter (thinking back to ad&d here).
Let all classes do all roles ( or at least expand a bunch) and i think alot of LFHealer/tank issues get resolved. No reason a tank fighter cant exist in the same game as tank rogue/mage/cleric, etc. Rift gets close for sure, though still applies unnecessary restrictions.
I dont know if trinity is the best system, but it seems fairly simple to make it better.
I think the problem with this comes into the precision that is required for delicate balancing. In WOW for instance, people get in an uproar over a perceived 5% difference in classes.
WOW kinda tried your approach with tanks early on. For instance, Bear tanks had a lot more health, but didn´t have as good of avoidance or any blocking at all. Warrior tanks were the kings of single target tanking, and pallies were better at fights with a large number of mobs.
What happens is if you have content that only requires 5 or 10 players... those differences get magnified so much that nobody wants to group with the ´single mob tank´ in a dungeon with a lot of AOE fights. This happened in a very drastic way at the end of BC in WOW. Nobody wanted to dungeons with anyone but Pally tanks. Likewise, Bear tanks were not wanted on fights were healer mana was an issue because having more HPs and less avoidance meant they would need more healing.
It is one of the problems that faces WOW today. The game is so tightly analyzed and theorycrafted that even a 5% diffference means your spec doesn´t get brought to raids. Newer games, and games with less focus on endgame group content don´t have the same problems.
Again, your idea will work ( every class having tank and healing specs) or even everyone being able to a little of everything. But with that system you will never have very precise encounters.. and once your game gets big, and the theorycrafters come out in force, even then you are going to have a ton of ´non-viable´ specs. A lot of games, including GW2 have avoided this just by not having really challenging endgame content that requires precision.
Get rid of classes all together. Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want. Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.
GW2 went half way. Someone else needs to bring it full circle.
Darkfall. In that game you used to be able to be Master of All. It was considered boring as everyone could do everything, hence why they are rehauling it now.
AC 1 had a better approach. There you had a set number of skill points and you could then build whatever character you wanted but since there was a limit on skill points, you could not be Master of All.
So it has been done but for some reason class based MMO's are dominating and have been since the rise of EQ 1. Probably such a system is much easier for the devs. to balance.
UO had a nice system, you had dozens of possible skills you could raise to 100, but only 700 points total. But what happened is the devs kinda merged skills together so that like 500 or even 600 skillpoints had to be used in harmony or you were severly gimped. You took Magery to cast spells, then you had to take meditation to regain mana, then you had to take Evaluate magic to make your spells hit hard, then you had to take wrestling or else you were interrupted all the time. (can´t remember precisely, it has been a long long time).
So at the end of the day you had warrior, mage, tamer, bard.. each with a few skillpoints left over to dable in something else.
_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.
_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!
_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.
_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.
_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.
In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.
I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together. What do you prefer to hear :
Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"
or :
Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."
?
I think we need to get out of the WoW mindset.
Leveling, there have been games where just being dps didn't cut it in difficult dungoens. Since Lineage 2 is my largest experience I'll use that.
leveling, Areas like Forge of the gods and AoE groups in one of the temples definitley gave good xp and rewards but required tanks and healers. The issue in that game was that buffers were more like batteries than someone an actual player wanted to play. I also recall some of my best duos/ttrios requing a healer/recharger to keep the party gowing. Allowing for DD's and healers to be extra squishy did help in this regard.
quest: don't care about wow and quests are usually things that require one player. There were quests in Lineage 2 (the game had few quests) that required a group. you just had to have one. Especially for the class quests as there were tough bosses involved. But I'm not partial to games that have ridiculous quests sending you to kill 10 of someting. I'd rather just hang out in the area and kill mobs.
pvp - again, I suppose we have to get out of the wow mindset. In Aion and Tera a tank can tank players. They can draw the player to them. I recall fighting a tank as a Sorcerer in Aion and accidentally allowed him to get close enough to draw me in. I went down pretty quickly.
Dungeon - just make it so that good gear is only part of the equation. Just because "other" games allow for good gear to win the day doesn't mean all games have to have that. I will say that I'm more partial to these new skill based games where one can take on harder dungeons with a more diverse group but having a tank or healer can help.
And again you use WoW. I think if developers move away from "WoW" and create encounters where players can have different types of groups but where having a healer or tank makes things easier, it could be more interesting.
As I've said, I'm for a "soft" trinity. Allowing for players to embody different classes/playstyles but allow for a bit more diversity.
Who is to say the Tank has to do "no" damage? Maybe the tank does slower damage but takes larger chunks? Maybe magic users do incredible damage but are so squishy that one bad pull not noticing an enemy until it's too late brings them down quickly.
Of course, I will concede that "most" players will choose the path of least resistance and will try to avoid areas where they have be skillful or that might need great players or at least a good comination to succeed.
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Comments
Well, speculation is just that, I didn't actually know for sure how it would turn out. They might have pulled it off and revolutionized the industry. It was also one of the biggest releases of 2012 and the PvP promises were too good to pass up.
I put a good 400 hours into it and enjoyed it up until about then, it took about that long before I started to dislike the combat and repetitiveness of PvP. So yeah, in my eyes, a good buy none the less; it just didn't have the staying power I expected beyond that because of above reasons.
Well if the alternative is the dance contest that is "action combat", please keep the holy trinity!!
However if we could move in a different direction that could be interesting,
Ohh, I like that one. Good idea.
Yes, but the same is true in games with a Trinity.
I play a bear tank in WOW. My DPS is significant, and on many fights surpasses everyone else because I am hitting more targetst than they should be. I also have 3 or 4 different CCs that I use, some are simple knockbacks, some are interrupts, some are roots. I have buffs I cast before fights, and after fights I have a Rez. When I am being hardcore, I even have an in-battle rez.
My second character is a Discipline Priest. On almost all content, I spend about half my time DPSing which generates random heals to my party. The other part of the time I directly shield or heal my party. I also have a silence that I use regularly, a pet that I can pull out occassionally, I have a root CC against everyone and a specific long-term CC against undead.
The problem with these type of debates is people like ´a game´ more than another game, and then twist the argument to make their game sound better. Yes, if you take the most absolute most boring gamestyle of a healer ( just casting one spell to heal one person) it is boring as heck, and then in favor of your game, you give this elaborate description of how a non-trinity character can do a million things to save the day... of course your game sounds better. But trinity roles are not as boring as you make them out to be, and conversely, many players (as evidence in this thread) only play GW2 as basically a straight DPS without really doing much else.
My argument in favor of trinity games is just in the mechanisms of boss fights. Devs can be a lot more creative with a trinity setup. Players in WOW are getting to experience non-trinity type grouping with the new Scenerios... and while they are fun to zerg through, there can be no type of ´boss´encounter that requires very much coordination.
Lets check where the Trinity is useful:
_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.
_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!
_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.
_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.
_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.
In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.
I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together. What do you prefer to hear :
Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"
or :
Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."
?
very much agreed nice post.. healer in PVP can be a mess at times as well.. in Rift they had such a hard time balancing heals in PVP it ends up being whoever had more healers won most every time. But again having classes with non set roles is another good way to go ala Rift then at least you open yourself up to a lot more options has multiple classes can tank or heal.. But others games that lock you into a single role for that character then it really becomes an issue with trying to find tanks and healers
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The thing is, I kind of like the trinity but I think a "softer" trinity is needed.
I don't really believe in the whole "use a skill and you have threat all of a sudden, especially stacking every piece of threat gear imaginable. Threat should be real.
What ends up happening is that any tank worth his salt will maximize this and the entire encounter just ends up being him absorbing/blocking damage and everyone else burning down the boss. That's pretty boring.
I like how tera does it in that the tank can stun and pull a boss and that you have to actively manage blocking and your resources. Still, there is a hate mechanic there but I can get between a boss and his target and stop him in his tracks with a large hit or a pull. but again, this is the direction I think it should go, Tera's system isn't perfect.
Perhaps allowing squishier opponents such as mages and clerics to activate shields when they have the enemy's attention but maybe then disallowing them to use their skills when they do this.
Allow warriors to position themselves between the enemy and the warrior's allies.
Making healing and buffiing active. Again, I kind of like the direction that tera goes with this.
And of course make it so that players who don't have a tank or healer or many damage dealers can still do things, but with greater difficulty or perhaps smarter playing.
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I played WoW up until WotLK, played RoM for 2 years and now Rift.
I am F2P player. I support games when I feel they deserve my money and I want the items enough.
I don't troll, and I don't take kindly to trolls.
Holy trinity is a game developers' conveniance, developed when internet speeds were serious issues. Collision detection was hard, so a simple workaround developed.
You might like it, you might not.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Well, the first MMO I played had collision detection and did not have the trinity (UO). Not sure what the two have to do with one another...
I've never understood why trinity and classes are linked. I think that's the major issue. If all classes have the ability to perform all roles then you certainly would have more choice. I know there are mage archtype players that wouldnt mind tanking, but they cant because the game is designed against it. And yet, in high fantasy it is OBVIOUSLY possible for a mage to manifest layer upon layer of arcane protection becoming at times more untouchable than even a fighter (thinking back to ad&d here).
Let all classes do all roles ( or at least expand a bunch) and i think alot of LFHealer/tank issues get resolved. No reason a tank fighter cant exist in the same game as tank rogue/mage/cleric, etc. Rift gets close for sure, though still applies unnecessary restrictions.
I dont know if trinity is the best system, but it seems fairly simple to make it better.
Get rid of classes all together. Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want. Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.
GW2 went half way. Someone else needs to bring it full circle.
You are twisting my argument. I am saying that classes which cannot consistently do something, such as healing or CC, cannot claim to fill that role properly. Classes in GW 2 cannot consistently do anything but DPS so they are all, more or less, DPS with a bit of support/healing/CC thrown in.
Great if you like DPSing, not so much if you dont (and I dont).
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And that really is the beauty of the Trinity.. the devs can always throw in 1 of 20 bosses that has a special flavor like Galaron or the others you mentioned. But even with Galaron, yes, the tanks are not holding aggro, but you still need them to be ´tanks´ in that they have to absorb the big hits in front of the boss.
And I am not sure what world you are living in if you think you can do current heroic dungeons without a tank. Maybe if you outlevel them, but nobody is going to clear even the 5 month old heroics we have now without being in a tank spec and healing spec. It maybe doable with a group with a lot of Blood dks, but it certainly wouldn´t be faster.
As far as PVP and Questing... wow, good thing we have duel specs, huh? But even then, questing in tank specs is actually faster for some people, I know a lot of people prefer Blood or Bear for instance.
And your last comment is a joke about UO and EVE.. UO and EVE really have no group content, and certainly no ´boss´ fights. But again, that really is what it comes down to. If you want vibrant and interesting boss fights, you need the trinity. If all you want is diablo-style dungeons, you don´t need it. Two completely different gamestyles, take what you like and play it, one is not right or wrong. I personally prefer having the memorable, and very different boss fights.
Darkfall. In that game you used to be able to be Master of All. It was considered boring as everyone could do everything, hence why they are rehauling it now.
AC 1 had a better approach. There you had a set number of skill points and you could then build whatever character you wanted but since there was a limit on skill points, you could not be Master of All.
So it has been done but for some reason class based MMO's are dominating and have been since the rise of EQ 1. Probably such a system is much easier for the devs. to balance.
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I found his comment funny also. I played UO back on a 28.8k modem. Mobs either had AI where they would chase the person who hit them last, so two ranged classes could play ´monkey in the middle´ with mob or else the mob always chased the person who hit them first, which meant everyone stood in the middle while one person ran in a big circle around them.
i dont want trinity back. But of course what GW2 did can always be improved upon without forcing trinity on classes.
Im currently playing Tera and i havent given up on their heavy trinity because i love the graphics (not enough to stay long here) so im playing some pve only content here as strictly dps for a while. I cant really stand heavy trinity imposed to players anymore.
Whatever class i choose, i want to be able to hybridize it or i wont last long in that game.
you have some options to play almost full support in gw2 some classes have more options for it than others ie guardian and ele but doesn't mean it can't be done.. but gw2 combat was made for everyone to play all the roles at any given time and up to the players to be able to adapt to that.. just seems some don't seem to be able to do that or some just need that set role to enjoy themselves
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I think the problem with this comes into the precision that is required for delicate balancing. In WOW for instance, people get in an uproar over a perceived 5% difference in classes.
WOW kinda tried your approach with tanks early on. For instance, Bear tanks had a lot more health, but didn´t have as good of avoidance or any blocking at all. Warrior tanks were the kings of single target tanking, and pallies were better at fights with a large number of mobs.
What happens is if you have content that only requires 5 or 10 players... those differences get magnified so much that nobody wants to group with the ´single mob tank´ in a dungeon with a lot of AOE fights. This happened in a very drastic way at the end of BC in WOW. Nobody wanted to dungeons with anyone but Pally tanks. Likewise, Bear tanks were not wanted on fights were healer mana was an issue because having more HPs and less avoidance meant they would need more healing.
It is one of the problems that faces WOW today. The game is so tightly analyzed and theorycrafted that even a 5% diffference means your spec doesn´t get brought to raids. Newer games, and games with less focus on endgame group content don´t have the same problems.
Again, your idea will work ( every class having tank and healing specs) or even everyone being able to a little of everything. But with that system you will never have very precise encounters.. and once your game gets big, and the theorycrafters come out in force, even then you are going to have a ton of ´non-viable´ specs. A lot of games, including GW2 have avoided this just by not having really challenging endgame content that requires precision.
UO had a nice system, you had dozens of possible skills you could raise to 100, but only 700 points total. But what happened is the devs kinda merged skills together so that like 500 or even 600 skillpoints had to be used in harmony or you were severly gimped. You took Magery to cast spells, then you had to take meditation to regain mana, then you had to take Evaluate magic to make your spells hit hard, then you had to take wrestling or else you were interrupted all the time. (can´t remember precisely, it has been a long long time).
So at the end of the day you had warrior, mage, tamer, bard.. each with a few skillpoints left over to dable in something else.
I think we need to get out of the WoW mindset.
Leveling, there have been games where just being dps didn't cut it in difficult dungoens. Since Lineage 2 is my largest experience I'll use that.
leveling, Areas like Forge of the gods and AoE groups in one of the temples definitley gave good xp and rewards but required tanks and healers. The issue in that game was that buffers were more like batteries than someone an actual player wanted to play. I also recall some of my best duos/ttrios requing a healer/recharger to keep the party gowing. Allowing for DD's and healers to be extra squishy did help in this regard.
quest: don't care about wow and quests are usually things that require one player. There were quests in Lineage 2 (the game had few quests) that required a group. you just had to have one. Especially for the class quests as there were tough bosses involved. But I'm not partial to games that have ridiculous quests sending you to kill 10 of someting. I'd rather just hang out in the area and kill mobs.
pvp - again, I suppose we have to get out of the wow mindset. In Aion and Tera a tank can tank players. They can draw the player to them. I recall fighting a tank as a Sorcerer in Aion and accidentally allowed him to get close enough to draw me in. I went down pretty quickly.
Dungeon - just make it so that good gear is only part of the equation. Just because "other" games allow for good gear to win the day doesn't mean all games have to have that. I will say that I'm more partial to these new skill based games where one can take on harder dungeons with a more diverse group but having a tank or healer can help.
And again you use WoW. I think if developers move away from "WoW" and create encounters where players can have different types of groups but where having a healer or tank makes things easier, it could be more interesting.
As I've said, I'm for a "soft" trinity. Allowing for players to embody different classes/playstyles but allow for a bit more diversity.
Who is to say the Tank has to do "no" damage? Maybe the tank does slower damage but takes larger chunks? Maybe magic users do incredible damage but are so squishy that one bad pull not noticing an enemy until it's too late brings them down quickly.
Of course, I will concede that "most" players will choose the path of least resistance and will try to avoid areas where they have be skillful or that might need great players or at least a good comination to succeed.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo