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Individuality... I do not understand.
Graveblade
Member UncommonPosts: 547
I do not understand why devs of more recent games always say that a class/skill system that allows you to mix and match skills helps give a player more of a feeling of individuality because you can customize your character to how you want it.
I would have to disagree with all these devs who boast of an open ended system like that....
If you have a specific class (as long as there is a nice selection) I believe that gives you more of a sense of individuality within your class choice and its specific role. Then after your personal choice of class, you should have a lot of customization within that class.
If you have a system that allows everyone to fend for themselves in any situation, then that takes away individuality. If everyone can pick up whatever classes they like and mix and match then no one will feel individual because of the very fact that anyone can be the same or similar if they really wanted. They will be able to deal with any situation just like you.
That boggles my mind.... I think they have it the wrong way around!
Someone in the audience mentioned about EQ1 on the recent panel when talking about classes. The devs mentioned about the annoyance of not being able to, for example, do a raid because a tank or healer is not online at the time.
Well I sort of disagree with that being such a bad thing, it gives you a sense of identity and purpose in the game and helps you to feel like more of an individual in the game because they would like you because of your personal choice of role. Eq1 had so many classes and each one had a lot of specific spells and abilities which would help out A LOT in different situations.
It was more like instead of getting a party and thinking ah it is a shame we don't have a rogue but it does not matter in the end... It was more like if we had a necromancer right now, the ease at which we could gain experience would be 10 fold.
I really liked that about EQ1. In my opinion there were enough classes, each one with specific situational abilities, to make you feel like an individual a lot more so than games with a system where you can mix and match any skills.
Comments
Same sentiment as you. Not everyone needs to be a jack-of-all-trades. Learn to communicate, if you can't find a healer, start talking to people, start finding your healer. Talk to the server and ask for a healer. Make your own groups.
This "QQ I can't find a group and am LFG all day" is such a pansy response.
If your whole guild breaks down because your healer left, the issue is your guild, not the game.
Don't blame the trinity system when thousands of people and guilds do not have an issue with it. The issue is you, not trinity.
Yes but in a role playing game, where every encounter requires the exact same group setup (with small deviation), a lot of times the small portion of the group who leaves causes the entire raid or group to fall apart.
The only answer to the above is either get more tanks (or role you need), or have one of your many members switch to the required role. Let the group of people keep playing ...
In any system where the core of the game is the makeup of 3-4 roles, you're going to run out of possibilities after a while. I feel they have over-booked the concept, so many games have done exactly this.
Lets say you can have 0 tanks or 1 tank. Let say you can have 0 dps or 1 dps, same for healers. So in a group of 3 you would have 1 tank, 1 healer, and 1 dps. Now, lets say each of those characters wanted to build a class that was unique, and half of another role. Some healing abilities, maybe some tanking abilities, maybe some dps abilities. Would they be able to kill every mob in the game? No. Some mobs will destroy you if you don't build a tank. But, some areas of the game will be approachable, possibly even the best possible approach. This promotes community, reliance on different types of characters, unique skill and ability. Much more than, "Are you A, B, or C." So many more options.
And if they cant find someone, why is it a bad idea to say, "Jim, why don't you heal for now?" Just log off for the night?
If their healer leaves, and they have enough players to continue playing, why do they need to rely on other people to continue in a game they might be paying for? Why not enable them to enjoy the game with their friends? Hopefully the answer isn't, "Roll an alt." ...
I love sandbox mmo's but it is a little different system than what would be deemed a sanbox in the older days...
Different because for example in UO you skilled up to be good at the roles you wish. Or take eve online you choose a path to fly specific ships you want and so you take that specific role.
In a system where everyone fends for themselves in all situations that removes the whole role individuality.
We don't need a community if everyone can play every role, we can meat grind dungeons and raids till our eyes bleed. Who cares if someones not online, why even make a guild I have ten buddies and we can pug dps for no shows.
Yeah I haven't found a good game in a while, and most of the time I play alone I like to pug meet new people. Never like to join a guild without running something with a few members first. And I agree if you have a hard time keeping players in your guild, it's you not them.
Edit: As you get older it's the simple words you forget to spell, lol. "meat new poeple."
In a world where you do not become more powerful, you become more capable ... you will always need more people despite being able to play every role. Content designed for 6 people and specific roles will always require 6 people and specific roles. Not like it is today ... where as soon as you level past the content, it becomes trivial.
*edit* my argument is that the ability to play every role, with so many classes, promotes community.
Yes mate but this is part of the challenge of doing a large raid. To actually have those people available to take those roles in a guild and to succeed should be rewarded greatly. Having lots of classes like eq means there are multiple different ones that can do the job. If it was just one out of many that would not be good.
Still I do not think that is the problem. What I am really talking about is not just simply tank, healer, dps but specific abilities of your class which can deal with many different situations.... not actually just healer, tank or dps.
Well, these abilities come from time invested in a character. If it takes just as long to advance a class tier as it would to level a character up in a regular trinity game, what would be the problem? So by that model, it might take 10x as long as it would to get from 1 to max level in another game to get all classes in eqnext?
Same time invested, same isolated skill set, easier for user?
Because it creates a community. You won't have any friends to begin with in games where everyone can do everything.
As far as "QQ I still can't find a healer". Make friends, put those healers on your IM and contact them. If a friend asks me to tank on my IM right now I'll go log in my character and go tank for them.
You have to remember that mmorpg's are actually all about community in the end. If you have classes that can do a very specific thing that people will want then that is great and can create bonds with others.
A great example of this could be necromancer in EQ1. They could locate corpses very well and dying in that game was quite harsh.
That meant you felt more individual, you had something that all other people may very well want at some point and people will call upon you just for that. Or Enchanter that gives you a 2 or 3 hour buff that regenerates your mana faster. Stuff like this really helps community and the feeling of individuality because people want you for your own personal choice.
Sorry to press the subject, but I don't understand why if a friend wants to play a healer should they have to re-make a character instead of just storing the tank setup he has built over time, and starting from 0 with a healer?
Actually, this promotes even more solo play than community, and the only reliance will be that 3 months after that game releases, if you're not in a group playing with this build or that build, then you won't get to stay in that group. Doesn't have to be a trinity system to make you a useless role (build) in peoples eyes.
Well, like I said, a system where everyone is a jack-of-all-trades means you take away dependency on others.
Reliance creates a community. When everyone relies on another person, you get a server network of friends where most people know each other.
It's not enough that you know 1 person, you should know the server, so when that day comes that you can't find a healer, you won't have to QQ about it like that EQNext developer, you'll have made enough friends that your network will support you.
Not only that, those networks in EQ often transcend beyond the game, they become RL networks.
I guess that is what I mean by the meat grinder comment, there are players who grind through content so quickly while dev's try to keep them happy. When your small guilds are two expansions behind it trivializes that content. In one hand people complain about the grinders, and in the other dev's cater to them.
If my healer has to leave the game for what ever reason, maybe I have another, or I want to take my time and find another. But in MMO's today it's all epeen race fest, and the game is bad if I am not able to play every role. The race to endgame is killing MMORPG's, how ironic because I really like the endgame stuff group challenges are a lot of fun.
With 6 people playing 1 role, you still have 6 people playing 1 role each. Same dependency. If they all play healers, they will just end up dieing against a lot of content, haha.
Its not really about individuality its being either one single class relying on another class or its just grabbing another for the run.
Example A) Tom plays a healer for a big raiding guild but on raid night he can't get on guild gets mad and has another player roll an alt to get up so when Tom is gone they have another healer. But Tom can't always be on so he does not mind new job lets say. So one night Tom gets on to raid and they tell him oh we dont need you tonight the other is gonna do it and Tom starts to get left out so he roles a dps/cc class and in time really like his character when the healer gets asked by another guild to join and leaves for it so they tell Tom to go back to his healer and now he is stuck to decide.
Example
Tom plays this new style no trinity game and decides to make a rogue with some druid snares and maybe a pally armor buff and then a stealth movement and then a dmg attack so he can snare a mob sneak in a slam it with his attack he took the buff for added protection when alone. One night his guild are going to run a dungeon they found and ask Tom along he says ok and they go and they get to a final room and find a big boss. During the fight the group wipes so the go to where every they go and head back this tiem the group changes strategies and try a different tactic this time tom takes a druid heal and leaves the other 3 this help a little but they complete it cause the tactics they used this time worked.
To me example A happens more times in mmo's B the reason why is you cant change tactis in A because its built with the need of Tank, Healer, CC, And DPS while B is build on tactics so either can be fun but to me A is overplayed in way to many games already.
Sherman's Gaming
Youtube Content creator for The Elder Scrolls Online
Channel:http://https//www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgYNgpFTRAl4XWz31o2emw
see people on the pro class side, think it turns out to be everyone being a jack of all-trades, where you couldnt be more wrong
play RIFT for example, every class can almost play every role, but you know what, people still generally arent the jack of all-trades characters, people still like the roles they like to play. I for example, play a chloromancer healer, I dont switch around to dps with him, I dont go melee mage, I will occasionally go Archon (support). When I want to DPS, I play my warrior, cause I like the way a warrior dps's best, can I tank, sure, but thats not my style. If I want to tank, I play my cleric, cause I just love the way the Justicar tank builds.
I could just play my cleric, fill the tank/healer/dps role with 1 char, but I chose not too, and most of us chose not to as well. I like the freedom to be able to chose someday if I want to switch, that I dont HAVE to reroll. The majority of players in RIFT are similar to what I have said
so please, get rid of this every class being a jack of all trades theory
One of the questions at the Q&A panel was exactly this. The devs said that they could not make decisions based on players social niches. If the players say we can't play with you because you are spec'd a certain way, that is the players fault, not the devs.
If the system is open enough to encourage group play, but groups isolate themselves, i'm not sure what to say to that...
This is 100% true. On the flip side, in my guild, once we hit 90+ we'd start another toon of whatever class we thought we'd need at times. So we never needed to worry about a role not being filled, because any of us could cover them, and we didn't have to multiclass and bastardize our builds to do it. We did it because we WANTED to, not because at the time we NEEDED to. So enjoy your sandbox multiclass group on rails.
That's why we don't all play healers, and even if we did, it wouldn't be a problem. EQ raids are all "54 man". The network is already there for everyone, even if we moved to another game.
That's the difference between trinity systems and non-trinity, jack-of-all-trades don't create networks, they solo, or zerg. You don't need a community to do that, as a result, there isn't one.
I'm confused. Jack of all trades can mean playing a specific role?
If your guild has 54 people who can spec tank, healer, dps, or utility - there is no community unless they lock themselves into one of the roles for that character?
From my understanding trinity still exists in EQN, it will just be presented differently than what we are used to. In a non-discrete fashion. Different content might require different approaches, but still require primary roles.
There would not be 54 man raids to begin with I think, the complexity of big raids demands a certain rigidity where everyone has a specific role enforced by the game.
And no there wouldn't be the same community, my healer would mean nothing to me if everyone on the server can heal. The reason my healer is also my friend, is because of the trinity system. You become friends with those individuals.
In a way the trinity system forces you to make friends, and in the beginning it might just be because that's how you play the game, but after a while they're true friends. This doesn't happen when everyone can fulfill every roll.