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Holy trinity
Lord.Bachus
Member RarePosts: 9,686
GW2 did many things good in adding new and fresh things... but also they added some things that did not work that good..
I really love how GW2 plays in open world solo PvE and all the PvP... But the gameplay in Dynamic events is a bit to much zergish.
But Dungeon instances dont work for me, they are to chaotic, and i have come to the conclusion that in this case a trinity based system is what i prefer, because it gives people distinct roles... and espescially tactics. Its the main reason i started playing other games, only playing GW2 from time to time for a good PvP match.
Sad thing is that other developers are taking the same route right now, copying GW2 features like non trinity, with nothing to replace the removal of a tactical and strategical layer from the gameplay.
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
Comments
The "trinity" is a crutch. It makes the player a non-hero entity of a collaboration of The Sword (DPS), The Shield (tank) , and The Body (healer). You're nothing without the other two, and games penalize you otherwise.
Leveling in a trinity based game is a nightmare for anything other than a DPS, unless you have direct friends (because honestly, even in those games the open world content is hardly grouped; only dungeons/raids get grouped). Healers die far too much, killing nearly nothing, and even in groups hardly get XP (thanks to healing not counting, but damage to mob only). Tanks just take forever to kill something, making leveling them a rather slow affair.
"But, but ...leveling doesn't matter! End-game is all that matters!!1!!111!". That's one of the biggest bullshit statements that I've always hated. Leveling is as much as a part of the game as other parts are; it's also the area that teaches the players the fundamentals of the game's mechanics.
As for a direct response related to GW2, I'd say it's alternative mechanics have done wonders as a substitution for Trinity. The most basic of them is that everyone gets their own heal, and that means everyone is directly responsible for their own healthbar. The second mechanic of note is the dodge mechanic, which helps inflate movement's importance; staying out of the red circles, watching the boss's animations for the big one-hitters, and so on. This again puts the player's responsibility for themselves at the forefront. The last mechanic of note is the ability of everyone -including NPC's- to be able to resurrect downed and dead allies. That last one helps garner player friendliness amongst those within the same server.
To sum up what's mentioned above: GW2 applies self responsibility to the individual player. A far better system than that of being a "crutch" or just a broken piece of a puzzle.
Let them do it. Eventually gamers will get fed up of the meaningless zergs and non-trinity nonsense, and companies will just switch back to trinity format. Gamers are known to be the most fickle bunch out of all shoppers.
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
The Non-Trinity would make everyone heroic but the Time to Kill is too fast in most of the non-regular PvP situations, so instead everyone is vulnerable to fast churn deaths--which gives the impression of fragility to many players. This may be one reason why many MMORPG fans prefer Trinity, because there is a death order (Tank goes down first) in many situations, and because it usually happens slower.
GW2 also has an all-or-nothing approach to Damage flow, in that you are usually taking no damage, or you are full throttle dying. They added the movement dynamic as a way to avoid damage, but this throws out people who like mitigation builds, and also makes it so you are constantly spazzing out in combat (even random movement is often better than standing still in GW2).
It's almost like the designers of this game could not envision gradation. They could have allowed for Trinity builds and made their design viable too, letting the players decide.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
I think we can all agree that GW2 was far from perfect in how it handled classes. I'm sure we can all agree a pure trinity system isn't the way we should be heading.
But in a game like mmos people need defined roles/specialization and they all need to feel impactful in those roles. I haven't seen a game find this new ground quite yet but I believe the current generation of games in development will slowly allow us to narrow in on what it truly is.
I agree. There should be diversity in games.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
GW2 does not apply self responsibility as much as it applies a zerg mentality to the sum of players. It is hardly a better system to the trinity as even people who enjoy GW2 will tell you, the class system is not a good substitute at all.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
GW2 is not really game of dpses. There is a trinity, only it's much more subtle and many classes can fit many roles.
Typically guardian or warrior can make very good tank. Most of mobs in gw2 typically attack target that is closest to them, so they simply attack melee character. What I like, there is no stupid threat, that arbitrarily forces mobs to attack person that has most threat on them, they can attack however they want. Tanking in gw2 is not about threat generation. It's about movement obstruction and space awareness. Mobs may decide to go for the ranger, but if they are crippled/frozen, they will most likely decide, beating on that guardian nearby is better idea than slowly progressing towards ranger, that runs away. In this respect, it's very interesting pretty much no boss in GW2 is completely immune to CC. Some are immune to knockbacks and stuns, but crippling, freezing and more often than not rooting bosses is very possible.
You can spec very much in support. If you get tons of + healing, + boon duration, possibly some AoE buffs/heals/condi removal, you can play support/healer quite well. Again, it's not you're pinned into a position of mole-whacking-game player and I love how in gw2 you can't really target anyone and "heal them" you can however drop water field near them and they can decide if they want that heal (stay in the field for a while), they can even help a team using blast finisher on the field or what not. Yet you still have a lot of choice who do you want to support. You can throw that water field on boss, so melees are fine, or you can throw it on that ranger, that is about to die from poison.
I played priest in WoW for many years. It was fun, but I enjoy gw2 more. I feel gw2 is less about watching threat/damage/healing meters/raid assistant and more about watching game, looking around you and reacting what's happening around you. I think anyone that played tank or healer in WoW would agree with me, you didn't have much fun out of the fight. Your vision was obstructed most of the time (either by huge boss or by raid assist window with 25/40 fields (so pretty much nothing else fits your screen).
So why does anyone think WoW like trinity is better?
Personally I like the trinity in a game that doesnt give you a clear way to directly avoid dmg. 2 reasons why I will always prefer the trinity.
1. The trinity gives choice- By this i mean If i want to dps awesome, then later if im not feeling dps anymore i can make a tank and tank. Two roles very diffrent from each other but both equally important. In GW2 i felt like a sheep. Yeah each job played diffrent but in the end from a PVE aspect they were no diffrent. It was a kill fast or die approch and I really think that took away from what could have been some great PVE content.
2.Teamwork- Now i know a pure dps group has to have some kind of teamwork in GW2 but nothing as true as a trinity group. Each part of the trinity needs on the other. And being a very big believer in an MMO being a social thing as its supposed to be I think the team work is more important than giving a multiplayer game a single player feel.
The Car tire is made up of 3 parts bolts, Rim, and Tire, it has been this way for many years and no one has said you know what this tire needs...to be made out of nothing but rim. If its just the rim the cars gana go all of the place scratch up the ground and then fall apart.
Oh please.... leveling in wow as holy priest or protection warrior was soooo hard. You could level... no problem... but it would take you about 10 times longer (and no I'm not exaggerating). People that would refuse to leave their "role" while leveling were laughed at. I myself tried to level as holy priest for a while... When I switched into shadow, it was such a tremendous difference in kill speed and survival I wanted to cry.
Any serious protection warrior would tell you they were changing spec outside of raid/dungeon. Killing anything as a tank was so troublesome, they would spend ton of money to change specs because of it. My guild actually donated money to our tanks so they can spec to DPS and back to tank when we needed them in raid.
I think I am the only one who actually misses and loves the trinity in MMOs...
Being a jack of all trades is not always good.
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Yes, you are exagerrating. Either you're exaggerating or you're talking about vanilla wow, which is an era of the past.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
I kinda don't get your argumentation. You can and would spec differently for different roles. Do you want to be a tank? You put lots of armor and health on you and ignore damage. Do you want to be a DPS, you do the other. That you do in trinity or not-trinity. The only difference from trinity standpoint is, you're using either abilities, that generate threat, or you use abilities, that decrease your threat generation. In both systems you're going to use defensive/offensive abilities depending on your role.
Can you elaborate for me where is the difference you see?
P.S. Kill fast or die is BS. Group that has players that are more durable-do less damage and not glass cannons has much better chance of survival and success in my experience.
I stopped playing somewhere around middle of WOTLK. Maybe tanks and healers do the similar damage as DPS these days.
I think TERA does it the best.
It is sort of a mix of both styles.
On the one hand, you do have a trinity format...
but on the other, some of the fights are so intense, and / or have wild enemy movements and mechanics that guerrilla tactics still need to be used by everyone on the team at the same time that the trinity must be upheld.
It is a shame that the game isn't held in high regard.
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The dungeons are only chaotic when you run a pug group who really don't know the mecanics of the bosses.
I've done several dungeon runs now with a guild a join a week ago and I tell you as soon as they ran the dungeons with me and they told me the mechanics It wasent chaotic at all.
But that can also be applied to a trinity based game, Isnt it quite chaotic doing raids in wow or lotro when half of the group don't know the run?
I'm glad GW2 don't have trinity It's really a breeze of fresh air.
Have you played the new Dungeon instance?
I guess you might have considering that you made this thread today. The dungeon is good, extremely good and all it requires is that your team is organised more so than anything else. My team did it the first time, with quite a few deaths but we finished it because we kept learning from our mistakes and formulating tactics.
We had 2 Guardians (1DPS, 1 Support), 1 Ranger, 1 Thief and 1 Necro (we had a warrior but he was a bad player).
Just on the last boss alone I was providing support to the whole group by blocking big attacks as I saw them coming. The rest of the group focused on DPS and the Thief focused on debuffing the boss by pulling the Holographic mobs towards him so that we could remove his power stacks.
People had roles, it just wasn't pre-ordained or pre-defined.
This is not a game.
The reason I left GW2 and I'm reluctant to pick it up again, was because it is a soloers game. You don't need specific skills or expertise, just bodies into the grinder for the most part. This holds true for every single activity with the exception of dungeons, where everyone needs to be some form of tank. That and outgear the dungeons you're fighting. Kind of like fighting a WoW dungeon with a full team of overgeared dps. At least that was the feeling I was getting. WvW was fun though and as the only thing that kept me interested in the game.
Perhaps the main issue is the lack of obvious synergy between the classes. Or perhaps the contribution of each class is not as obvious as it should have been.
i love the way GW2 broke the mold but i got to a point where i wouldnt mind if they add healing and tank specs as long as any class can be any role.
With that said, i will never accept another mmorpg where the trinity limits each class to one single role. I dont have that problem in GW2 and thats why i love it. Im sick of mmorpgs where the only way i can be an effective plate-wearing knight is if i am a tank. Or the only way i can be an effective dps priest is in my dreams (and in wow). Allow me to build my own role within the class i want or dont give me your game.
There's a major issue with this non trinity system and I strongly suggest any future mmorpg design to be very careful.
It's not that there aren't any support classes in GW2 but the playing level to play one is so high that it's only suited for a very narrow, core part of the playerbase JoeAverage just can't roll a healer, tank or support class. And that's the big fluke of this non trinity system.
The impact is even bigger in PvP/WvW because it's the group that has those players, able to heal, tank or support that just roll everything. I played a healing/support Mesmer and I can tell you how big my impact was.
Leveling in a trinity based game.......not sure I'd completely agree here. In many games you have the option to switch stats or build configuration (Ffxiv, Rift etc ) to make leveling pretty fast. Most developers have recognized the need to give some leveling boost to healers.
The only recent one that I came across was the Tera Mystic (and Lancer, which is the Tank class) after original launch. However even these have been boosted to make it pretty quick.
On the whole "to trinity or not to trinity" thing, of course it's down to personal preference. Personally I love playing healing classes. Clerics, Chloromancers, Scholars, Mystics, Shaman, Priests. Whm - you name them I've probably done it.
I did give GW2 a try, leveled three classes to cap - but in the end it just wasn't for me. Not a problem, some trinity games I just couldn't take to (SW being one).
Your summary - GW2 applies self responsibility to the individual player......so do trinity games. Most recently - run a few Arr HM Titans. You'll soon see what an absence of responsibility does there. As for the repeated crutch comment, it doesn't take into account that end dungeons/raids are set up to ensure that players need healing - bosses do damage, that's what they are there for.
It's not a crutch to need healing. If your role is to output maximum dps, then that's what you should do. In a trinity game it's the healers' role to ensure that the dps classes can continue doing this, and for the tank(s) to continue with their role.
These aren't crutches - they are mechanisms of the format.
As I said earlier, it is a matter of personal preference. But don't blindly bash one format just because you prefer the other.
GW2 messed up w/ PVE because enmity can't be built and maintained, crowd control skills are a non factor, the dodging mechanic doesn't match up with how mobs bum rush, they added condition damage but completely turned their back on anybody who made the mistake of incorporating it into their build. Finally, the classes aren't balanced. Zerk Wars 2.
There's nothing wrong with getting rid of the trinity... removing the reason why those roles exist is what's messy.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
No trinity is best thing in GW2.
Theres really nothing worse than snooze fest spank&tank design trinity encounters MUST be developed around.