Just have to point out, you only had 8 spells in EverQuest. Unless you were a non magic user then you had like 3 generic skills taunt, kick, bash.
People seem to forget that the idea of having a hotbar full of 50 skills was actually a much later feature. Developers are finally realizing the old system of fewer more meaningful choices was better.
I just think the Holy Trinity is needed and I want my skills back! I want to have to think in an MMO again, I don't want to just be spamming the same few healing spells I have because there is barely any variety there.
Enough games have shown that it actually isn't needed, even older games like Ultima Online and Asherons Call.
Rift well, was, the only game I am subscribed to (canceled due to Glyph a few days ago) and yet I would love the game far more if it had TSWs skill system.
Does Burger King suck because you can "have it your way"? Or is it just the food. Does having choice make you all FUBAR in the head that you suddenly cant make a good burger combination? Or does it give you the freedom to make a damn good burger?
Sure it does. Choice is better than not having any and forced roles is cheap game making because the developer is trapped in small box development thinking.
No I don't miss dedicated roles because thats what I am still playing and I will never play a mmo that does not have them. I want to be unique in a group where what I do is different from what other group members are doing. Games where everybody does everything will never be better.
The problem is MMOs are games where you fight single mobs. You don't fight mass amounts of mobs at one time. I'm not sure if that would be a good mechanic for MMOs. Not even many single player games use that type of mechanic. Pretty much all that you mentioned above would require a game where you fight against a large amount of mobs. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm not sure if it would be a good direction to take.
I am also question the design of only fighting a few at a time. For stealth game, it makes sense .. because the interesting tactical consideration is how to approach and take-down. From a RPG/action RPG perspective, i prefer the chance of fighting large numbers.
I am not saying every encounter has to be 100 mobs, but it would be nice if sometimes you get to fight large numbers, and hopefully the tactical considerations will be different.
For example, when i am fighting those birds that spit fireball in D3, i have to dance around because if every fireball hit me, i will be dead right away. However, if i can wither their number down, i can hold my ground, and just nuke. That kind of tactical consideration is not possible if there are only 2-3 enemies. And i am not certainly why no MMO would try to up the number of mobs, at least in instances. WoW has done that in isolated encounters, so technically it must be possible.
It also feel more heoric when the boss has 100 adds instead of all by himself.
What I don't get are the folks who want both an innovative sandbox world, and absolutely rigid trinity character class structure.
I remember getting the early Champions pnp Superhero games. It was wonderful, you built the character you wanted to play, with structured advantages and disadvantages. Do I want my werewolf to have a sonic fear attack, or use a sniper rifle? Armor or regeneration? etc.
So no, I don't care for the lockdown, required, class roles. I'd prefer a skill based system set, or at the least a very flexible class system. You folks could still build your 'classic' characters, and I could play whatever I could come up with....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
The problem is MMOs are games where you fight single mobs. You don't fight mass amounts of mobs at one time. I'm not sure if that would be a good mechanic for MMOs. Not even many single player games use that type of mechanic. Pretty much all that you mentioned above would require a game where you fight against a large amount of mobs. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'm not sure if it would be a good direction to take.
I am also question the design of only fighting a few at a time. For stealth game, it makes sense .. because the interesting tactical consideration is how to approach and take-down. From a RPG/action RPG perspective, i prefer the chance of fighting large numbers.
I am not saying every encounter has to be 100 mobs, but it would be nice if sometimes you get to fight large numbers, and hopefully the tactical considerations will be different.
For example, when i am fighting those birds that spit fireball in D3, i have to dance around because if every fireball hit me, i will be dead right away. However, if i can wither their number down, i can hold my ground, and just nuke. That kind of tactical consideration is not possible if there are only 2-3 enemies. And i am not certainly why no MMO would try to up the number of mobs, at least in instances. WoW has done that in isolated encounters, so technically it must be possible.
It also feel more heoric when the boss has 100 adds instead of all by himself.
You could do that sort of mass fighting in City of Heroes. It was even appropriate to the genre and setting.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Sadly? Sadly for you maybe. This post reminds me of a conservative saying how we need to bring back America, when America is still right freaking there.
Originally posted by Quizzical If you want to be a dedicated healer, then trinity combat works for you. You're in demand. What it doesn't work for is everyone else who has to spend a large fraction of their "grouping" time sitting around waiting for a healer to come along. That's why some games are moving away from having dedicated healers: losing the handful of people who want to be a pure healer is more than made up for by getting massive numbers of people who don't like taking half an hour to get a group.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. What you seem to have issue with is forced group makeups, not the roles themselves. There's no reason you can't have a system that has roles but lacks the tank-healer-dps structure. City of Heroes was a good example of this - you could make just about any setup work if everyone in the group was good.
You're right that my complaint is about content that forces particular group compositions on you. But it's very hard to make content that:
1) has players locked into specific roles,
2) is realistically doable with just about any combination of roles, and
3) does not become basically trivial if you get a good combination of roles for your group.
You could, after all, make a strict trinity combat game doable with any combination of classes if you make mobs weak enough. But that makes the content stupidly easy if you get the right combination of classes.
Originally posted by Quizzical If you want to be a dedicated healer, then trinity combat works for you. You're in demand. What it doesn't work for is everyone else who has to spend a large fraction of their "grouping" time sitting around waiting for a healer to come along. That's why some games are moving away from having dedicated healers: losing the handful of people who want to be a pure healer is more than made up for by getting massive numbers of people who don't like taking half an hour to get a group.
Yes, nothing pleases the masses like adding homogenized gw2 style combat where everyone is a tank/healer/dps...
I WoW did classes right, they were all so unique and fun to play and they had talent trees which could give you wildly different roles. It mean I could completely change my play session depending on what class I picked. Sadly though these days with GW2 or The Elder Scrolls Online for example, the classes all just feel the same, if I switched between them, it is barely any different.
You can still play WoW right now. Nobody took your skills away. Won't WildStar also be a trinity-based game? It's not even out yet, so it should be "modern" in your terms. Or what about FF XIV? Rift? SWTOR? Aion? I don't know what "modern" is according to your definition. But FFXIV is new-ish. Devs may not want to keep pumping out those kinds of games in the current market.
WoW will be around for a couple three more years at the very least. That means, there's nothing to miss. It's still here. For those people who don't like the hot bars, etc. and what a more uncluttered interface, they are finally getting some new games.
It sounds like you're just looking for a shiny new game that does the same thing as WoW. You're in luck because you can play WildStar. Isn't that great?
I'm happy that we are getting new types of games. I think there is room in the market for games that don't follow a strict trinity.
Perfect post. Thanks for taking the time to put down in writing what I was too lazy to do. The only people that would argue your post are the dime a dozen DPS players that had trouble finding groups.
So in response to this, modern MMO's have just made it boring for everyone so no one is left out.
I WoW did classes right, they were all so unique and fun to play and they had talent trees which could give you wildly different roles. It mean I could completely change my play session depending on what class I picked. Sadly though these days with GW2 or The Elder Scrolls Online for example, the classes all just feel the same, if I switched between them, it is barely any different.
You can still play WoW right now. Nobody took your skills away. Won't WildStar also be a trinity-based game? It's not even out yet, so it should be "modern" in your terms. Or what about FF XIV? Rift? SWTOR? Aion? I don't know what "modern" is according to your definition. But FFXIV is new-ish. Devs may not want to keep pumping out those kinds of games in the current market.
WoW will be around for a couple three more years at the very least. That means, there's nothing to miss. It's still here. For those people who don't like the hot bars, etc. and what a more uncluttered interface, they are finally getting some new games.
It sounds like you're just looking for a shiny new game that does the same thing as WoW. You're in luck because you can play WildStar. Isn't that great?
I'm happy that we are getting new types of games. I think there is room in the market for games that don't follow a strict trinity.
actually wow and wildstar are'nt alike.. sure they got a cartoonish style to them but that's about it. not sure why wildstar try to market themselves as similar really.
I have not read any of the other posts. Pertaining to class roles this should die and never return. Especially the holy trinity non sense. People should be free to play as they want. Also No GS b.S. In any configuration
I agree with the OP. However, for me, it's not the lack of defined roles, but the lack of the breadth of skills that I miss. I too miss having 5+ hotbars filled with a plethora of skills that diversify what abilities I can use, and when. After Rift, most MMO's have simplified the skill selection (GW2, FF: Reborn, TERA, Neverwinter) to maybe 5-8 skills at any one time. I believe this is purely because MMO's are trying to be more action-oriented to give the player less skills to worry about. I'd really rather stand in place and be less mobile and have to think quickly about what skill to use rather than quickly thinking about dodging fireballs.
actually wow and wildstar are'nt alike.. sure they got a cartoonish style to them but that's about it. not sure why wildstar try to market themselves as similar really.
I meant, from what I understood in reading about WildStar, that they have dedicated healer, tank, dps roles. Isn't that true? That was my understanding of WildStar being similar to WoW in having a trinity (dedicated class roles) for endgame pve content.
I understand that there are important differences -- action combat with dodging, etc. being a very important one.
I WoW did classes right, they were all so unique and fun to play and they had talent trees which could give you wildly different roles. It mean I could completely change my play session depending on what class I picked. Sadly though these days with GW2 or The Elder Scrolls Online for example, the classes all just feel the same, if I switched between them, it is barely any different.
You can still play WoW right now. Nobody took your skills away. Won't WildStar also be a trinity-based game? It's not even out yet, so it should be "modern" in your terms. Or what about FF XIV? Rift? SWTOR? Aion? I don't know what "modern" is according to your definition. But FFXIV is new-ish. Devs may not want to keep pumping out those kinds of games in the current market.
WoW will be around for a couple three more years at the very least. That means, there's nothing to miss. It's still here. For those people who don't like the hot bars, etc. and what a more uncluttered interface, they are finally getting some new games.
It sounds like you're just looking for a shiny new game that does the same thing as WoW. You're in luck because you can play WildStar. Isn't that great?
I'm happy that we are getting new types of games. I think there is room in the market for games that don't follow a strict trinity.
actually wow and wildstar are'nt alike.. sure they got a cartoonish style to them but that's about it. not sure why wildstar try to market themselves as similar really.
Keep telling yourself that. While they aren't identical, they have way more in common than they are different from one another.
actually wow and wildstar are'nt alike.. sure they got a cartoonish style to them but that's about it. not sure why wildstar try to market themselves as similar really.
I meant, from what I understood in reading about WildStar, that they have dedicated healer, tank, dps roles. Isn't that true? That we my understanding of WildStar being similar to WoW in having a trinity (dedicated class roles) for endgame pve content.
I understand that there are important differences -- action combat with dodging, etc. being a very important one.
They are much more similar than fans of Wildstar want to admit. And indeed many Wildstar fans are WoW / ex-WoW fans. Both games share the same core game design and philosophy. Both games are engineered with accessibility above all else. Both games are extremely simple. Both are gear-oriented. Both are based on vertical progression. Both are based around a trinity. Both are quest-hub grinders. Both primarily feature kill X or collect X quests. Both have battleground-oriented PvP. Both are raid-focused games.
The list goes on, without even touching the graphical & artistic comparisons.
Perfect post. Thanks for taking the time to put down in writing what I was too lazy to do. The only people that would argue your post are the dime a dozen DPS players that had trouble finding groups.
So in response to this, modern MMO's have just made it boring for everyone so no one is left out.
Pathetic state we are in.
That's a nice generalizing paintbrush you have there, too bad you can't coat everyone with it. I have tanked for years in WoW, and I love it and have leveled more healers in BG's than I care to count. The problem with OP's post is that they haven't actually stopped making "trinity" games, but if you think every game should be the same because of a style YOU prefer, well that's a more accurate use of the word pathetic. There's room for variety. Don't be so closed minded and angry about it.
I always prefer/preferred to play classes that where not supposed to solo well coupled with a short race that usually wasn't supposed to be that class either. Now you can often be any race and any class with no detriment as well as every class often being given abilities specifically to solo a games content.
There are benefits and negatives to both I would prefer MMO's going towards a racist heavy emphasis on races being significantly different while able to play all classes..then the whitewashed races and whitewashed classes routine going on now.
It seems like these days all the classes just kind of blend into one, they all sort of do the same thing but with little twists on things. I just find it so boring now because fights never have any strategy to them, you're all playing the same role now. I was always a dedicated healer and in modern MMOs my role is either gone or very limited to the point is is boring. I don't like the simplification of the hotkey bars, you'll only have like 8 skills in modern MMOs, there is nothing to manage there. I miss the days when I'd have like 8 bars full of skills, some might even have several of the same skill but just different levels. So much strategy went into being a healer and making sure I'm doing the right thing at the right time. Now I just find things to be so simple that they're dull...
I WoW did classes right, they were all so unique and fun to play and they had talent trees which could give you wildly different roles. It mean I could completely change my play session depending on what class I picked. Sadly though these days with GW2 or The Elder Scrolls Online for example, the classes all just feel the same, if I switched between them, it is barely any different. It is like they've switched all classes to do everything but be the master of none. What I found with WoW is because they were all so unique and dedicated in certain play styles, it made the most diverse class in the game (the Druid) feel so unique too. I guess these modern MMOs are like if all the classes were druids but some are better at a cat, some are better at the bear etc, the skills are just tweaked a bit.
I just think the Holy Trinity is needed and I want my skills back! I want to have to think in an MMO again, I don't want to just be spamming the same few healing spells I have because there is barely any variety there.
I really don't get with The Elder Scrolls Online is why they didn't just do it like Skyrim, where you have that skill wheel thing and you chose the skills you wanted like a proper Sandbox game. At least that way we would have been able to create proper roles for ourselves that we actually want to play, instead of being needlessly restricted to the boring classes it does have. I don't get why they even exist, that is Elder Scrolls like..
OP, you aren't making ANY sense. None. At all. You're post is full of massive contradictions.
1) You claim you miss dedicated class roles. That nowadays, games don't do this anymore. Well let's look at the last game to be released as an MMO. FFXIV. Classes there are all built around a trinity. 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 ranged dps, 2 melee. Before that, you have SWTOR. Also a trinity based game. You also have TERA, Aion, WAR, AoC, etc. ALL trinity based games. Because if this, you're point gets very lost. We get it, you don't like ESO. So just come out and say that, instead of burying it under a bunch of contradicting points.
2) You reference WoW as a game that does classes right. Because of how unique they were. WoW is literally a simplified copy of Everquest. 'Unique' is a poor choice of words when it comes to their class design. They weren't bad, though. However, you then gloss over one big issue with your thought process:
3) You are assuming that more role diversity (trinity has 3 roles, tank, healer, dps. THAT'S IT!) = less strategy. Where as less role diversity (only tank, healer, dps) = more strategy. If the inherent flaw w/ that logic doesn't occur to you, then I'm not going to write an essay to explain it. So, let's just leave it at this: Strategy, is not a factor of how many tools/ pieces / skills you have at your disposal, but rather the complexity with which you can use these tools / pieces / skills to accomplish a variety of different outcomes.
For example, in WoW there are only 2 real criterias for beating a given boss, which combine into 1 strat, which pretty much everyone uses. 1) Meet the base stat requirements (tanks need X minimum healing, mitigation, and threat generation. Healers need X minimum healing. DPS needs X minimum dps). 2) Avoid the boss mechanics. (dodge AoEs, feed mechanics if they have them, etc.) It's really, VERY simple, and most of these strats are now discovered within days of a boss being released, at which point everyone mimicks the strat and wins.
With GW2? Let's take CM dungeon for example. There are multiple viable ways through it. You can stealth through the place. You can reflect attacks back at enemies. You can blind spam. You can ball up (stack everything in a spot and AoE them down). You can CC / Knockdown spam. You can go w/ a balanced group and do a bit of everything. You can portal people through the dungeon. Etc. Thats ~7 different strats for 1 dungeon, featuring VERY different group comps. All viable. All ones I've done successfully myself. That's ~7 strats I've done, compared to WoW's 1. This is not to say that you can't do WoW's 1 strat w/ a variety of different group makeups, but rather that it is largely irrelevant. While each class has different skills they are still being pushed into the same general roles, and are functioning in a very similar capacity. This is because the game focuses on stats over skills. Whereas GW2 functions the exact opposite. Utility is a much larger factor in GW2, and many people build around this.
- Now, that said. I get it, you don't like ESO's class mechanics. And you don't have to. Wildstar is the next trinity game. There's no reason to 'miss' trinity based games. Because they haven't gone ANYWHERE. The last MMO to be released was a trinity based game, and out of the next 2 MMOs to be released, 1 is also a trinity based game, and the other (ESO) has a soft-trinity inplace, so you CAN play it like a trinity based game, though it isn't necessarily the best method of doing so.
So, while creating a wall of text was fun. What, in all hell, do you really have to complain about?
Perfect post. Thanks for taking the time to put down in writing what I was too lazy to do. The only people that would argue your post are the dime a dozen DPS players that had trouble finding groups.
So in response to this, modern MMO's have just made it boring for everyone so no one is left out.
Pathetic state we are in.
That's a nice generalizing paintbrush you have there, too bad you can't coat everyone with it. I have tanked for years in WoW, and I love it and have leveled more healers in BG's than I care to count. The problem with OP's post is that they haven't actually stopped making "trinity" games, but if you think every game should be the same because of a style YOU prefer, well that's a more accurate use of the word pathetic. There's room for variety. Don't be so closed minded and angry about it.
Well said Eir.
The irony is that there is actually MORE diversity with games then there ever has been. However, because so many gamers condemn everything but their own narrow viewpoint of 'what is good', they assume the opposite.
I just see it as less variety as every class now feels the same, all fights these days just end up with everyone beating down on the enemy at once, because games are so easy these days, it is all a breeze.
Where as when I used to play WoW there were tactics to a fight, I'd always stay back and heal all my friends and have to manage that. Like I said I'd have like 8 hotbars full of skills and I'd have to be johnny on the spot, if I made a mistake, my team would wipe. That was fun to me and it is an experience I cannot get any more from MMOs, we cannot be dedicated anything any more, we have to do a bit of everything and it ends up being boring as everyone is the same.
With The Elder Scrolls online they could have done something unique with The Elder Scrolls skill system, instead they just decided to do boring classes and restrict you, but all the classes play the same really.
Just funny to think WoW was considered easy when it launched, I played a Vanilla server recently and it is hard compared to MMOs today, you can easily die from the get go and it takes way longer to level up! I miss those days where I'd be a healer, my mate would always be a tank and another mate would always pick stealth classes like Rogue, we'd all play our roles and it was so much fun. Now in MMOs... well we haven't played one together properly since WoW as they've all been shit since, but when we've tried it has always been this new GW2 like structure of things.
SWTOR was really well done, but their class system sucked because there was only like 4 on either side and they were mirrored.... like I'd rather have 8 classes all different and doing specific roles. Sadly it ended up not mattering as they were all kinda good at everything and the game was so easy you never had to worry about screwing up.
Perfect post. Thanks for taking the time to put down in writing what I was too lazy to do. The only people that would argue your post are the dime a dozen DPS players that had trouble finding groups.
So in response to this, modern MMO's have just made it boring for everyone so no one is left out.
Pathetic state we are in.
That's a nice generalizing paintbrush you have there, too bad you can't coat everyone with it. I have tanked for years in WoW, and I love it and have leveled more healers in BG's than I care to count. The problem with OP's post is that they haven't actually stopped making "trinity" games, but if you think every game should be the same because of a style YOU prefer, well that's a more accurate use of the word pathetic. There's room for variety. Don't be so closed minded and angry about it.
Well said Eir.
The irony is that there is actually MORE diversity with games then there ever has been. However, because so many gamers condemn everything but their own narrow viewpoint of 'what is good', they assume the opposite.
It isn't the style you prefer now, it is everyone is the same with slight differences.
You were able to pick the style you prefer with class systems like WoW, I never saw any one complain that they couldn't find a class they liked in WoW. When you wanted a different experience, you respec'd your talents or changed class. I could go from healer to dps just by changing talents as my Priest..
Now you get like 8 skills and feel the same as everyone else.
Comments
Just have to point out, you only had 8 spells in EverQuest. Unless you were a non magic user then you had like 3 generic skills taunt, kick, bash.
People seem to forget that the idea of having a hotbar full of 50 skills was actually a much later feature. Developers are finally realizing the old system of fewer more meaningful choices was better.
Enough games have shown that it actually isn't needed, even older games like Ultima Online and Asherons Call.
Rift well, was, the only game I am subscribed to (canceled due to Glyph a few days ago) and yet I would love the game far more if it had TSWs skill system.
Does Burger King suck because you can "have it your way"? Or is it just the food. Does having choice make you all FUBAR in the head that you suddenly cant make a good burger combination? Or does it give you the freedom to make a damn good burger?
Sure it does. Choice is better than not having any and forced roles is cheap game making because the developer is trapped in small box development thinking.
P.S. I do NOT eat Burger King.
No I don't miss dedicated roles because thats what I am still playing and I will never play a mmo that does not have them. I want to be unique in a group where what I do is different from what other group members are doing. Games where everybody does everything will never be better.
I am also question the design of only fighting a few at a time. For stealth game, it makes sense .. because the interesting tactical consideration is how to approach and take-down. From a RPG/action RPG perspective, i prefer the chance of fighting large numbers.
I am not saying every encounter has to be 100 mobs, but it would be nice if sometimes you get to fight large numbers, and hopefully the tactical considerations will be different.
For example, when i am fighting those birds that spit fireball in D3, i have to dance around because if every fireball hit me, i will be dead right away. However, if i can wither their number down, i can hold my ground, and just nuke. That kind of tactical consideration is not possible if there are only 2-3 enemies. And i am not certainly why no MMO would try to up the number of mobs, at least in instances. WoW has done that in isolated encounters, so technically it must be possible.
It also feel more heoric when the boss has 100 adds instead of all by himself.
What I don't get are the folks who want both an innovative sandbox world, and absolutely rigid trinity character class structure.
I remember getting the early Champions pnp Superhero games. It was wonderful, you built the character you wanted to play, with structured advantages and disadvantages. Do I want my werewolf to have a sonic fear attack, or use a sniper rifle? Armor or regeneration? etc.
So no, I don't care for the lockdown, required, class roles. I'd prefer a skill based system set, or at the least a very flexible class system. You folks could still build your 'classic' characters, and I could play whatever I could come up with....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
You could do that sort of mass fighting in City of Heroes. It was even appropriate to the genre and setting.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
You're right that my complaint is about content that forces particular group compositions on you. But it's very hard to make content that:
1) has players locked into specific roles,
2) is realistically doable with just about any combination of roles, and
3) does not become basically trivial if you get a good combination of roles for your group.
You could, after all, make a strict trinity combat game doable with any combination of classes if you make mobs weak enough. But that makes the content stupidly easy if you get the right combination of classes.
Yes, nothing pleases the masses like adding homogenized gw2 style combat where everyone is a tank/healer/dps...
You can still play WoW right now. Nobody took your skills away. Won't WildStar also be a trinity-based game? It's not even out yet, so it should be "modern" in your terms. Or what about FF XIV? Rift? SWTOR? Aion? I don't know what "modern" is according to your definition. But FFXIV is new-ish. Devs may not want to keep pumping out those kinds of games in the current market.
WoW will be around for a couple three more years at the very least. That means, there's nothing to miss. It's still here. For those people who don't like the hot bars, etc. and what a more uncluttered interface, they are finally getting some new games.
It sounds like you're just looking for a shiny new game that does the same thing as WoW. You're in luck because you can play WildStar. Isn't that great?
I'm happy that we are getting new types of games. I think there is room in the market for games that don't follow a strict trinity.
Perfect post. Thanks for taking the time to put down in writing what I was too lazy to do. The only people that would argue your post are the dime a dozen DPS players that had trouble finding groups.
So in response to this, modern MMO's have just made it boring for everyone so no one is left out.
Pathetic state we are in.
actually wow and wildstar are'nt alike.. sure they got a cartoonish style to them but that's about it. not sure why wildstar try to market themselves as similar really.
I had fun once, it was terrible.
Played: UO, DAoC, Shadowbane, DDO, LOTRO, Aion, Rift, TERA, ESO
Sampled: WoW, AoC, GW2, Vanguard, Neverwinter
Playing: FF XIV
I meant, from what I understood in reading about WildStar, that they have dedicated healer, tank, dps roles. Isn't that true? That was my understanding of WildStar being similar to WoW in having a trinity (dedicated class roles) for endgame pve content.
I understand that there are important differences -- action combat with dodging, etc. being a very important one.
Keep telling yourself that. While they aren't identical, they have way more in common than they are different from one another.
They are much more similar than fans of Wildstar want to admit. And indeed many Wildstar fans are WoW / ex-WoW fans. Both games share the same core game design and philosophy. Both games are engineered with accessibility above all else. Both games are extremely simple. Both are gear-oriented. Both are based on vertical progression. Both are based around a trinity. Both are quest-hub grinders. Both primarily feature kill X or collect X quests. Both have battleground-oriented PvP. Both are raid-focused games.
The list goes on, without even touching the graphical & artistic comparisons.
That's a nice generalizing paintbrush you have there, too bad you can't coat everyone with it. I have tanked for years in WoW, and I love it and have leveled more healers in BG's than I care to count. The problem with OP's post is that they haven't actually stopped making "trinity" games, but if you think every game should be the same because of a style YOU prefer, well that's a more accurate use of the word pathetic. There's room for variety. Don't be so closed minded and angry about it.
In some ways..
I always prefer/preferred to play classes that where not supposed to solo well coupled with a short race that usually wasn't supposed to be that class either. Now you can often be any race and any class with no detriment as well as every class often being given abilities specifically to solo a games content.
There are benefits and negatives to both I would prefer MMO's going towards a racist heavy emphasis on races being significantly different while able to play all classes..then the whitewashed races and whitewashed classes routine going on now.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
OP, you aren't making ANY sense. None. At all. You're post is full of massive contradictions.
1) You claim you miss dedicated class roles. That nowadays, games don't do this anymore. Well let's look at the last game to be released as an MMO. FFXIV. Classes there are all built around a trinity. 2 tanks, 2 healers, 3 ranged dps, 2 melee. Before that, you have SWTOR. Also a trinity based game. You also have TERA, Aion, WAR, AoC, etc. ALL trinity based games. Because if this, you're point gets very lost. We get it, you don't like ESO. So just come out and say that, instead of burying it under a bunch of contradicting points.
2) You reference WoW as a game that does classes right. Because of how unique they were. WoW is literally a simplified copy of Everquest. 'Unique' is a poor choice of words when it comes to their class design. They weren't bad, though. However, you then gloss over one big issue with your thought process:
3) You are assuming that more role diversity (trinity has 3 roles, tank, healer, dps. THAT'S IT!) = less strategy. Where as less role diversity (only tank, healer, dps) = more strategy. If the inherent flaw w/ that logic doesn't occur to you, then I'm not going to write an essay to explain it. So, let's just leave it at this: Strategy, is not a factor of how many tools/ pieces / skills you have at your disposal, but rather the complexity with which you can use these tools / pieces / skills to accomplish a variety of different outcomes.
For example, in WoW there are only 2 real criterias for beating a given boss, which combine into 1 strat, which pretty much everyone uses. 1) Meet the base stat requirements (tanks need X minimum healing, mitigation, and threat generation. Healers need X minimum healing. DPS needs X minimum dps). 2) Avoid the boss mechanics. (dodge AoEs, feed mechanics if they have them, etc.) It's really, VERY simple, and most of these strats are now discovered within days of a boss being released, at which point everyone mimicks the strat and wins.
With GW2? Let's take CM dungeon for example. There are multiple viable ways through it. You can stealth through the place. You can reflect attacks back at enemies. You can blind spam. You can ball up (stack everything in a spot and AoE them down). You can CC / Knockdown spam. You can go w/ a balanced group and do a bit of everything. You can portal people through the dungeon. Etc. Thats ~7 different strats for 1 dungeon, featuring VERY different group comps. All viable. All ones I've done successfully myself. That's ~7 strats I've done, compared to WoW's 1. This is not to say that you can't do WoW's 1 strat w/ a variety of different group makeups, but rather that it is largely irrelevant. While each class has different skills they are still being pushed into the same general roles, and are functioning in a very similar capacity. This is because the game focuses on stats over skills. Whereas GW2 functions the exact opposite. Utility is a much larger factor in GW2, and many people build around this.
- Now, that said. I get it, you don't like ESO's class mechanics. And you don't have to. Wildstar is the next trinity game. There's no reason to 'miss' trinity based games. Because they haven't gone ANYWHERE. The last MMO to be released was a trinity based game, and out of the next 2 MMOs to be released, 1 is also a trinity based game, and the other (ESO) has a soft-trinity inplace, so you CAN play it like a trinity based game, though it isn't necessarily the best method of doing so.
So, while creating a wall of text was fun. What, in all hell, do you really have to complain about?
Well said Eir.
The irony is that there is actually MORE diversity with games then there ever has been. However, because so many gamers condemn everything but their own narrow viewpoint of 'what is good', they assume the opposite.
I just see it as less variety as every class now feels the same, all fights these days just end up with everyone beating down on the enemy at once, because games are so easy these days, it is all a breeze.
Where as when I used to play WoW there were tactics to a fight, I'd always stay back and heal all my friends and have to manage that. Like I said I'd have like 8 hotbars full of skills and I'd have to be johnny on the spot, if I made a mistake, my team would wipe. That was fun to me and it is an experience I cannot get any more from MMOs, we cannot be dedicated anything any more, we have to do a bit of everything and it ends up being boring as everyone is the same.
With The Elder Scrolls online they could have done something unique with The Elder Scrolls skill system, instead they just decided to do boring classes and restrict you, but all the classes play the same really.
Just funny to think WoW was considered easy when it launched, I played a Vanilla server recently and it is hard compared to MMOs today, you can easily die from the get go and it takes way longer to level up! I miss those days where I'd be a healer, my mate would always be a tank and another mate would always pick stealth classes like Rogue, we'd all play our roles and it was so much fun. Now in MMOs... well we haven't played one together properly since WoW as they've all been shit since, but when we've tried it has always been this new GW2 like structure of things.
SWTOR was really well done, but their class system sucked because there was only like 4 on either side and they were mirrored.... like I'd rather have 8 classes all different and doing specific roles. Sadly it ended up not mattering as they were all kinda good at everything and the game was so easy you never had to worry about screwing up.
It isn't the style you prefer now, it is everyone is the same with slight differences.
You were able to pick the style you prefer with class systems like WoW, I never saw any one complain that they couldn't find a class they liked in WoW. When you wanted a different experience, you respec'd your talents or changed class. I could go from healer to dps just by changing talents as my Priest..
Now you get like 8 skills and feel the same as everyone else.