Originally posted by beel 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
You mean everyone plays the same way? Ranged DPS or Melee DPS? That's pretty much all there is now. It's pretty boring. You might get an ability to heal or stun for a few seconds, and you might be able to mix ranged and melee DPS a bit, but that's about it. ESO's conjured minions seemed to be a joke.
In the ESO betas I had 5 different characters and everyone of them had a different play style. Even had two DragonKnights and two Nightblades. I chose different skills to use on each of them so they WERE different play styles. Throwing ESO into the OP original rant only shows they didn't really play ESO.
Originally posted by pappacube In the ESO betas I had 5 different characters and everyone of them had a different play style. Even had two DragonKnights and two Nightblades. I chose different skills to use on each of them so they WERE different play styles. Throwing ESO into the OP original rant only shows they didn't really play ESO.
The only real diversity comes from being able to choose a different weapon IMO. Most of the skills you can choose for classes are DPS oriented. There are a few that are different like the healing staff and the templars healing spells. Every class seems to get similar DPS abilities and some CC abilities. To me the abilities each class could use felt very bland. I feel this is most games these days. There is nothing that jumps out and says wow that's neat. I believe this is because of the mixture and balance of the different classes. Everything is geared to combat and making sure that everyone is equal in combat DPS wise and CC wise.
I guess since I played the ESO beta a few times, and saw the skills available to the Templar and the Nightblade (archer type) and saw all the different paths you could take in the skill tree, I disagree that they are all the same. I didn't even get very far and the those two classes I mentioned felt nothing like the other. How could they? One healed and used a sword and shield to mitigate damage, the other shot arrows and stayed back. And that's only because those were my choices. If I'd wanted to, I could have equipped melee weapons with my Nightblade and gone that route, but I didn't (I don't usually play rogues - oh hey, there's one of your dedicated class roles). And that's just ONE class that split into two at an early level.
Which brings me to the question - do you really have to have the character selection screen separate character classes FOR you instead of using your imagination? Is it more comfortable for "trinity" diehards to see "Archer" and "Assassin" in different boxes, or "DPS character" and "Tank character"? And if so, why? I think it's awesome that if you roll a Templar, you can choose along the way whether you want to use heavy armor, shield and taunt skills (something not every class has, to my knowledge), and put character points into Health in order to take more damage (thus making him a tank), or just go dual-wield dps, or heal, or mix and match. Remember, unlike what was suggested with GW2, you really can use whatever weapon or weapon combo you want to in ESO (one of its finest features, to me).
Does "dedicated" just mean "lazy selection" or what?
Originally posted by beel 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
You mean everyone plays the same way? Ranged DPS or Melee DPS? That's pretty much all there is now. It's pretty boring. You might get an ability to heal or stun for a few seconds, and you might be able to mix ranged and melee DPS a bit, but that's about it. ESO's conjured minions seemed to be a joke.
What I find hilarious about this is that the biggest MMO out right now (yep, it's still WoW) has made every class DPS too, at least until high level. Tanks do so much damage now it's ridiculous and in PvP, priests can unleash hell, not just heal through it.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I think there can be a healthy mix between a class based system and something more open. There has to be a middle ground where you retain defined roles but have a open system.
To not have roles you just end up with GW2 where things just become a mess in dungeons and everyone is trying to do everything but noone really does any one thing good. Kind of like the jack of all trades but master of none.
Havn't reach much of the thread, but ffxiv arr has the whole trinity system. All the bosses have a unique mechanic on beating it. They get really complex. at end-game. Have to memorize a lot more. Its always the exact same fight each time though.
They have dumbed down that game a lot though. Not that many spells or ability's to use. Expecially as blm I just use fire 3, fire till im outa mp, then blizzard 3 to replenish it. Then just repeat that cycle for 90% of the time. Very strait forward combat in that game.
The trinity is still there in that game, just not as complex as the older mmo's probable were.
I think perhaps it's not the lack of role that is the problem. I think it may be more that classes in a game like ESO don't feel very unique and the abilities feel very bland. Every class feels like their abilities are the same. In EQ spells had their own spell slots. They weren't all on a hotbar with the melee skills. Spells should be a lot different in feeling then melee skills. Instead they feel exactly the same. They feel like just another range attack. You might as well just be using a bow. Likewise melee classes now get to have similar CC abilities to what magic using classes get. This again takes away from the uniqueness of class. Everyone in the game can sneak. This makes the Nightblade class feel less unique. EQ had a lot more diversity, but even World of Warcraft had features that made every class feel somewhat unique. The warrior class had their rage bar. The rogue class their energy bar. The magic classes had their magic bar. Each worked a bit differently and made them feel unique. On top of this recent games have removed all utility spells like size change, illusion to take the appearance of something else, movement enhancement, levitation, water breathing, elemental/magic resistances, buffs in general, and many other things.
The problem of "roles" is that they don't really work for an open world mmo, which apperantly most people want.
A healer is a perfect role for when you're doing a instanced boss fight, planned and organized before hand, but exploring the world solo without the ability to deal damage by yourself isn't very fun. In a persitant universe, you may not, and probably won't, have the people you need to fight every mob.
Honestly, trying to make a game where you need players just to explore the world without getting killed or progress really slowly won't fly nowadays. Nobody as the patience the stand around trying to group up to go do their stuff. So, static, predermined roles are better off removed from some games. As long as there're mmos for those who enjoy that, i'm happy.
However, there's a difference between "group oriented roles" and "gameplay altered role". If a "tank" is nothing more than a guy with more armor, slower movement, but can still deal damage, that's perfectly fine because he can still solo.
So no, i don't miss it. Has long has i can stand out by making my armor, weapons look different, housing,pets and mounts, or maybe even let players be dedicted crafters, gatherers, and any other non combat profession, i'm good.
Problem for me is that neither GW2 or ESO pulled that off well enough.
I really don't like dedicated class roles. What I dislike even more is how in Trinity games you normally start out with a wide range of things you can do, but as you level to max you wind up being able to do only ONE thing.
For example, a lot of low-mid level characters will be doing DPS, CC, they can tank things, and sometimes even heal. But a max level character in a trinity game will wind up getting stuck doing just ONE of those things...FOREVER.
I hate that. I hate being teased with all this varied gameplay at low level only to get stuck doing one thing at max level.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that it is VERY important for different classes/characters to be able to do different things. But I see no need to FORCE them into one role.
For example, I like how in GW2 Mesmers can make portals. These portals aren't absolutely necessary to complete content, but they give you different options to get past certain content. Or how guardians have a lot of reflect, it gives you a different way to protect against missiles.
Now granted, I don't think GW2 is very balanced in this respect...not enough of the classes have cool unique things they can do. But I think that skills like that are a step in the right direction.
I dont miss it at all... because I get to play it every night in Project 1999 - Classic Everquest.
loving it. I'm loving Everquest far more than I did in my first run from 99-2004. The amount of teamwork is just a joy to be a part of. It's like watching a game of speed chess and actually understanding the nuances and moves and decisions of the player haha. But seriously... i might be loving it too much; caught myself making excuses to call off work ;(. damn evercrack is more potent than ever.
I love class roles but i do understand and have been part of the waiting for a specific class in group situations. I think Rift has the right idea and let you change class as needed so that if you are missing a healer then you can just have somebody change to a healer or if you are soloing then you can change to a solo class.To me there is nothing better than playing as a class and knowing that you did your job good and really helped your group out. The game has to be challenging and need some thought to your encounters to make the class system work though.
Originally posted by Thornrage I miss the SWG Pre-CU setup. No classes, you did what you wanted.
Pre-CU SWG had no classes? I became a Master Carbineer because it was a crowd control class. I became a Master Creature Handler because I didn’t like to tank. MD’s and Combat Medics were Healers. Anything off the Brawler line was a Tank. Anything off the Marksman line was a DPS. Pre-CU SWG was all about the TRINITY. It was even built into the original (Pre-CU) Jedi skill trees. When I told my guild I wanted to roll my Jedi as a Healer + Crowd Control they were shocked. They felt the only viable builds were Saber + Defense builds for PvP/PvE.
Pre-CU SWG the best in Sandpark. First quest everyone is given, go forth and become a Jedi.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Glad that they might phase out the cookie cutter healer-dps-tank roles.
If I want to play a MMO I would like to play 1 character and develop that one instead of leveling a different toon because you have to specialize in 1 area and make the toon useless in the other areas.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Skill based approach is not only simpler, more powerful, deeper and more flexiable it also represents how we do things in real life.
The more you do something the better you get and you are not restricted on what you can learn to do in the future.
How things are in real life has little relevance to what should, or should not be in a game designed for entertainment purposes. Movies and tv shows regularly portrayed physically impossible or highly improbable situations (for example, lighting a pool of gasoline with a cigarette .. mythbuster has shown that it is more likely to drown out the cigaretter than lighting the gas) to entertain.
There is no reason why games should be "realistic". In fact, players regularly kill hundreds if not thousands of monsters, bad guys, and what-not in video games where in real, there is no unlimited number of "generic peon bad guy" for you to shoot at.
So the only relevant question is whether the design is fun (for whatever targeted audience). I don't play games to get back into real life.
I haven't really played many MMOs that don't have specific class roles, even ones that purport to let you make "hybrid characters" do so by making you mediocre in all the skills instead of excelling at a single one. Eldevin specifically comes to mind, it was supposed to let you make a hybrid character and mix up the skill-trees but doing so made you pretty much suck, you were much stronger by just investing all your points into a single skill-tree.
Having a holy trinity does not mean forcing people to play one and only one class in order to do a specific role. I hope that old idea dies in a hole forever. Want to have a good trinity mechanic? sure, go ahead, but keep the multi role mechanic open for everyone to choose their own path.
You are contradicting yourself. You can't have free skill choice AND very defined class roles.
Wrong. Take a look at The Secret World, hundreds of skills and very defined roles. The mass of skills lets you focus on a style you enjoy. Enjoy tanking? Try a Chaos evasion tank, or a Hammer block tank, mix them in with some Shotgun abilities for dealing damage, maybe a self heal and you have a solo tank... so many choices, every class can be slightly different while still having a defined role.
Comments
You mean everyone plays the same way? Ranged DPS or Melee DPS? That's pretty much all there is now. It's pretty boring. You might get an ability to heal or stun for a few seconds, and you might be able to mix ranged and melee DPS a bit, but that's about it. ESO's conjured minions seemed to be a joke.
The only real diversity comes from being able to choose a different weapon IMO. Most of the skills you can choose for classes are DPS oriented. There are a few that are different like the healing staff and the templars healing spells. Every class seems to get similar DPS abilities and some CC abilities. To me the abilities each class could use felt very bland. I feel this is most games these days. There is nothing that jumps out and says wow that's neat. I believe this is because of the mixture and balance of the different classes. Everything is geared to combat and making sure that everyone is equal in combat DPS wise and CC wise.
I guess since I played the ESO beta a few times, and saw the skills available to the Templar and the Nightblade (archer type) and saw all the different paths you could take in the skill tree, I disagree that they are all the same. I didn't even get very far and the those two classes I mentioned felt nothing like the other. How could they? One healed and used a sword and shield to mitigate damage, the other shot arrows and stayed back. And that's only because those were my choices. If I'd wanted to, I could have equipped melee weapons with my Nightblade and gone that route, but I didn't (I don't usually play rogues - oh hey, there's one of your dedicated class roles). And that's just ONE class that split into two at an early level.
Which brings me to the question - do you really have to have the character selection screen separate character classes FOR you instead of using your imagination? Is it more comfortable for "trinity" diehards to see "Archer" and "Assassin" in different boxes, or "DPS character" and "Tank character"? And if so, why? I think it's awesome that if you roll a Templar, you can choose along the way whether you want to use heavy armor, shield and taunt skills (something not every class has, to my knowledge), and put character points into Health in order to take more damage (thus making him a tank), or just go dual-wield dps, or heal, or mix and match. Remember, unlike what was suggested with GW2, you really can use whatever weapon or weapon combo you want to in ESO (one of its finest features, to me).
Does "dedicated" just mean "lazy selection" or what?
What I find hilarious about this is that the biggest MMO out right now (yep, it's still WoW) has made every class DPS too, at least until high level. Tanks do so much damage now it's ridiculous and in PvP, priests can unleash hell, not just heal through it.
Imagine yourself in an orgy and being able to do all roles, giving and taking.
That is my in regards to the trinity, keep roles defined or it becomes a naughty mess!
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I think there can be a healthy mix between a class based system and something more open. There has to be a middle ground where you retain defined roles but have a open system.
To not have roles you just end up with GW2 where things just become a mess in dungeons and everyone is trying to do everything but noone really does any one thing good. Kind of like the jack of all trades but master of none.
Havn't reach much of the thread, but ffxiv arr has the whole trinity system. All the bosses have a unique mechanic on beating it. They get really complex. at end-game. Have to memorize a lot more. Its always the exact same fight each time though.
They have dumbed down that game a lot though. Not that many spells or ability's to use. Expecially as blm I just use fire 3, fire till im outa mp, then blizzard 3 to replenish it. Then just repeat that cycle for 90% of the time. Very strait forward combat in that game.
The trinity is still there in that game, just not as complex as the older mmo's probable were.
The problem of "roles" is that they don't really work for an open world mmo, which apperantly most people want.
A healer is a perfect role for when you're doing a instanced boss fight, planned and organized before hand, but exploring the world solo without the ability to deal damage by yourself isn't very fun. In a persitant universe, you may not, and probably won't, have the people you need to fight every mob.
Honestly, trying to make a game where you need players just to explore the world without getting killed or progress really slowly won't fly nowadays. Nobody as the patience the stand around trying to group up to go do their stuff. So, static, predermined roles are better off removed from some games. As long as there're mmos for those who enjoy that, i'm happy.
However, there's a difference between "group oriented roles" and "gameplay altered role". If a "tank" is nothing more than a guy with more armor, slower movement, but can still deal damage, that's perfectly fine because he can still solo.
So no, i don't miss it. Has long has i can stand out by making my armor, weapons look different, housing,pets and mounts, or maybe even let players be dedicted crafters, gatherers, and any other non combat profession, i'm good.
Problem for me is that neither GW2 or ESO pulled that off well enough.
Wait...I'm confused, are you trying to compare real life combat medics to healers in MMORPG??
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Not me.
I really don't like dedicated class roles. What I dislike even more is how in Trinity games you normally start out with a wide range of things you can do, but as you level to max you wind up being able to do only ONE thing.
For example, a lot of low-mid level characters will be doing DPS, CC, they can tank things, and sometimes even heal. But a max level character in a trinity game will wind up getting stuck doing just ONE of those things...FOREVER.
I hate that. I hate being teased with all this varied gameplay at low level only to get stuck doing one thing at max level.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that it is VERY important for different classes/characters to be able to do different things. But I see no need to FORCE them into one role.
For example, I like how in GW2 Mesmers can make portals. These portals aren't absolutely necessary to complete content, but they give you different options to get past certain content. Or how guardians have a lot of reflect, it gives you a different way to protect against missiles.
Now granted, I don't think GW2 is very balanced in this respect...not enough of the classes have cool unique things they can do. But I think that skills like that are a step in the right direction.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
I dont miss it at all... because I get to play it every night in Project 1999 - Classic Everquest.
loving it. I'm loving Everquest far more than I did in my first run from 99-2004. The amount of teamwork is just a joy to be a part of. It's like watching a game of speed chess and actually understanding the nuances and moves and decisions of the player haha. But seriously... i might be loving it too much; caught myself making excuses to call off work ;(. damn evercrack is more potent than ever.
I am a dedicated healer in every MMO I played since 1999. And when I twink I play a Tank. I dont need DMG, I just want to have a role in my group!
Pre-CU SWG had no classes? I became a Master Carbineer because it was a crowd control class. I became a Master Creature Handler because I didn’t like to tank. MD’s and Combat Medics were Healers. Anything off the Brawler line was a Tank. Anything off the Marksman line was a DPS. Pre-CU SWG was all about the TRINITY. It was even built into the original (Pre-CU) Jedi skill trees. When I told my guild I wanted to roll my Jedi as a Healer + Crowd Control they were shocked. They felt the only viable builds were Saber + Defense builds for PvP/PvE.
Pre-CU SWG the best in Sandpark. First quest everyone is given, go forth and become a Jedi.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Glad that they might phase out the cookie cutter healer-dps-tank roles.
If I want to play a MMO I would like to play 1 character and develop that one instead of leveling a different toon because you have to specialize in 1 area and make the toon useless in the other areas.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Skill based approach is not only simpler, more powerful, deeper and more flexiable it also represents how we do things in real life.
The more you do something the better you get and you are not restricted on what you can learn to do in the future.
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
I self identify as a monkey.
How things are in real life has little relevance to what should, or should not be in a game designed for entertainment purposes. Movies and tv shows regularly portrayed physically impossible or highly improbable situations (for example, lighting a pool of gasoline with a cigarette .. mythbuster has shown that it is more likely to drown out the cigaretter than lighting the gas) to entertain.
There is no reason why games should be "realistic". In fact, players regularly kill hundreds if not thousands of monsters, bad guys, and what-not in video games where in real, there is no unlimited number of "generic peon bad guy" for you to shoot at.
So the only relevant question is whether the design is fun (for whatever targeted audience). I don't play games to get back into real life.
dedicated class roles? No thank you. Not anymore.
Having a holy trinity does not mean forcing people to play one and only one class in order to do a specific role. I hope that old idea dies in a hole forever. Want to have a good trinity mechanic? sure, go ahead, but keep the multi role mechanic open for everyone to choose their own path.
Wrong. Take a look at The Secret World, hundreds of skills and very defined roles. The mass of skills lets you focus on a style you enjoy. Enjoy tanking? Try a Chaos evasion tank, or a Hammer block tank, mix them in with some Shotgun abilities for dealing damage, maybe a self heal and you have a solo tank... so many choices, every class can be slightly different while still having a defined role.