1. "healing is for pussies" this argument had so many logical fallacies in it it made absolutely no sense. i know it's not realistic, i'm playing a FANTASY game. and healing is hard to do right.
The core of effective public discussion and argument is making points that people understand. The 'point' I'm making is the destination and I'm too old and jaded to care about whether I reached it in a technically correct fashion.
Save your 'logical fallacies' critiques for 12 year olds who might actually be impressed. Any dick with half-a-brain knows what I'm saying.
Aryas
Laughable, considering I play support/healing in almost every game; it's my preferred playstyle. I guess because I enjoy helping others and improving their efficiency (and the group over all) that makes me "less of a man"?
If you can't see your absolute lack of reasoning then it's kind of sad. Judging from your icon, you're probably one of those keyboard face-rolling monkeys who whines if his target isn't dead in the first face volley (see what I did there?).
what do you mean how you "designed your healing classes"? you mean how you specced them in game and such? or are you writing stuff for a game?
The thing about the trinity is that everyone had their place, and the group needed synergy to succeed in doing what the needed to do. with the way things are looking it seems like group play is heading toward what i call "grouped every man for himself" where the only kind of group play is calling out targets and focus firing
It's also called Zerging.
Compared to MMORPGs that came before it, group play in WoW pre-raid felt like a zerg to me.
The intense coordination of EQ or DAoC seems to be missing, IMO.
The more solo friendly you make a game, the less coordination is required for most of the content, the more it feels like a zerg fest.
SWTOR looks like it will have coordinated group play. Just won't know if it's fun till you try it.
The more solo friendly you make a game, the less coordination is required for most of the content, the more it feels like a zerg fest. Not true, it all depends on how good a game company is in implementing solo friendly gameplay and teambased tactical gameplay.
SWTOR looks like it will have coordinated group play. Just won't know if it's fun till you try it.
GW2 looks more like a zerg.
Your opinion, but not how they describe it: the fact that pure healer classes and meatshield tanks won't be part of GW2's equation, doesn't mean that those roles won't/can't be replaced by different roles or different team dynamics.
If you don't understand or can't imagine how that can be, go play GW intensively for a couple of months: you'll see a lot more roles and a lot of different team setups besides trinity based, in fact GW has some of the deepest and best tactical team combat you'll find in any MMO, even if it's described as a CORPG.
GW2 by the look of it is merely the next step, an evolution of gameplay mechanics we've already seen a glimmer of in GW.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
i did play guild wars up until the second expansion. monk/warrior and ranger/mesmer. both ascended 20s and all that jaz. full set of the 15k armor or w/e.. the works. even if there were some good groups that weren't "the trinity" how many didn't have a monk? or at least a monk secondary? my argument here isn't that all groups have to have the trinity. (i usually run with a few healers and lots of dps in games as tanks seem a little less viable in some games) my argument is that without proper healing mechanics, dedicated healers, the game turns into a selfish zerg of dps.
also for those saying "you can probably play a class that's built to heal really well" well if that's the case then won't you want a healer when you go to pvp? thus defeating all the purposes of not having a dedicated healer class in the first place? If you can spec to be a healer chances are, in any form of group versus group combat, you'll need someone to be specced healer so either this means someone goes and respecs, or you find someone that is already built to heal.
i did play guild wars up until the second expansion. monk/warrior and ranger/mesmer. both ascended 20s and all that jaz. full set of the 15k armor or w/e.. the works. even if there were some good groups that weren't "the trinity" how many didn't have a monk? or at least a monk secondary? my argument here isn't that all groups have to have the trinity. (i usually run with a few healers and lots of dps in games as tanks seem a little less viable in some games) my argument is that without proper healing mechanics, dedicated healers, the game turns into a selfish zerg of dps.
also for those saying "you can probably play a class that's built to heal really well" well if that's the case then won't you want a healer when you go to pvp? thus defeating all the purposes of not having a dedicated healer class in the first place? If you can spec to be a healer chances are, in any form of group versus group combat, you'll need someone to be specced healer so either this means someone goes and respecs, or you find someone that is already built to heal.
We had a necro instead (PvE), worked fine and kicked butt at the same time we got some healing.
But I don't believe in the holy trio. GW2 wont have it and I personally believe that you can make combat more fun with no healing whatsoever, the holy trio is what made MMO combat so boring it is today. Without tanks and healers you need better mob AI and more flexible combat.
And that's why they're probably stepping away fully from the dedicated healer dependency as you see in trinity, by giving all the classes some form of heal. Just as they don't want a dedicated tank dependency where groups can only function optimally if a tank acts as aggro generating meatshield and a dedicated healer is present.
GW showed that other team setups could be as highly effective as trinity setups. In GW2 ANet seems to be going a step further by leaving the classic trinity behind.
Doesn't mean there aren't satisfying classes for those players that liked to be the healer: I'm expecting that if the monk will be revamped in GW2 it'll be in the form of protection monk, or another class with sortlike support skills in damage protection and deflection skills.
Only there won't be the strong class/role dependencies in groups as you saw with tanks and healers in trinity setup in other MMO's.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
i could care less about pve group builds. pve is easy. in pvp however healing is detrimental. a game without heels is definitely a dps racei don't think combat in current MMOs is boring. but again i'm a pvper .pvp is infinately more dynamic then any current pve (and probably any pve in the near future as no AI today can successfully emulate human intelligence). taking away healers won't make combat any more "fun" at it will do in PvE is make you time your CC right instead of timing heals and as a guys said before me in this thread pve isn't fun without the risk of dying. without heals, like Anet said, you will have to use damage prevention abilities. there is no sense of urgency with this play style. "i almost got hit" is not nearly as urgent as "I almost died"
If you don't understand or can't imagine how that can be, go play GW intensively for a couple of months: you'll see a lot more roles and a lot of different team setups besides trinity based, in fact GW has some of the deepest and best tactical team combat you'll find in any MMO, even if it's described as a CORPG.
GW2 by the look of it is merely the next step, an evolution of gameplay mechanics we've already seen a glimmer of in GW.
The thing that annoys me is that plenty of other games offered plenty of non holy-trinity options, they just didn't go around blowing their own trumpet as if they just revolutionized the genre. GW2 is talking up how they're doing away with dedicated healers, doing away with tanks, turning healing into a reactive instead of proactive exercise.... and then later in their own freakin article the examples they give of this revolution are an elementalist casting a healing rain (you mean like totems and other mechanics in a ton of other games?!). They mention an ability that marks a single target and provides more damage as a means of 'support' in the same breath they talk about their 'support' being totally new and doing away with the 'boring' need for healers, but that ability isn't new at all, nor is very imaginative to cite DEBUFFS as if they just discovered a way to turn lead into gold. Ah, but they've got another trick up their sleeve in a skill that adds armor to your group mates!!!!
Wow-wow-wee-wah, HEALING, debuffs and buffs aren't found in other games and totally has me drooling over the possibility GW2 really could have revolutionized the genre and provided a challenging game where dedicated healing isn't necessary!!!
That's sarcasm, for you overly literal types. They're talking themselves up big, providing 'evidence' of their new systems that isn't at all impressive, and then expecting those mundane, expected examples are going to make be believe THEIR combat is going to be so much better, more fun, and more tactical than any other game? Maybe I'm just jaded, but l-o-l.
If the goods they had to deliver were really that effing good, they wouldn't have to spin what they're doing beyond anything but the simple truth. We wouldn't need them slamming all games ever as one's crippled by the holy trinity where groups sit around for ages dependant on a healer logging in... I mean, hell, is it a good thing that the DEVS of an upcoming game don't seem to have actually PLAYED any other games, because this really hasn't been the case since like EQ, lol. And then they're taping into all the fears and buzzwords of the playerbase and using them to spin spin spin their own message, to sell everyone that GW2 is the next great thing, meanwhile without providing all that much actual information or facts on how the game will actually work... this is politician level speak... these are door-to-door salesman techniques... and I for one am not comfortable with it enough to swallow hook line and sinker and proclaim GW2 the game that will do away with the dedicated healer, destroy the conventions of the holy trinity and cure cancer.
It's an upcoming game that the devs are selling hard, spinning more theories and vision than actual facts and information... as a playerbase we should be smarter than to buy into it so quickly. I mean, haven't we been burned by this sort of behavior enough in recent years?
So, basically you're just pissed off that they've taken a long look how combat mechanics are in the current state of MMO's, that they're trying out new or different ways of doing things and that they're enthusiastic enough to call it like that. And since you're pissed off by their statements and have no trust in them or anyone else to do stuff differently, or just dislike the boastful way they sound when they're talking about their game, you've decided to disbelieve everything they're saying.
If that's all, then we're pretty clear about the situation.
It's not just that you're jaded, you're showing stubbornness and a closed off mind since there are already games that do things differently from the trinity as you said yourself, and you're trashing their statements just because you didn't like how they sounded while talking about their game.
If you don't want to believe in any hype or distrust anything developers say, suit yourself. Just don't play the game or wait for the beta to arrive.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Nowhere in the interview do they state "we are doing something no game has ever done before." You also have to admit that in SOME games the holy trinity is a problem and you do sit around waiting for a single class in order to make a group. Many of the people arguing this still are just reading way too much into the devs statements. On the one hand they are not totally demolishing and reinventing the holy trinity, from the article it's pretty clear they present it as a modification to a familiar mechanic, not reinventing the whole system. On the other hand the devs are not presenting their ideas as stuff that has NEVER been done before or the greatest thing to ever happen to the MMO industry. Based on what they say they're taking familiar mechanics and trying to build on and improve them. While people are getting excited for this game the actual hype level being put out by the devs compared to other titles is pretty low. For example, the words WoW killer have yet to make an appearance like it has with many past and upcoming titles. Why not actually get fired up and take a side either way when people have actually played the game and we have all the info on what's there or not/what's been done or not? At this point we have hardly any.
On a side note forget about doing away with the holy trinity being "revolutionary," how about a company providing you with a subscription free MMO that will not have a game destroying CS? No one else has done or is in the process of doing that. To the best of my knowledge.
Old school MMORPG's had it right with giving very specific roles to classes. These newer games with all the mixed-role classes has resulted in several drawbacks and I will list a few of my arguments:
Making classes too independent and soloable result in a reduction of players trending towards grouping. This impacts the overall experience of a game when little to no cooperation is required.
Replayability of the game is reduced when classes play similarly to each other. It makes re-rolling less interesting and therefore people are more likely to tire of the game sooner.
Players don't feel as epic or as important for a team or raid when mutiple other classes can perform their functions for them.
I would also argue that a "next gen" MMO could find real success in an MMO if they truly focus on the "RPG" element and inject that into the core of the game. That is, each class plays a specific role in the game. Most new games still follow this premise somewhat, adhering to the healer/mage/melee dps/tank model, but in most cases they have given each class multiple roles. So they have the healer/dps class, the healer/melee class and the healer/mage class for example. In any case, they have removed the pure classes entirely.
I would be interested in seeing a game come out that has clearly defined, specific roles for each class that are shaped by a very specific discipline. A developer can come up with their own ideas and then make the gameplay experience difference for each class. This is not re-inventing the wheel, as classes already play differently, but I believe they can go even farther into those differences.
So make the priest :
His job is to heal, and to avoid getting attacked by anyone since he can't really defend himself.
The priest should have no ability to injure living humanoids as that would be against his philosphy, but of course he should be able to say a few prayers to address the undead, or put a curse or two (debuffs) on the sinners of the world via a prayer or two.
They could kill animals with a dagger of some sort as it could be considered a form of sacrifice for their god. So they could really only solo the undead and the non-sentient.
The rest, they will have to rely on their ability to pacify them as they would have little to no combat skill against them. The UI for the priest should be complicated and set up to make it challenging to say prayers that heal different party members, buff them, and debuff mobs. The gameplay should include the common occurrence of mob aggro on them and the priest having to perform skills or movements to avoid the attacks until the muscle of the group can regain control.
Their gameplay would be so unique that if a player was to reroll a tank class, for example, they would find themselves having to learn an entirely different set of skills to survive in their new role.
So what I am hoping for, in a nutshell, is for the next gen to actually recognize that going back to the roots of RPG classes is the way to go.
This thread is full of baddies who are qqing because they don't know how to effectively team consistently. In other words, "L2Play". If you want to play a DPS class for the uber leet damage numbers, don't cry because you are not self sufficient.
what do you mean how you "designed your healing classes"? you mean how you specced them in game and such? or are you writing stuff for a game?
The thing about the trinity is that everyone had their place, and the group needed synergy to succeed in doing what the needed to do. with the way things are looking it seems like group play is heading toward what i call "grouped every man for himself" where the only kind of group play is calling out targets and focus firing
i agree.
aka zerg fest
I disagree.
Different roles. Different combat and team dynamics. Variety in different team setups.
As I said, lack of imagination and brain frozen into trinity mode for some.
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
1. "healing is for pussies" this argument had so many logical fallacies in it it made absolutely no sense. i know it's not realistic, i'm playing a FANTASY game. and healing is hard to do right.
The core of effective public discussion and argument is making points that people understand. The 'point' I'm making is the destination and I'm too old and jaded to care about whether I reached it in a technically correct fashion.
Save your 'logical fallacies' critiques for 12 year olds who might actually be impressed. Any dick with half-a-brain knows what I'm saying.
Aryas
Laughable, considering I play support/healing in almost every game; it's my preferred playstyle. I guess because I enjoy helping others and improving their efficiency (and the group over all) that makes me "less of a man"?
Of course, it must be laughable if someone disagrees with you, oh great one. Helping other players, healing them, wiping their asses (/joke), etc doesn't make you "less of a man", but being whiny, over-sensitive trollbait does.
If you can't see your absolute lack of reasoning then it's kind of sad. Judging from your icon, you're probably one of those keyboard face-rolling monkeys who whines if his target isn't dead in the first face volley (see what I did there?).
I think the core reasoning of my argument is perfectly sound. I also think that if you can't see other people's pespectives that's kind of sad. I can see your perspective and I think it's lame, so I called you on it. Are you attacking me simply because you can't defend your own position? The other people in favour of healing seem to manage ok. Even though they haven't sold me on it's merits yet, they haven't thrown all their toys out of the pram because someone disagrees with them.
Playing: Ableton Live 8 ~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Of course, no problem.
The fact that there won't be a designated healer doesn't mean that there won't be other designated roles and that everyone would be the same and do the same things in a group, it just means that the team dynamics has changed.
Now if you have a MMO where the combat mechanics are well thought through and balanced, it could even be flexible enough to allow all kinds of other team setups besides trinity that work without becoming a zerg fest.
GW is a good example where that already happened: you saw different team setups that worked well besides the trinity ones.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Of course, no problem.
The fact that there won't be a designated healer doesn't mean that there won't be other designated roles and that everyone would be the same and do the same things in a group, it just means that the team dynamics has changed.
Now if you have a MMO where the combat mechanics are well thought through and balanced, it could even be flexible enough to allow all kinds of other team setups besides trinity that work without becoming a zerg fest.
GW is a good example where that already happened: you saw different team setups that worked well besides the trinity ones.
GW1? Again a Zergfest but in a instance.
try again. No aggro system, means low armor characters could just kite to death. SO FUN!!!
but it works I guess, even if its still a zergfest.
It's actually healer, dps, tank and CC -- that's 4
Keep them separate! None of the roles are easy. A bad healer will get the party wiped. A bad tank will get the dps/healer killed and get the party wiped. A bad CCer will get the party wiped. A bad dps will draw too much aggro, get killed, then cause cause a party wipe from lack of dps. All of them need to be badasses to get their jobs done. No need to give them additional powers except to give them 'easy mode'.
try again. No aggro system, means low armor characters could just kite to death. SO FUN!!!
but it works I guess, even if its still a zergfest.
Dude, if you want to believe that no healer role in all situations means a zergfest, then you should keep on believing that.
If you want to believe that team setups cannot have entertaining or challenging team dynamics and team setups besides trinity, then you should keep believing that.
If you want to keep on trolling, then you should keep on trolling.
Far from me to rob someone from his toy he likes to play with.
After all, if someone wants to keep playing only MMO's that have trinity teambased combat for the next 20 years because he believes that's all there is to MMO team tactics, then he should keep on playing that.
There'll be enough choice in MMO's, also for people who can look beyond trinity teamplay.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The rampant stupidity and failed logic in this thread is so entertaining sometimes.
Lack of a dedicated "healing" class does not = complete removal of any and all support options as many of you are trying to imply through crap like "its nothing but a dps race" or "its nothing but a zergfest". The support side, such as protection will be just as vital to some group builds as healing. They are not remvoing support, simply reworking it. I still cant even understand how the hell some of you people come up with the assumption that basically no healer = theres nothing to do but dps. As several have mentioned, in GW1 there were many types of group build swhich had no dedicated HEALING, but instead relied on things like protection (Prot Monks anyone?) to prevent damage rather than refilling HP bars, or effective use of Crowd Control to (as the name implies) control their enemies and prevent them from being able to harm you in the first place. Did every group that didnt have a dedicated healer get instantly owned by any group that did have a healer? No. Those of you that claim to have played GW1 should understand this very easily, and if you still cant grasp the concept... well i dont know what else to think other than i hope that isnt a genetic defect you will pass onto your children potentially turning that movie Idioacracy into a true story.
edit: Also forgot to throw in there... some of you are also making incorrect assumptions about the lack of a dedicated healing class somehow equaling there is no healing and so we will have just dps races, etc (btw when isnt a game a dps race anyway even with healing?) When have they ever said there is no healing? there will still be plenty of it, only it will be more spread out rather than ONLY a specific class being able to heal. The act of healing itself will be just as important as in any game with a dedicated healer.
The rampant stupidity and failed logic in this thread is so entertaining sometimes.
Lack of a dedicated "healing" class does not = complete removal of any and all support options as many of you are trying to imply through crap like "its nothing but a dps race" or "its nothing but a zergfest". The support side, such as protection will be just as vital to some group builds as healing. They are not remvoing support, simply reworking it. I still cant even understand how the hell some of you people come up with the assumption that basically no healer = theres nothing to do but dps. As several have mentioned, in GW1 there were many types of group build swhich had no dedicated HEALING, but instead relied on things like protection (Prot Monks anyone?) to prevent damage rather than refilling HP bars, or effective use of Crowd Control to (as the name implies) control their enemies and prevent them from being able to harm you in the first place. Did every group that didnt have a dedicated healer get instantly owned by any group that did have a healer? No. Those of you that claim to have played GW1 should understand this very easily, and if you still cant grasp the concept... well i dont know what else to think other than i hope that isnt a genetic defect you will pass onto your children potentially turning that movie Idioacracy into a true story.
edit: Also forgot to throw in there... some of you are also making incorrect assumptions about the lack of a dedicated healing class somehow equaling there is no healing and so we will have just dps races, etc (btw when isnt a game a dps race anyway even with healing?) When have they ever said there is no healing? there will still be plenty of it, only it will be more spread out rather than ONLY a specific class being able to heal. The act of healing itself will be just as important as in any game with a dedicated healer.
So, basically you're just pissed off that they've taken a long look how combat mechanics are in the current state of MMO's, that they're trying out new or different ways of doing things and that they're enthusiastic enough to call it like that. And since you're pissed off by their statements and have no trust in them or anyone else to do stuff differently, or just dislike the boastful way they sound when they're talking about their game, you've decided to disbelieve everything they're saying.
If that's all, then we're pretty clear about the situation.
It's not just that you're jaded, you're showing stubbornness and a closed off mind since there are already games that do things differently from the trinity as you said yourself, and you're trashing their statements just because you didn't like how they sounded while talking about their game.
If you don't want to believe in any hype or distrust anything developers say, suit yourself. Just don't play the game or wait for the beta to arrive.
LOL, I love the pissed-off "you're just pissed off!" argument.
I'm not pissed off at them. I don't have a personal axe to grind. Instead of hype and PR spin and all the hoopla surrounding their grandiose claims of how they HOPE their system works, I just want the effing facts and information. I know, I know, most of the playerbase these days would rather be given the rose-colored vision... I want information. I don't want them to tell me how the holy trinity is teh suck and they're doing away with requiring a healer, blah blah. I want them to say 'this is our system' so that if they're really making a system that lives up to their claims than WE as the playerbase can come to that conclusion.
Why do most gaming companies these days feed us the 'results' and 'conclusions' on their system, telling us how would should perceive and define their game, long before actually delivering any information or specifics of the actual system.
I don't know if they just don't trust the playerbase to come to proper conclusions, or if they're actively attempting to control from day one, but either way most articles and dev interviews these days are shallow pep rallies. Sure, people like pomp. People like when a school parades out a bunch of cheerleaders and tells you it's going to be the best season ever for a sports team. Me, I'd rather get some stats and background on the players, maybe see them practice, before believing my team is going to totes pwn everything evar.
Why do people keep informing me I'm allowed to not play a game if I don't like it?!
So, basically you're just pissed off that they've taken a long look how combat mechanics are in the current state of MMO's, that they're trying out new or different ways of doing things and that they're enthusiastic enough to call it like that. And since you're pissed off by their statements and have no trust in them or anyone else to do stuff differently, or just dislike the boastful way they sound when they're talking about their game, you've decided to disbelieve everything they're saying.
If that's all, then we're pretty clear about the situation.
It's not just that you're jaded, you're showing stubbornness and a closed off mind since there are already games that do things differently from the trinity as you said yourself, and you're trashing their statements just because you didn't like how they sounded while talking about their game.
If you don't want to believe in any hype or distrust anything developers say, suit yourself. Just don't play the game or wait for the beta to arrive.
LOL, I love the pissed-off "you're just pissed off!" argument.
I'm not pissed off at them. I don't have a personal axe to grind. Instead of hype and PR spin and all the hoopla surrounding their grandiose claims of how they HOPE their system works, I just want the effing facts and information. I know, I know, most of the playerbase these days would rather be given the rose-colored vision... I want information. I don't want them to tell me how the holy trinity is teh suck and they're doing away with requiring a healer, blah blah. I want them to say 'this is our system' so that if they're really making a system that lives up to their claims than WE as the playerbase can come to that conclusion.
Why do most gaming companies these days feed us the 'results' and 'conclusions' on their system, telling us how would should perceive and define their game, long before actually delivering any information or specifics of the actual system.
I don't know if they just don't trust the playerbase to come to proper conclusions, or if they're actively attempting to control from day one, but either way most articles and dev interviews these days are shallow pep rallies. Sure, people like pomp. People like when a school parades out a bunch of cheerleaders and tells you it's going to be the best season ever for a sports team. Me, I'd rather get some stats and background on the players, maybe see them practice, before believing my team is going to totes pwn everything evar.
Why do people keep informing me I'm allowed to not play a game if I don't like it?!
Not sure exactly what youre looking for as far as details, but IMO theyve already done what youre asking, at least as well as they could at this stage in development, and we will see more in the coming months.
Theyve explained what theyre taking out (tanks & dedicated healer classes) and explained what its being replaced with (focus on Control and Protection roles instead).
Theyve also given us details of some of their own play testing using these new mechanics and the results of it, such as the dungeon run with no healers. They explained how things went throughout the dungeon and what the final results were.
what do you mean how you "designed your healing classes"? you mean how you specced them in game and such? or are you writing stuff for a game?
The thing about the trinity is that everyone had their place, and the group needed synergy to succeed in doing what the needed to do. with the way things are looking it seems like group play is heading toward what i call "grouped every man for himself" where the only kind of group play is calling out targets and focus firing
i agree.
aka zerg fest
I disagree.
Different roles. Different combat and team dynamics. Variety in different team setups.
As I said, lack of imagination and brain frozen into trinity mode for some.
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Because instead of REACTIVE healing like in all the other bad games in like ever, healing will be PROACTIVE via such revolutionary mechanics as an aoe healing rain, and debuffs.... and, get this one, you'll never guess..... buffs that reduce incoming damage!
So, instead of the bulk of 'support' like healing being done IN combat--I mean since when was having to REACT to your situation in a game a bad thing?--'support' will be done when? Before combat? Or is there going to be 'oh crap' scenarios where your elementalist got agro and is getting beaten down, but thankfully a warrior and his armor buff saves the day!
And I'm not saying a not-direct-healing system couldn't work. I suppose it could... I'm saying it won't be more dynamic. Other games don't just have a tank that gets auto agro, and a healer that does nothing but direct heals. Other games have everything the GW2 devs are trumpetting, stuns, buffs, even reactive save-the-caster sort of abilities, and ALSO the ability to heal as well...
Seems to me they're taking away choices, not adding them. And in most games, even holy trinity games, the good players don't just stand around refusing to fill any role but the one that fits their archetype, don't just stand there waiting to hit the one heal button... instead their are a million and one decisions to be made as to when to heal, IF to heal, HOW to heal, whether to do something other than heal like kite or stun or switch tanks. The 'information' I'm reading from GW2 would have us believe that this didn't occur in any other game, so it's somehow special in their game. If it IS special, then give us information on HOW that possibly isn't head-scratchingly similar to the 'how' in just about every other game ever.
In conclusion... the game will be a chaotic zerg in general situations... and in skilled groups will be too easy. No, not just 'faster' as people will claim (though that too), but EASY. Yawn.
In conclusion... the game will be a chaotic zerg in general situations... and in skilled groups will be too easy. No, not just 'faster' as people will claim (though that too), but EASY. Yawn.
In conclusion... you're hallucinating or can see into the future... since the game isn't out yet and there has been no beta gameplay.
As Kaiser already said:
"Theyve explained what theyre taking out (tanks & dedicated healer classes) and explained what its being replaced with (focus on Control and Protection roles instead).
Theyve also given us details of some of their own play testing using these new mechanics and the results of it, such as the dungeon run with no healers. They explained how things went throughout the dungeon and what the final results were."
You've just blinded yourself to that information.
But it's understandable: it's become painfully obvious from your posts that you've no experience at all with teambased combat outside trinity setups.
Ignorance and inexperience often leads to silly conclusions: luckily that inexperience will vanish as soon as you start playing GW2 and SW:TOR
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
Laughable, considering I play support/healing in almost every game; it's my preferred playstyle. I guess because I enjoy helping others and improving their efficiency (and the group over all) that makes me "less of a man"?
If you can't see your absolute lack of reasoning then it's kind of sad. Judging from your icon, you're probably one of those keyboard face-rolling monkeys who whines if his target isn't dead in the first face volley (see what I did there?).
It's also called Zerging.
Compared to MMORPGs that came before it, group play in WoW pre-raid felt like a zerg to me.
The intense coordination of EQ or DAoC seems to be missing, IMO.
The more solo friendly you make a game, the less coordination is required for most of the content, the more it feels like a zerg fest.
SWTOR looks like it will have coordinated group play. Just won't know if it's fun till you try it.
GW2 looks more like a zerg.
Your opinion, but not how they describe it: the fact that pure healer classes and meatshield tanks won't be part of GW2's equation, doesn't mean that those roles won't/can't be replaced by different roles or different team dynamics.
If you don't understand or can't imagine how that can be, go play GW intensively for a couple of months: you'll see a lot more roles and a lot of different team setups besides trinity based, in fact GW has some of the deepest and best tactical team combat you'll find in any MMO, even if it's described as a CORPG.
GW2 by the look of it is merely the next step, an evolution of gameplay mechanics we've already seen a glimmer of in GW.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
There's been a next gen mmo released? Last time I checked hadn't happened yet.
i did play guild wars up until the second expansion. monk/warrior and ranger/mesmer. both ascended 20s and all that jaz. full set of the 15k armor or w/e.. the works. even if there were some good groups that weren't "the trinity" how many didn't have a monk? or at least a monk secondary? my argument here isn't that all groups have to have the trinity. (i usually run with a few healers and lots of dps in games as tanks seem a little less viable in some games) my argument is that without proper healing mechanics, dedicated healers, the game turns into a selfish zerg of dps.
also for those saying "you can probably play a class that's built to heal really well" well if that's the case then won't you want a healer when you go to pvp? thus defeating all the purposes of not having a dedicated healer class in the first place? If you can spec to be a healer chances are, in any form of group versus group combat, you'll need someone to be specced healer so either this means someone goes and respecs, or you find someone that is already built to heal.
We had a necro instead (PvE), worked fine and kicked butt at the same time we got some healing.
But I don't believe in the holy trio. GW2 wont have it and I personally believe that you can make combat more fun with no healing whatsoever, the holy trio is what made MMO combat so boring it is today. Without tanks and healers you need better mob AI and more flexible combat.
I want a historical game with no healing.
I agree.
And that's why they're probably stepping away fully from the dedicated healer dependency as you see in trinity, by giving all the classes some form of heal. Just as they don't want a dedicated tank dependency where groups can only function optimally if a tank acts as aggro generating meatshield and a dedicated healer is present.
GW showed that other team setups could be as highly effective as trinity setups. In GW2 ANet seems to be going a step further by leaving the classic trinity behind.
Doesn't mean there aren't satisfying classes for those players that liked to be the healer: I'm expecting that if the monk will be revamped in GW2 it'll be in the form of protection monk, or another class with sortlike support skills in damage protection and deflection skills.
Only there won't be the strong class/role dependencies in groups as you saw with tanks and healers in trinity setup in other MMO's.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
i could care less about pve group builds. pve is easy. in pvp however healing is detrimental. a game without heels is definitely a dps racei don't think combat in current MMOs is boring. but again i'm a pvper .pvp is infinately more dynamic then any current pve (and probably any pve in the near future as no AI today can successfully emulate human intelligence). taking away healers won't make combat any more "fun" at it will do in PvE is make you time your CC right instead of timing heals and as a guys said before me in this thread pve isn't fun without the risk of dying. without heals, like Anet said, you will have to use damage prevention abilities. there is no sense of urgency with this play style. "i almost got hit" is not nearly as urgent as "I almost died"
The thing that annoys me is that plenty of other games offered plenty of non holy-trinity options, they just didn't go around blowing their own trumpet as if they just revolutionized the genre. GW2 is talking up how they're doing away with dedicated healers, doing away with tanks, turning healing into a reactive instead of proactive exercise.... and then later in their own freakin article the examples they give of this revolution are an elementalist casting a healing rain (you mean like totems and other mechanics in a ton of other games?!). They mention an ability that marks a single target and provides more damage as a means of 'support' in the same breath they talk about their 'support' being totally new and doing away with the 'boring' need for healers, but that ability isn't new at all, nor is very imaginative to cite DEBUFFS as if they just discovered a way to turn lead into gold. Ah, but they've got another trick up their sleeve in a skill that adds armor to your group mates!!!!
Wow-wow-wee-wah, HEALING, debuffs and buffs aren't found in other games and totally has me drooling over the possibility GW2 really could have revolutionized the genre and provided a challenging game where dedicated healing isn't necessary!!!
That's sarcasm, for you overly literal types. They're talking themselves up big, providing 'evidence' of their new systems that isn't at all impressive, and then expecting those mundane, expected examples are going to make be believe THEIR combat is going to be so much better, more fun, and more tactical than any other game? Maybe I'm just jaded, but l-o-l.
If the goods they had to deliver were really that effing good, they wouldn't have to spin what they're doing beyond anything but the simple truth. We wouldn't need them slamming all games ever as one's crippled by the holy trinity where groups sit around for ages dependant on a healer logging in... I mean, hell, is it a good thing that the DEVS of an upcoming game don't seem to have actually PLAYED any other games, because this really hasn't been the case since like EQ, lol. And then they're taping into all the fears and buzzwords of the playerbase and using them to spin spin spin their own message, to sell everyone that GW2 is the next great thing, meanwhile without providing all that much actual information or facts on how the game will actually work... this is politician level speak... these are door-to-door salesman techniques... and I for one am not comfortable with it enough to swallow hook line and sinker and proclaim GW2 the game that will do away with the dedicated healer, destroy the conventions of the holy trinity and cure cancer.
It's an upcoming game that the devs are selling hard, spinning more theories and vision than actual facts and information... as a playerbase we should be smarter than to buy into it so quickly. I mean, haven't we been burned by this sort of behavior enough in recent years?
According to a Facebook quiz, I'm a genius.
So, basically you're just pissed off that they've taken a long look how combat mechanics are in the current state of MMO's, that they're trying out new or different ways of doing things and that they're enthusiastic enough to call it like that. And since you're pissed off by their statements and have no trust in them or anyone else to do stuff differently, or just dislike the boastful way they sound when they're talking about their game, you've decided to disbelieve everything they're saying.
If that's all, then we're pretty clear about the situation.
It's not just that you're jaded, you're showing stubbornness and a closed off mind since there are already games that do things differently from the trinity as you said yourself, and you're trashing their statements just because you didn't like how they sounded while talking about their game.
If you don't want to believe in any hype or distrust anything developers say, suit yourself. Just don't play the game or wait for the beta to arrive.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Nowhere in the interview do they state "we are doing something no game has ever done before." You also have to admit that in SOME games the holy trinity is a problem and you do sit around waiting for a single class in order to make a group. Many of the people arguing this still are just reading way too much into the devs statements. On the one hand they are not totally demolishing and reinventing the holy trinity, from the article it's pretty clear they present it as a modification to a familiar mechanic, not reinventing the whole system. On the other hand the devs are not presenting their ideas as stuff that has NEVER been done before or the greatest thing to ever happen to the MMO industry. Based on what they say they're taking familiar mechanics and trying to build on and improve them. While people are getting excited for this game the actual hype level being put out by the devs compared to other titles is pretty low. For example, the words WoW killer have yet to make an appearance like it has with many past and upcoming titles. Why not actually get fired up and take a side either way when people have actually played the game and we have all the info on what's there or not/what's been done or not? At this point we have hardly any.
On a side note forget about doing away with the holy trinity being "revolutionary," how about a company providing you with a subscription free MMO that will not have a game destroying CS? No one else has done or is in the process of doing that. To the best of my knowledge.
Steam: Neph
Old school MMORPG's had it right with giving very specific roles to classes. These newer games with all the mixed-role classes has resulted in several drawbacks and I will list a few of my arguments:
Making classes too independent and soloable result in a reduction of players trending towards grouping. This impacts the overall experience of a game when little to no cooperation is required.
Replayability of the game is reduced when classes play similarly to each other. It makes re-rolling less interesting and therefore people are more likely to tire of the game sooner.
Players don't feel as epic or as important for a team or raid when mutiple other classes can perform their functions for them.
I would also argue that a "next gen" MMO could find real success in an MMO if they truly focus on the "RPG" element and inject that into the core of the game. That is, each class plays a specific role in the game. Most new games still follow this premise somewhat, adhering to the healer/mage/melee dps/tank model, but in most cases they have given each class multiple roles. So they have the healer/dps class, the healer/melee class and the healer/mage class for example. In any case, they have removed the pure classes entirely.
I would be interested in seeing a game come out that has clearly defined, specific roles for each class that are shaped by a very specific discipline. A developer can come up with their own ideas and then make the gameplay experience difference for each class. This is not re-inventing the wheel, as classes already play differently, but I believe they can go even farther into those differences.
So make the priest :
His job is to heal, and to avoid getting attacked by anyone since he can't really defend himself.
The priest should have no ability to injure living humanoids as that would be against his philosphy, but of course he should be able to say a few prayers to address the undead, or put a curse or two (debuffs) on the sinners of the world via a prayer or two.
They could kill animals with a dagger of some sort as it could be considered a form of sacrifice for their god. So they could really only solo the undead and the non-sentient.
The rest, they will have to rely on their ability to pacify them as they would have little to no combat skill against them. The UI for the priest should be complicated and set up to make it challenging to say prayers that heal different party members, buff them, and debuff mobs. The gameplay should include the common occurrence of mob aggro on them and the priest having to perform skills or movements to avoid the attacks until the muscle of the group can regain control.
Their gameplay would be so unique that if a player was to reroll a tank class, for example, they would find themselves having to learn an entirely different set of skills to survive in their new role.
So what I am hoping for, in a nutshell, is for the next gen to actually recognize that going back to the roots of RPG classes is the way to go.
This thread is full of baddies who are qqing because they don't know how to effectively team consistently. In other words, "L2Play". If you want to play a DPS class for the uber leet damage numbers, don't cry because you are not self sufficient.
Please tell me how the lack of Healer combat, will not be Zergfest
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Playing: Ableton Live 8
~ ragequitcancelsubdeletegamesmashcomputerkillself ~
Of course, no problem.
The fact that there won't be a designated healer doesn't mean that there won't be other designated roles and that everyone would be the same and do the same things in a group, it just means that the team dynamics has changed.
Now if you have a MMO where the combat mechanics are well thought through and balanced, it could even be flexible enough to allow all kinds of other team setups besides trinity that work without becoming a zerg fest.
GW is a good example where that already happened: you saw different team setups that worked well besides the trinity ones.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
GW1? Again a Zergfest but in a instance.
try again. No aggro system, means low armor characters could just kite to death. SO FUN!!!
but it works I guess, even if its still a zergfest.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
It's not trinity
It's actually healer, dps, tank and CC -- that's 4
Keep them separate! None of the roles are easy. A bad healer will get the party wiped. A bad tank will get the dps/healer killed and get the party wiped. A bad CCer will get the party wiped. A bad dps will draw too much aggro, get killed, then cause cause a party wipe from lack of dps. All of them need to be badasses to get their jobs done. No need to give them additional powers except to give them 'easy mode'.
Dude, if you want to believe that no healer role in all situations means a zergfest, then you should keep on believing that.
If you want to believe that team setups cannot have entertaining or challenging team dynamics and team setups besides trinity, then you should keep believing that.
If you want to keep on trolling, then you should keep on trolling.
Far from me to rob someone from his toy he likes to play with.
After all, if someone wants to keep playing only MMO's that have trinity teambased combat for the next 20 years because he believes that's all there is to MMO team tactics, then he should keep on playing that.
There'll be enough choice in MMO's, also for people who can look beyond trinity teamplay.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The rampant stupidity and failed logic in this thread is so entertaining sometimes.
Lack of a dedicated "healing" class does not = complete removal of any and all support options as many of you are trying to imply through crap like "its nothing but a dps race" or "its nothing but a zergfest". The support side, such as protection will be just as vital to some group builds as healing. They are not remvoing support, simply reworking it. I still cant even understand how the hell some of you people come up with the assumption that basically no healer = theres nothing to do but dps. As several have mentioned, in GW1 there were many types of group build swhich had no dedicated HEALING, but instead relied on things like protection (Prot Monks anyone?) to prevent damage rather than refilling HP bars, or effective use of Crowd Control to (as the name implies) control their enemies and prevent them from being able to harm you in the first place. Did every group that didnt have a dedicated healer get instantly owned by any group that did have a healer? No. Those of you that claim to have played GW1 should understand this very easily, and if you still cant grasp the concept... well i dont know what else to think other than i hope that isnt a genetic defect you will pass onto your children potentially turning that movie Idioacracy into a true story.
edit: Also forgot to throw in there... some of you are also making incorrect assumptions about the lack of a dedicated healing class somehow equaling there is no healing and so we will have just dps races, etc (btw when isnt a game a dps race anyway even with healing?) When have they ever said there is no healing? there will still be plenty of it, only it will be more spread out rather than ONLY a specific class being able to heal. The act of healing itself will be just as important as in any game with a dedicated healer.
I have to ask you.
Did you even play GW1?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
LOL, I love the pissed-off "you're just pissed off!" argument.
I'm not pissed off at them. I don't have a personal axe to grind. Instead of hype and PR spin and all the hoopla surrounding their grandiose claims of how they HOPE their system works, I just want the effing facts and information. I know, I know, most of the playerbase these days would rather be given the rose-colored vision... I want information. I don't want them to tell me how the holy trinity is teh suck and they're doing away with requiring a healer, blah blah. I want them to say 'this is our system' so that if they're really making a system that lives up to their claims than WE as the playerbase can come to that conclusion.
Why do most gaming companies these days feed us the 'results' and 'conclusions' on their system, telling us how would should perceive and define their game, long before actually delivering any information or specifics of the actual system.
I don't know if they just don't trust the playerbase to come to proper conclusions, or if they're actively attempting to control from day one, but either way most articles and dev interviews these days are shallow pep rallies. Sure, people like pomp. People like when a school parades out a bunch of cheerleaders and tells you it's going to be the best season ever for a sports team. Me, I'd rather get some stats and background on the players, maybe see them practice, before believing my team is going to totes pwn everything evar.
Why do people keep informing me I'm allowed to not play a game if I don't like it?!
According to a Facebook quiz, I'm a genius.
Not sure exactly what youre looking for as far as details, but IMO theyve already done what youre asking, at least as well as they could at this stage in development, and we will see more in the coming months.
Theyve explained what theyre taking out (tanks & dedicated healer classes) and explained what its being replaced with (focus on Control and Protection roles instead).
Theyve also given us details of some of their own play testing using these new mechanics and the results of it, such as the dungeon run with no healers. They explained how things went throughout the dungeon and what the final results were.
Because instead of REACTIVE healing like in all the other bad games in like ever, healing will be PROACTIVE via such revolutionary mechanics as an aoe healing rain, and debuffs.... and, get this one, you'll never guess..... buffs that reduce incoming damage!
So, instead of the bulk of 'support' like healing being done IN combat--I mean since when was having to REACT to your situation in a game a bad thing?--'support' will be done when? Before combat? Or is there going to be 'oh crap' scenarios where your elementalist got agro and is getting beaten down, but thankfully a warrior and his armor buff saves the day!
And I'm not saying a not-direct-healing system couldn't work. I suppose it could... I'm saying it won't be more dynamic. Other games don't just have a tank that gets auto agro, and a healer that does nothing but direct heals. Other games have everything the GW2 devs are trumpetting, stuns, buffs, even reactive save-the-caster sort of abilities, and ALSO the ability to heal as well...
Seems to me they're taking away choices, not adding them. And in most games, even holy trinity games, the good players don't just stand around refusing to fill any role but the one that fits their archetype, don't just stand there waiting to hit the one heal button... instead their are a million and one decisions to be made as to when to heal, IF to heal, HOW to heal, whether to do something other than heal like kite or stun or switch tanks. The 'information' I'm reading from GW2 would have us believe that this didn't occur in any other game, so it's somehow special in their game. If it IS special, then give us information on HOW that possibly isn't head-scratchingly similar to the 'how' in just about every other game ever.
In conclusion... the game will be a chaotic zerg in general situations... and in skilled groups will be too easy. No, not just 'faster' as people will claim (though that too), but EASY. Yawn.
According to a Facebook quiz, I'm a genius.
In conclusion... you're hallucinating or can see into the future... since the game isn't out yet and there has been no beta gameplay.
As Kaiser already said:
"Theyve explained what theyre taking out (tanks & dedicated healer classes) and explained what its being replaced with (focus on Control and Protection roles instead).
Theyve also given us details of some of their own play testing using these new mechanics and the results of it, such as the dungeon run with no healers. They explained how things went throughout the dungeon and what the final results were."
You've just blinded yourself to that information.
But it's understandable: it's become painfully obvious from your posts that you've no experience at all with teambased combat outside trinity setups.
Ignorance and inexperience often leads to silly conclusions: luckily that inexperience will vanish as soon as you start playing GW2 and SW:TOR
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."