Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Holy Trinity....nope, No Trinty...afraid not, alternative(s)?
ev1lb0b
Member UncommonPosts: 37
The Holy Trinity system has been tried and tested in many an MMO over the years and let's face it....love it or hate it, it works. It presents it's own unique set of problems but also it's own unique set of benefits also.
The latest offering from Anet is doing away with this system entirely and going for an 'each player is responsible for him/her self' approach which sounds good in theory but will make for a much more challenging game where player skill is paramount to success. This in itself will be very rewarding for good players but not so much for poor or even average players.
My question is are there any other systems out there that take a different approach to these two and if so, how well do they work? What are the alternatives?
Cheers.
Comments
I honestly don't know how you can considering 'taking the roll ontdo yourself' as a legit way to increasing difficulty. Honestly the healing in GW2 is pretty much a joke 'sit on the side lines and recover' type. Not having the trinity actually makes everyone play relatively similiar and in some ways causes the game to be LESS skill based. It practically means teamwork is a much less important factor, though yes I do know some classes can do great chaining off with each other's abilities. Lets face it, go in pew pew and go out really isn't that skill based. You react for dodging mostly and thats about all that is added. Not saying its bad at all, I love that added in, just taking out the trinity dumbs the game down quite a bit and makes options for players in terms of playstyles far less varied.
As far as different types then the trinity or the 'every man for himself' approach, there are some variations if your considering the RPG/action rpg games (ignoring some other game choices since they are just so different). Some games forgo the tank to make it on the roll of melee, slimming it down to basically 2 types of a heal and damage dealer, often times giving each abilities to help them aid the other. Its something that works pretty well. Another popular choice to a trinity is adding support into the mix. Support is usually considered a healer though in truth it doesn't need to be played in that fashion. A support character can exist as a back bone, providing extra strength to the team and focusing on supporting them.
Honestly though the trinity exists in practically every rpg. The big difference is they might add roles or compress rolls into a smaller subsection to fit the game. GuildWars 2 basically acts to compress them down. They say the trinity is void in their game yet they have all those features mixed in, just in a different style.
Your description of GW2 is not entirely accurate. While classes do not have defined roles, they can be kitted out to give heavy support to a group. To some extent the holy trinity cannot be eliminated completely due to the very mechanics that define an MMORPG.
What ANet did was eliminate static classes to fill the role. For example you can make a support warrior who heals allies with banners and shouts. They can also give AOE buffs at the same time... This is not a typical role for a warrior in other MMORPGs. Every class to some extent has this type of capability in GW2 so that anyone can if they choose switch roles to be support, DPS, or tank. While certain classes will do it slightly better, any class can fill the role. At least that is ANet's stated goal and what we have seen so far in testing.
So I believe GW2 is the hybridization you are asking for with something completely devoid of the trinity not actually existing in a game to this point. I don't think complete elimination can be done without changing a game to the point it is no longer recognized as an MMORPG.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Where exactly am I passing judgement? Having played in both BWE + stress test I personally like the direction Anet has gone for the most part. I have also raided end game WOW for 4+ years and liked, for the most part anyway, this system also.
The point of this thread is to see if anything else exists and if so how well does it work.
To me the trinity roles are good though i would make it a quad role system as you pointed out as to me healing and support should be seperated (as well as classes that are cc/buff/debuff heavy so that you can adjusst these to fit in under true dd roles). Just to me the way each class/build does the role they are doig should be varied to make the play style worthwhile. Like right now in most mmo tanking classes all use the same method of tanking in they are brick walls that try an get hit by targets while they keep their attention. To me i would love to play a tank that actually does not so much as keep the attention of mobs but redirects the damage that mobs do to members back to them, or evasion tanks, and such too would be a well recieved change. The same for DD, support, and healers changing the method of doing their job would add alot of intrresting playstyles and fun t the game while also allowing the devs to make different styles of each role work in different ways together. I have always liked systems that allowed you to create yoru roles thru your choices of powers, abilities, and such over choosing them from a pre-built build (like tsw in that way compared to wow or such.) as it allow me to be more unique than i might otherwise be. Another example would be roles that use their own hp or player hp as powering sources for abilities (kinda like blood priests and such i think aoc had one like this.).
For me based on what I've experienced and read about the GW2 system that attempt already is close to failing. Combining that rather action-based almost hack'n slay combat (instead of a more tactical sort) with the removal of clear group roles by dropping the holy trinity has resulted in a (for me) clear drop in group performance. The combo systems are rather meh, you barely actually group up but rather run around next to each other what even more boosts the playing side-by-side instead of actually together.
So no, GW2 makes a viable experiment with group play innovations but for me it already has failed. I really wish those hybrid class approaches wouldn't effectively lead to a decreasing depth of tactical possibilities and wouldn't reduce the challenge it can be to play the own role/class to the best of its abilities.
I'd take a holy trinity with deep and challenging dedicated classes any day. Especially actual healers with actual and meaningful healing abilities of a depth as they are in DAoC.
I think its the biggest mistake they will ever make, and GW 2 which in my opinion is already way down on my list, is only moving further down because of this.
I think players need these roles, they need a job a task to perform to feel like their role in a group is valued, if anything I think that mmo's should be enforcing the trinity even further and not removing it, they use WOW and waiting for a PUG queue as an example of how bad it is, what they forget is that 10 million people play wow, they play it for a reason, ITS GOOD!.
Its not something I play any more, but even though I dont like the way its gone, Im not immature enough to call it crap its still a really good game.
I think every role should be capped when it comes to damage, all roles should put out the same amount of damage, the difference in how this damage is done should be whats important to the player, if you like being ranged, then play ranged, if you like being a healer then be a healer if you like tanking, then be a tank, but all your damage is the same, So many players these days drop a class in favour of another simply because they heared it does more damage, damage should never be a factor, they should all do the same.
Unless you're playing a sandboxy game where you can level up whatever skill you want, I think trinity is a necessity. Without it there's no structure or depth to classes, teamwork is also limited.
In a themepark game I really don't see another viable method to be honest.
Could you explain to me why having no trinity makes for a "much more challenging game where player skill is paramount to success"? How is having trinity any different? Can you give me an example?
Heh, all anyone wants to do is talk about GW2. I think the original poster's intention with this thread was to ask about other games that are using systems that are atypical to the holy trinity games that have become so popular.
EVE, Darkfall and Mortal Online tend to have a less trinity-oriented setup. They are also very sandbox. I'm sure there are others that people can mention.
I think it is amazing that so many people are ready to write off GW2 when no one has had the time to see how it pans out. Looking forward after a few months to come back here and laugh about how no defined trinity classes dumb down the game.
The potential is there... Those that take the time to actually try things out will be rewarded. How well it will work is still yet to be determined. Those thinking it has already failed clearly did not like the game to begin with.
The game is not for everyone, but frankly calling the systems failed already stinks of agenda rather than an objective look.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
Table top rpgs have worked for 38 years without the trinity. It works there, why can't it work in mmos? There's basicly no difference, the computer just handles the die rolls.
Trinity combat never has worked well for MMORPGs. It got its start as a way to let players defend their weaker party members in games that had no concept of the relative positioning of combatants. But today, it basically turns combat into manipulating the AI into behaving incredibly stupidly. That's not interesting gameplay.
As for alternatives, I think it's more productive to look at games that are already out and don't have trinity combat than to merely speculate. For example, Guild Wars, Spiral Knights, Puzzle Pirates, or the ship battles in Pirates of the Burning Sea.
Asherons Call please, I was the Tank and the Healer
I like the holy trinity in themeparks mostly because I like to play support roles. While I understand in GW2 you can do some sort of support here and there, it doesnt seem as strong as it is in the trinity system.
I figure though that GW2 can get away without the holy trinity because its heavily a pvp game?
1. Holy Trinity creates a lot of problems: Players have to search for Tanks and Healers all the time, or some players are forced to play a role they do not want to.
2. Holy Trinity makes playing boring, because in the end you just do what your role requires you to do and nothing else. You do not play your class to its full potential and you do not play to your own full potential.
3. Holy Trinity forces the game designers to reduce the classes more and more to defined roles and certain templates. This kills the option to individualise your character. In the end, there is always only one way to play your class and you spend a lot of time reading guides that tell you exactly what to do.
If there was one good thing in vanilla WoW it was the freedom players had with their classes. I could switch between healing, tanking and damage-dealing during one fight with my druid or my shaman. I will never forget one situation in Dire Maul, where I started in cat-form to make damage, then our tank made a stupid mistake and pulled too many mobs. He died quickly, but I just battle-rezzed him, gave innervate to our healer, switched to bear and made aoe-taunt to give everybody a break - in the end we killed all mobs and it was great fun. This is exactly how I expect GW2 to be - more action, more possibilities, more freedom, more fun!
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
Well the mobs are controlled by a predictable ui, as the gm in most games is a human that can change tactics on the fly or adapt to changes better than the ai could. The fact that also in many ways you could see a form of trinity system in table top play, as a player could use weak abilities such as with a mage using weak spells to seem weaker than he/she is to mobs that might shift thier focus to them quickly otherwise killing them. Table top games worked more on precived threat than actual threats, as a player could easily trick a mob into thinking they were more dangerous than they were. I mean it is normally pretty dumb for a mage or such to start lobing fireballs at a dragon or such without regard, as that thing will turn it's attention to that mage as the biggest threat. The issue with the trinity system is that it has not brought into being a dynamic threat system (aion haad an interesting take on one though.) so that the actions of the party, or the mobs themselves could influence the precieved threat of a character.
well there is a trinity of ranged melee and magic.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Pretty much everything here. And a last bit of my own.
While I realize combat can never be truly realistic, in a real fight, there isn't going to be one tank, or healer, or whatever. The individual in combat has to make split second choices: Do I drag my wounded teammate over and bandage him, or lay down supressing fire? Do I flank this group and take them out, or move in front and create a distraction for my team? And EVERY person has an equal share in that responsibility. Unlike the average MMO raid, where a tank and a couple healers have all the responsibility to keep the group alive, while the dps just run through their rotations blithely.
Come again? PvE combat is completely based upon anticipating or manipulating the actions of the AI.
Take virtually any boss fight from... okay, I'm kind of struggling to narrow the field, here. I'm tempted to just say "from any video game ever." Let's say, any boss that has a weak spot. You know exactly how this works. They have impenetrable armor but they have a particular attack that exposes their weak point, and you counterattack after they do that attack. Generally speaking, everyone who plays video games should be familiar with this concept.
Being totally defensive until the weak point is vulnerable is a way of manipulating a very stupid AI. If another player were controlling that boss, they could 100% guarantee their survival just by never using that one attack and never allowing their weak point to be attackable. The only reason anyone has any chance of beating those boss battles is because the AI was deliberately made to be easily exploited. A human opponent trying to win—or an AI designed to win—would make the fight unwinnable for the player.
As another example, let's consider every stealth game ever. You beat these games by getting past enemies undetected and/or ambushing enemies from hiding without alerting other enemies. Against player-controlled soldiers, this could also be unwinnable. Post a guard at every point of entry: it's now impossible to enter the area undetected. Every guard has their back to a wall or another guard: it's now impossible to ambush them. The challenges are only winnable because the AI was made intentionally predictable and exploitable.
Is it fair to say that all games that contain these examples have uninteresting gameplay? Not unless you're prepared to call PvE combat uninteresting in general (which some do). Most AI are not intended to beat you, they're intended to test you. If you know the correct solution and can execute it correctly, you win. Whether that's interesting or not depends on the details, and whether the correct solution feels smart. If you don't think the Trinity solution (tank takes damage, healer heals damage, DPS deals damage) feels smart, that's fine... but I say again, it is not uninteresting purely because it is a strategy that exploits the AI. That is every PvE strategy.
In my opinion; GW2 is doing a great job of making their game skill based.
I find it laughable that certain people are dismissing GW2's system as inferior to the holy trinity.
Yes, you are responsible for your own health and healing in GW2 but that does not mean that its a zerg game, it is because healing is so limited in GW2 that Team work becomes even more important compared to the traditional Trinity system, It will take a group effort and mixture of abilities from the differrent professions to overcome obstacles and encounters.
At the same time it is possible for multiple people of the same profession to do dungeons together and this is my favorite thing about GW2, It's not exclusionary. No waiting for a Tank or a Healer to show up, and No sifting through the trash to find a good DPS because everyone can perform these roles to an extent.
GW2 focuses on having Players AVOID damage, while other games which employ the Holy Trinity are about minimising damage taken and healing through the rest of it.
Lets be honest now, no one plays MMO's because they like looking at a screen full of healthbars yoyo back and forth, or watching your hotbar waiting for cooldowns while following a strict rotation of their abilities to maximize damage/aggro.
GW2's Combat is much more engaging because you do need to watchout for things happening on your screen and making use of the dodge mechanic and using your abilities in a way that makes sense to the current situation you are in, not some pre-defined checklist on a dungeon/raid guide...
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
Please elaborate. Does a group require abilities from different professions, or not? It can't be both.
...not really. Magic can be ranged or melee. Ranged can be mid range or long range. If it were like you say, we would have only these 3 meaningful class distinctions.
This obviously isn't the case. GW2 has a trinity. Damage (not to be mistaken for DPS), support (certainly not just healers), and control (debuffs, hard and soft CCs, ways to slow down, divert, disrupt, or otherwise prevent demage from being sent at you or your allies). All classes can do each to a viable extent, but no 2 classes have the same way of actually performing these rolls. In fact, each class has more than one way of performing each role, and isn't limited to one role at a time.
All this leads to classes being able to change roles quite easily, and classes taking up different roles in different situations.
example: an elementalist is great when using AoE against multiple enemies, but that is not as effective against bosses. They are, in fact, quite good at throwing CC effects like blinds, dazes, slows, stuns, and KDs. They can protect themselves with earth magic, or support by giving speed or health regen buffs. The change in damage output is meaningless, as it is pretty much impossible to out DPS bosses without doing something to keep yourself alive (getting one shotted hurts)
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
It's one thing for players to be able to counter the AI. It's quite another for players to be able to make the AI behave in extraordinarily stupid ways. Trinity combat is predicated on the latter.
Suppose that you're playing a chess game against the AI. The AI has to have some limitations to make it practical for you to win, of course. Maybe the AI algorithm is only written to look so many moves ahead or whatever.
But suppose that the chess AI is written such that if you move your knights to be adjacent to each other, the AI will invariably move its queen to where you can capture it on the next move if you possibly can. Once you figure that out, your best strategy will no longer consist of doing things that you would do against another human. Rather, you'll try to move your knights adjacent to each other early on so that you can capture the enemy queen. That would rather ruin the challenge, wouldn't it? But it does so for the same reasons as trinity-based combat.
Twenty-five years ago, it was understandable to have bosses that ran in some fixed pattern while effectively ignoring the player and seeing if they happened to hit you. Or maybe it would be simple stuff to move toward you while attacking or whatever. The hardware wasn't very powerful then, so they couldn't do very much.
But today? They can do a lot better, and do. For that matter, there were SNES games with AI considerably smarter than your standard trinity MMORPG fare. Super Mario Kart never made me think the AI was trying to lose. Neither did Liberty or Death or Street Fighter II Turbo, for that matter. Some AI wasn't terribly bright, but many games had AI that couldn't be easily manipulated into anything as flagrantly stupid as ignoring a healer to pound away at a heavily armored tank for minutes at a time.
Now, you could protest that none of those are MMORPGs. But Uncharted Waters Online is, and never had AI that made me think, if only they did mobs did this really simple and obvious thing differently, they'd be much stronger. Guild Wars rarely does, apart from the pulling mechanisms that prevent all of the mobs from attacking you at once. So having dramatically smarter AI can be done--and has been done successfully. In Guild Wars, it worked a lot better than any trinity combat game I've seen.
Why can't it be both.
Is there some sort of rule that It can't be both somehwere?
What I mean by my statement is that it will be easier to get through content with a mixture of professions, because they each offer differrent buff or utilities, but it is entirely possible to do the same content with multiple people of the same professions because of the differrent abilities weapons of a specific type give you.
There is no pigeonholing, and you arent limited by the professions you bring along on your adventures.
"The problem with quotes from the Internet is that it's almost impossible to validate their authenticity." - Abraham Lincoln
So really, all the "Holy Trinity" is a very specific tactic that requires three or more players to execute. Specifically, the holy trinity is defined as:
Player A has high damage mitigation and forces the MOB to attack him.
Player B has high DPS and attacks the MOB while it is beating on player A.
Player C can heal, and heals player A to prevent him from dying, thus keeping players B and C safe.
That's it, nothing special really, and it would be fairly easy to invent another "trinity" that didn't use Tank/DPS/Heal if you wanted to. And actually, for examples of other "trinity" systems, albeit not MMO's, look at Trine or the Lost Vikings. They both have systems that require three characters to use their abilities together in order to solve problems.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?