Originally posted by TyranusPrime (Let's add to the mix here.. Say the game being discussed isn't an 8 button masher type, but more of the multi-ability of Warcraft or Rift or something.. Does the addition of abilities and tactics change your view on trinity-use?)
One key point that many are missing is that EQN has zero XP given for killing mobs.
So the game for me revolves around combat AVOIDANCE not killing stuff like in most games.
I will only kill things needed to complete tasks - or mobs that drop things I need - I will be avoiding all combat otherwise - running, dodging, CCing but not killing.
So why put trinity in when killing mobs gives NO xp and other than drops needed for task completion or crafting, it is undesirable to kill npcs, they give you no gain.
EQN is fundamentaly not centered around killing mobs.
Because just because the game isn't about leveling up, doesn't mean progression stops. In max level of WoW and Rift, and EQ2, did you just stop killing things because you stop leveling? No!
trinity is important, because its the only way to make large scale PvE work without being zergfest designed like GW2 does.
I bought in to GW2's hype and philosophies and ended up not really liking the game after playing it for a while.
The biggest part ended up being lack of trinity, because...
Grouping without roles and the need for any real strategy ends up not really being grouping.
Grouping in GW2 feels more like a group of soloists sharing a chat channel and an instance. Larger scale grouping (for events/public quests) is like a zerg. It's a much more generic experience.
I got a bunch of my MMORPG friends to try GW2 and ALL of them got bored with it and moved on quick because it's overall just more of a single player game and the reason all of us love MMORPGs is because of real grouping and progressive content.
GW2 has some slick pieces and some good content ideas (beaten to utter death by repetition with different graphics thru the many zones, like the heart quest and event ideas are good but after you've done 15+ zones of the same thing with a different look it's all mind numbing just like any other repetitive leveling content). The jumping puzzles are great but that hardly makes a game. Overall though, I don't consider GW2 to be a goog MMORPG or even much OF an MMORPG.
So, IMO, if you take away trinity, you take the heart out of MMORPGs and make them into something else.
GW2, and it looks like TESO will be the same, are massively single player online games.
The fact that there was ZERO mention of group-based PvE in the not so "reveal" (they really didn't show much and talked a lot of dreams and ideas). What we do know is 8 skills at a time. Period. The game looks like an arcade/console game and 8 skills is a console limitation being inflicted on a genre that usually features a ton of choices. So my first impression is that EQN won't be much of an MMORPG, will be another of the massively single player games, and will further be diminished by being designed too much for consoles (which simply aren't well suited to MMORPGs).
Structured grouping and progressive content are core pieces of MMORPGs. When you take either or both away, you no longer have an MMORPG.
The idea of no trinity sounds good in theory but groups of can do anything anytime solo characters with no roles or structure and the resulting total lack of cooperation, coordination, tactics, or strategy, end up being very boring unless you are the type that just wants to solo, and as I always say, why do you play MMORPGs if you just want to solo when there have always been way more single player games than good MMORPGs available?
There is absolutely nothing special or engaging about doing an instance as a group of soloists. It's pointless.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I had more fun in the first 3 dungeons of FFXIV:ARR, and playing through old Vanilla WoW dungeons while leveling a new toon, than I ever had in a dungeon in GW2.
Interesting that you had a change of tone, I remember you calling others trolls in GW2 forum for their lack of interest in the non-trinity design.
Well I am for trinity, never really cared for the dps role. Unfortunately, we trinity folk are outnumbered and I know this by the popularity of the tank and healer class in most trinity based games.
I am okay with an adaptation of the trinity; however the game needs role based characters. GW2 was awful...especially for people who enjoying playing things like healers. I do not like being pigeon-holed into a DPS role, it just isn't fun for me. I am okay with an alteration to the basic trinity as long as role based skills are still applicable (and please gaming gods keep a viable healer class in the game).
Do you remember the days of earlier WoW when you could put symbols on the heads of mobs.. That wasn't just for decoration.. Tank square, Off tank triangle, Sleep moon.. etc etc.. Everyone had to be alert to the fights.. Those fights were dynamic as was the early ones in EQ..... BUT YES, today's trinity isn't that anymore, they became AOE taunt DPS zergs.. Pally runs in, pulls agro on ALL 4 mobs (screw cc) , healer heals and DPS just AOE burns them down.. That is the prime example of trinity GONE BAD.. but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.. FIX IT instead..
Exactly! I don't feel it's so much that the trinity was ever really broken. What was broken was the various copanies dumbing it down to Tank grab all adds and everyone else just AOE them down.
Originally posted by TawClaw Guild Wars 2 was originally praised for its lack of trinity because it seemed like a good idea, an innovative idea.
It turns out, we were wrong. Did you play GW2? The group play was awful. The dungeons were awful. There was no reason to focus on being a support player, leaving everyone to just build a max DPS character. In dungeons, it was every man/woman for him/herself just spamming attacks and running around in chaos. No tactics. No group play. No coordination. Sure, there might be a few minor exceptions on very specific dungeons, but in a nutshell, spamming keys and running was all it was.
In light of that, we know all know that the trinity is good for group gameplay. It encourages things like I mentioned earlier; tactics and coordination. The complexity of dungeons in trinity-based games vastly exceeds the level of complexity in a non-trinity game. There is just such better combat and more potential for exciting dungeons.
Get over yourself. GW2 is not just a button mash, have you played it lately? The dungeons have changed and therefore tactics for boss fights have changed. Sure there is a few dungeons like CoF that are based around pure DPS builds but there dungeons (eg. Arah explorable) that need co-ordination and team play to complete it else you'd fail hard.
Lack of Trinity is a good thing I believe as it allows players to play the way they want, not be restricted to "tanking" or "dps". Being free of the shackles of the "trinity" has opened up doors, making dungeons not as predictable nowadays.
I think people need to be open to change and not set in there ways that "this is how an MMORPG needs to be mechanically else it sucks".
If you want to play a good trinity game go play WoW or something along those lines.
Absolutely. Giving everyone in a group the tools to Control mobs, mitigate damage, heal a little bit and still do damage brings a much more dynamic and interactive group scenario, why would you need any one person in the group to fill one specific task. The trinity is highly restrictive and very boring where non trinity group play is more about coordination a tactics. In my opinion Teamwork exists more in a non trinity system.
I can't completely agree because Slyther_Zero's argument is self defeating. He states that the lack of trinity is a good thing because it allows the players to play the way they want. He states this as a debate against the people who are upset because they can't play the way they want.
As Kingsfield stated earlier, this cannot be debated in terms of black and white. We need to consider additional options that allow everyone to play the role they want, and right now Trinity versus no Trinity is too black and white. We need a shade of grey, lets just hope that EQNext is bringing us a shade that accommodates for those that are looking for something new.
To be honest I'm kind of surprised there hasn't been more threads about the 8 ability slots... than worrying about the trinity.
That has been talked about almost as much as the trinity vs non-trinity discussion. It's used often in discussions and debates. Both trinity and ability slots have to do with combat, and combat is certainly one of the most talked about as people are quite wary about what they've heard so far....and the severe lack of information SOE is willing to give out. They just keep saying everything will be fine, but at the same time keep saying things aren't finalized.
Actually what I was getting at... is quite often I see posts where people say for some reason they need 50,000 hot bars for combat to be good. I was more expecting a lot of rage with the idea of 8 slot total than people posting about ... trinity .. as we actually know they said "8 slots* but until you play their game you can't really know what combat is like....
Which "trinity", is everyone referring to here? Because there was a vast difference between WoW's & EQ1's, for startes WoW only had 3 roles, EQ had, what...5, tank, heal, cc, support, then dps? I think a lot of people are confusing the issue be throwing out buzzwords when they don't understand fully what they mean in the context in which they are being discussed.
Originally posted by TawClaw Guild Wars 2 was originally praised for its lack of trinity because it seemed like a good idea, an innovative idea.
It turns out, we were wrong. Did you play GW2? The group play was awful. The dungeons were awful. There was no reason to focus on being a support player, leaving everyone to just build a max DPS character. In dungeons, it was every man/woman for him/herself just spamming attacks and running around in chaos. No tactics. No group play. No coordination. Sure, there might be a few minor exceptions on very specific dungeons, but in a nutshell, spamming keys and running was all it was.
In light of that, we know all know that the trinity is good for group gameplay. It encourages things like I mentioned earlier; tactics and coordination. The complexity of dungeons in trinity-based games vastly exceeds the level of complexity in a non-trinity game. There is just such better combat and more potential for exciting dungeons.
Get over yourself. GW2 is not just a button mash, have you played it lately? The dungeons have changed and therefore tactics for boss fights have changed. Sure there is a few dungeons like CoF that are based around pure DPS builds but there dungeons (eg. Arah explorable) that need co-ordination and team play to complete it else you'd fail hard.
Lack of Trinity is a good thing I believe as it allows players to play the way they want, not be restricted to "tanking" or "dps". Being free of the shackles of the "trinity" has opened up doors, making dungeons not as predictable nowadays.
I think people need to be open to change and not set in there ways that "this is how an MMORPG needs to be mechanically else it sucks".
If you want to play a good trinity game go play WoW or something along those lines.
Absolutely. Giving everyone in a group the tools to Control mobs, mitigate damage, heal a little bit and still do damage brings a much more dynamic and interactive group scenario, why would you need any one person in the group to fill one specific task. The trinity is highly restrictive and very boring where non trinity group play is more about coordination a tactics. In my opinion Teamwork exists more in a non trinity system.
I can't completely agree because Slyther_Zero's argument is self defeating. He states that the lack of trinity is a good thing because it allows the players to play the way they want. He states this as a debate against the people who are upset because they can't play the way they want.
As Kingsfield stated earlier, this cannot be debated in terms of black and white. We need to consider additional options that allow everyone to play the role they want, and right now Trinity versus no Trinity is too black and white. We need a shade of grey, lets just hope that EQNext is bringing us a shade that accommodates for those that are looking for something new.
Originally posted by Dessl0ck Which "trinity", is everyone referring to here? Because there was a vast difference between WoW's & EQ1's, for startes WoW only had 3 roles, EQ had, what...5, tank, heal, cc, support, then dps? I think a lot of people are confusing the issue be throwing out buzzwords when they don't understand fully what they mean in the context in which they are being discussed.
It's not a very accurate label but I'm sure most people who use it understand that the third pillar of the 'trinity' encapsulates more than just pure DPS classes.
Originally posted by Dessl0ck Which "trinity", is everyone referring to here? Because there was a vast difference between WoW's & EQ1's, for startes WoW only had 3 roles, EQ had, what...5, tank, heal, cc, support, then dps? I think a lot of people are confusing the issue be throwing out buzzwords when they don't understand fully what they mean in the context in which they are being discussed.
True.. I have using the word trinity just as a buzzword to define a combat system that supports roles and methods.. GW2 combat is very "linear".. fight one mob, you fought then all.. There is basically nothing unique to GW2 combat from mob to mob, zone to zone.. It's all the same,..
Now WoW was better, atleast there I had options.. tank, heal, cc, dps and pets.. even stun locking from a rogue was a pain to deal with.. Then as you pointed out EQ had far more roles to play, from puller, to tank, to off tank, CC, buff / debuff, heals, dps, .. Giving people the option to straight up tank and spank, or kite, or just watch pets and charmed mobs do the dirty work..... That is ALL GONE in EQN.. I have not heard different to refute it..
I havnt read everything but this is how I see it, and how I HOPE the company sees it.
They stated that they are doing away with the trinity system where you had to wait for a specific person to log on, as your tank or healer, but did they say they were doing away with the need for tanks and healers IN FIGHTS?
for example, now everybody will have the OPTION to tank or heal, so you are not waiting on a specific person to tank or heal, if you need one, somebody in your group respecs to tank and one to heal. and the group carries on
I hope so hard this is what they meant by that, cause yes, the game would be absolutely GAY if everybody had to dps, I dont want to dps!
There are folks who enjoy managing the group/encounters: Here are the classes I want. Here are the players I want. Here is what I want you to do. Here is what you will do. Nothing wrong with that, to each their own. But, It's nice to play something different also.
Also, I keep seeing the common assertion that trinity structures bring structure to combat. Only problem is, the combat is already structured (scripted). So what I'm really hearing is, "I uncomfortable palying a game in which combat scripts cannot be memorized."
One thing the SOE developers keep saying over and over again is that trinitiy structures are just silly within a wise AI system, because the whole point is that mobs will adjust strategy and tactics based on what they see us doing. Well, this is aside from the fact having one dude stand in front of the mob hurling insults while 3 to 5 healers dumps heals on him and everyone else nukes the crap out of the mob is really kind of silly on it's own.
There is plenty of room for tactics and strategies within games with multiclassing and action combat. There are also still roles, and if anything, a group of good cooperative players will be even more important than it was before. The only difference is, now folks are also going to have be more creative, do more than simply study parsers to extract the script, and have everyone target through the tank and start mashing buttons.
Is the trinity more structured? Of course it is. Is it interesting? Not really.
I'm not going to get into the rest of your statement.. but I do want to address that highlighted portion.. That is what we are TOLD is that "their" AI mobs are too smart to be fooled by the trinity..... That is just hogwash silly strawman argument by the devs and they damn well know it.. They act if they are doing us a favor, allowing people to do dps, but mobs are too smart to ignore the healer in the shadows.. Lets assume Mr Smart Mob says, "screw this, I'm taking out the healer".. ( that shit used to happen a lot in original EQ early days).. It was very common for someone such as myself to say, "OH NO YOU DON'T, leave my healer alone".... I used to have macros that said that, the split second I "rooted" his ass in the corner.. Or an Enchanter would step up with their macro saying, "Mez the gnoll, you break it, you won it".. and POOF.. the add was taken care of..... Those OPTIONS were NEVER considered in EQN... They were ignored, and instead went the way of Zerg DPS..
In my opinion having a variety of class roles as states is far more dynamic and challenging then just hack and slash zerging.. and in case the devs are reading any of this.. I haven't drank "KOOL AID" since I was a kid
Well, I understand what you're saying. I will also say that the section you hi-lighted was intended to be placed in context with the all the other things I said.
Look, if folks like playing structured combat games, fine. Keep playing what you're playing. But why waste all the energy walking around the eqn forums complaining that it's the game that it is?
This just speculation and inference, but it seems like majority of the complaints are coming from players who enjoy playing tanks and healers, so the mindful effort to reduce group dependencies on these two classes would probably tick me off a bit also. However, as I almost always play a scouts because I like them.
When EQ2 first came out, I played a ranger main......
Then I played a warlock main.....
Then I played a swashbuckler main.....
Then I went back to my ranger main ....
(Any of you who raided eq2 will understand that progression.....)
Then I got fed-up, tired, bored with adjusting to the flavor of the month and just stopped playing.
This aside, I'm excited about the ability to customize my game play and to NEVER have to roll another alt or main again. I'm also excited about the AI elements and the dynamic game play.
Healers will still be needed. Tanks will still be needed. However, what SOE has done is tried to minimize how my game play and ability to enjoy the game is effected by the presence of other classes.
I do however agree with you about the zerging stuff. I also found that it is possible to group with players who don't play this way, and for really hard encounters, this will certianly lead to a wipe. One still needs intelligent strategy and tactics, and for me, this means transcending trinity structured content mechanics to make the fight more dynamic and interesting, even if it changes the traditional power and dependency structures of the trinity.
Back when you were playing, did you often find yourself saying "I wish they just get rid of Tanks/Healers and DPS or that they'd get rid of the different classes? I'd be surprised if you did. I bet you probably said something like, "Why cant' they just balance these classes?" The Class or Classless systems are neither the cause or the solution to the issue you have mentioned above. And in fact, even with a Classless system, there is no guarantee that abilities will be balanced properly. There could still be a FOTM in the classless system too.
Back when you were playing, did you often find yourself saying "I wish they just get rid of Tanks/Healers and DPS or that they'd get rid of the different classes? I'd be surprised if you did. I bet you probably said something like, "Why cant' they just balance these classes?" The Class or Classless systems are neither the cause or the solution to the issue you have mentioned above. And in fact, even with a Classless system, there is no guarantee that abilities will be balanced properly. There could still be a FOTM in the classless system too.
on the plus side of being able to respec all the time, the overpowered classes will be identified and balanced a lot quicker as all the devs need to do is look at class composition trends.
If pvp has taught me anything, it's that the trinity does not exist.
Tanks dont persuade me to attack them, unless one time force like in war hammer. I target healers, scatter the dps and kill one by one, then down the tanks in group focus format. There are better pvpers than me and more experienced and sound tactics but generally, i avoid fighting my opponents as their roles dictate.
If the new emergent ai is truly smarter, than it could potentially recognize the same weaknesses in groups and exploit them. I'd be hard pressed to believe it but, I've waited long enough for this game, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for now.
Our military used to have really specific roles, and still generally do, medics are not as common as everyone is trained to be a medic in the infantry. Everyone learns ems techniques and combat aid. Everyone is trained in explosives, though not everyone carries them. Everyone is trained with a pistol and rifle and machine gun... Though different roles are assigned, everyone in the squad can become a new machine gunner if the first one drops. Yet the army still has tanks and support.
The trinity will be rendered obsolete with good enough ai, but that still doesn't mean tanks, support classes won't make a group better. Dunno, I found gw2 boring due to the stale and stagnant world as well as many other reasons. Not solely due to the lack of a trinity.
Am I really the one that noticed that the "trinity" isnt completely gone?
SOE only said that tanks were gone. There are still full on healers.
SOE even said that Clerics can sit in a corner and only heal but they want Clerics to be more active and actually attack.
There are no tanks because attacks are telegraphed by red circles on the ground so if you get hit then its your fault.
SOE also said there will be Support classes. So, the EQ Next "trinity" will be Damage, Heals and Support. There will still be a trinity its just that it wont include a Tank.
Also, they may be able to pull off the non-standard trinity unlike GW2, which was supposed to have a non-standard trinity but ArenaNet failed.
There are folks who enjoy managing the group/encounters: Here are the classes I want. Here are the players I want. Here is what I want you to do. Here is what you will do. Nothing wrong with that, to each their own. But, It's nice to play something different also.
Also, I keep seeing the common assertion that trinity structures bring structure to combat. Only problem is, the combat is already structured (scripted). So what I'm really hearing is, "I uncomfortable palying a game in which combat scripts cannot be memorized."
One thing the SOE developers keep saying over and over again is that trinitiy structures are just silly within a wise AI system, because the whole point is that mobs will adjust strategy and tactics based on what they see us doing. Well, this is aside from the fact having one dude stand in front of the mob hurling insults while 3 to 5 healers dumps heals on him and everyone else nukes the crap out of the mob is really kind of silly on it's own.
There is plenty of room for tactics and strategies within games with multiclassing and action combat. There are also still roles, and if anything, a group of good cooperative players will be even more important than it was before. The only difference is, now folks are also going to have be more creative, do more than simply study parsers to extract the script, and have everyone target through the tank and start mashing buttons.
Is the trinity more structured? Of course it is. Is it interesting? Not really.
I'm not going to get into the rest of your statement.. but I do want to address that highlighted portion.. That is what we are TOLD is that "their" AI mobs are too smart to be fooled by the trinity..... That is just hogwash silly strawman argument by the devs and they damn well know it.. They act if they are doing us a favor, allowing people to do dps, but mobs are too smart to ignore the healer in the shadows.. Lets assume Mr Smart Mob says, "screw this, I'm taking out the healer".. ( that shit used to happen a lot in original EQ early days).. It was very common for someone such as myself to say, "OH NO YOU DON'T, leave my healer alone".... I used to have macros that said that, the split second I "rooted" his ass in the corner.. Or an Enchanter would step up with their macro saying, "Mez the gnoll, you break it, you won it".. and POOF.. the add was taken care of..... Those OPTIONS were NEVER considered in EQN... They were ignored, and instead went the way of Zerg DPS..
In my opinion having a variety of class roles as states is far more dynamic and challenging then just hack and slash zerging.. and in case the devs are reading any of this.. I haven't drank "KOOL AID" since I was a kid
Well, I understand what you're saying. I will also say that the section you hi-lighted was intended to be placed in context with the all the other things I said.
Look, if folks like playing structured combat games, fine. Keep playing what you're playing. But why waste all the energy walking around the eqn forums complaining that it's the game that it is?
This just speculation and inference, but it seems like majority of the complaints are coming from players who enjoy playing tanks and healers, so the mindful effort to reduce group dependencies on these two classes would probably tick me off a bit also. However, as I almost always play a scouts because I like them.
When EQ2 first came out, I played a ranger main......
Then I played a warlock main.....
Then I played a swashbuckler main.....
Then I went back to my ranger main ....
(Any of you who raided eq2 will understand that progression.....)
Then I got fed-up, tired, bored with adjusting to the flavor of the month and just stopped playing.
This aside, I'm excited about the ability to customize my game play and to NEVER have to roll another alt or main again. I'm also excited about the AI elements and the dynamic game play.
Healers will still be needed. Tanks will still be needed. However, what SOE has done is tried to minimize how my game play and ability to enjoy the game is effected by the presence of other classes.
I do however agree with you about the zerging stuff. I also found that it is possible to group with players who don't play this way, and for really hard encounters, this will certianly lead to a wipe. One still needs intelligent strategy and tactics, and for me, this means transcending trinity structured content mechanics to make the fight more dynamic and interesting, even if it changes the traditional power and dependency structures of the trinity.
Back when you were playing, did you often find yourself saying "I wish they just get rid of Tanks/Healers and DPS or that they'd get rid of the different classes? I'd be surprised if you did. I bet you probably said something like, "Why cant' they just balance these classes?" The Class or Classless systems are neither the cause or the solution to the issue you have mentioned above. And in fact, even with a Classless system, there is no guarantee that abilities will be balanced properly. There could still be a FOTM in the classless system too.
I'm not sure I understand the point you're making about my comments. I'm interested to see how the game plays about because:
(1) I love min-maxing at the individual, group, and raid level. What I don't enjoy is having having to level an entire new character to do it. In fact, I absolutely loathe it. Therefore, I generally like the flexibility that multi-classing affords.
(2) Classless systems? No one is talking about that. In fact, everything I've seen implies there will be tiers of development within each class - it's about customization vis a vis a gear and class combinations.
(3) I've not even said anything about removing tanks and healers from this game or any game. In fact, I've said over and over again I think those classes will still be very much needed. What I've said is that I no longer find trinity combat mechanics all that interesting: Tank pins the mob ->Everyone targets through the tank -> spam what ever buttons are not on cooldown -> And for raids, joust/equip gear based on the attack everyone knows is coming (from memorizing scripts the parses reveal) I'm not saying this kind of fighting can't be hard, I'm just saying it's not that interesting to me any more.
One of the main complaints I keep seeing is that action combat and multi-classing will destroy strategic game play as players revert to zerging.
Well, first off, I don't just don't see how the algorithm above amounts to anything that can really be called challenging "strategy". A challenging fight, sure. But strategy, nah - it's just memorizing a script.
Secondly, any group who tries to zerg a difficult encounter is going to wipe. At least that's my experience. And I'm intrigued by the idea of wise AI driving encounters. This is going to require strategic thinking, and in my experience with these types of games, a great deal of group coordination is needed for these kinds of encounters. I think they are fun.
I don't know. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints are coming from those who enjoy playing the tank and healer roles because a trinity system cannot operate without them, and yet everyone else is sort of expendable based what the FOM is.
I think moving away from the trinity is a huge mistake. I mean if you design a "class" like a warrior with defensive abilities and plate armor but have no way to taunt or force the mob to attack you then what is the point of wearing that armor or having defensive abilities? Same goes for other classes. If I'm wearing cloth but the mobs are beating on me I shouldn't be wearing cloth. This is the issue with GW2 IMO. This type of gameplay lends itself to all DPS type groups. This was one of the things I really disliked in GW2. The dungeons were just 5 people dodging circles and the mobs running amok with no strategy because nobody can control the mobs or heal anyone taking damage. This also meant people usually just died and ran back in a long zergfest that was one-dimensional and boring.
I would have much rather seen a return of the EQ1 roles with not only healers and tanks but support type roles like bards and enchanters (and what ever happened to the monk puller? Never understood why no games including EQ2 ran with that as a potential utility role). I can understand the desire to not pigeon-hole players into roles but they can add flexibility to the game without removing the holy trinity. Just make different forms of "tanks" and "healers" and with the ability to multi-class you shouldn't have an issue finding (or switching to) a role that is needed. I think a system without roles is far less diverse or interesting and has the unintended side-effect of pigeon-holing everyone into the same role of some bland hybrid class. So you solve the problem of people being forced to be healers or tanks by forcing everyone to be DPS?
The ironic thing is EQ1/EQ2 was much closer to the solution of the holy trinity problem than GW2 was able to achieve IMO. If the stated problem with the holy trinity is that it forces players to play certain roles then the solution is in having more class diversity not less. EQ1 and EQ2 had different types of tanks (mitigation tanks, avoidance, single target, AE). They each excelled at different types of encounters but you could use any of them in a pinch in most situations. Same goes for healing. There were numerous healers..including necros...that could fill a healing role. Obviously, clerics were the primary healers for raids but druids could fill in on a CH rotation and there were also spot healers and buffers to mitigate dmg output. There were numerous raid/group configurations that were viable because players had variety and choice. Sure there is some restriction due to the trinity but you could make up for less healing with good tanking or more CC or a lesser tank with more healing.
What I am getting at is that the solution is to broaden that system out to be more flexible so it's much more likely that you will have a tank or a healer available. What about healers that heal by doing damage or casters that range tank with controlling abilities. The multi-class system would be perfect for this. There are usually different DPS types so why not different healer and tank types with their own advantages/disadvantages but who could all perform at a base level to fill that role (EQ2 sort of did this but they could expand it for more flexibility). Don't throw the whole system out and homogenize everything.
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
Exactly
It will be interesting to see each guilds implementation of the trinity and their tactics. I completely agree - nice to see people that understand this. Talk about customization!
Why can't we have a game where AI acts like players would in PVP?
Well, it's possible. WoW did it with the Argent Tournament Raid, and before that in the Magister's Terrace. And those two fights wiped more groups than pretty much everything.
So that ability for AI like that has existed for years now, the only reason I can see why they don't implement it is because most people would just keep dying. I loved those fights and wouldn't mind seeing more of it.
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
Exactly
It will be interesting to see each guilds implementation of the trinity and their tactics. I completely agree - nice to see people that understand this. Talk about customization!
But then aren't we back to square one.. YOU swap out ONE required spec for another.. I can see it now and I know that is how some do it.. They send in the Meat Shield plate class uniquely geared and spect to take a beating for a few seconds.. ONCE he has mobs attention, the rest of the group chimes in and DPS's mob.... How is that any different then a normal tank and taunt? People/Guilds will go back to saying "LF Tank spec'd this way, pst"..... GW2 already is doing that indirectly..
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
Exactly
It will be interesting to see each guilds implementation of the trinity and their tactics. I completely agree - nice to see people that understand this. Talk about customization!
But then aren't we back to square one.. YOU swap out ONE required spec for another.. I can see it now and I know that is how some do it.. They send in the Meat Shield plate class uniquely geared and spect to take a beating for a few seconds.. ONCE he has mobs attention, the rest of the group chimes in and DPS's mob.... How is that any different then a normal tank and taunt? People/Guilds will go back to saying "LF Tank spec'd this way, pst"..... GW2 already is doing that indirectly..
Comments
Because just because the game isn't about leveling up, doesn't mean progression stops. In max level of WoW and Rift, and EQ2, did you just stop killing things because you stop leveling? No!
trinity is important, because its the only way to make large scale PvE work without being zergfest designed like GW2 does.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I bought in to GW2's hype and philosophies and ended up not really liking the game after playing it for a while.
The biggest part ended up being lack of trinity, because...
Grouping without roles and the need for any real strategy ends up not really being grouping.
Grouping in GW2 feels more like a group of soloists sharing a chat channel and an instance. Larger scale grouping (for events/public quests) is like a zerg. It's a much more generic experience.
I got a bunch of my MMORPG friends to try GW2 and ALL of them got bored with it and moved on quick because it's overall just more of a single player game and the reason all of us love MMORPGs is because of real grouping and progressive content.
GW2 has some slick pieces and some good content ideas (beaten to utter death by repetition with different graphics thru the many zones, like the heart quest and event ideas are good but after you've done 15+ zones of the same thing with a different look it's all mind numbing just like any other repetitive leveling content). The jumping puzzles are great but that hardly makes a game. Overall though, I don't consider GW2 to be a goog MMORPG or even much OF an MMORPG.
So, IMO, if you take away trinity, you take the heart out of MMORPGs and make them into something else.
GW2, and it looks like TESO will be the same, are massively single player online games.
The fact that there was ZERO mention of group-based PvE in the not so "reveal" (they really didn't show much and talked a lot of dreams and ideas). What we do know is 8 skills at a time. Period. The game looks like an arcade/console game and 8 skills is a console limitation being inflicted on a genre that usually features a ton of choices. So my first impression is that EQN won't be much of an MMORPG, will be another of the massively single player games, and will further be diminished by being designed too much for consoles (which simply aren't well suited to MMORPGs).
Structured grouping and progressive content are core pieces of MMORPGs. When you take either or both away, you no longer have an MMORPG.
The idea of no trinity sounds good in theory but groups of can do anything anytime solo characters with no roles or structure and the resulting total lack of cooperation, coordination, tactics, or strategy, end up being very boring unless you are the type that just wants to solo, and as I always say, why do you play MMORPGs if you just want to solo when there have always been way more single player games than good MMORPGs available?
There is absolutely nothing special or engaging about doing an instance as a group of soloists. It's pointless.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
Interesting that you had a change of tone, I remember you calling others trolls in GW2 forum for their lack of interest in the non-trinity design.
Welcome back!!!
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Exactly! I don't feel it's so much that the trinity was ever really broken. What was broken was the various copanies dumbing it down to Tank grab all adds and everyone else just AOE them down.
I can't completely agree because Slyther_Zero's argument is self defeating. He states that the lack of trinity is a good thing because it allows the players to play the way they want. He states this as a debate against the people who are upset because they can't play the way they want.
As Kingsfield stated earlier, this cannot be debated in terms of black and white. We need to consider additional options that allow everyone to play the role they want, and right now Trinity versus no Trinity is too black and white. We need a shade of grey, lets just hope that EQNext is bringing us a shade that accommodates for those that are looking for something new.
Actually what I was getting at... is quite often I see posts where people say for some reason they need 50,000 hot bars for combat to be good. I was more expecting a lot of rage with the idea of 8 slot total than people posting about ... trinity .. as we actually know they said "8 slots* but until you play their game you can't really know what combat is like....
That's why I made the comment.
+1
It's not a very accurate label but I'm sure most people who use it understand that the third pillar of the 'trinity' encapsulates more than just pure DPS classes.
True.. I have using the word trinity just as a buzzword to define a combat system that supports roles and methods.. GW2 combat is very "linear".. fight one mob, you fought then all.. There is basically nothing unique to GW2 combat from mob to mob, zone to zone.. It's all the same,..
Now WoW was better, atleast there I had options.. tank, heal, cc, dps and pets.. even stun locking from a rogue was a pain to deal with.. Then as you pointed out EQ had far more roles to play, from puller, to tank, to off tank, CC, buff / debuff, heals, dps, .. Giving people the option to straight up tank and spank, or kite, or just watch pets and charmed mobs do the dirty work..... That is ALL GONE in EQN.. I have not heard different to refute it..
I havnt read everything but this is how I see it, and how I HOPE the company sees it.
They stated that they are doing away with the trinity system where you had to wait for a specific person to log on, as your tank or healer, but did they say they were doing away with the need for tanks and healers IN FIGHTS?
for example, now everybody will have the OPTION to tank or heal, so you are not waiting on a specific person to tank or heal, if you need one, somebody in your group respecs to tank and one to heal. and the group carries on
I hope so hard this is what they meant by that, cause yes, the game would be absolutely GAY if everybody had to dps, I dont want to dps!
Back when you were playing, did you often find yourself saying "I wish they just get rid of Tanks/Healers and DPS or that they'd get rid of the different classes? I'd be surprised if you did. I bet you probably said something like, "Why cant' they just balance these classes?" The Class or Classless systems are neither the cause or the solution to the issue you have mentioned above. And in fact, even with a Classless system, there is no guarantee that abilities will be balanced properly. There could still be a FOTM in the classless system too.
on the plus side of being able to respec all the time, the overpowered classes will be identified and balanced a lot quicker as all the devs need to do is look at class composition trends.
If pvp has taught me anything, it's that the trinity does not exist.
Tanks dont persuade me to attack them, unless one time force like in war hammer. I target healers, scatter the dps and kill one by one, then down the tanks in group focus format. There are better pvpers than me and more experienced and sound tactics but generally, i avoid fighting my opponents as their roles dictate.
If the new emergent ai is truly smarter, than it could potentially recognize the same weaknesses in groups and exploit them. I'd be hard pressed to believe it but, I've waited long enough for this game, I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt for now.
Our military used to have really specific roles, and still generally do, medics are not as common as everyone is trained to be a medic in the infantry. Everyone learns ems techniques and combat aid. Everyone is trained in explosives, though not everyone carries them. Everyone is trained with a pistol and rifle and machine gun... Though different roles are assigned, everyone in the squad can become a new machine gunner if the first one drops. Yet the army still has tanks and support.
The trinity will be rendered obsolete with good enough ai, but that still doesn't mean tanks, support classes won't make a group better. Dunno, I found gw2 boring due to the stale and stagnant world as well as many other reasons. Not solely due to the lack of a trinity.
Wait a minute.
Am I really the one that noticed that the "trinity" isnt completely gone?
SOE only said that tanks were gone. There are still full on healers.
SOE even said that Clerics can sit in a corner and only heal but they want Clerics to be more active and actually attack.
There are no tanks because attacks are telegraphed by red circles on the ground so if you get hit then its your fault.
SOE also said there will be Support classes. So, the EQ Next "trinity" will be Damage, Heals and Support. There will still be a trinity its just that it wont include a Tank.
Also, they may be able to pull off the non-standard trinity unlike GW2, which was supposed to have a non-standard trinity but ArenaNet failed.
I'm not sure I understand the point you're making about my comments. I'm interested to see how the game plays about because:
(1) I love min-maxing at the individual, group, and raid level. What I don't enjoy is having having to level an entire new character to do it. In fact, I absolutely loathe it. Therefore, I generally like the flexibility that multi-classing affords.
(2) Classless systems? No one is talking about that. In fact, everything I've seen implies there will be tiers of development within each class - it's about customization vis a vis a gear and class combinations.
(3) I've not even said anything about removing tanks and healers from this game or any game. In fact, I've said over and over again I think those classes will still be very much needed. What I've said is that I no longer find trinity combat mechanics all that interesting: Tank pins the mob ->Everyone targets through the tank -> spam what ever buttons are not on cooldown -> And for raids, joust/equip gear based on the attack everyone knows is coming (from memorizing scripts the parses reveal) I'm not saying this kind of fighting can't be hard, I'm just saying it's not that interesting to me any more.
One of the main complaints I keep seeing is that action combat and multi-classing will destroy strategic game play as players revert to zerging.
Well, first off, I don't just don't see how the algorithm above amounts to anything that can really be called challenging "strategy". A challenging fight, sure. But strategy, nah - it's just memorizing a script.
Secondly, any group who tries to zerg a difficult encounter is going to wipe. At least that's my experience. And I'm intrigued by the idea of wise AI driving encounters. This is going to require strategic thinking, and in my experience with these types of games, a great deal of group coordination is needed for these kinds of encounters. I think they are fun.
I don't know. It seems to me that a lot of the complaints are coming from those who enjoy playing the tank and healer roles because a trinity system cannot operate without them, and yet everyone else is sort of expendable based what the FOM is.
Personally, I'm happy to have more options.
I think moving away from the trinity is a huge mistake. I mean if you design a "class" like a warrior with defensive abilities and plate armor but have no way to taunt or force the mob to attack you then what is the point of wearing that armor or having defensive abilities? Same goes for other classes. If I'm wearing cloth but the mobs are beating on me I shouldn't be wearing cloth. This is the issue with GW2 IMO. This type of gameplay lends itself to all DPS type groups. This was one of the things I really disliked in GW2. The dungeons were just 5 people dodging circles and the mobs running amok with no strategy because nobody can control the mobs or heal anyone taking damage. This also meant people usually just died and ran back in a long zergfest that was one-dimensional and boring.
I would have much rather seen a return of the EQ1 roles with not only healers and tanks but support type roles like bards and enchanters (and what ever happened to the monk puller? Never understood why no games including EQ2 ran with that as a potential utility role). I can understand the desire to not pigeon-hole players into roles but they can add flexibility to the game without removing the holy trinity. Just make different forms of "tanks" and "healers" and with the ability to multi-class you shouldn't have an issue finding (or switching to) a role that is needed. I think a system without roles is far less diverse or interesting and has the unintended side-effect of pigeon-holing everyone into the same role of some bland hybrid class. So you solve the problem of people being forced to be healers or tanks by forcing everyone to be DPS?
The ironic thing is EQ1/EQ2 was much closer to the solution of the holy trinity problem than GW2 was able to achieve IMO. If the stated problem with the holy trinity is that it forces players to play certain roles then the solution is in having more class diversity not less. EQ1 and EQ2 had different types of tanks (mitigation tanks, avoidance, single target, AE). They each excelled at different types of encounters but you could use any of them in a pinch in most situations. Same goes for healing. There were numerous healers..including necros...that could fill a healing role. Obviously, clerics were the primary healers for raids but druids could fill in on a CH rotation and there were also spot healers and buffers to mitigate dmg output. There were numerous raid/group configurations that were viable because players had variety and choice. Sure there is some restriction due to the trinity but you could make up for less healing with good tanking or more CC or a lesser tank with more healing.
What I am getting at is that the solution is to broaden that system out to be more flexible so it's much more likely that you will have a tank or a healer available. What about healers that heal by doing damage or casters that range tank with controlling abilities. The multi-class system would be perfect for this. There are usually different DPS types so why not different healer and tank types with their own advantages/disadvantages but who could all perform at a base level to fill that role (EQ2 sort of did this but they could expand it for more flexibility). Don't throw the whole system out and homogenize everything.
There will still be the option to build a defensive oriented plate armor wearing characters, you just won't be able to make the NPC's attack you and focus on you with a taunt button. You will have to employ more tactics and creativity to get the ai to attack just the 'tank' at the expense of ignoring everybody else. The option to build a healing oriented character will still exist, as will the option to build a character oriented around damage. So the trinity will still exist, it just won't be the only effective strategy in the game.
The vision for this is to be a lot more like table top RPG games in level of strategy and variety of options.
Exactly
It will be interesting to see each guilds implementation of the trinity and their tactics. I completely agree - nice to see people that understand this. Talk about customization!
Well, it's possible. WoW did it with the Argent Tournament Raid, and before that in the Magister's Terrace. And those two fights wiped more groups than pretty much everything.
So that ability for AI like that has existed for years now, the only reason I can see why they don't implement it is because most people would just keep dying. I loved those fights and wouldn't mind seeing more of it.
But then aren't we back to square one.. YOU swap out ONE required spec for another.. I can see it now and I know that is how some do it.. They send in the Meat Shield plate class uniquely geared and spect to take a beating for a few seconds.. ONCE he has mobs attention, the rest of the group chimes in and DPS's mob.... How is that any different then a normal tank and taunt? People/Guilds will go back to saying "LF Tank spec'd this way, pst"..... GW2 already is doing that indirectly..