I do think though that GW 2 is more difficult because like the poster above mentions about the daily and the combo the game does not do a good job of explaining the combo and neither did the people with him. The fact is you have to have the skill equipped and not everyone can simply just get a combo. Some of classes from what I recall when I played my mesmer could make their own combos that means they cast both the beginning and the finishers and others have a few seconds to cast their finisher after someone cast the beginning spell. If you do not know the combinations by either reading up and also having it specifically equipped you are not going to be able to pull it off.
MMORPGs by nature have many people from various backgrounds who play them. Some do their research and know the classes. I actually went and checked the combos and found out what worked for my ranger,engineer and so on and that way I could use it in the boss fights. The problem is that does not make an average player who comes into the game able to intuitively know what to do. I think this must have frustrated players a lot and I do not think that those who do know the system were smarter or anything just that they bothered to do their homework. In this respect playing games that had roles one is familiar with is easier. So yes trinity games are simpler but that does not mean the mechanics cannot be skillfully pulled of. People equate simplicity with easy. There are not the trinity is quite complex if the game requires more than just mindlessly using rotations.
I think the mistake lies in GW 2 the game is zergy for sure so all these nuances and abilities that make you a better player is truly not needed. Whereas in games where you have a trinity you screw up and it is noticeable. You do well and it is also noticeable.
Some people who play GW 2 tend to think they are better than those who like the trinity as evidenced above but really the game on the average is very easy to play and advance so there's no achievement as such. I do agree the WvWvW and the harder dungeon require people to know the combos and to play well but ordinary content in the game is a snooze fest in terms of difficulty. I played several classes and even soloed a champion so from my experience it was not a hard game. It was a very casual romp and when I did the dungeons it was just you worry about yourself mentality that seemed to prevail. It might be a good PvP game but for grouping up with strangers not so much was my impression.
Originally posted by Bladestrom Lol the term holy trinity existed long before gw2 - simply google holy trinity and look at the dates,
I didn't say that it didn't exist so your statement is completely out of place and pointless. I said barely anyone spoke about it. Googling provided very few results with most of them just someone mentioning something about holy trinity in a post.
Everquest discussion 2004 talking about the trinity.
No, one guy mentioned "holy trinity" in that topic. That was more of a phrase he just dropped. The guy was asknig what would be a good combo for 3 people.
As I said, you always had that trinity in MMORPGs however it was never something which was discussed that much. YOu might get what like 1 topic every year or less with like 5 posts in it? But after GW2 everyone seems to be talking and moaning about it.
Ye fair enough, The issue is more to do with GW2 being the first big AAA game (although there are others like EVE,GW1 etc) to try to break away from the trinity, and gaming forums like this where people trying to argue one is better than the other. In reality both trinity and non trinity simply offer different forms of gameplay, some like trinity, some like non trinity, some like both.
Eve still uses the Trinity, although it has expanded upon it, from Electronic Warfare for 'Crowd Control' and debuffs etc, to Tanking, which really just means a ship is fitted out for either max shields or armour with good resists, and healing, pretty much covered by specialist ships such as logistics, to just dropping a remote armour rep etc or shield transfer into a 'spare' high slot. its been a very long time since i played GW1, but i think the game also pretty much followed the trinity too.
No trinity games (...) just reinforced how stupid trinity is and that its limiting factor in every way.
Trinity is just dumbed down regular combat. The more you "specialize" the more you dumb down combat/content.
This.
Also one of the main reasons why trinity doesnt work is "DPS" role. It just doesnt work when one role has zero group responsibility while others (Tank/Healer) have to carry them. Its archaic and wrong on so many levels.
GW2 system with off-heal, off-tank is much better solution.
I was a complete slave to the trinity. Then I played Darkfall. While DFO didn't reach anywhere near its potential, the system in place had its merits; and damn, it was fun. No classes, no levels, no trinity at all. It was basically just "use whatever skills you have hotkeys for", and go nuts. Like I said, it was far from perfect; quite flawed, actually. But the game turned me off of the trinity. I'll still play the occasional MMO that HAS Healers, Tanks, and Deeps, but I'm left wanting something different.
I'm not saying that the trinity has to go or evolve; I'm saying that DFO gave me a taste of something that was completely different, and for me at least, variety is vital when it comes to pretty much anything, including the games I play.
There may be in the future better games that do the non trinity well but GW 2 is too zergy for my tastes for it to show that non trinity done that way is interesting. It can be pulled off and shines in harder content only when you play in good groups and guilds which makes it not good in my book. It has to have more accessibility in my opinion.
Also monk is the healer in GW 1 and was a needed class from I recall.
No trinity games (...) just reinforced how stupid trinity is and that its limiting factor in every way.
Trinity is just dumbed down regular combat. The more you "specialize" the more you dumb down combat/content.
This.
Also one of the main reasons why trinity doesnt work is "DPS" role. It just doesnt work when one role has zero group responsibility while others (Tank/Healer) have to carry them. Its archaic and wrong on so many levels.
GW2 system with off-heal, off-tank is much better solution.
Ah the Irony of just those few statements, some might perhaps suggest that with fewer commands related to attack or defence that combat had in some way been dumbed down, and as for specialization being a sign of such, is more than a little misleading as the ability to specialize is often a sign of not only a games complexity when it comes to combat, but also the depth of said combat, no doubt the lack of such options does make a game easier to play
I do think though that GW 2 is more difficult because like the poster above mentions about the daily and the combo the game does not do a good job of explaining the combo and neither did the people with him. The fact is you have to have the skill equipped and not everyone can simply just get a combo. Some of classes from what I recall when I played my mesmer could make their own combos that means they cast both the beginning and the finishers and others have a few seconds to cast their finisher after someone cast the beginning spell. If you do not know the combinations by either reading up and also having it specifically equipped you are not going to be able to pull it off.
MMORPGs by nature have many people from various backgrounds who play them. Some do their research and know the classes. I actually went and checked the combos and found out what worked for my ranger,engineer and so on and that way I could use it in the boss fights. The problem is that does not make an average player who comes into the game able to intuitively know what to do. I think this must have frustrated players a lot and I do not think that those who do know the system were smarter or anything just that they bothered to do their homework. In this respect playing games that had roles one is familiar with is easier. So yes trinity games are simpler but that does not mean the mechanics cannot be skillfully pulled of. People equate simplicity with easy. There are not the trinity is quite complex if the game requires more than just mindlessly using rotations.
I think the mistake lies in GW 2 the game is zergy for sure so all these nuances and abilities that make you a better player is truly not needed. Whereas in games where you have a trinity you screw up and it is noticeable. You do well and it is also noticeable.
Some people who play GW 2 tend to think they are better than those who like the trinity as evidenced above but really the game on the average is very easy to play and advance so there's no achievement as such. I do agree the WvWvW and the harder dungeon require people to know the combos and to play well but ordinary content in the game is a snooze fest in terms of difficulty. I played several classes and even soloed a champion so from my experience it was not a hard game. It was a very casual romp and when I did the dungeons it was just you worry about yourself mentality that seemed to prevail. It might be a good PvP game but for grouping up with strangers not so much was my impression.
Game overall being easy has nothing to do with what youre saying. Its just a matter of vast of majority of people dont care for hard and complex
And once you solo world boss you can return and say that you can solo everything and dont need other people. Needing other people doesnt have anything to do with combat system.
And its indeed matter of "what needs to be done to do something successfuly" that matters.
"ordinary" content was easy in every MMO to date. If you think sitting on a grind spot mindlessly farming same mobs for hours on end in "old school" games was hard....
Originally posted by Bladestrom Lol the term holy trinity existed long before gw2 - simply google holy trinity and look at the dates,
I didn't say that it didn't exist so your statement is completely out of place and pointless. I said barely anyone spoke about it. Googling provided very few results with most of them just someone mentioning something about holy trinity in a post.
Everquest discussion 2004 talking about the trinity.
No, one guy mentioned "holy trinity" in that topic. That was more of a phrase he just dropped. The guy was asknig what would be a good combo for 3 people.
As I said, you always had that trinity in MMORPGs however it was never something which was discussed that much. YOu might get what like 1 topic every year or less with like 5 posts in it? But after GW2 everyone seems to be talking and moaning about it.
"It is also important to note that EverQuest created the ‘Holy Trinity’."
To the person above who said the "DPS" role in the Trinity is why it's bad, untrue. That's not a trinity issue, that's a fundamental class design issue. The term "Utility" exists for a reason. Necros in EQ had a Rez, Summon Corpse, Subversion (Twitch) for Mana Regen, Feign Death for Wipe Recovery. Mages had Call of the Hero, Modulation Rods. Other classes could provide buffs like SoW that the Trinity could not provide. The best part of EQ (the part that many people miss) were the classes. They were all so different and offered something unique to a group, while other games go for equalization in an attempt to make everyone easily replaceable without any really unique utility (which commoditizes DPS archetypes way too much).
EQ didn't have the issue you're talking about, because back then the classes were all so different and non-homogenized. In fact, that's part of the reason why the "Holy Trinity" became such an issue for players back then. No other classes could really replace those that sat atop that pedastal, for years until SoE really started homogenizing the support and tanking roles a bit to bring the others up to viability and loosen that stronghold for those 3 classes (content designed to go around their traditionally clutch skills (high MOB DPS output, Immunities to CC, Slow Mitigation, Flowing Thought on Gear, etc.) helped as well).
Even though everyone else pretty much said it already, yes in GW2. That game was a hit and a miss for me (and pretty much everyone I've known). Definitely, missed the ability to tank or heal after playing that game.
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
As for Guild Wars 2, its content design and combat system pretty much validates the Holy Trinity. They had to make a lot of rash decisions in that game to validate getting rid of the traditional role setup, and a lot of that isn't good because it makes the gameplay messy.
Without proper threat mechanics and thread management, and a proper healer archetype/class, the game's combat system and PvE balance relies on players outright avoiding damage. It also overpowers certain classes in group settings because those classes bring more utility to avoid or mitigate damage than others, but are still great DPS output on top of that.
To make a great surviveable build on most classes in that game means gimping your group, because the content is designed around everyone being a DPSer and everyone outputting decent DPS. When you have "Cleric" gear you aren't going to be doing that. That, or you're ranging everything, which is also frowned upon. Also, just like older MMORPGs, classes like Necromancer are shunned in GW2 for not bringing enough boons to groups and not doing as much damage as other classes - it's really not much different than when people avoided Necros in EQ for raids because they didn't stack at all (GW2 has the same bad stacking mechanics for Conditions that EQ had in 2000, except EQ fixed their issue but GW2 still has it!).
People routinely get kicked from groups for having non-optimal weapon sets and being in anything but Berzerker gear.
Has a Non-Trinity MMO ever made you more interested in the Trinity?
If so, how did it do so?
Nope, the trinity is number 2 on my list of things that have kept the genre in a small box.
defined roles is a handicap from keeping a person from being what they want to be, in a world that is supposed to be designed to captivate them as an alternate living world.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I was thinking maybe holy trinity could be compared to roman tatics vs barbarian tactics. One is a tight formation that works together. The other is a bunch of people running in trying to hack people down. I guess it's of note that the Roman Empire eventually fell, but they were largely effective because of their tactics. Barbarians are more like what you see in game fights these days IMO.
As for Guild Wars 2, its content design and combat system pretty much validates the Holy Trinity. They had to make a lot of rash decisions in that game to validate getting rid of the traditional role setup, and a lot of that isn't good because it makes the gameplay messy.
Without proper threat mechanics and thread management, and a proper healer archetype/class, the game's combat system and PvE balance relies on players outright avoiding damage. It also overpowers certain classes in group settings because those classes bring more utility to avoid or mitigate damage than others, but are still great DPS output on top of that.
To make a great surviveable build on most classes in that game means gimping your group, because the content is designed around everyone being a DPSer and everyone outputting decent DPS. When you have "Cleric" gear you aren't going to be doing that. That, or you're ranging everything, which is also frowned upon.
Also, just like older MMORPGs, classes like Necromancer are shunned in GW2 for not bringing enough boons to groups and not doing as much damage as other classes - it's really not much different than when people avoided Necros in EQ for raids because they didn't stack at all (GW2 has the same bad stacking mechanics for Conditions that EQ had in 2000, except EQ fixed their issue but GW2 still has it!).
People routinely get kicked from groups for having non-optimal weapon sets and being in anything but Berzerker gear.
idiots who have been brought up on 'minmaxing' have no comprehension that its fun to play with different styles, you do not have to have an 'optimal build' ' all stand on 1 spot and spam' lol, why bother playing a game if thats what you want to do. Its the culture change here that's an issue, older players enjoy gameplay, whereas it seems some modern players simply want to get stuff.
re kicking because your not wearing gear x, i just lie to the moron, easier that way.
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I love how people quote EverQuest 1 as an exemple of Holy trinity... like you needed a warrior-cleric-enchanter to do anything..
Since you needed a group to do almost anything, and since that holy trinity wasn't always available, people actually found out creative way to do stuff...
a ton of classes could sub in for a tank in early EQ (classic-luclin). war, sk, paladin, ranger, monk, mage-bst pets all could tank.
People learned how to root rot, kite, quad-kite, fear-kite, how to kill with charmed mob, how to reverse-charm ( send your charmed mob against a bunch, and kill your own charm mob when he's almost dead). A couple expansion later and people developped swarming tactics... even classes such as a cleric could swarm little trains down... or how to kill stronger names by swarming them with weak pets (necro mostly).
group of ranged classes kiting in the Halls of Honor,
I saw duo of rangers and rogue teaming up to kill animals... ranger would snare and fear, allowing the rogue to backstab, no healing no tanking needed. or a duo of sk-pally doing the same with undeads.
Duo of chanter/mage+ a healer class killing named in Bastion of Thunder, through charm
You had AoE groups ; one suicidal puller bringing back entire train, 2 people chaining AoE stun, and 2 or 3 people AoE nuking the whole thing down... no tank needed, no healer needed.
and that was 16 years ago, when technology was pretty far behind... for people who were a bit creative with their toolset, that old dinosaur called EQ1 actually offered a wide variety of ways to get stuff down without trivializing everything. Alot more than the moreorso organized zergfest of GW2
I love how people quote EverQuest 1 as an exemple of Holy trinity... like you needed a warrior-cleric-enchanter to do anything..
Since you needed a group to do almost anything, and since that holy trinity wasn't always available, people actually found out creative way to do stuff...
a ton of classes could sub in for a tank in early EQ (classic-luclin). war, sk, paladin, ranger, monk, mage-bst pets all could tank.
People learned how to root rot, kite, quad-kite, fear-kite, how to kill with charmed mob, how to reverse-charm ( send your charmed mob against a bunch, and kill your own charm mob when he's almost dead). A couple expansion later and people developped swarming tactics... even classes such as a cleric could swarm little trains down... or how to kill stronger names by swarming them with weak pets (necro mostly).
group of ranged classes kiting in the Halls of Honor,
I saw duo of rangers and rogue teaming up to kill animals... ranger would snare and fear, allowing the rogue to backstab, no healing no tanking needed. or a duo of sk-pally doing the same with undeads.
Duo of chanter/mage+ a healer class killing named in Bastion of Thunder, through charm
You had AoE groups ; one suicidal puller bringing back entire train, 2 people chaining AoE stun, and 2 or 3 people AoE nuking the whole thing down... no tank needed, no healer needed.
and that was 16 years ago, when technology was pretty far behind... for people who were a bit creative with their toolset, that old dinosaur called EQ1 actually offered a wide variety of ways to get stuff down without trivializing everything. Alot more than the moreorso organized zergfest of GW2
And theres your answer why stupidly OP cc is not in games any more. And yes, stupidly OP cc IS trivializing of everyithing lol
If you had right group its was brainded EASY lol. More of a concern would be saying EQ was hard if i were you.
Because, you see, people ALWAYS found easiest cheesiest stuff and exploited that to no end. Thats one thing that hasnt changed and i chuckle when i see modern games accused of that while "old school" games being praised for that in teh same sentence lol
"standing in the corner" is just as creative as any one of those you mentioned
"organized zergfest" - well i guess we reached a point where EVERYTHING is zergfest. So why dont you ponder upon list of "organized zergfests" you posted YOURSELF
I love how people quote EverQuest 1 as an exemple of Holy trinity... like you needed a warrior-cleric-enchanter to do anything..
Since you needed a group to do almost anything, and since that holy trinity wasn't always available, people actually found out creative way to do stuff...
a ton of classes could sub in for a tank in early EQ (classic-luclin). war, sk, paladin, ranger, monk, mage-bst pets all could tank.
People learned how to root rot, kite, quad-kite, fear-kite, how to kill with charmed mob, how to reverse-charm ( send your charmed mob against a bunch, and kill your own charm mob when he's almost dead). A couple expansion later and people developped swarming tactics... even classes such as a cleric could swarm little trains down... or how to kill stronger names by swarming them with weak pets (necro mostly).
group of ranged classes kiting in the Halls of Honor,
I saw duo of rangers and rogue teaming up to kill animals... ranger would snare and fear, allowing the rogue to backstab, no healing no tanking needed. or a duo of sk-pally doing the same with undeads.
Duo of chanter/mage+ a healer class killing named in Bastion of Thunder, through charm
You had AoE groups ; one suicidal puller bringing back entire train, 2 people chaining AoE stun, and 2 or 3 people AoE nuking the whole thing down... no tank needed, no healer needed.
and that was 16 years ago, when technology was pretty far behind... for people who were a bit creative with their toolset, that old dinosaur called EQ1 actually offered a wide variety of ways to get stuff down without trivializing everything. Alot more than the moreorso organized zergfest of GW2
No, you're just wrong, and the only class that could chain AE stun was an Enchanter. Nothing else could do that. They were the only class with Stuns that powerful. That's precisely the issue with the Trinity... The Enchanter class was designed specifically to Control MOBs, and because of that it was given tools that were, frankly, out of balance/overpowered to do it. This was toned down later by altering how some skills work (their durations, their resistability, etc.) as well as flagging certain MOBs as immune to certain types of CC. Other classes were given (later) more CC/Control. But back in Early EQ, the Enchanter was the premier CC class in a game with PvE from the early levels onward designed around CCing MOBs in dungeons to avoid wiping or training every other group on the way to the zone line. The enchanter is an archetype that most MMORPGs avoid now - instead they spread the control across virtually all classes in the game. EQ2 has an Enchanter archetype, but that game was designed to avoid a lot of the issues EQ1 had early on with class design and PvE content design.
I've made it quite clear that the issues with the Holy Trinity were well known and Verant/SOE started designing around it to make other classes more viable and remove the need for those specific classes as the game went on. By the time PoP rolled around things were far better than they were in Classic and Kunark, and Velious to some extent.
AoE groups in Kunark consisted of Wizards pulling massive trains of MOBs in Sebilis while Enchanters chain AoE stun locked them. No other class could do it. If the Wizards couldn't find an Enchanter, it was impossible. Wizards were the only class that could AoE that well. Mage Rain spells only hit 4 targets max, and they had virtually no decent PBAE spells back then, if any at all. That was a 2 class affair, and they usually bought a Cleric because if someone died they probably wanted the highest XP Rez they could find and getting through the dungeon naked was practically impossible as there were see invis mobs peppered around the zone (and invis randomly dropped).
Mages didn't need Chanters and Healers to solo named in Bastion of Thunder. They could Charm the Earth Elementals there themselves. In PoP, SoE added Elemental Charm to Magicians. Which was my point. SoE mitigated the effect of the early class designed over time by homogenizing the classes a little to decrease the potency of those specific offending classes (of which Enchanter was one).
You could Quad Kite, and Fear Kite, etc.
And XP at half the rate of a decent group in a dungeon... I think that's part of the issue. Also, you weren't going to gear up off of MOBs you were fear kiting, not in Classic, Kunark, or Velious - that's for sure. You had to kill named MOBs, and you weren't tanking those with Magician or Necro pets back then nor were you tanking them with a Ranger... FFS, are you kidding me? By the time OoW rolled around, people were farming Qvic gear with Bards tanking. But that was OoW, in like 2003/2004 not Kunark in 2000. Again, SoE improved it a bit over time, but that's not representative of the situation where that "terminology" was coined.
Halls of Honor is Planes of Power.
Beastlords didn't exist until Shadows of Luclin Expansion, and they certainly weren't tanks.
Yes, you could agro kite with a Ranger (which had snares, and snares drew massive agro in EverQuest - Shadow Knights used low level darkness spells to build threat) and a Rogue, but you weren't agro kiting in Sebilis, Karnor's Castle, or Chardok. Where were you going to kite? You'd train yourself. In PoP, Necromancers could agro kite with entire groups (Mages, Enchanters, Clerics, Wizards) DPSing the MOBs @ PoFire Tables (some of the best XP in the game at that point) because the snares they had generated so much threat (as did sitting in EQ... if the MOB turned to a group member you could often sit and it would turn right back to you :-) Sitting was how casters got higher mana regen, which is why MOBs were coded to give higher priority to sitting characters).
You're talking about, mostly, situations after the game got several expansions which mitigated a lot of the issues it had early on and trying to lump them in with the situation we're referring to. You were not tanking Nagafen or VoX with a Ranger or a Rogue, and you certainly weren't healing that raid with Druids or Shaman. For the longest time, raid healing in EQ was all about Cleric Complete Heal Chains. Druids and Shaman were useless for everything except patch healing and Druids often DPS'd instead (they did decent damage with their nukes and DoTs).
No class could match the Enchanter's CC, Shut Downs, and Mana Regen/Haste buffs.
No class could tank as well as a Warrior, and if you didn't have an Enchanter in a dungeon, then anything but a Warrior and Cleric was unacceptable because the heals weren't going to be good enough (too much risk in wiping if the tank died) and the tank wasn't going to mitigate as well (too much risk in him dying and the group wiping).
Necros didn't need weak pets to kill decently strong named. Life Taps, FD, LT over Time, etc. took care of that for them. Necros often stacked HP because their mana regen was incredible (Lich) and later they got life burn. Necros didn't get swarm pet AAs until ... Omens of War. The AA system wasn't even in EverQuest until Shadows of Luclin.
Back then, Necros were virtually worthless in raids because they overwrote each other's DoTs and you couldn't cast more than one DoT from the same line. That all changed in PoP, when their DPS went from "LOL" to "WTF" practically overnight. Mages were bought to raids to lay down tons of mod rods on the ground and Necros were bought to chain cast subversion on Clerics and Wizards. That's how much the game changed over time. It's massively different now than it was before.
2003 EverQuest was just... massively different than 1999-2001 EverQuest.
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
A trinity-based system does not mean the system needs to be dumbed down, at all. To even suggest that, certainly says how few skills you can think of as being involved from class to class. A trinity-based system would include interdependence, something that is gravely missing from today's zerg- and rush-fest MMOs. The "aggro included" system does not need to mean that keeping said aggro should at all be easy to do either.
Aggro is far from nonsense, given you can think about how we as players will react in a team verse team scenario. Who would you go after first? The guy whose health is not moving when you hit a few times, or the one healing his ass? Given purely random attacks from encounters, that would be nonsense.
What does your highlighted story have to do with the trinity? It begs the question, do you even know what the trinity is?
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
A trinity-based system does not mean the system needs to be dumbed down, at all. To even suggest that, certainly says how few skills you can think of as being involved from class to class. A trinity-based system would include interdependence, something that is gravely missing from today's zerg- and rush-fest MMOs. The "aggro included" system does not need to mean that keeping said aggro should at all be easy to do either.
Aggro is far from nonsense, given you can think about how we as players will react in a team verse team scenario. Who would you go after first? The guy whose health is not moving when you hit a few times, or the one healing his ass? Given purely random attacks from encounters, that would be nonsense.
What does your highlighted story have to do with the trinity? It begs the question, do you even know what the trinity is?
trinity based system is dumbed down by default. but theres no reason why you couldnt dumb it down even further.
interdependance is NOT unique to trinity, in fact if you actually LEARNED GW2 combat you would see that those "cheese 5 minutes COFP1 runs" required MASSIVE interdependance among classes and couldnt be achieved without that particular INTERDEPENDENCE
"Aggro" in trinity is nonsense. There was no such thing until MMOs invented it by dumbing down player characters to be one dimensional. in D&D, for instance, clerics could heal but they were also capable of deling damage, CC and tanking as any other class. They werent skimpy cloth wearing weaklings that die even if goblin looked at them wrong.
Highlighted story has more to do with "players who miss the trinity" and why they /ragequits GW2.
You have to actually understand what youre discussing before you make some valid answers though, but thats your problem.
To be honest I am not even sure people were tossing around the term "holy trinity" that much before GW2 started mocking the concept. I've played tons of MMOs before GW2 and have been reading these boards, and you would very rarely hear the "holy trinity" being mentioned if at all. I didn't even hear people complaining about it. The main thing people were complanining about from time to time was that there were never enough tanks/healers and there was discussion how to entice more people to play those roles as opposed to removing the concept altogether.
The holy trinity dates back to Everquest and was very widely acknowledged.
It was possible to deviate from the holy trinity in EQ, even on end game dungeons, but the players had to know what they were doing.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
There is a lot of hate for the trinity because many of us were spurned by it and carry those memories but it also had its merits and I see a lot of blind hate for it without really considering what it did for groups and how it was intuitive.
My greatest pleasure in EQ was setting up groups that had none of the holy trinity. As a magician I would pet tank. My wife was a shaman, and damned good at pulling and CC. She could lock down a half dozen mobs while keeping a HOT on my pet.
Was it ideal? No, and it took a lot of skill to be effective at CC as a shaman, but it was possible.
Heck, we even managed to 3-man my magician's epic 2.0 with a cleric's help. (Magician / Shaman / Cleric). I spent 30 minutes trying to explain to the guild leader how I managed to acquire my 2.0 when magicians were not on the rotation yet, and he didn't believe me until the cleric lead confirmed he was there.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
A trinity-based system does not mean the system needs to be dumbed down, at all. To even suggest that, certainly says how few skills you can think of as being involved from class to class. A trinity-based system would include interdependence, something that is gravely missing from today's zerg- and rush-fest MMOs. The "aggro included" system does not need to mean that keeping said aggro should at all be easy to do either.
Aggro is far from nonsense, given you can think about how we as players will react in a team verse team scenario. Who would you go after first? The guy whose health is not moving when you hit a few times, or the one healing his ass? Given purely random attacks from encounters, that would be nonsense.
What does your highlighted story have to do with the trinity? It begs the question, do you even know what the trinity is?
trinity based system is dumbed down by default. but theres no reason why you couldnt dumb it down even further.
interdependance is NOT unique to trinity, in fact if you actually LEARNED GW2 combat you would see that those "cheese 5 minutes COFP1 runs" required MASSIVE interdependance among classes and couldnt be achieved without that particular INTERDEPENDENCE
"Aggro" in trinity is nonsense. There was no such thing until MMOs invented it by dumbing down player characters to be one dimensional. in D&D, for instance, clerics could heal but they were also capable of deling damage, CC and tanking as any other class. They werent skimpy cloth wearing weaklings that die even if goblin looked at them wrong.
Highlighted story has more to do with "players who miss the trinity" and why they /ragequits GW2.
You have to actually understand what youre discussing before you make some valid answers though, but thats your problem.
The classes were almost the same in Everquest as they were in D&D second edition. A cleric could take damage and deal damage. They just didn't do very much damage and couldn't avoid hits as well as a fighter (which makes sense). People chose to play the classes a certain way to maximize effieciency and reduce downtime.
In terms of agro it actually does make sense to an extent. If something sees you from far away and considers you a threat i will attack you. If you taunt something through various means like making fun of it or doing something to get it's attention it will attack you. Even though it doesn't matter if it's realistic or not it is realistic enough for a fantasy game.
I think in WoW Clerics were turned into Priests because they were believed to be overpowered. They also fit the Warcraft lore better. I personally prefer the idea of clerics. They do overlap with Paladins though. Especially in Warcraft style where the Paladin could heal much more effectively then the D&D sytle Paladin who was something like 80% warrior and 20% healer. Basically there were a hybrid similar to how many classes that are created today.
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
A trinity-based system does not mean the system needs to be dumbed down, at all. To even suggest that, certainly says how few skills you can think of as being involved from class to class. A trinity-based system would include interdependence, something that is gravely missing from today's zerg- and rush-fest MMOs. The "aggro included" system does not need to mean that keeping said aggro should at all be easy to do either.
Aggro is far from nonsense, given you can think about how we as players will react in a team verse team scenario. Who would you go after first? The guy whose health is not moving when you hit a few times, or the one healing his ass? Given purely random attacks from encounters, that would be nonsense.
What does your highlighted story have to do with the trinity? It begs the question, do you even know what the trinity is?
trinity based system is dumbed down by default. but theres no reason why you couldnt dumb it down even further.
interdependance is NOT unique to trinity, in fact if you actually LEARNED GW2 combat you would see that those "cheese 5 minutes COFP1 runs" required MASSIVE interdependance among classes and couldnt be achieved without that particular INTERDEPENDENCE
"Aggro" in trinity is nonsense. There was no such thing until MMOs invented it by dumbing down player characters to be one dimensional. in D&D, for instance, clerics could heal but they were also capable of deling damage, CC and tanking as any other class. They werent skimpy cloth wearing weaklings that die even if goblin looked at them wrong.
Highlighted story has more to do with "players who miss the trinity" and why they /ragequits GW2.
You have to actually understand what youre discussing before you make some valid answers though, but thats your problem.
The classes were almost the same in Everquest as they were in D&D second edition. A cleric could take damage and deal damage. They just didn't do very much damage and couldn't avoid hits as well as a fighter (which makes sense). People chose to play the classes a certain way to maximize effieciency and reduce downtime.
In terms of agro it actually does make sense to an extent. If something sees you from far away and considers you a threat i will attack you. If you taunt something through various means like making fun of it or doing something to get it's attention it will attack you. Even though it doesn't matter if it's realistic or not it is realistic enough for a fantasy game.
I think in WoW Clerics were turned into Priests because they were believed to be overpowered. They also fit the Warcraft lore better. I personally prefer the idea of clerics. They do overlap with Paladins though. Especially in Warcraft style where the Paladin could heal much more effectively then the D&D sytle Paladin who was something like 80% warrior and 20% healer. Basically there were a hybrid similar to how many classes that are created today.
lol any class in trinity today "can deal damage and take damage just not as good as other classes"
its not about "rsalistic" its because of dumbness required by trinity combat system
paladin in D&D was just flavour fighter variant that had advatages/disatvantages for completely different reasons than "it can heal a bit"
even LOTRO started as having not totally gimped classes, but if you went to do anything serious it was clear who was tank, who was DPS, who was healer even to extent who was CCer. But that times are long gone. Why? Because of necessity of having trinity.
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
A trinity-based system does not mean the system needs to be dumbed down, at all. To even suggest that, certainly says how few skills you can think of as being involved from class to class. A trinity-based system would include interdependence, something that is gravely missing from today's zerg- and rush-fest MMOs. The "aggro included" system does not need to mean that keeping said aggro should at all be easy to do either.
Aggro is far from nonsense, given you can think about how we as players will react in a team verse team scenario. Who would you go after first? The guy whose health is not moving when you hit a few times, or the one healing his ass? Given purely random attacks from encounters, that would be nonsense.
What does your highlighted story have to do with the trinity? It begs the question, do you even know what the trinity is?
A smart opponent usually either go for the healer or the weakest link to quickly reducing the numbers of enemies, yes. Aggro in itself is not really a problem in MMOs, it is the taunting that is illogical against sentinent opponents. The warrior might be up in your face and shouting stuff about your mom but a smart opponent knows that taking out the healer first will hurt him far more than focusing on him.
Trinity don't have to be dumbed down but it have certainly become less and less complicated since EQs early days. And frankly with the simple roles of today I don't see any need for it at all.
I believe that the future of MMOs needs a group dynamic system that works equally in PvP and PvE, where sentinent mobs will act far more like humans than the keat heads they are today. You still will need to balance the difficulty but we need to get away from the skill rotations MMOs have turned into.
Group dynamics still should be about timing things together but just locking the mobs with a tank makes combat predictable. At least the players with more HP and armor should be forced to bodyblock mobs going for the more squishy players.
And, yeah, I don't get the highlighted part either.
Comments
I do think though that GW 2 is more difficult because like the poster above mentions about the daily and the combo the game does not do a good job of explaining the combo and neither did the people with him. The fact is you have to have the skill equipped and not everyone can simply just get a combo. Some of classes from what I recall when I played my mesmer could make their own combos that means they cast both the beginning and the finishers and others have a few seconds to cast their finisher after someone cast the beginning spell. If you do not know the combinations by either reading up and also having it specifically equipped you are not going to be able to pull it off.
MMORPGs by nature have many people from various backgrounds who play them. Some do their research and know the classes. I actually went and checked the combos and found out what worked for my ranger,engineer and so on and that way I could use it in the boss fights. The problem is that does not make an average player who comes into the game able to intuitively know what to do. I think this must have frustrated players a lot and I do not think that those who do know the system were smarter or anything just that they bothered to do their homework. In this respect playing games that had roles one is familiar with is easier. So yes trinity games are simpler but that does not mean the mechanics cannot be skillfully pulled of. People equate simplicity with easy. There are not the trinity is quite complex if the game requires more than just mindlessly using rotations.
I think the mistake lies in GW 2 the game is zergy for sure so all these nuances and abilities that make you a better player is truly not needed. Whereas in games where you have a trinity you screw up and it is noticeable. You do well and it is also noticeable.
Some people who play GW 2 tend to think they are better than those who like the trinity as evidenced above but really the game on the average is very easy to play and advance so there's no achievement as such. I do agree the WvWvW and the harder dungeon require people to know the combos and to play well but ordinary content in the game is a snooze fest in terms of difficulty. I played several classes and even soloed a champion so from my experience it was not a hard game. It was a very casual romp and when I did the dungeons it was just you worry about yourself mentality that seemed to prevail. It might be a good PvP game but for grouping up with strangers not so much was my impression.
Eve still uses the Trinity, although it has expanded upon it, from Electronic Warfare for 'Crowd Control' and debuffs etc, to Tanking, which really just means a ship is fitted out for either max shields or armour with good resists, and healing, pretty much covered by specialist ships such as logistics, to just dropping a remote armour rep etc or shield transfer into a 'spare' high slot. its been a very long time since i played GW1, but i think the game also pretty much followed the trinity too.
This.
Also one of the main reasons why trinity doesnt work is "DPS" role. It just doesnt work when one role has zero group responsibility while others (Tank/Healer) have to carry them. Its archaic and wrong on so many levels.
GW2 system with off-heal, off-tank is much better solution.
I was a complete slave to the trinity. Then I played Darkfall. While DFO didn't reach anywhere near its potential, the system in place had its merits; and damn, it was fun. No classes, no levels, no trinity at all. It was basically just "use whatever skills you have hotkeys for", and go nuts. Like I said, it was far from perfect; quite flawed, actually. But the game turned me off of the trinity. I'll still play the occasional MMO that HAS Healers, Tanks, and Deeps, but I'm left wanting something different.
I'm not saying that the trinity has to go or evolve; I'm saying that DFO gave me a taste of something that was completely different, and for me at least, variety is vital when it comes to pretty much anything, including the games I play.
There may be in the future better games that do the non trinity well but GW 2 is too zergy for my tastes for it to show that non trinity done that way is interesting. It can be pulled off and shines in harder content only when you play in good groups and guilds which makes it not good in my book. It has to have more accessibility in my opinion.
Also monk is the healer in GW 1 and was a needed class from I recall.
Ah the Irony of just those few statements, some might perhaps suggest that with fewer commands related to attack or defence that combat had in some way been dumbed down, and as for specialization being a sign of such, is more than a little misleading as the ability to specialize is often a sign of not only a games complexity when it comes to combat, but also the depth of said combat, no doubt the lack of such options does make a game easier to play
Game overall being easy has nothing to do with what youre saying. Its just a matter of vast of majority of people dont care for hard and complex
And once you solo world boss you can return and say that you can solo everything and dont need other people. Needing other people doesnt have anything to do with combat system.
And its indeed matter of "what needs to be done to do something successfuly" that matters.
"ordinary" content was easy in every MMO to date. If you think sitting on a grind spot mindlessly farming same mobs for hours on end in "old school" games was hard....
http://outofmana.us/tag/everquest/
"It is also important to note that EverQuest created the ‘Holy Trinity’."
To the person above who said the "DPS" role in the Trinity is why it's bad, untrue. That's not a trinity issue, that's a fundamental class design issue. The term "Utility" exists for a reason. Necros in EQ had a Rez, Summon Corpse, Subversion (Twitch) for Mana Regen, Feign Death for Wipe Recovery. Mages had Call of the Hero, Modulation Rods. Other classes could provide buffs like SoW that the Trinity could not provide. The best part of EQ (the part that many people miss) were the classes. They were all so different and offered something unique to a group, while other games go for equalization in an attempt to make everyone easily replaceable without any really unique utility (which commoditizes DPS archetypes way too much).
EQ didn't have the issue you're talking about, because back then the classes were all so different and non-homogenized. In fact, that's part of the reason why the "Holy Trinity" became such an issue for players back then. No other classes could really replace those that sat atop that pedastal, for years until SoE really started homogenizing the support and tanking roles a bit to bring the others up to viability and loosen that stronghold for those 3 classes (content designed to go around their traditionally clutch skills (high MOB DPS output, Immunities to CC, Slow Mitigation, Flowing Thought on Gear, etc.) helped as well).
Even though everyone else pretty much said it already, yes in GW2. That game was a hit and a miss for me (and pretty much everyone I've known). Definitely, missed the ability to tank or heal after playing that game.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
As for Guild Wars 2, its content design and combat system pretty much validates the Holy Trinity. They had to make a lot of rash decisions in that game to validate getting rid of the traditional role setup, and a lot of that isn't good because it makes the gameplay messy.
Without proper threat mechanics and thread management, and a proper healer archetype/class, the game's combat system and PvE balance relies on players outright avoiding damage. It also overpowers certain classes in group settings because those classes bring more utility to avoid or mitigate damage than others, but are still great DPS output on top of that.
To make a great surviveable build on most classes in that game means gimping your group, because the content is designed around everyone being a DPSer and everyone outputting decent DPS. When you have "Cleric" gear you aren't going to be doing that. That, or you're ranging everything, which is also frowned upon. Also, just like older MMORPGs, classes like Necromancer are shunned in GW2 for not bringing enough boons to groups and not doing as much damage as other classes - it's really not much different than when people avoided Necros in EQ for raids because they didn't stack at all (GW2 has the same bad stacking mechanics for Conditions that EQ had in 2000, except EQ fixed their issue but GW2 still has it!).
People routinely get kicked from groups for having non-optimal weapon sets and being in anything but Berzerker gear.
Nope, the trinity is number 2 on my list of things that have kept the genre in a small box.
defined roles is a handicap from keeping a person from being what they want to be, in a world that is supposed to be designed to captivate them as an alternate living world.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Nope, I've only come to find I dislike the trinity even more.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
I love how people quote EverQuest 1 as an exemple of Holy trinity... like you needed a warrior-cleric-enchanter to do anything..
Since you needed a group to do almost anything, and since that holy trinity wasn't always available, people actually found out creative way to do stuff...
a ton of classes could sub in for a tank in early EQ (classic-luclin). war, sk, paladin, ranger, monk, mage-bst pets all could tank.
People learned how to root rot, kite, quad-kite, fear-kite, how to kill with charmed mob, how to reverse-charm ( send your charmed mob against a bunch, and kill your own charm mob when he's almost dead). A couple expansion later and people developped swarming tactics... even classes such as a cleric could swarm little trains down... or how to kill stronger names by swarming them with weak pets (necro mostly).
group of ranged classes kiting in the Halls of Honor,
I saw duo of rangers and rogue teaming up to kill animals... ranger would snare and fear, allowing the rogue to backstab, no healing no tanking needed. or a duo of sk-pally doing the same with undeads.
Duo of chanter/mage+ a healer class killing named in Bastion of Thunder, through charm
You had AoE groups ; one suicidal puller bringing back entire train, 2 people chaining AoE stun, and 2 or 3 people AoE nuking the whole thing down... no tank needed, no healer needed.
and that was 16 years ago, when technology was pretty far behind... for people who were a bit creative with their toolset, that old dinosaur called EQ1 actually offered a wide variety of ways to get stuff down without trivializing everything. Alot more than the moreorso organized zergfest of GW2
And theres your answer why stupidly OP cc is not in games any more. And yes, stupidly OP cc IS trivializing of everyithing lol
If you had right group its was brainded EASY lol. More of a concern would be saying EQ was hard if i were you.
Because, you see, people ALWAYS found easiest cheesiest stuff and exploited that to no end. Thats one thing that hasnt changed and i chuckle when i see modern games accused of that while "old school" games being praised for that in teh same sentence lol
"standing in the corner" is just as creative as any one of those you mentioned
"organized zergfest" - well i guess we reached a point where EVERYTHING is zergfest. So why dont you ponder upon list of "organized zergfests" you posted YOURSELF
No, you're just wrong, and the only class that could chain AE stun was an Enchanter. Nothing else could do that. They were the only class with Stuns that powerful. That's precisely the issue with the Trinity... The Enchanter class was designed specifically to Control MOBs, and because of that it was given tools that were, frankly, out of balance/overpowered to do it. This was toned down later by altering how some skills work (their durations, their resistability, etc.) as well as flagging certain MOBs as immune to certain types of CC. Other classes were given (later) more CC/Control. But back in Early EQ, the Enchanter was the premier CC class in a game with PvE from the early levels onward designed around CCing MOBs in dungeons to avoid wiping or training every other group on the way to the zone line. The enchanter is an archetype that most MMORPGs avoid now - instead they spread the control across virtually all classes in the game. EQ2 has an Enchanter archetype, but that game was designed to avoid a lot of the issues EQ1 had early on with class design and PvE content design.
I've made it quite clear that the issues with the Holy Trinity were well known and Verant/SOE started designing around it to make other classes more viable and remove the need for those specific classes as the game went on. By the time PoP rolled around things were far better than they were in Classic and Kunark, and Velious to some extent.
AoE groups in Kunark consisted of Wizards pulling massive trains of MOBs in Sebilis while Enchanters chain AoE stun locked them. No other class could do it. If the Wizards couldn't find an Enchanter, it was impossible. Wizards were the only class that could AoE that well. Mage Rain spells only hit 4 targets max, and they had virtually no decent PBAE spells back then, if any at all. That was a 2 class affair, and they usually bought a Cleric because if someone died they probably wanted the highest XP Rez they could find and getting through the dungeon naked was practically impossible as there were see invis mobs peppered around the zone (and invis randomly dropped).
Mages didn't need Chanters and Healers to solo named in Bastion of Thunder. They could Charm the Earth Elementals there themselves. In PoP, SoE added Elemental Charm to Magicians. Which was my point. SoE mitigated the effect of the early class designed over time by homogenizing the classes a little to decrease the potency of those specific offending classes (of which Enchanter was one).
You could Quad Kite, and Fear Kite, etc.
And XP at half the rate of a decent group in a dungeon... I think that's part of the issue. Also, you weren't going to gear up off of MOBs you were fear kiting, not in Classic, Kunark, or Velious - that's for sure. You had to kill named MOBs, and you weren't tanking those with Magician or Necro pets back then nor were you tanking them with a Ranger... FFS, are you kidding me? By the time OoW rolled around, people were farming Qvic gear with Bards tanking. But that was OoW, in like 2003/2004 not Kunark in 2000. Again, SoE improved it a bit over time, but that's not representative of the situation where that "terminology" was coined.
Halls of Honor is Planes of Power.
Beastlords didn't exist until Shadows of Luclin Expansion, and they certainly weren't tanks.
Yes, you could agro kite with a Ranger (which had snares, and snares drew massive agro in EverQuest - Shadow Knights used low level darkness spells to build threat) and a Rogue, but you weren't agro kiting in Sebilis, Karnor's Castle, or Chardok. Where were you going to kite? You'd train yourself. In PoP, Necromancers could agro kite with entire groups (Mages, Enchanters, Clerics, Wizards) DPSing the MOBs @ PoFire Tables (some of the best XP in the game at that point) because the snares they had generated so much threat (as did sitting in EQ... if the MOB turned to a group member you could often sit and it would turn right back to you :-) Sitting was how casters got higher mana regen, which is why MOBs were coded to give higher priority to sitting characters).
You're talking about, mostly, situations after the game got several expansions which mitigated a lot of the issues it had early on and trying to lump them in with the situation we're referring to. You were not tanking Nagafen or VoX with a Ranger or a Rogue, and you certainly weren't healing that raid with Druids or Shaman. For the longest time, raid healing in EQ was all about Cleric Complete Heal Chains. Druids and Shaman were useless for everything except patch healing and Druids often DPS'd instead (they did decent damage with their nukes and DoTs).
No class could match the Enchanter's CC, Shut Downs, and Mana Regen/Haste buffs.
No class could tank as well as a Warrior, and if you didn't have an Enchanter in a dungeon, then anything but a Warrior and Cleric was unacceptable because the heals weren't going to be good enough (too much risk in wiping if the tank died) and the tank wasn't going to mitigate as well (too much risk in him dying and the group wiping).
Necros didn't need weak pets to kill decently strong named. Life Taps, FD, LT over Time, etc. took care of that for them. Necros often stacked HP because their mana regen was incredible (Lich) and later they got life burn. Necros didn't get swarm pet AAs until ... Omens of War. The AA system wasn't even in EverQuest until Shadows of Luclin.
Back then, Necros were virtually worthless in raids because they overwrote each other's DoTs and you couldn't cast more than one DoT from the same line. That all changed in PoP, when their DPS went from "LOL" to "WTF" practically overnight. Mages were bought to raids to lay down tons of mod rods on the ground and Necros were bought to chain cast subversion on Clerics and Wizards. That's how much the game changed over time. It's massively different now than it was before.
2003 EverQuest was just... massively different than 1999-2001 EverQuest.
Totally agree.
trinity based system is dumbed down by default. but theres no reason why you couldnt dumb it down even further.
interdependance is NOT unique to trinity, in fact if you actually LEARNED GW2 combat you would see that those "cheese 5 minutes COFP1 runs" required MASSIVE interdependance among classes and couldnt be achieved without that particular INTERDEPENDENCE
"Aggro" in trinity is nonsense. There was no such thing until MMOs invented it by dumbing down player characters to be one dimensional. in D&D, for instance, clerics could heal but they were also capable of deling damage, CC and tanking as any other class. They werent skimpy cloth wearing weaklings that die even if goblin looked at them wrong.
Highlighted story has more to do with "players who miss the trinity" and why they /ragequits GW2.
You have to actually understand what youre discussing before you make some valid answers though, but thats your problem.
The holy trinity dates back to Everquest and was very widely acknowledged.
It was possible to deviate from the holy trinity in EQ, even on end game dungeons, but the players had to know what they were doing.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
My greatest pleasure in EQ was setting up groups that had none of the holy trinity. As a magician I would pet tank. My wife was a shaman, and damned good at pulling and CC. She could lock down a half dozen mobs while keeping a HOT on my pet.
Was it ideal? No, and it took a lot of skill to be effective at CC as a shaman, but it was possible.
Heck, we even managed to 3-man my magician's epic 2.0 with a cleric's help. (Magician / Shaman / Cleric). I spent 30 minutes trying to explain to the guild leader how I managed to acquire my 2.0 when magicians were not on the rotation yet, and he didn't believe me until the cleric lead confirmed he was there.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
The classes were almost the same in Everquest as they were in D&D second edition. A cleric could take damage and deal damage. They just didn't do very much damage and couldn't avoid hits as well as a fighter (which makes sense). People chose to play the classes a certain way to maximize effieciency and reduce downtime.
In terms of agro it actually does make sense to an extent. If something sees you from far away and considers you a threat i will attack you. If you taunt something through various means like making fun of it or doing something to get it's attention it will attack you. Even though it doesn't matter if it's realistic or not it is realistic enough for a fantasy game.
I think in WoW Clerics were turned into Priests because they were believed to be overpowered. They also fit the Warcraft lore better. I personally prefer the idea of clerics. They do overlap with Paladins though. Especially in Warcraft style where the Paladin could heal much more effectively then the D&D sytle Paladin who was something like 80% warrior and 20% healer. Basically there were a hybrid similar to how many classes that are created today.
lol any class in trinity today "can deal damage and take damage just not as good as other classes"
its not about "rsalistic" its because of dumbness required by trinity combat system
paladin in D&D was just flavour fighter variant that had advatages/disatvantages for completely different reasons than "it can heal a bit"
even LOTRO started as having not totally gimped classes, but if you went to do anything serious it was clear who was tank, who was DPS, who was healer even to extent who was CCer. But that times are long gone. Why? Because of necessity of having trinity.
A smart opponent usually either go for the healer or the weakest link to quickly reducing the numbers of enemies, yes. Aggro in itself is not really a problem in MMOs, it is the taunting that is illogical against sentinent opponents. The warrior might be up in your face and shouting stuff about your mom but a smart opponent knows that taking out the healer first will hurt him far more than focusing on him.
Trinity don't have to be dumbed down but it have certainly become less and less complicated since EQs early days. And frankly with the simple roles of today I don't see any need for it at all.
I believe that the future of MMOs needs a group dynamic system that works equally in PvP and PvE, where sentinent mobs will act far more like humans than the keat heads they are today. You still will need to balance the difficulty but we need to get away from the skill rotations MMOs have turned into.
Group dynamics still should be about timing things together but just locking the mobs with a tank makes combat predictable. At least the players with more HP and armor should be forced to bodyblock mobs going for the more squishy players.
And, yeah, I don't get the highlighted part either.