The "Holy Trinity" is the game mechanic where there are three classes that combine to become very powerful. It's often the Tank, can take lots of damage and gets aggro, the Healer, repairs the damage to the tank, and the Nuke, does massive damage from a distance. You can also substitute things like Crowd Control, which does a mez or root preventing a mob from attacking, or melee massive damage from behind, like a rogue or thief class, and things like that.

The idea is the combination does much more than simply adding them up separately. It's like a gun and a bullet. You could throw a bullet at someone, and do let's say 1 damage. You could take the gun and club someone and do let's say 10 damage.

If you throw the bullet at someone, AND club them with the gun, all together you do 11 points of damage. BUT, if you put the bullet in the gun and shoot someone, you do 100 points of damage. The combination is much more powerful than using them separately. Same with the Holy Trinity.

If a Tank, Nuke, and Healer just walk up and start bashing a mob, they do combined 11 points of damage. But put them together in a group and coordinate them, and they do 100 points. Not exactly, but sort of works like that.

The question is, do you enjoy playing this game mechanic? if so how much? A lot, a little bit, not really, don't like it at all?

This is not a solo versus group discussion per se. Some people think games should not give any sort of bonus to grouping, because it takes away their ability to solo. Some people think games should give a bonus to grouping because it allows for designing challenging group content. And that's fine, different people enjoy different sorts of games.

This is more about, do you enjoy the Holy Trinity sort of game play, playing in a Tank, Nuke, Healer group and playing your role, or not so much? Don't factor in it's hard to group, I don't like PUGS because people are asshats, I have to walk the baby and put a diaper on the dog so I can't group etc. Just do you like this sort of game play or not? If so, how much?

I like it a lot better than the game mechanic of everyone just being a damage dealer of one type or another. That just feels like zerging, and it's the only alternative that I've seen.

I think this is the heart of the solo vs group debate.

If there is no Holy Trinity dynamic, or it's marginal at best, then there's no real need to group. We can just be in the same place whacking on the mob at the same time. I don't really need to coordinate my attacks with you, I don't need to know your stats, health, mana, etc. I just attack away, and you do the same.

there is also varying degrees of how much the Holy Trinity works. In a game like EQ it's very substantial, and makes a huge difference. I found that in pre-raid WoW, it works, sort of, but isn't really substantial compared to a game like EQ. In other words the power of your group is not raised by working together as a very close knit team during grouping in WoW near as much as in EQ, or at least it feels that way  because of the overall game design.

In EQ you  really really had to do your job correctly and coordinate with your team mates, or you wipe the party. In WoW at least pre-raid, you sort of kinda coordinate with your team mates, but it's very loose and not all that important and if you just sort of zerg you might be ok. At least that's what if felt like to me.

I think this is where the solo versus group debate breaks down. The person advocating a game encouraging grouping probably likes the Holy Trinity game play very much. The kinds of things you do to make the Holy Trinity work very well and very important by necessity slow down the solo player.

The person that advocates making a game solo friendly, you can group or not, doesn't really matter since you can solo to the cap just as easy, probably doesn't really really like playing the Holy Trinity that much. They can take it or leave it, so if you change the game so that the Holy Trinity doesn't work that well, they don't feel they've lost anything in game play. This is why they probably can't understand the call for a "good" grouping game, because they don't see that much good about the Holy Trinity, and can't understand how a solo friendly game tends to destroy the Holy Trinity game mechanic.

The Holy Trinity is thinking too narrow, and isn't required for grouping to be important.

Imagine Halo, except you get some progression options.  3 Marines opt for three different auras: a damage aura, a regen aura, and a movement speed aura. So even with these three players being Ranged DPS (because that's what Halo Marines are,) they have become significantly stronger than the sum of their parts by working together.

So I like games with teamwork.  I don't like pigeonholing it into some preconceived "I only play games with the Holy Trinity" notion, because that's thinking too narrow.  All that matters is characters are specialized in some way.  Could be a bunch of halo marines with auras, could be healer/tank/DPS, could be something entirely different.

Game devs should come up with something new imho.

I enjoy having clearly defined classes within an MMO enviroment, RPG/shooters etc are single player games and thus require you as the player to have at your disposal the neccessary skills to complete the game without the intervention of another player, such as the poster who mentioned Halo ie NOT an MMO.

The "Holy Trinity" concept really makes grouping a more in-depth experience, at least from my perspective. I loved Asheron's Call, but being that everyone was a damage dealer running through content was just zerg to zerg from the next mob. 

One of the most enjoyable things for me to do is run through content with a group size smaller than intended as close to the intended level as possible, tho. I remember back a few years ago playing WOW, my brother and I ran through SM on my 35 Protadin and his 34 Shadow Priest and we managed to clear every wing, even cathedral, just due to the class makeup. 

His DOTs healed a bit, my judgements had me healed, and all the blocks from my AOE grinding build really helped out. My point is, developers could stray away from the traditional grouping and class mechanics and put a completely different touch on them and it feels like a totally new experience. I was the tank, my brother was the heals, but running through it how we did was a much more enjoyable experience than say, a warrior, and holy priest. We were getting the same things done, but in a different way. No direct heals, etc.

Keep with the "Holy Trinity" but switch up the base mechanics on the experience with it and I could be happy for a few more years.
 

Remove the concept of taunt and go from there.

"Hey you big dragon! hey dragon!.. fuck you!!"  "RAAWWWRRRR!!""

You could (nearly) remove hate as well, just have the enemy randomly attack things that are near it, then have the "tanks" form a wall, the dragon would try to hit targets like a mage by his hate, with ranged attacks, and then turn back to try to break through the wall.  When that crazy mage who is doing 90% of the damage really pisses off the dragon, it might reach a breaking point and just walk over all the tanks and eat the mage or something, but the whole absolute hatelist, attack the top of the list concept is getting old to say the least.

I think as a whole, focus should go back to CCs

At one time I thought I didn't like the mechanic, but after all MMO's started to try and do away with it I think my iniital assessment was in error.

We use the trinity in EVE btw, in our wormhole gangs we have battleships that tank/heal each other, grouped with DPS and aggro control ships (which they also heal) and it makes for much better combat opportunities.  (esp the PVE side)

Even in PVP, nothing can throw a fight to a gang more than an couple of logistics ships that are repping everyone's armor/shields.

So yes, I do enjoy the mechanic and feel it needs to be maintained to develop good group based combat mechanics.

Originally posted by maji

Game devs should come up with something new imho.

Game devs are not the source of the holy trinity... the players are.

It doesn't matter what the game devs do, players always find a way to revert the layout back to: Tank - Healer - DPS.

Even if they had one class with no specializations... players would find out what gear is required to be placed in those three roles.

The "Holy Trinity" is a solution developed by players to tackle most problems inside a multi-player game... hell, even in single player games, you will see this approach used. The developers are gamers too, so their line of thinking falls along the same path as the players...

and it continues to work and make them money.

You could try to make every class capable of doing tanking, healing, and DPS... and if the company is somehow successful as making each class viable for any role... you'd still see players arguing who is the best at one of the three. If there is one patch that doesn't hit every class equally... you will bring the whole thing down and players will set the "Top Three".

Problems in MMOs will ALWAYS be boiled down into the "Holy Trinity"... there is no escaping the mentality of people who play multi-player games together.

So, devs need to change the viewpoint.

Instead of having a situation where players get to be all three, or can be any one of the three... only allow them one or two of those three roles.

An NPC is tanking a boss, and players will need to only provide damage and healing. Or, a castle is being attacked (Tank), armies are fighting the enemies and monsters (DPS) and the players need to keep the castle gates standing or keep the armies from dying (Healing).

What is the problem with the above situations? They don't allow certain specialized players to participate (or there is a possibility of them not being capable of participation).

What about the guy who is built to tank? You know who i'm talking about.

This guy could hold himself up if 20 dragons, 4 liches, and 2 demi-gods were pounding on him at the same time... but he moves slow as molasses in winter and gets to swing his weapon once every 10 seconds. He can't move fast enough to keep people alive, and he couldn't provide enough damage to warrant him holding a spot.

He will not be allowed to participate in this event, and will probably need to find something else to do with his specialized character.

Sounds like it could suck... but it's what we need.

Everything can always be boiled down to the "Holy Trinity" if you look at it from the right perspective. The events we need are ones where players only fill in one/two portions of the Three. Now instead of having numerous situations where players are filling in as Tank/DPS/Healing... you have a variety of:

Healing
DPS
Tank
Healing/DPS
DPS/Tank
Tank/Healing

Or perhaps none of them... players can bet on the event in front of them like a race track :)

The developers need to quit making events where players fill in all three roles of the "Holy Trinity" and start using game mechanics and tools provided in the game to become creative. Or perhaps provide multiple solutions to a single victory. (The danger with this method is that one solution will always prove easier... so it might be the "preferred way" once players calculate value of Loot and time spent).

Remember that situation about the very slow, no damage tank who can't provide healing to the armies fighting on the field like the rest of his pals? Well, since this guy is wearing heavy armor and uses heavy things... he can actually push this heavy magical device that will heal large amounts units that he gets near.

Now he can participate.

Originally posted by heremypet

Remove the concept of taunt and go from there.

"Hey you big dragon! hey dragon!.. fuck you!!"  "RAAWWWRRRR!!""

You could (nearly) remove hate as well, just have the enemy randomly attack things that are near it, then have the "tanks" form a wall, the dragon would try to hit targets like a mage by his hate, with ranged attacks, and then turn back to try to break through the wall.  When that crazy mage who is doing 90% of the damage really pisses off the dragon, it might reach a breaking point and just walk over all the tanks and eat the mage or something, but the whole absolute hatelist, attack the top of the list concept is getting old to say the least.

I think as a whole, focus should go back to CCs

you're asking for collision detection. This raises a whole new set of problems. Things like griefing by blocking doorways for example, and this also doesn't work very well with any lag. This would be easier to implement in a smaller game, like a first person shooter, rather than in a Massive game like an MMO, which typically has more lag.

It works very well in for example, Call of Duty.

There are also abilities that work similar to "hate". For example in EQ2 (I think) there were tank abilities that allowed you to absorb damage dealt to another player. The concept was you are running in front of the attack to take the hit and save the other person from the damage, but instead of actually running in front of the player which is hard to implement in an MMORPG, you use a buff that symbolizes this.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by heremypet

Remove the concept of taunt and go from there.

"Hey you big dragon! hey dragon!.. fuck you!!"  "RAAWWWRRRR!!""

You could (nearly) remove hate as well, just have the enemy randomly attack things that are near it, then have the "tanks" form a wall, the dragon would try to hit targets like a mage by his hate, with ranged attacks, and then turn back to try to break through the wall.  When that crazy mage who is doing 90% of the damage really pisses off the dragon, it might reach a breaking point and just walk over all the tanks and eat the mage or something, but the whole absolute hatelist, attack the top of the list concept is getting old to say the least.

I think as a whole, focus should go back to CCs

 

you're asking for collision detection. This raises a whole new set of problems. Things like griefing by blocking doorways for example, and this also doesn't work very well with any lag. This would be easier to implement in a smaller game, like a first person shooter, rather than in a Massive game like an MMO, which typically has more lag.

It works very well in for example, Call of Duty.

There are also abilities that work similar to "hate". For example in EQ2 (I think) there were tank abilities that allowed you to absorb damage dealt to another player. The concept was you are running in front of the attack to take the hit and save the other person from the damage, but instead of actually running in front of the player which is hard to implement in an MMORPG, you use a buff that symbolizes this.

One solution for doorway griefers is to allow players to slowly "push" each other.  Only group of players that would cause a problem for is AFKers as far as I can tell.

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

Originally posted by maji

Game devs should come up with something new imho.

 

Game devs are not the source of the holy trinity... the players are.

I'm just not sure how you come to this conclusion. The original computer role playing games, which start out as single player since people were not hooked up to the internet at all, were modeled after Dungeons and Dragons.

D&D is was of course modeled after other games, but it's the popular game that was used as the source for the Computer RPG. If you look at any D&D rule book, especially the early ones, it's not hard to see the Tank, Nuke, Healer, and the crowd controller.

For example, when you start at level 1 in D&D if you play a Wizard you'll die if you stub your toe, but as you go up in levels you can do some massive damage. This is where the "glass cannon" comes from basically.  There wasn't "aggro". Instead the Fighter, a "tank", would run up front into the fight. The Dungeon MAster would then play the NPCs as if the tank was blocking them from attacking the healer or nuke. It's hard to put in collision detection that works well in a massive game, so instead the developers substituted "aggro" which made the game work in a similar fashion to the table top games.

And some games did not use this set up, like Ultima Online, where everyone was a tank mage, and the Holy Trinity was not very important.

Originally posted by heremypet

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by heremypet

Remove the concept of taunt and go from there.

"Hey you big dragon! hey dragon!.. fuck you!!"  "RAAWWWRRRR!!""

You could (nearly) remove hate as well, just have the enemy randomly attack things that are near it, then have the "tanks" form a wall, the dragon would try to hit targets like a mage by his hate, with ranged attacks, and then turn back to try to break through the wall.  When that crazy mage who is doing 90% of the damage really pisses off the dragon, it might reach a breaking point and just walk over all the tanks and eat the mage or something, but the whole absolute hatelist, attack the top of the list concept is getting old to say the least.

I think as a whole, focus should go back to CCs

 

you're asking for collision detection. This raises a whole new set of problems. Things like griefing by blocking doorways for example, and this also doesn't work very well with any lag. This would be easier to implement in a smaller game, like a first person shooter, rather than in a Massive game like an MMO, which typically has more lag.

It works very well in for example, Call of Duty.

There are also abilities that work similar to "hate". For example in EQ2 (I think) there were tank abilities that allowed you to absorb damage dealt to another player. The concept was you are running in front of the attack to take the hit and save the other person from the damage, but instead of actually running in front of the player which is hard to implement in an MMORPG, you use a buff that symbolizes this.

One solution for doorway griefers is to allow players to slowly "push" each other.  Only group of players that would cause a problem for is AFKers as far as I can tell.

It's an idea that sounds good on paper but doesn't implement well, IMO.

in an open field how do you stop players from just running around the tank, and killing the nuke? There is no elegant way to do this in programming, that I know of, that makes it work like real life.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

Originally posted by maji

Game devs should come up with something new imho.

 

Game devs are not the source of the holy trinity... the players are.

 

I'm just not sure how you come to this conclusion. The original computer role playing games, which start out as single player since people were not hooked up to the internet at all, were modeled after Dungeons and Dragons.

D&D is was of course modeled after other games, but it's the popular game that was used as the source for the Computer RPG. If you look at any D&D rule book, especially the early ones, it's not hard to see the Tank, Nuke, Healer, and the crowd controller.

For example, when you start at level 1 in D&D if you play a Wizard you'll die if you stub your toe, but as you go up in levels you can do some massive damage. This is where the "glass cannon" comes from basically.  There wasn't "aggro". Instead the Fighter, a "tank", would run up front into the fight. The Dungeon MAster would then play the NPCs as if the tank was blocking them from attacking the healer or nuke. It's hard to put in collision detection that works well in a massive game, so instead the developers substituted "aggro" which made the game work in a similar fashion to the table top games.

And some games did not use this set up, like Ultima Online, where everyone was a tank mage, and the Holy Trinity was not very important.

 

If I stated that the developers are gamers too (like I did in my long thread) we would be arguing viewpoints.

If I stated that YOU SAW those roles... you took what was there and said they fall into this category. We'd be arguing viewpoints.

Now... In UO we did see a variety of class-melding where players could pretty much produce everything and anything that they needed or wanted. It was a great game that to this day I still say is perhaps one of the best I have ever played.

However, players still developed solutions and lists of skills that qualified as the "Best Tank"... who could cast in these situations....

or the "Best DPS"... who didn't quite die too quickly when hit by multiple people.

Or even the "Best Healer"... who just healed because who wouldn't want to group with you?

The players ALWAYS come up with these solutions... hence why I placed the blame squarely on them. EVEN IN UO where players could practically do ANYTHING.

They still resorted to these situations... at least on the lists/servers I participated in.

In PvP, it seems to become more predominant. If everyone multiclassed, you'd have one guy who specialized so much that your multiclass couldn't handle him and his friends. It's very rare... but not unheard of. People don't like picking a role until they find out that if they do, they do INCREDIBLY well against people who spread out a little bit.

Even if it's only in PvP they do incredibly well..

When players group together they should all get give eachother some kind of advantages. No problem there, that is the reason pople gather groups together. All classes (or skill trees if you don't have classes) should bring something good into a group.

You should never feel like one class is useless to bring along, they should all have thier perks. Guildwars is doing this rather good, far from perfect but unless you count the old Bioware multiplayer "Neverwinter nights" as a MMO it is the best out there.

The holy trinity however is to dumb down things. It is a old mechanics that only exist in MMOs and really doesn't work that good. It was fun at the time when we played EQ but now we have a lot better AI for mobs and the possibility to make the MMOs closer to pen and paper RPGs.

Lets have a look on some old AD&S classes and see what they added to their parties:

Warrior: It was a fighting specialist that did a lot of damage. You also used it to body block and to engage enemy mages so they couldn't get their spells off.

Palladin: A mix between a warrior and a cleric, some basic healing, special attacks against undeads and ok DPS.

Wizard: Could buff and do more damage than any other group member but also the main target of most enemys. Dies easy.

Cleric: Heals and buffs. Could also take some punishment but very low DPS.

Rogue: specialist of sneaking, backstabbing and hiding. But the most important thing was out of combat stuff, like information gathering, disarming traps, contacts, lockpicking and more.

Rangers: Long range combat experts that also brings a lot of wilderness skills into the group.

All these classes brings a lot of good and unique skills into the group, but you don't have to have any of them. They work perfect together. Most groups had a cleric and a rogue but not all groups, some used palladins and pots for their healing needs and used spells to disarm traps and open locks.  That is how groups worked then in a RPG game it it should work the same way today.

It doesn't however. Today do we have a few classes (tank, healer, DPS and buffer) that in some games have more specialities but you must have tanks, DPS and healers in any group to succed. Except in Guildwars of course.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

you're asking for collision detection. This raises a whole new set of problems. Things like griefing by blocking doorways for example, and this also doesn't work very well with any lag. This would be easier to implement in a smaller game, like a first person shooter, rather than in a Massive game like an MMO, which typically has more lag.

It is not something new in MMOs, AoC have collision detections.

The oldest MMO I played with it was Lineage. There they solved the issue with blocking importent things by making all areas where that was possibly into PvP zones (even in the PvE servers). It worked well.

the mechanics is in some games and works well there, so you are wrong.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

Originally posted by heremypet

One solution for doorway griefers is to allow players to slowly "push" each other.  Only group of players that would cause a problem for is AFKers as far as I can tell.

 

It's an idea that sounds good on paper but doesn't implement well, IMO.

in an open field how do you stop players from just running around the tank, and killing the nuke? There is no elegant way to do this in programming, that I know of, that makes it work like real life.

Players? we're talking about PvP? lol is this the right thread?

It boils down to the DnD paradigm of *hitpoints*.

Essentially, in most MMOs you just club the mob with nerfbats till it drops dead from exhaustion - or your group gets exhausted. A wolf pack hunting, in more romantic words.

So we have a class that can deal damage and class that can take damage, with the revolutionary idea of dealing negative damage aka healing thrown in to spice it up (and introduce all kinds of issues). That is all you can really do to heath bars. (Well you can healing mobs too I guess but that is really all.)

The benefit of this paradigm is that it allows very easy scaling and gating of content. Other mechanics are present but get discarded towards endgame when tight tuning is requested.

Originally posted by Loke666

When players group together they should all get give eachother some kind of advantages. No problem there, that is the reason pople gather groups together. All classes (or skill trees if you don't have classes) should bring something good into a group.

You should never feel like one class is useless to bring along, they should all have thier perks. Guildwars is doing this rather good, far from perfect but unless you count the old Bioware multiplayer "Neverwinter nights" as a MMO it is the best out there.

The holy trinity however is to dumb down things. It is a old mechanics that only exist in MMOs and really doesn't work that good. It was fun at the time when we played EQ but now we have a lot better AI for mobs and the possibility to make the MMOs closer to pen and paper RPGs.

Lets have a look on some old AD&S classes and see what they added to their parties:

Warrior: It was a fighting specialist that did a lot of damage. You also used it to body block and to engage enemy mages so they couldn't get their spells off.

Palladin: A mix between a warrior and a cleric, some basic healing, special attacks against undeads and ok DPS.

Wizard: Could buff and do more damage than any other group member but also the main target of most enemys. Dies easy.

Cleric: Heals and buffs. Could also take some punishment but very low DPS.

Rogue: specialist of sneaking, backstabbing and hiding. But the most important thing was out of combat stuff, like information gathering, disarming traps, contacts, lockpicking and more.

Rangers: Long range combat experts that also brings a lot of wilderness skills into the group.

All these classes brings a lot of good and unique skills into the group, but you don't have to have any of them. They work perfect together. Most groups had a cleric and a rogue but not all groups, some used palladins and pots for their healing needs and used spells to disarm traps and open locks.  That is how groups worked then in a RPG game it it should work the same way today.

It doesn't however. Today do we have a few classes (tank, healer, DPS and buffer) that in some games have more specialities but you must have tanks, DPS and healers in any group to succed. Except in Guildwars of course.

I tried guildwars and didn't care for it. I did not find that the team play was as satisfying as the Holy Trinity in some other games. Also, I prefer to get more powerful, and guildwars seems to lack this feeling of progression.

I like punch, knife, gun, grenade, rocket launcher, tank, nuclear missile, sort of progression.

Guild Wars feels like rock, paper, scissors, hammer, knife, blanket sort of progression.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

you're asking for collision detection. This raises a whole new set of problems. Things like griefing by blocking doorways for example, and this also doesn't work very well with any lag. This would be easier to implement in a smaller game, like a first person shooter, rather than in a Massive game like an MMO, which typically has more lag.

It is not something new in MMOs, AoC have collision detections.

The oldest MMO I played with it was Lineage. There they solved the issue with blocking importent things by making all areas where that was possibly into PvP zones (even in the PvE servers). It worked well.

the mechanics is in some games and works well there, so you are wrong.

I suppose that depends on your opinion of "works well".

Originally posted by Tyrrhon

It boils down to the DnD paradigm of *hitpoints*. 

Which is why i've taken to not making every encounter about killing the monster.... or having the players kill it.

If my players try to attack that boss that is currently engaged with that Hero NPC... they will either die or not be able to do anything at all (damage wise)...

Get them to think... how can we help that Hero NPC that is apparently holding his own...

Or... they are fighting and in our way... how do we get passed them since we can't kill the boss.

Kill the Hero NPC and run away from the boss as it chases you? ... maybe for an alignment hit, little XP, and less loot.

Or do we try to make a cave-in on the boss, kill it (but blocking our path).

Hrm, what about trapping the boss (because it's a demon) or putting it to sleep for a short while (with a spell?)

When the tools and options are available to the players... it can always become more than just "beat it till it stops moving".

Still doesn't stop players from trying though... *sigh* and it can be hard getting players to think about alternative solutions other than "i'm going to smack it."

It doesn't help that the game keeps moving towards "more damage" abilities and less "problem solving" abilities... or MMOs remove creative use of some abilities for fear of exploiting.

*sigh*

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

Originally posted by maji

Game devs should come up with something new imho.

 

Game devs are not the source of the holy trinity... the players are.

To a certain degree, the developers are. By designing the same basic gameplay over and over again ( no CD, static spawn spots, crude aggro system), they reinforce certain playstyles.

Mobs in most MMOs stick to certain rules:

- they will spawn at the same spot.

- they will return to that spot

- they can be walked through (No CD)

- they do not react to seeing nearby mobs getting slaughtered over and over

There's more but I will stop there. Already, many readers have probably said to themselves that some of this will allow for griefing or reduce the fun factor. While that *can* be true, it is only true because of the classes of the characters and physics of the game world being consistent in these games. There is no reason this can't change, as we have seen it changed with mob mechanics in UO, EVE and other MMOs.

A move away from the tank/DPS/healer system requires a shift in the rules that govern the mobs as well.

This really is a tough question.   How to you effectively "attract" the attention of a Mob without things like hate/aggro.  The role of Holy Trinity is to encourage group play with specialization, the tank is to focus taking the damage so that others can do their jobs of healing and DPS, this is all really about specialization of Roles.  Perhaps the mechanic isn't the problem as much as say the players inability to change a role they have been assigned at any given time.  Really I see the holy trinity mechanic as a way to maybe slow down the pace of combat so we aren't playing anything as fast as an FPS (not sure how you would have a Holy Trinity here sicne most FPS stuff is solo - just peopel working on teams), but not as slow as a Turn based.

Someone said earlier that we show just remove taunt, yet realy made no other recommendations except the mob randomly hitting people.  How can you justify this?  You know that things like armor class/mitigation/avoidance already play into these equations and we've seen that happens countless times when an lesser armored player is on the recieving end of a mob/boss hit.  So i really don't understand the point of that post.

PvP is the absence of any such meters and we see what happens there to support types.  Who is usually the first to always die?  Everyone rushes the healers and the tanks stand there beating on each other for 5min trying to kill each other, while the melee dps is running around in circles jerks  with each other and mages playing catch with fireballs.

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

The players ALWAYS come up with these solutions... hence why I placed the blame squarely on them. EVEN IN UO where players could practically do ANYTHING.

That's not true at all.

They will only be capable of coming up with those solutions if the designer lets them.  And even if the designer lets them perform a particular role, there's no guarantee it will be smart to perform that role 100% of the time (medics in the Enemy Territory series who aren't spending most of their time fighting the enemy (DPSing) are bad players.)

A further example of how the designer has absolute control over the roles that exist in a game is Puzzle Pirates. In Puzzle Pirates each player takes up a different station on a ship, and those stations (rigging, sailing, bilging) have gameplay outputs for the player who is navigating.  None of the roles you play can be described as tanking, DPSing, or healing.