I don't hate it though I have gotten bored of it lately.  There really hasn't been any new way to fight in a high fantasy game in a very very long time.

Originally posted by LiquidWolf

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*

Problem solving does not make good games because anyone with a web browser can google the solution, unless you make random puzzles.

Plus it does not take a psychologist to figure out that games are outlet of our violent instincts. 90% of the games are focused on violent solutions (i.e. kill the monsters) and it feeds our primary needs. There is no reason to change that.

The first step in thinking outside the box is to GET RID OF THE BOX.  In this case, eliminate the concept of in-fight healing from a game entirely, and then start over from scratch.  I've really never seen anyone try that. Nearly every CRPG today uses either the same ridiculously over-simplified 'hit point' system invented for PvP, or a twitch-based system filled with the same kind of "combos" and "power-ups" that early arcade fighting games used.

If you think about it (and I realize that's a mighty big "if" for some people), the concept of in-fight healing, and the concept of ranged "dps" (i.e., shooting through your teammates at an enemy) are incredibly bizarre activities. The question "how can we change this?" is the wrong question to ask. The real question is why are designers doing it like that at all? I see no reason.  To say: "Because it's something to do," or "because it builds teamwork" answers nothing.  The kind of computer game models we use now have no more to do with combat than a modified Tetris match would. 

I've studied martial arts my entire life, and I find it a very fascinating activity.  It can be modeled in a way that does not require the player to develop 'leet' finger-twitching skills.  I have no idea why the same kind of dynamics you'd see in a fantasy movie swordfight (or a professional boxing match for that matter) can't be modeled into a computer roleplaying game. There was a discussion here recently, where I outlined a few suggestions for alternate combat systems in this thread: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/257110/page/4

Originally posted by kopema

The first step in thinking outside the box is to GET RID OF THE BOX.  In this case, eliminate the concept of in-fight healing from a game entirely, and then start over from scratch.  I've really never seen anyone try that. Nearly every CRPG today uses either the same ridiculously over-simplified 'hit point' system invented for PvP, or a twitch-based system filled with the same kind of "combos" and "power-ups" that early arcade fighting games used.

If you think about it (and I realize that's a mighty big "if" for some people), the concept of in-fight healing, and the concept of ranged "dps" (i.e., shooting through your teammates at an enemy) are incredibly bizarre activities. The question "how can we change this?" is the wrong question to ask. The real question is why are designers doing it like that at all? I see no reason.  To say: "Because it's something to do," or "because it builds teamwork" answers nothing.  The kind of computer game models we use now have no more to do with combat than a modified Tetris match would. 

I've studied martial arts my entire life, and I find it a very fascinating activity.  It can be modeled in a way that does not require the player to develop 'leet' finger-twitching skills.  I have no idea why the same kind of dynamics you'd see in a fantasy movie swordfight (or a professional boxing match for that matter) can't be modeled into a computer roleplaying game. There was a discussion here recently, where I outlined a few suggestions for alternate combat systems in this thread: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/257110/page/4

 

 

Thinking outside of the box just for the sake of it .. is silly. Don't break it if it aint broke.

The answer to your question .. is because it is FUN. It is fun to have division of labor and cater to different needs of having fun. Some feel it is fun to do lots of dmg. Some feel fun to go head to head with bosses and survive .. some like to help others and keep others alive.

If it is not fun, you think MILLIONS of people will be doing it everyday?

TOR is trying to change it though .. i will see if they can make combat fun in a different way. Until then, i will go stick with the holy trinity games.

I enjoy games that have a holy trinity type balance system. EQ, a game I played for 10 years, was notorious for this. A group was viewed as flawed for the longest time if it did not have a Warrior, Enchanter, Cleric.

I also enjoyed putting together and playing non-traditional groups that contained none of these classes. The "all pet" group was a good example.

Originally posted by kopema

The real question is why are designers doing it like that at all? I see no reason.  

Because players "get it", and because it's a cheap way to create an interesting system.

The reason the monster has a health bar to begin with is the communicate how well/poorly the player is damaging it (because that's particularly important in a game with scaling monster difficulty.)

The reason monsters just can't instantly kill or die is that any truly interesting combat system requires multiple decisions to be made over the course of a battle.

There are obviously viable alternatives to the standard system of combat, but without a clear vision for exactly what will make an alternative system at least as fun, chances are it won't be as fun.

There's no such thing as a holy trinity. There are molded concepts that people fit into 3 broad categories, but the elements in play outnumber 3 by a long shot.

When people start talking about holy trinity and combat mechanics, my mind's eye has always reverted back to earlier math classes that taught that every math function can be reduced to simple addition. This is exactly what combat is, starting with our most simple concepts: offense and defense. But ultimately, the 'best defense is a good offense', so that makes offense our 'addition'. =P I hope those more intellectually inclined can see where this is going.

I have a health pool. This is potential defense. I have an ability pool. This is potential offense. Abilities can be used against someone's health. Very typical inside-the-box thinking. But let's fast-forward to a multi-optioned list of everything that can be done to an inanimate NPC:

ingoing versus outgoing

movement increase (freedom), decrease (snare)

health increase (gear?), decrease (attack)

damage increase (buff), decrease (armor)

health regen (heal), nerf (anti-heal)

control increase (mez), decrease ('crowd control')

... keep going in this line of thought and you uncover a whole slew of mechanics. However you choose to debunk all these different mechanics into categories is your call as a dev. But who's to say I don't incorporate a system that operates on 4 concepts: a 'tank' who focuses on personal health increase and incoming damage decrease, a 'dps' who focuses on outgoing health decrease and outgoing damage decrease, a 'buffer' who focuses on outgoing movement increase and incoming control decrease, a 'controller' who focuses on outgoing control increase and offensive incoming damage decrease. Give 'health regen' amongst other mechanics to all, but operate on a system with these 4 as the 'archetypes'.

You will quickly see that the concept isn't obsolete. It's simply a way to classify all the mechanics in play into a digestible morsel. Come up with many, many refreshing dynamics, choose new archetypes to be your dynamic conglomerates. Classes being how players interface with combat... you'd have a fresh game.

Essentially yes, I do enjoy the "holy trinity". The reason is, so far I have not seen any other system which allows better team work. I mean, playing Champions Online really enlightened me, sort of. In CO you can pick free any powers, but the result is you NEVER really know who has what powers and who will do what. Sure you can make agreements, but that is fickle and unreliable. When you have given roles, then you know what your strengths are and who has what weakness. It is the only realistic way for cooperation. Sure, you can dou with your bf/gf, and then tinker your two chars to add up. But in CO I realized that in classless MMOs everyone ends up learning everything a bit but nothing really. Also having a given role adds an identity to your char. So yes, I enjoy it.

That doesn't mean it can't be improved by allowed to specialize and branch out in your abilities.

Sociologically speaking, societies with labor specialization are WAY more productive than societies where everyone can do something of everything. Its just a concept that works, and in the last 2000+ years no one I have heard of has found something better. ;)

I enjoy the trinity, although it really is 4 broad categories of tank, dps, healer, support (as in buffs, cc, debuffs). Sometimes the healer can do some of it but usually it is a 4th class. In EQ, as someone mentioned earlier, usually had warrior, cleric, enchanter, but the enc was the support, so there was some kind of dps like wiz, mage, rogue, ranger etc. Pullers probably fall under support and dps. Many classes had multiple roles to varying degrees.

It seems no matter what the game( especially for MMO purposes) , you can break down the characters/classes into these categories. The game doesn't necessarily have to have all the categories, but if there is ANY difference between players, they will fall into another category.

People like to label things, so you're going to be plugged into 1 of the categories. The differences help promote grouping since one person is weak in 1 aspect, as another is stronger in what they need. Otherwise, if everyone has the same abilities, capacities, you end up with a lot of soloing and some grouping because people don't see the need to group.

Someone earlier broke down EVE into those categories. You would think ships, holy trinity, wtf? But it is merely a classification of a character. Heck, you can probably put everyone in real life into those categories, just the numbers of each would be skewed.

Doctors, nurses would be healers, police could be tanks and dps, firefighters could be support, maybe healer part heal since theyre putting out fires, hehe. It all depends how you look at it. The holy trinity (+1) is just a way to look at things, breaking it down to a simpler form. Of course, often things don't fit nearly in the categories, but that is because they are very simple categories and are flexible.

 I'm not really sure why people have a problem with it. No matter what someone devises, people will break it down to it.

I guess I'm weird and I like more action-oriented games. But I'd like to see massive combat all around. Particularly in PvE. Hopefully, that'd lead to more realistic combat.

I'm sure few would agree with me, but it'd be a blast if you had your little group of players go into a dungeon/instance and, instead of some ridiculously over-sized dragon-fish/squid/evil alien/drills-for-hands beast (see General Vezax), you actually encountered a huge horde of... Tyranids, because I really want to play the Warhammer 40K MMO. Anyways, something like that would feel more epic to me. Lots of low level mobs and possibly environmental challenges to spice things up a bit rather than one boss with obscene amounts of health and damage (which is only absorbed by one person... yeah, realistic).

Of course, not all raids/dungeons would have to be that way. There's room for the traditional. But what if you had multiple stages? 100 Tyranids to start. You kill them all, and a Carnifex appears... with more guards. The Carnifex would have increased HP and armor and would deal more damage... everything you'd expect from a tougher mob. Manage to kill him and a Hive Tyrant would appear. Extremely difficult "boss", but not one that'd take ~10 minutes to kill. He'd go down quick, but he'd do a lot of damage. More realistic combat.

Yeah, sounds a lot like WAR PQs. So what?

Now, in my little scenario described above, I'm not sure if the Holy Trinity would be the best option. Most likely not, because the tank would have to hold the aggro of dozens of mobs, and the healers would be virtually useless in killing them. More preferable to me would be a system where everyone can take damage, deal damage, and heal themselves.

OH NO!!! THAT ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR GROUPING!

Well, obviously, you could specialize to perform one function better than the others. Just not to such an extent that you're a lame duck if all you can do is tank or deal damage or heal. The self heals would be very limited, too. Actually, the Warhammer 40K example kind of works well. Force Commander could be your "tank", Apothecary would be your "healer", and the regular Space Marine would be your "DPS". Everyone's power armor would self repair at a steady rate, even when under attack, and the Apothecary could focus on culling those Tyranids; his heals would only be needed if someone's "health" dropped too low, in which case he could apply direct repairs.

I guess it sounds kind of like Champions Online. To be honest, I had fun in CO. I think Cryptic had the right idea, they just didn't implement it well. Just a bit more distinction between who is best at what role could make grouping much easier.

Note that everything above is just what I think would be sweet. I don't care if you agree with me or not. I picked the 2nd option in the poll.

Worse thing they stole from single player rpgs.

I play a support cleric on Perfect World international, where the holy trinity dynamic is a very big part of grouping. While the DD role is to some degree changeable between classes depending on the run, the healer is pretty much always a cleric, the tank is always a barbarian, and that is how I like it.

it makes it easier to know that when you start a character you will always be wanted in a group, and knowing exactly what your role is can be a relief, especially in those first group-required quests. You don't have to be constantly worrying about doing those three things yourself and so you can specialise, becoming excellent at your one role rather than mediocre at all of them.

Also, I think a main reason those roles exist at all is because of peoples natural play styles. There will always be those who will want to hang back and keep the group alive, while others will want to get in there and slaughter everything in sight. This is why I believe that so long as we have group play, we will have those roles and that is the way it should be.

 Honestly, I'm not a fan of the idea of the "trinity" being "holy" in any way. It was boring YEARS ago and it still is, having the same damn classes that play exactly the same. If we could just abolish the idea of certain classes and play styles being "sacred" maybe we could finally inject some damn creativity into this desiccated genre. 

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

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.

I, on the other hand, found that the GW combat was far more exciting than any Holy Trinity system. And I do understand your issue with the progression but I feel that it is a welcome tradeoff when the game is easier to balance and becomes more balanced than any other PvP-centric MMO I've seen. Also it sort of supports Arenanet's agenda that in Guild Wars, player skill mattered more than in other games.

Guild Wars really was ahead of it's time when it released, I think. I do hope that Anet will continue with their current course and rethink the old, dusty MMORPG mechanics.

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.

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

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.

What works for players depends on a few factors.

1) Their genre/paradigm - In a ww2 FPS MMO, you would expect that ANYONE could carry a med pack, but the "medic" knows a hell of a lot more. When hes not shooting, sure, he doesn't do as much DPS...that makes sense. But when his gun is shooting, it does as much DPS as the next guy. You could have soldiers wearing heavier armor (bulletproof vests, etc) but their guns do as much damage as well.   This is the "REALISM" genre/paradigm and the holy trinity doesn't make sense here unless you make it  a cartoon (see, Team fortress 2) and then you get what you call "suspension of disbelief" which is easy to do...its a game, and we don't mind shooting a healing gun at comrades.

In a fantasy MMO, we've come to accept the holy trinity. The question is, why is that the accepted method? It doesn't actually make a whole lot of sense...unless a taunt and "aggro" is some sort of magic that makes the enemy blindly angry at one person (who is actually doing almost NO damage...makes sense!).

2) Role Playing vs Game Mechanics - if you are role playing (paper and dice - because NO MMO has been able to actually capture the essence of the archaic DnD style RPG - NOT EVEN DDO!!)

If you are role playing, you expect that your ingenuity can make up for a lot of things. Perhaps you lost your sword, but you can still push a pile or rubble on top of the people down the hill. Whatever.

Games have a very difficult time handling the kind of creativity that  a Dungeon Master and players take for granted. In this sense, role players, if they are purist, don't like the "aggro" mechanic. A dragon is intelligent and a fierce fighter (played by the DM).  You would never see people fighting a dragon like they do in WOW in a role playing game. The dragon would NOT pay strict attention to one "tank" no matter how often he dropped his drawers and mooned it.

"I wave my private parts at your aunty, you silly English Knigits! - French soldier, Monty Python.

Also, that mage standing to his side would get a tail swipe, claw, etc.  I know that some WOW mechanics add in side attacks and even tail attacks...but on the whole it sucks compared to what a dragon would actually do...even an unintelligent feral dragon.

Role players also hate Mob AI.  Let me give an example.  I walk into the Deadmines, a place FULL to the brim with all sorts of nasties. The first guy I see is within easy shouting/viewable distance of several other guys. No alarm is raised. No calling for help unless i beat him down enough to run away in fear. Meanwhile, his buddy his sitting there mining across the hall...oblivious to the clash of weapons and death cries of his friend.  I guess I role play that they're all hard of hearing...and somewhat blind....and stupid...and...yeah.

If your first reaction is that if he DID raise the alarm you'd all be dead, then you're missing the point. If the devs allowed for such an action, then they would do a couple things. One, perhaps less mobs overall. Two, allow a hero to do more damage. Why does the guy keep coming at me with 7 arrows sticking out of his face? Seriously.  They go full bore even with 1hp. Then, they're dead.

Fear. While animals run away...mobs do not. Why? If I am clearly powerful enough to mow down 6 of their guys (or my group of 5 is mowing down 50+) then why are they not running screaming. (single player RPG's do this all the time).  If I am a lvl 80 walking through a noob zone, my mere presence should send them running (I don't actually agree with the huge difference in power from lvl 1 to lvl 80...but thats another discussion).

So, game mechanics are a crutch that devs have used as a tried and true method, cause it makes them money, and players know what to expect.  Maybe I'm not so much "down" with the holy trinity, but the thought of Aggro and a truly mindless AI. The holy trinity fails in PVP, why? because the player on the other end is intelligent.  I want intelligent mobs...intelligent enough to get around the holy trinity.

Give me a mechanic where we can use ingenuity and such. We might need some AI...oh, and also collision.

'nuff said.

Originally posted by Vanpry

Worse thing they stole from single player rpgs.

...and single-player CRPGS stole it from pen-and-paper rpgs.

Back when Gygax first came up with the idea for an incredibly abstracted representation of medieval combat, it made perfect sense.  In an pnp game, players needed a system that had no depth.  And, since they could take as much time as they wanted to think through every move, they wanted one that gave them steady and predictable progress, even within the course of a single fight. 

Once players got used to the idea of focusing on steadily-dropping hitpoint bars, developers were afraid to try anything new.  The same dynamic got translated into turn-based computer games, where it still made a tiny bit of sense.  But then it continued into the first primitive non-turn-based games, just because it was what players expected.  And today, when computers are a MILLION TIMES more powerful than they were thirty years ago, the exact same process continues.

You don't have to go far to figure out why that is.  Just look at this thread: some people are screaming like stuck pigs, not about any particular system, but at the very THOUGHT of losing their security blanket.  Few developers are willing to incur that kind of hatred in the easy market in the hopes of ferreting out what the people who are silently bored to death are looking for. 

The problem is that game has now been DONE.  It made perfect sense for Blizzard to not only copy the standard system, but even dumb it down further with their button-refresh delays. That was a very wise and clever move.  All they had to do was take the best game out there, remove 99% of its bugs, and then make it so that a reasonably intelligent six-year-old can easily master the combat system.

Blizzard's move was brilliant.  But now we see dozens of developers trying to copy it -- and that is foolish.

Just picking one example:  has anyone here tried Algonan yet?   It's the same game as WoW - just not as well made.  People are rejoicing that they decided to spend six more months polishing it.  What's the damned point?  If they spent six YEARS they might - might - get it polished to the same degree as WoW is.  But even if they could do that, who cares?  It would be the same game.

MMORPG's are not blue jeans.  You can't just make a knock-off, repackage it, and sell it in a different city.  There's only one internet, and the same virtual product design can be replicated for an infinite number of users.

In order to have a successful MMORPG, you have to be either better than everyone else, or markedly different from everyone else.  And unfortunately, only one company can be better than everyone else.

Originally posted by kopema

You don't have to go far to figure out why that is.  Just look at this thread: some people are screaming like stuck pigs, not about any particular system, but at the very THOUGHT of losing their security blanket.  Few developers are willing to incur that kind of hatred in the easy market in the hopes of ferreting out what the people who are silently bored to death are looking for. 

Or, those people may not actually be looking for a real game. They are  just bitching about some imaginary game they think would be fun since it doesn't exist, but would actually suck if you made it.

Sort of like when a candidate for political office announces he's running for the first time, he gets huge positive numbers. Everyone thinks he's going to what they would like. Then they figure out what he really stands for, and his numbers drop like a rock.

We all love the perfect MMORPG that doesn't exist in reality.

I haven't read this thread but to answer the title, no I'm quite bored of this game mechanic. The only mmo that I've personally played that doesn't have this is guild wars. Every other game has this mechanic and it's quite stale. The genre has been out for quite a while, time to have new ideas put in.

If the roles are implemented in a way that's fun to play, then I enjoy it.

 

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.

Collision detection only attracts griefers if the Devs are still squarely INSIDE the box. The equation is simple. Why is X a griefer tool. THen fix X.    If collision allows griefing, then fix it. Why is it griefing? Someone standing in a doorway blocks everyone in and they all die from a grenade. IRL, you shove that guy out of the way.  Now, if that guy is actively TRYING to keep you from getting by, then that is different. Many times this person is an ally....cause if it was an enemy, you'd just kill it. So, you add in the ability to jostle past an ally in a doorway. There is SOME collision, you are slowed down, but not stopped.  

Quit poo pooing ideas just because you are incapable of climbing out of the box.

The answer to the Holy Trinity issue, it seems (after reading ALL the posts here) is to add a more intelligent and natural AI behviour to the MOBS.  Players cannot just stand there and TANK if the mobs will simply run away or around you.  You must actively engage the enemy to get their attention. And, could you engage several at a time? Different Mobs have different modes of operation.  Some will pack hunt and all attack one target.  Some will come in an each engage one of you (5 human thugs each take one of the group, or maybe gang up on one person...make it random!).

Instead of making me a DPS, make me a hero. Instead of making me a healer, make me a hero! Instead of making me a tank, make me a hero. Faster action, intelligent AI.

Can I also ask for a non static world? HAHAHA. A topic for another thread....one that i've posted on many times.

IRL, a kid with a knife can take out a gangster boss. In MMO's this is simply not the case.

Originally posted by Isaak

Instead of making me a DPS, make me a hero. Instead of making me a healer, make me a hero! Instead of making me a tank, make me a hero. Faster action, intelligent AI.

So basically make an MMOG instead of an MMORPG?   The game you propose seems to make everyone the same generic "hero" class, without distinction.  Players like distinction.

I do agree with your desire to think outside the box, but you can't just half-ass the solutions without thinking them through either (because if collision's "fix" is being able to shove people out of the way, that becomes an even bigger griefing tool than merely blocking someone.)

Originally posted by Axehilt

Originally posted by Isaak

Instead of making me a DPS, make me a hero. Instead of making me a healer, make me a hero! Instead of making me a tank, make me a hero. Faster action, intelligent AI.

 

So basically make an MMOG instead of an MMORPG?   The game you propose seems to make everyone the same generic "hero" class, without distinction.  Players like distinction.

I do agree with your desire to think outside the box, but you can't just half-ass the solutions without thinking them through either (because if collision's "fix" is being able to shove people out of the way, that becomes an even bigger griefing tool than merely blocking someone.)

Axehilt is right.  I rarely harass people(I don't typically ever go so far as griefing), but if that part of the game was there, and my group was bored, we would so stalk random people and shove them and block them and etc to prevent them from getting anything done until we were bored with that.  Of course, at the point we were bored enough to do that, we'd probably end up finding a new game, so the point is moot.

Originally posted by Isaak

 

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.

 

Collision detection only attracts griefers if the Devs are still squarely INSIDE the box. The equation is simple. Why is X a griefer tool. THen fix X.    If collision allows griefing, then fix it. Why is it griefing? Someone standing in a doorway blocks everyone in and they all die from a grenade. IRL, you shove that guy out of the way.  Now, if that guy is actively TRYING to keep you from getting by, then that is different. Many times this person is an ally....cause if it was an enemy, you'd just kill it. So, you add in the ability to jostle past an ally in a doorway. There is SOME collision, you are slowed down, but not stopped.  

Quit poo pooing ideas just because you are incapable of climbing out of the box.

The answer to the Holy Trinity issue, it seems (after reading ALL the posts here) is to add a more intelligent and natural AI behviour to the MOBS.  Players cannot just stand there and TANK if the mobs will simply run away or around you.  You must actively engage the enemy to get their attention. And, could you engage several at a time? Different Mobs have different modes of operation.  Some will pack hunt and all attack one target.  Some will come in an each engage one of you (5 human thugs each take one of the group, or maybe gang up on one person...make it random!).

Instead of making me a DPS, make me a hero. Instead of making me a healer, make me a hero! Instead of making me a tank, make me a hero. Faster action, intelligent AI.

Can I also ask for a non static world? HAHAHA. A topic for another thread....one that i've posted on many times.

IRL, a kid with a knife can take out a gangster boss. In MMO's this is simply not the case.

Sounds like to me you just climbed into the First Person Shooter box.

Modern Warfare 2 is already on the way.

Well you are simplifying somewhat what game developers are doing currently.  They have expanded on the big three to involve most of the other classes.   While you can argue that the basic big three are the heart of it, the boss fights have moved further and further from it. 

The zerg game everyone talks about works well in many of the fps games, but I see it rarely used in the MMO genre.  I guess people pine for it because of the ease of making up a party. 

Personally I like having a significant portion of the parties available needed in a group.  So I guess I find this much better than a zerg mentality.

There are different ways a Holy Trinity MMO could play. It could play very similar to a sandbox MMO. Just because you can't do everything in the game doesn't make it not sandboxy... Classes are a good way to clearly give the player a role he/she wants to play. It also limits the player so that he/she cannot become a supercharacter and max out every single skill and be the best of everything... It turns into a shooter eventually where character developement just leads to the same destination whereas if you had classes, the end of character developement can mean different things.

I am not against the skill setup, but I do think a Holy Trinity MMO can also be just as fun depending on the other elements of the game. (see Vanguard)