Only gripe I have with it is healing. I feel bad for em. IMO I find healing very boring. Tanking and dps is fun. Idk I haven't played a game where healing's fun. Granted I dont play many MMOs but in the big ones like WoW and GW1, it just felt like I was always staring at little boxes and I had to click it in a particular way everytime the green color kept getting drained. Same with GW1. Idk that's just my opinion

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by Luxthor

What I have read from this forums, in majority of posts, main reason against holy trinity is LFG?! IMHO this is not argument at all, it's pure convenience. Majority of players hate to take group responsibility to heal or are scared to take lead and tank, to learn every dungeon and encounter, what they really want is easy run without any responsibility and secure shiny loot.

I'm not against trinity, also not against any other system as long as such provides diversity and distinctive role/profession, but I’m really confused when some players hate trinity and don’t have any real argument aside subjective ones.

After mass popularization of MMO-s, every new game tends to minimize those roles, it's the natural process if you want to reach mass mediocrity population, at the end of this process, mainstream MMO-s will only have jack of all trades and master of none type of role/professions. Something when you have left only pawns and than pretend to play chess, with only two options: move and capture. ;)

So tell me your reason against holy trinity, real reason pls?

My main argument is that tanking makes combat boring and predictable.

All mobs are seriously retarded, even dragons, wizards and other one would assume to be smart.

In pen and player RPGs combat is a lot about tactics and no DM would let the players just tank the mobs there. That it is hard to find certain roles is not really a problem for me.

Another reason is that trinity combat makes all games using it be rather similar.

Trinity combat was invented in Meridian 59, a game made a couple on inexperienced guys with a low budget for fun. To think that they accidentely stumbled on the ultimate combat system seems very unlikely. So my third argument against trinity is that just using it have stopped MMOs from evolving.

MMO combat should be tactical with a lot of focus on using the enviroment to your advantage, together with quick thinking and constantly noticing what is happening around you. It should not just be about having quick reactions but it should neither be about standing still and using a macro either.

There are many possibilities but as long as everyone is more or less using the same mechanics all MMOs will feel like M59/EQ/Wow and that is bad news for new games. Most common reason to not stay in the new game around here is that it just feels like Wow.

Agree with you, combat should be more tactical and mobs AI unpredictable and smart. Dungeons should be dungeons, places where you can get lost and be eaten. ;) But trinity is just three basic types of many roles, nothing wrong with them at all.

Tell me, that you can't design encounters or dungeon that can be done without tank but with different tactics on same level of difficulty, or without healer relying on environment and so on. I think that is possible and will be lots of fun, in the same time too hard for today average player. That's the real problem, recent MMO-s designed to cater more players and publishers cant afford 'mistakes'.

Historically specialization is more effective than generalization.   This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat.  It makes more sense to have dedicated roles. 

Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.

Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles.   Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.  

Originally posted by arieste

Historically specialization is more effective than generalization.   This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat.  It makes more sense to have dedicated roles. 

 

Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.

 

Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles.   Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.  

But isn't that what GW2 is trying to do, to become the first game to take upon the dedicated roles and said that I will prove it otherwise.

So whats the point of this thread then, GW2 is trying to show the world that MMO arn't limited into Tank, Heal, Dps roles anymore, and that they can become entirely something different. But I will wager that GW2 is just doing a small change, the real innovation of the Trinity won't be coming out until GW2 is released and a few month have passed.

Game companies that is secretly developing an MMO will wait, when players are more comfortable, they will come out with entirely different combat mechanics. Something entirely not the Trinity. Because you can never skip evolution, just like computers, you can't go from 1 core computers to 10 core computers, you have to go through dual core, quad core, before you go all the way to 10 core computers.

Originally posted by just1opinion

 

Well, let me tell you from one healer's perspective what the "deal" is for me.  I would love to play a healer in GW2 (of course, we can't).  I really enjoy healing, BUT.....and this is a big but.....it gets VERY focking old being the one to take the blame (either me or the tank) for every stupid thing wrong some braindead DPS does and ends up dead.  Now if you've never healed, you might not understand what I just said, but if you have....I don't really need to say much more.  I am relieved to not have to face years of, "omg I waz jest standing in the fire, joo shud be able to healz me threw dat."  Seriously dude, WTF?  Or the lovely dps proud mofos who like to spam their highest dps spell over and over and over and over or their highest ultimate dps rotation repeatedly and as fast as they can fire it off..... and then wonder how they pulled aggro and then get pissed at me for not healing them instead of someone who is NOT doing that or is the tank. Those are two generic examples.  I could write a book FULL of examples. 

 

In MY opinion, that is part of the "deal" with the trinity.  Two people (or maybe 4 if it's a raid) taking blame for what myriads of other people are doing.  It's bullshit.  Tanks are not infallible and perfect super heroes and neither are your healers, but many "teammates" treat them badly and don't take responsibility for ANYthing.  I'm anxious to actually be one of a TEAM and not the oftentimes scapegoat.

Human factor and recent average player base mentality catered with lazy game design spoiled your role, you become just a healing bot, someone they are waiting in LFG, an obstacle. ;)

My most frequent role is healer or some healing hybrid, so I understand your pain perfectly. I'm afraid that distinctive role and complex encounters/environment game design became niche domain.

Originally posted by Fusion

Trinity = organized and predictable combat (SWTOR, WoW fex.)

Non-trinity = unorganized chaos (GW2 dungeons "1 kites, rest nuke, aggro change, rinse repeat")

Only a matter of time when the latter becomes the same "topic of hatred", it's new now, like EQ was back in the day, but you just wait and see

So after the latter has been crucified, whats next? i don't really see other ways of doing MMORPG's to ve realistic :D

None trinity are all kinds of possible mechanics, unorganized and organized.

If MMOs always stuck with the same mechanics the combat in thegames just don´t become more fun. And we fight a lot so the games needs to experiement more.

I do not mean that GW2 or any other none trinity game have the perfect mechanics but trying out new thins is the only way to evolve the MMOs.

The trinity have basically been the same since 1996, just like the class and leveling systems. There are room for improvement in all those things.

And yeah, the trinity works but a Ford model T works as well. We would still be driving in those if automobile companies thought like MMO devs.

Originally posted by Luxthor

Human factor and recent average player base mentality catered with lazy game design spoiled your role, you become just a healing bot, someone they are waiting in LFG, an obstacle. ;)

My most frequent role is healer or some healing hybrid, so I understand your pain perfectly. I'm afraid that distinctive role and complex encounters/environment game design became niche domain.

Nah, that is just because MMOs just like most other computer games have become a lot easier the last 12 years or so.

In most games you can play your healer more, but you don´t have to so few ever do.

But distinct roles and complex encounters are 2 very different things, you can easily have one without the other.

I think the biggest issue with "trinity" is that it got severely dumbed down as a way to simplify game mechanics in group gameplay.  There were many roles outside of the base three, and roles overlapped in small groups.  Combat was more than tank-n-spank because it was nearly impossible to hold aggro with DPS going all out.

Originally posted by Luxthor

Agree with you, combat should be more tactical and mobs AI unpredictable and smart. Dungeons should be dungeons, places where you can get lost and be eaten. ;) But trinity is just three basic types of many roles, nothing wrong with them at all.

Tell me, that you can't design encounters or dungeon that can be done without tank but with different tactics on same level of difficulty, or without healer relying on environment and so on. I think that is possible and will be lots of fun, in the same time too hard for today average player. That's the real problem, recent MMO-s designed to cater more players and publishers cant afford 'mistakes'.

The real problemis that most MMOs try to be for everyone. That in itself is a losing tactic that not even Wow pulled off.

The market have room for  few really hard AA MMOs just like it have for a few really easy ones. But games trying to be everything kinda turns off people from both camps.

Look on WAR, it could have easily gotten 400K old DaoC players or even a few million Warhammer fans that play computergames, but instead it went for all Wows players (or that is at least what Barnett said before launch).

People are scared of change.

Originally posted by XAPGames

I think the biggest issue with "trinity" is that it got severely dumbed down as a way to simplify game mechanics in group gameplay.  There were many roles outside of the base three, and roles overlapped in small groups.  Combat was more than tank-n-spank because it was nearly impossible to hold aggro with DPS going all out.

That is a part of the problem yes. But as I see it, tanking and taunts is the big problem in themselves.

They took out a lot of the surprises out of combat, and you rarely need to think fast in a trinity game, you handle almost 100% of all encounters the same (not counting trashmobs).

Originally posted by arieste

Historically specialization is more effective than generalization.   This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat.  It makes more sense to have dedicated roles. 

 

Those roles don't have to be "tank", "healer" and "dps", but honestly, it doesn't particularly matter what they are, so long as they are there.

 

Every successful PvE MMO ever made has had dedicated roles.   Until proven otherwise, I'll maintain that it's the best way to go.  

In science, what you are saying is not true. Why would I say that? I am a Ph.D. scientist that has a broad background. If you are really specialized you are pidgeonholed into one area and cannot move out. More and more, it takes a generalist to get things to work well and the specialist are stuck.

You really should say it this way, 'The only roles offered in MOST MMO's is the trinity - successful or not'. Just because it has always been that way DOES NOT mean it is the best. It is the easiest road but I think it is not the best way to go.

Originally posted by Loke666

Nah, that is just because MMOs just like most other computer games have become a lot easier the last 12 years or so.

I don't agree with this, although it probably depends on what games you're playing.

For me, 12 years ago a challenging encounter meant an unlimited number of players shooting a mob for 2 hours while it's massive HP crawls down.  I mostly stayed away from these types of "challenging encounters" and focused more on soloing and other things.

For me today, a challenging encounter means 24 people who have trained to work well together in 10-20 minute encounters.  24 people who are all performing a variety of their individual tasks well, adjusting to changing conditions and if any of them fail, we likely lose.  I love it.

Back to the point.. there is no way that I could take a random 24 of the 200 people doing those encounters 12 years ago and get them to do some of the complex encounters of today.   Those people could barely do one thing right at time, whereas today they need to do multiple thing, react and interact.  

So to me, the games HAVE become harder.  

You can talk about how it was "hard" to solo a Gnoll in EQ1 because it took like 5 minutes and then you had to rest for 10.  But i don't consider that to be difficulty.  That was just different game design and even back then games were catching onto the fact that there was nothing cool about waiting for 10 minutes between encounters or spending 2 hours recovering ones corpse.  

I wonder how many of the people who said the trinity is boring, ever tanked. Tanking is not boring. It can be frustrating tho, with some nutty pew pew DPS screwing the fight up.

Plus most wipes are the healer's fault... ;-)

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Originally posted by Gorilla
My argument against the holy trinity is this....a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. As evil and suffering exists there can be no god. If there is no god there can be no holy trinity. QED.

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How about God that practices freedom of choice instead "making" everyone exactly the same goody-two-shoes with no opposing beliefs?

LOL To put in game terms, a God who built a sandbox world and lets the players do as they may instead of making the themepark game on rails, forcing players to play a certain way :)

I wonder if ti's possible to make a decent NPC Tank and Healer that could join the group in dungeons. Could a fight be made interesting/challenging with these non-player henchmen?

Then the only thing needed to run the dungeons is gathering the group that could be made up of anyone.

Originally posted by jmcdermottuk

For me its because with a trinity set up we move out of the realm of fantasy and into the realm of the rediculous. Why? 

The mobs are SO stupid they ignore all the guys shooting them full of arrows, stabbing them in the back and flinging fireballs at them and carry on hitting the shield being held up in front of them by the big, butch, heavily armoured warrior dude. The one they can't seem to kill, no matter how hard they try, because of the other dude in the dress who keeps healing him.

That analogy is great. The total massacre of suspension of disbelief when playing the game. 

To further comment on that analogy, I would say that the holy trinity breaks the game experience down to balancing mathematical equations between three points in the most efficient way. You don't need a graphical interface to do the trinity because the trinity was designed for text MUDs where it was nothing but number crunching and text output.

Now that we've (arguably) evolved beyond math numbers and text echos for RPGs, it makes sense to create more dynamic systems for combat that feel closer to living, thinking opponents than the traditional number crunch game with text values in a chat log.

Originally posted by Psychow

I wonder how many of the people who said the trinity is boring, ever tanked. Tanking is not boring. It can be frustrating tho, with some nutty pew pew DPS screwing the fight up.

 

Plus most wipes are the healer's fault... ;-)

Raided as a tank in EQ1, EQ2, WoW, Rift, AoC, SWTOR etc etc etc. Mostly beacuse other players were too terrible to do a decent job at it.

Tanking is easy. Off-tanking is slightly less easy but still easy. Most players are bad.

Bring on the demise of the trinity!

Originally posted by arieste

Historically specialization is more effective than generalization.   This can be seen in sports, in science, in business, in armed combat.  It makes more sense to have dedicated roles. 

No one is arguing that specialization isn't more effective. The discussion isn't about specilialized or distict roles but about why people like or dislike the trinity and its related mechanics.

Originally posted by QuicklyScott

 

 

I myself won't play a themepark MMO without being able to play a tank.

If we could clone several million of you to drop into the "trinity" based games maybe it wouldn't be so bad.  Unfortunately this is not the case and a vast majority of people don't want to be tanks or healers and therefore it's difficult to find groups.