Originally posted by aSynchro

Lets check where the Trinity is useful:

_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.

_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!

_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.

_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.

_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.

In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.

 

I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together.  What do you prefer to hear :

Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"

or :

Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."

?

And that really is the beauty of the Trinity.. the devs can always throw in 1 of 20 bosses that has a special flavor like Galaron or the others you mentioned.   But even with Galaron, yes, the tanks are not holding aggro, but you still need them to be ´tanks´ in that they have to absorb the big hits in front of the boss.

And I am not sure what world you are living in if you think you can do current heroic dungeons without a tank.  Maybe if you outlevel them, but nobody is going to clear even the 5 month old heroics we have now without being in a tank spec and healing spec.   It maybe doable with a group with a lot of Blood dks, but it certainly wouldn´t be faster.

As far as PVP and Questing... wow, good thing we have duel specs, huh?  But even then, questing in tank specs is actually faster for some people, I know a lot of people prefer Blood or Bear for instance.

And your last comment is a joke about UO and EVE.. UO and EVE really have no group content, and certainly no ´boss´ fights.  But again, that really is what it comes down to.  If you want vibrant and interesting boss fights, you need the trinity.  If all you want is diablo-style dungeons, you don´t need it.  Two completely different gamestyles, take what you like and play it, one is not right or wrong.  I personally prefer having the memorable, and very different boss fights.

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Get rid of classes all together.  Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want.  Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.

GW2 went half way.  Someone else needs to bring it full circle.

Darkfall. In that game you used to be able to be Master of All. It was considered boring as everyone could do everything, hence why they are rehauling it now.

AC 1 had a better approach. There you had a set number of skill points and you could then build whatever character you wanted but since there was a limit on skill points, you could not be Master of All.

So it has been done but for some reason class based MMO's are dominating and have been since the rise of EQ 1. Probably such a system is much easier for the devs. to balance.

Originally posted by redcapp

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Holy trinity is a game developers' conveniance, developed when internet speeds were serious issues.   Collision detection was hard, so a simple workaround developed.  

 

You might like it, you might not.

Well, the first MMO I played had collision detection and did not have the trinity (UO).  Not sure what the two have to do with one another...

I found his comment funny also.  I played UO back on a 28.8k modem.   Mobs either had AI where they would chase the person who hit them last, so two ranged classes could play ´monkey in the middle´ with mob or else the mob always chased the person who hit them first, which meant everyone stood in the middle while one person ran in a big circle around them.

i dont want trinity back. But of course what GW2 did can always be improved upon without forcing trinity on classes.

Im currently playing Tera and i havent given up on their heavy trinity because i love the graphics (not enough to stay long here) so im playing some pve only content here as strictly dps for a while. I cant really stand heavy trinity imposed to players anymore.

Whatever class i choose, i want to be able to hybridize it or i wont last long in that game.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Eir_S

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by fivoroth

 

What we have in GW2 is kinda meh PvE wise. In GW2 you have no roles. 

what are you talking about? and if you are just running around a dungeon doing dps and nothing else i bet you guys are wiping a lot or people are getting angry with you.. or you are just grouping with some people that really know how to play gw2 roles well.. also no healing at all in any form? have you really not played the game at all and are making blind assumptions based on a very limited amount of play?

And what exactly are the roles in GW 2? And dont say support because there is no class which can do full support, you still need to do a lot of DPS inbetween the cooldowns.

In GW 2 you have to take turns doing support and most of the time you just do DPS DPS DPS. Boring.

Well someone argued just above that DPS in most MMO's can CC... does that mean there are no classes that are full DPS in those games?  Your argument is based on your opinion which is great, but I don't think you're looking at the whole picture.  Even a priest in WoW can dps with offensive spells on the disc tree, does that mean they're not full healer classes?  Your logic is off.  I've played a support role in GW2.

Now what?

You are twisting my argument. I am saying that classes which cannot consistently do something, such as healing or CC, cannot claim to fill that role properly. Classes in GW 2 cannot consistently do anything but DPS so they are all, more or less, DPS with a bit of support/healing/CC thrown in.

Great if you like DPSing, not so much if you dont (and I dont).

you have some options to play almost full support in gw2 some classes have more options for it than others ie guardian and ele but doesn't mean it can't be done.. but gw2 combat was made for everyone to play all the roles at any given time and up to the players to be able to adapt to that.. just seems some don't seem to be able to do that or some just need that set role to enjoy themselves

Originally posted by jadiusmax

I've never understood why trinity and classes are linked.  I think that's the major issue.  If all classes have the ability to perform all roles then you certainly would have more choice.  I know there are mage archtype players that wouldnt mind tanking, but they cant because the game is designed against it.  And yet, in high fantasy it is OBVIOUSLY possible for a mage to manifest layer upon layer of arcane protection becoming at times more untouchable than even a fighter (thinking back to ad&d here). 

 

Let all classes do all roles ( or at least expand a bunch) and i think alot of LFHealer/tank issues get resolved.   No reason a tank fighter cant exist in the same game as tank rogue/mage/cleric, etc.  Rift gets close for sure, though still applies unnecessary restrictions. 

 

I dont know if trinity is the best system, but it seems fairly simple to make it better. 

I think the problem with this comes into the precision that is required for delicate balancing.   In WOW for instance, people get in an uproar over a perceived 5% difference in classes.

WOW kinda tried your approach with tanks early on.  For instance, Bear tanks had a lot more health, but didn´t have as good of avoidance or any blocking at all.   Warrior tanks were the kings of single target tanking, and pallies were better at fights with a large number of mobs.

What happens is if you have content that only requires 5 or 10 players... those differences get magnified so much that nobody wants to group with the  ´single mob tank´ in a dungeon with a lot of AOE fights.  This happened in a very drastic way at the end of BC in WOW.  Nobody wanted to dungeons with anyone but Pally tanks.   Likewise, Bear tanks were not wanted on fights were healer mana was an issue because having more HPs and less avoidance meant they would need more healing.

It is one of the problems that faces WOW today.  The game is so tightly analyzed and theorycrafted that even a 5% diffference means your spec doesn´t get brought to raids.  Newer games, and games with less focus on endgame group content don´t have the same problems.

Again, your idea will work ( every class having tank and healing specs) or even everyone being able to a little of everything.  But with that system you will never have very precise encounters.. and once your game gets big, and the theorycrafters come out in force, even then you are going to have a ton of ´non-viable´ specs.   A lot of games, including GW2 have avoided this just by not having really challenging endgame content that requires precision.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by darkhalf357x

Get rid of classes all together.  Allow me to make a character and give me skill points that I can put wherever I want.  Allowing me to be a stealthy, fire-wielding, mage-type warrior.

GW2 went half way.  Someone else needs to bring it full circle.

Darkfall. In that game you used to be able to be Master of All. It was considered boring as everyone could do everything, hence why they are rehauling it now.

AC 1 had a better approach. There you had a set number of skill points and you could then build whatever character you wanted but since there was a limit on skill points, you could not be Master of All.

So it has been done but for some reason class based MMO's are dominating and have been since the rise of EQ 1. Probably such a system is much easier for the devs. to balance.

UO had a nice system, you had dozens of possible skills you could raise to 100,  but only 700 points total.  But what happened is the devs kinda merged skills together so that like 500 or even 600 skillpoints had to be used in harmony or you were severly gimped.  You took Magery to cast spells, then you had to take meditation to regain mana, then you had to take Evaluate magic to make your spells hit hard, then you had to take wrestling or else you were interrupted all the time. (can´t remember precisely, it has been a long long time).

So at the end of the day you had   warrior, mage, tamer, bard..  each with a few skillpoints left over to dable in something else.

Originally posted by aSynchro

Lets check where the Trinity is useful:

_ Leveling : NO. Why level as tank or healer when you can just dps all the way to end game ? Only useful for shorter dungeon queue.

_ Quest: NO. Have you try to do WoW dailies as a healer ? Ah ah!

_ PvP: NO. Tank can't tank players, so it's only a dps with more health but half the damage. As for Healers, well a battleground with zero healers or with same amount of healers in both team don't really change the whole deal.

_ Dungeon : Not really. At first maybe, but with good gear/cc or skilled players you can do it without healer or without tank.

_ Raids: YES/Maybe. For classic tank&spank fights. But you can imagine lots of fights that would works without tanks and healers. Just replace non-avoidable damages with avoidable-if-you-move-fast-enought damages and here you are.

In fact, check WoW raids : lots of encounters don't really need the Trinity. Alysrazor in Fireland has fixed aggro mechanism; same for Garalon in Heart of Fear. Ultraxion in DS only need people to press button at the good time, and what about the vehicule fights in Ulduar, the gunship in Icecrown, the Sha in the last Terrace raid etc etc. Usualy tanks have a very small role. As for healers, they are only usefull because there are non-avoidable damages.

 

I'd also like to point that trinity prevents players from being together.  What do you prefer to hear :

Ultima Online, EVE, Guild Wars 2: "hey, sure: join us and lets have fun together!"

or :

Trinity based MMORPG: "mmh, sorry: we only need a tank/healer now..."

?

I think we need to get out of the WoW mindset.

Leveling, there have been games where just being dps didn't cut it in difficult dungoens. Since Lineage 2 is my largest experience I'll use that.

leveling, Areas like Forge of the gods and AoE groups in one of the temples definitley gave good xp and rewards but required tanks and healers. The issue in that game was that buffers were more like batteries than someone an actual player wanted to play. I also recall some of my best duos/ttrios requing a healer/recharger to keep the party gowing. Allowing for DD's and healers to be extra squishy did help in this regard.

quest: don't care about wow and quests are usually things that require one player. There were quests in Lineage 2 (the game had few quests) that required a group. you just had to have one. Especially for the class quests as there were tough bosses involved. But I'm not partial to games that have ridiculous quests sending you to kill 10 of someting. I'd rather just hang out in the area and kill mobs.

pvp - again, I suppose we have to get out of the wow mindset. In Aion and Tera a tank can tank players. They can draw the player to them. I recall fighting a tank as a Sorcerer in Aion and accidentally allowed him to get close enough to draw me in. I went down pretty quickly.

Dungeon - just make it so that good gear is only part of the equation. Just because "other" games allow for good gear to win the day doesn't mean all games have to have that. I will say that I'm more partial to these new skill based games where one can take on harder dungeons with a more diverse group but having a tank or healer can help.

And again you use WoW. I think if developers move away from "WoW" and create encounters where players can have different types of groups but where having a healer or tank makes things easier, it could be more interesting.

As I've said, I'm for a "soft" trinity. Allowing for players to embody different classes/playstyles but allow for a bit more diversity.

Who is to say the Tank has to do "no" damage? Maybe the tank does slower damage but takes larger chunks? Maybe magic users do incredible damage but are so squishy that one bad pull not noticing an enemy until it's too late brings them down quickly.

Of course, I will concede that "most" players will choose the path of least resistance and will try to avoid areas where they have be skillful or that might need great players or at least a good comination to succeed.

Sorry for ignoring 13 pages of arguments and back and forth flaming

GW2 didnt do anything groundbreaking or uique.  It simply removed a role and distributed that role amongst all the other classes.

Had they invented a new system with new mechanics..yeah groundbreaking.

The OP makes it sound like ANET did somthing totally unique and worth our support...when all the did was hit the delete button on a role.  This is why gameplay was so...stale...in GW2...everyone just DPSing.

In this sense...yes the trinity works best.  They still used the trinity system, they just deleted a role out of the three...which is why people felt it was lacking.

I would much rather prefer the full trinity than a gimped trinity system in a game still built around killing, managing aggro, and staying alive.  Nothing works better than a tank, a healer, and dps in a game build around this.

Im still shocked people call what GW2 did as anything innovative or groundbreaking...its just public quests on a trigger rather than static...and instance pvp/pve...same old game.

I like the "no trinity"-approach.

But i think GW2 doesnt even do it remotely right. I prefer the old trinity, but supported by a gigaton of classes (EQ2) every day.

I also think that the trinity isn't the problem with today's games, but the way homogenisation hit it.

I like the hybrid system and I always aimed for a hybrid build in every mmorpg I've played so far...

I just don't like to be limited in playing just this 1 role which doesn't offer me the ability to sustain myself on life or it does but at the price of my dps drop... or vice versa, I can heal but I can not do damage because I won't be able to heal everyone properly thus I'll increase my chances of wiping the group. I just think those days are now over for me and if the game won't offer atleast some kind of a hybrid solution - I won't even bother trying now...

GW2 does have some issues with it's model and it could use few tweaks to tune it up just right, but when I look at the whole picture I do like it and it's really something new and it works pretty well. The only thing is that you really have to know what you're doing (and everyone in your party) so you can succeed in what you're doing at that moment, the game does not forgive and it punishes hard for every mistake you make in dungeons or fights and I think that's the way it should be in every game.

Originally posted by Roxtarr
Once I quit being a noob and started getting support skills and traits in GW2 I was ok without the trinity.

lol same for me.. i notice it happens in dungeons the most.. people run AC for their first time go in with a glass cannon dps build and rage quit because they can't stay alive and blame the game mechanics.. once i figured out how to play all the roles on the fly combat became much more fluid and enjoyable

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Roxtarr
Once I quit being a noob and started getting support skills and traits in GW2 I was ok without the trinity.

lol same for me.. i notice it happens in dungeons the most.. people run AC for their first time go in with a glass cannon dps build and rage quit because they can't stay alive and blame the game mechanics.. once i figured out how to play all the roles on the fly combat became much more fluid and enjoyable

glass cannon is a viable build and I run it on my ranger. it works really good, the only thing is that it takes alot of time to learn how to play it properly because, as you said, you can't stay alive for long if noobish :D

Originally posted by korent1991

Originally posted by Aerowyn

Originally posted by Roxtarr
Once I quit being a noob and started getting support skills and traits in GW2 I was ok without the trinity.

lol same for me.. i notice it happens in dungeons the most.. people run AC for their first time go in with a glass cannon dps build and rage quit because they can't stay alive and blame the game mechanics.. once i figured out how to play all the roles on the fly combat became much more fluid and enjoyable

glass cannon is a viable build and I run it on my ranger. it works really good, the only thing is that it takes alot of time to learn how to play it properly because, as you said, you can't stay alive for long if noobish :D

yea that's what i mean you need to be good and know the dungeon to run glass cannon.. unlike many other MMOs with the holy trinity i could go in full dps no cares whatsoever on the first couple dungeons but in GW2 you can get 1 shotted left and right even in the very first dungeon

Can't vote on that, it is too narrowminded.

Do I want roles ? yeah that is what makes people work together.

Do I like the term holy trinity ? no that is a simplistic view on the issue.

Does the roles have to set based on classes ? No way, your role should be based on playstyle and choices, and possibly soft so you can switch between roles.

Roleless is not a mmorpg, it is just a battle ground. Teamplay is all about dedicating and specializing your character to a "role" while others have other roles, thereby making the team better than if everyone is just a .. to put it in holy trio mindset, a dps class.

You can have roles that are not included in the holy trinity standard view, we just havent seen much of it for many years, Everquest has some examples but let the mind wander. Multiple roles are also overlooked in most games, and additive roles where two of same role type can add their powers together.

I have read this whole post and it makes me laugh so many of you say you like the trinty but yet you dont play games with it you jump on one game that tryed to break from the normal trinty and add something new. Thats why most dont like GW2 is its different to a point that most only go one way and thats DPS and thats not totaly true I run a mesmer that is support/control and a little DPS but I mostly run support/control with them I do this on most of my characters cause it works for me. On my engineer I run a dps/support role and dont die hardly at all. On my Guardian I run a control/dps roles and almost never die and thats cause I set may traits and stats to fit my play style instead of following the FOTM which is a cheap way for players to try to be the best.

I think that most games that offer a simular set up where you can make you character to your liking through stats and traits or whatever the company wants to name them it makes the character more unique and not just a cookie cutter set-up like most players want you to be and this has been this way in almost every mmo sense EQ and even happened in UO alot and I never follow that play style cause I preffer different and then companys changed the stats to meet the class and took away alot of uniqueness from players and now we have the FOTM built in to our characters so much to most thats the normal and its not for me. 

I stick to GW2 because I can be different then the same class I am grouped with and to this day I have only met one other mesmer that plays simular to me and thats felt odd. Just because in EQ my wife played a cleric that out tanked almost all tanks we grouped with or out healed most clerics does not mean she was playing wrong she was playing how she liked to play and just because I could tank and heal with a bard in EQ did not mean I played wrong its how I set my toon up for my playstyle. Even in WoW my NIghtelf Prist with mace and shield stood in the fight with my wifes pally because I made my toon that way to do that untill they changed it then we quit. I have done the same in almost every mmo I have played and makes me enjoy GW2 even more and cant wait for more games to come out that let you creat your character as you play and not force you into a certain play style.