Originally posted by MasterCrysis

its pretty clear that only 8 class's...

Wait, when did they announce there'd only be 8 "class's"?

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

The Healer/Tank/DPS setup is known as the MMO Holy Trinity and has endured for a reason; because it works well and there are no real alternatives to group-vs-boss PVE gameplay.

I suppose you could possibly do away with "bosses" that need to be tanked and have all fights be group-vs-group; i.e. instead of having 1 "boss" Dark Jedi to kill, you have a squad of 20 Stormtroopers; I know I wouldn't fancy trying to keep alive a half-dozen ballistic DPSmonkeys

There have been games out there that have designed "combat healers" that heal passively as they fight, reducing the "healbot" effect to virtual non-existance.

I wouldn't get your hopes up though; the Holy Trinity is still the preferred method for PVE gaming and is almost certainly going to represented in TOR somehow.

For my part, I hope they make the "tanking" focus on avoidance rather than mitigation; I really detest the thought of stabbing "a boss" through the chest with a lightsaber and them only losing 1% of their life.

Sadly, immersion often has to sacrificed for the sake of basic gameplay sometimes.

What he says. I too dont see a real alternative. I mean, what other setup for spezialized roles can you thnk of? The only alternative would be that everyone can do everything, and then you have all soloers heaven. People cant cooperate when they have no fixed roles. One can hope however that they make the classes interesting and with variations and not too cookie cutter.

It's just a matter of logic deduction. Tanking, healing and DPS just ARE the logical functions of a combat system. Sure you can distribute them different, you can make hybrids - at the price that EVERY hybrid is weaker than the specialist. Why do you think our modern civilization has become an all specialist world? Because specialization is way more productive. Otherwise we would still live in the generalist work age as 2000 years ago. You can remove one class, like healer and put it all to potions, but then you just took away one class some people like to play and place the function on an object instead of the person, and I rather walk with a PERSON who heals me than a potion spammage.

No, my friends, specialized classes are the best for a reason, they are the logical breakdown of the combat functions. If you think you can deduct that better, than give me an example.

Originally posted by Elikal

...The only alternative would be that everyone can do everything, and then you have all soloers heaven. People cant cooperate when they have no fixed roles.

Absolute fallacy.

I'm currently playing one of the most solo-friendly MMOs on the market, City of Heroes. Literally, any build can solo from the tutorial to the level cap. Yet still, I dare say the better part of the community as a whole plays in groups. Why? Because it's more fun. Isn't that the whole point?

Originally posted by Elikal

...you can make hybrids - at the price that EVERY hybrid is weaker than the specialist.

1 + 3 = 2 + 2

What's the difference? 

As for the logical breakdown of combat functions, let me a paint a scenario for you:

You see three shadowy figures approaching. The first is a large Gamorrean, covered from head-to-toe in thick body armor, and carrying a hatchet. The second is a frail looking Bothan brandishing a very large rifle. The third is an unarmed medical droid. I hand you a blaster and tell you these three are coming to rob and kill you.

What do you do?

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by Arremess

Well, as was said before, you can have all the variety you asked for in a game -with- the holy trinity. I don't know how it would be done without, though I am sure there are ways. So, yeah, I think it could be done, I'm just not sure it has to be done, because I don't think there would be so much of a difference.

I find myself forced to disagree. In a holy trinity game archetypes do *one* thing. And they do it almost exclusively. As a player you have *one* role which you can accomplish and that’s all. No one but the healer is going to be able to heal. No one but the Soldier is going to be able to wear heavy armor and tank etc etc.  Irregardles of whether "healing" is just a skill (i.e.: not magic or innate power) or wearing heavy armor is simply a matter of being strong enough to carry it and humanoid enough to fit into it.
And the gameplay suffers as a result because your “soldier” can’t do enough damage to take on heavy challenges no matter how resilient he/she is, and your healer can’t do enough damage or be survivable enough and your DPSer can dish it out but is toast as soon as they start taking hits.
It’s a system of interdependence by design. They build it that way so that every adventure *NEEDS* a formulaic composition. Essentially they force you team up, they remove your choice of whether you’d *like* to team and with whom you’d like to team and create a paradigm of false necessity that demands that you take on helpers to complete your puzzle.
How many times have you heard: “Need a healer!!!1111” broadcast? How many times: “One more tank and we’re g2g!”
Players don’t even consider going on certain missions without a proper loadout of archetypes. Not *players* mind you, not *characters*.. ARCHETYPES. You are not Han Solo in an archetypal system, you are a smuggler. You have no identity beyond your baseline statistical capabilities, or rather what people *expect* your baseline statistical capabilities to be.
“What do you mean you don’t heal?!?! YOU’RE A DEFENDER!!!!” Utterly oblivious to the notion that an archetype might try to work outside the box.

Let me ask you this. Would Princess Leah and Padme be helpless in a firefight despite their "non-tank" labels?  That notion has been disproven in the cannon already.

 

Archetypes simplify the games to Lincoln logs. This piece fits with that piece and does this. This piece doesn’t work at all unless that piece is also part of the puzzle.

The mere fact that several posters have come in here now and literally said that they don’t even know (or can’t imagine) how an AT’less system would even work is proof of the fact that we’ve been trained into believing this spoon-fed system is the only way.

It is not. If the basic game design is built around the notion of an AT’less system then the point is that you can team with *ANYONE* and get the job done. The aforementioned 5 Han Solos scenario is perfectly legitimate in an AT’less system. And would be just as viable as 5 Soldiers, or 5 Jedi or 5 Princesses or Gungans or whatever. The point is that 5 Han Solos will fight the spawn differently than 5 Luke Skywalkers, and each encountered mob will be different with each character loadout because individuality will demand it.
You lose the tank and spank by rote simply because everytime you play you’ll probably have a wildly different collection of individuals rather than a purpose built Lincoln log to fit into a specific role.

Without the baseline modifications and built in limitations that pigeon hole archetypes into 1 job and 1 job only you have much greater flexibility on an individual basis. Each “character” becomes capable of doing more than one thing.
Sure you may still see some specialists, and they will be better at their chosen focus than someone else, but they won’t be SO much better at it as to preclude someone else doing the job in a pinch.

 

Tank and Spank exists only because of the ludicrous and proposterous notion of "taunt"  A magical power of mass mind control that says "ignore the real threat and waste your time attacking the most invulnerable character instead!"

Take away taunt, and you've got a collection of individuals each taking their share of the room's agro and dealing with it in their own way.

However what I would love would be for players to be more flexible in fulfilling roles. As I pointed out earlier, it would make grouping easier and it would make your gaming experience more different. You could be whatever you feel like being at the time and experience encounters from many differing perspectives (without the need to grind yet another character up).
 

Exactly

As I said, it depends on how you implement the fight. Let me use an example: In one fight, you need to employ "situational awareness", "crowd-control", "DPS", "Tanking" and "Healing". The boss will attack the tank, but at a certain time, he will use an AoE attack that does ridiculous DPS (more or less unhealable) so, the Tank has to kite the mob (since the mob at the time is moving slower) around the edge of the room, keeping him away from the rest of the group. At another certain time, two adds will spawn, which need to be taken care off by another tank, dragged away from the boss and mowed down quickly, forcing people to be aware of the highest threat. And at -ANOTHER- time, the boss will spawn small adds from the corpse of the former adds, which run around real fast and attack the casters/healers, which need to be CCed and AoE'd down quickly as well. Added to that, the boss has a random direction attack which will toss anyone not paying attention high into the air, at best taking his abilities to contribute out for a bit, at worst, killing him with the damage.

So, you see, the fight is much more complex than simple tank and spank.

But I also agree that these things get repetetive after a while, because you know how to do the fight, you just have to learn how to do it and stay alert. But as I said, that's exactly the same thing that would happen in your examples. The tactic would be learned and then it is all about the players doing their part.

I don#t know a way around that except making encounters more unpredictable and more random. 
 

Agreed, content *should* be much more unpredictable. As soon as responses are hard coded they are learned and you can prepare for them BUT Having more generalized (AT’less) characters doesn’t make the aforementioned Raid boss unbeatable. It just means that when you get to that fight there will have to be some teamwork and communication as to what needs to be done. You’ll adapt on the fly, which, for my money is a heckuva lot more exciting than being told “stand here, spam this.”
Archetypes take choice away from players and, while they do provide an easy roadmap (perhaps roadmap isn’t the right word so much as blueprint), they are NOT absolutely required for a successful and enjoyable gaming experience. I believe the player-base has evolved beyond the hand holding need.

Maybe I’m a starry-eyed dreamer in that regard, but I think that we’ve (the MMO crowd) had enough training wheels to be able to ride on our own now.


 

 

Originally posted by Arremess

 

<snip>

The problem here is, if you make characters be able to do -everything- then there is -no- interdependency. There is a fine line between making characters universally useful and making them overpowered. Of course, if any character can fulfill any role, you might say that it's basically back to the status quo.

In the end, you will still have the same roles in a fight, only they might be fulfilled by different people. If you displace the tank/healer/dps setup (as in the -classes- are set up to fulfill said role), then all you end up with is a group of character that can do everything and then, before a fight, assigning the roles there.

If you remove the -need- for tanking/healing/dpsing, then you would have to look at a whole new game concept and frankly, I'm not sure where that would lead. You'd end up with the aforementioned mechanics, ccing, kiting, positional awareness etc.....only without the additional need to heal, tank. I think.

But then again, I haven't thought too hard about possible alternatives. I shall meditate on this.

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by MasterCrysis

its pretty clear that only 8 class's...

 

Wait, when did they announce there'd only be 8 "class's"?

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/inside-the-old-republic?page=0%2C0

page 3.

Every player is Force Sensitive thats it... it should be.. then u pick up your power from some skill branches.. and saber skill defense skills... healing skills.. tanking skills... and such...

and you can build up your template with difenret stuff to pick.. but u can only pick a certain ammount of stuff...

and maike it like tons and tons of skill trees....

something like galaxies with a blend of dungeon siege style and such.... or maybe with some guild wars taste...

Originally posted by singsofdeath

The problem here is, if you make characters be able to do -everything- then there is -no- interdependency. There is a fine line between making characters universally useful and making them overpowered. Of course, if any character can fulfill any role, you might say that it's basically back to the status quo.

If that were true, then how would you explain a game like Left 4 Dead?

i realize some people may not like skill systems. and although Bioware has spoke saying they are using levels, i still beleive a character's progression will be more like a skill leveling system.

think in terms of Kotor 2. you leveled. but what was a level? the only thing it did was keep track of xp, and at a certain level you obtained a prestige class.

other then that, the entire character progression was skill based. selecting skills and rows of skills to progress through much like the equivalent of a skill based system.

i suspect we will see both in this game. to what degree is the question.

lore wise, a jedi would use blasters, grenades, poison darts and several other weapon types, and were skill with em. Mara Jade is a perfect example. if ever there was a jedi assassin, she would be it.

then theres people throughout the lore, who are not jedi, but were melee equipped in Teras Kasi or bounty hunters who were well known for there melee prowess and there ranged weapons attacks.

there is no such thing as limiting a character to a certain role in star wars. to do so would not be star wars, but some junk game with a coated star wars names/graphics.

Originally posted by singsofdeath  

. I shall meditate on this.

As will I  :)

Thank you for your input though, it was a pleasure and gave me some to think about as well.

Though the above link and 8 "classes" news is a major disappointment for me personally  :(  Oh well

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by singsofdeath

The problem here is, if you make characters be able to do -everything- then there is -no- interdependency. There is a fine line between making characters universally useful and making them overpowered. Of course, if any character can fulfill any role, you might say that it's basically back to the status quo.

 

If that were true, then how would you explain a game like Left 4 Dead?

What's there to explain? Is Left4Dead an MMO? As far as I was aware it's an FPS, isn't it?

I wouldn't want to compare an FPS to MMO. Unless you start talking about games like Darkfall. But as far as we know, TOR won't have twitch combat. Adding twitch combat also adds a whole different dimension to the encounters, a lot changes. I am pretty sure that in twitch combat the "non"-Trinity could be realized better.

Hmmm, gonna have to think about this again.

If you were talking about interdependency, I think I actually explained that wrong in my first post. No interdependency is of course not true, since you would still need more than one person to beat certain scenarios. I was more talking about the interdependency in a fight itself. As in, a damage-soaker can't, at the same time, put out insane DPS, and a DPS can't at the same time heal etc.

I guess we have to live with the fact that 99% of mmos are crap and single player like games are cool...

Originally posted by MasterCrysis

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by MasterCrysis

its pretty clear that only 8 class's...

 

Wait, when did they announce there'd only be 8 "class's"?

 

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/inside-the-old-republic?page=0%2C0

 

page 3.

I'd have a bit more confidence in that information had it been directly attributed to someone from Bioware, rather than the nebulous "Edge Staff" credited for writing the article.

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by MasterCrysis

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by MasterCrysis

its pretty clear that only 8 class's...

 

Wait, when did they announce there'd only be 8 "class's"?

 

http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/inside-the-old-republic?page=0%2C0

 

page 3.

 

I'd have a bit more confidence in that information had it been directly attributed to someone from Bioware, rather than the nebulous "Edge Staff" credited for writing the article.

i think so to, but it can't be ignored. whoever wrote that article clearly had much more access then the fan base.

Originally posted by singsofdeath

Originally posted by hanshotfirst

Originally posted by singsofdeath

The problem here is, if you make characters be able to do -everything- then there is -no- interdependency. There is a fine line between making characters universally useful and making them overpowered. Of course, if any character can fulfill any role, you might say that it's basically back to the status quo.

 If that were true, then how would you explain a game like Left 4 Dead?

What's there to explain? Is Left4Dead an MMO? As far as I was aware it's an FPS, isn't it?

I wouldn't want to compare an FPS to MMO. Unless you start talking about games like Darkfall. But as far as we know, TOR won't have twitch combat. Adding twitch combat also adds a whole different dimension to the encounters, a lot changes. I am pretty sure that in twitch combat the "non"-Trinity could be realized better.

Hmmm, gonna have to think about this again.

If you were talking about interdependency, I think I actually explained that wrong in my first post. No interdependency is of course not true, since you would still need more than one person to beat certain scenarios. I was more talking about the interdependency in a fight itself. As in, a damage-soaker can't, at the same time, put out insane DPS, and a DPS can't at the same time heal etc.

No, it's not an MMO. However, it is a multiplayer online game with a significant emphasis on cooperation — sans the "holy trinity" paradigm. I'm not certain how the first-person-shooter nature of the title is even relevant to this discussion.

My only point was allowing players to fulfill multiple roles (not locking them into the tank/dps/healer cliche) does not necessarily equate to the death of challenge, fun, or interdependence.

anyone play star wars galaxies pre-cu ?

we didnt tank / dps / healer classes. There wasnt any taunt abilities and anyone could heal themselves with stimpacks if they took up basic medic skill.

Many a night my guild and I would kill a krayt. The fight would last 30-45 minutes targeting the mind pool. I as the TKM / Master Swordsman usually took the most damage in melee range. Sometimes the krayt would go for a ranged rifleman but it would usually return to me. I guess I was sorta the tank but I did as much damage as any other player there and i could heal myself.

250 skill points to spend amongst 32 professions allowed for multiple play options well BEYOND the simplistic holy trinity design.

When asking for a different system, what your really asking for is Star Wars Galaxies pre-cu. Unfortunately corporations have taken over the MMO industry and dumbed it down for the masses

The only alternative I can think of would be something like this...

Players can not heal themselves or others if they are engaged in combat or someone in their party is engaged in combat. This would force players / groups to consider their relative skills and if they can gain some tactical advantage in the fight before engaging an enemy or group of enemies. After combat is over, each player would have the ability to heal themself via bots, equipment or other acquired skills.

Instead of the Holy Trinity of "tank, DPS, heal", combat mechanics and encounters could be designed around players avoiding damage through skills, manuevers and utilizing the terrain. What might be considered "exploiting" in traditional MMO's would be acceptable tactics here. If a group can attack from a position where their enemies cannot reach them, they stand a good chance of winning the fight, assuming their enemies have no ranged attacks or other tricks. Each class might specialize in a specific type of "DPS", but players would have the ability to develop unique defensive abilities: dodging, reflecting damage, camoflage, utilizing cover, etc. Each defensive ability would be situational and balanced in a way that players would have to chose what path to excel in.

There is no aggro mechanics, enemies chose their targets based on other priorities; who is in their line of sight, who is closer or furthest away, who is an easier kill based on damage the player has taken. Enemies might be "sensitive" to certain types of damage which would trigger the enemy to prioritize that player first if other conditions are met. In this way, you could be dealing the most sustained damage in a group, but if you are positioned well and playing to your defensive strengths, the enemy might never come after you.

Armor will not hold up for long under any type of direct damage and therefore mitigation would be minimal - enough that players don't get one-shotted. Armor is used to give player's resistances to specific environmental effects, to mitigate indirect / splash damage and to provide player's with slots to equip various upgrades. It won't matter what type of helmet you're wearing, a direct blaster shot to the face might not kill you in one shot but it's going to hurt real bad.

If a player is targetted, they would need to find cover, try to regain a situational advantage or attempt to disengage while the rest of the group tries to attract its attention.

Anyway, I'm sure there are numerous flaws with this but on the surface I like it.

Originally posted by admriker4

anyone play star wars galaxies pre-cu ?

Yes, and it was a colossal disappointment, both as a gamer and a Star Wars nerd. 

Originally posted by admriker4

we didnt tank / dps / healer classes. There wasnt any taunt abilities and anyone could heal themselves with stimpacks if they took up basic medic skill.

We didn't need any of that because the game was ridiculously broken. With the right build or enough doc buffs, you could solo a Krayt in your underpants.

Originally posted by admriker4

When asking for a different system, what your really asking for is Star Wars Galaxies pre-cu. Unfortunately corporations have taken over the MMO industry and dumbed it down for the masses

When was the industry not run by corporations? And no, I assure you, I'm most certainly NOT asking for Star Wars Galaxies pre-CU.

Hybrids is the age old argument, heard a million times on these boards..

Problem is they just don't work, and they will never work in any MMO with ideal class stats being an option.

No MMO with hybrid classes has ever shown it to be a popular or effective system. Not when alternatives of full specialization exist within the game.

They sound good but usually only to people who have never played a hybrid class or an MMO with hybrids in it.

Originally posted by Ilvaldyr

The Healer/Tank/DPS setup is known as the MMO Holy Trinity and has endured for a reason; because it works well and there are no real alternatives to group-vs-boss PVE gameplay.

I suppose you could possibly do away with "bosses" that need to be tanked and have all fights be group-vs-group; i.e. instead of having 1 "boss" Dark Jedi to kill, you have a squad of 20 Stormtroopers; I know I wouldn't fancy trying to keep alive a half-dozen ballistic DPSmonkeys

There have been games out there that have designed "combat healers" that heal passively as they fight, reducing the "healbot" effect to virtual non-existance.

I wouldn't get your hopes up though; the Holy Trinity is still the preferred method for PVE gaming and is almost certainly going to represented in TOR somehow.

For my part, I hope they make the "tanking" focus on avoidance rather than mitigation; I really detest the thought of stabbing "a boss" through the chest with a lightsaber and them only losing 1% of their life.

Sadly, immersion often has to sacrificed for the sake of basic gameplay sometimes.

There are other systems. Stargate World use a shoot & cover model .. going AWAY from a tank/heal/dps model. I duno how successful that is .. time will tell.

TOR can have other models too.