Well, I am kinda over the fence in this question. On the one hand I think, dont change a working system, and so far it has worked. For me, a MMO must create the need of people to cooperate, and thus no single player should be able to be totally self-reliant. That enforces some kind of breaking down the basic combat functions and distribute them over the players. Sure you can and must have some self-reliance in order to allow people some soloing. Otherwise you have classes which just can not solo, and usually such classes is what no one choses to play.

Still, the reason to go to a MMO for me is, to play with others in a team, where people rely and everyone has something you dont have. I really wish to see new, less worn out concepts.Most just take one system away, like taking out healers by inserting potion spamming, but thats not really a solution IMO, especially since there are enough people who like playing supportive classes like healer. So far, I have not seen any other way to make classes which depend on each other as team and which are NOT tank/healer/dps. I just dont think we really will see anything else in any time soon. Its a pity, but it works. *shrug*

Originally posted by lifesbrink

So, to sum up the 9 pages so far:

Group 1:  Wants a new type of game other than the holy trinity

Group 2:  Loves the holy trinity, wishes to keep said game type popular

Group 3:  WTFLOLIGATOR???

 

In conclusion, what exactly is the point here?  I mean, the OP was obviously asking for more discussion revolving around new possibilities in combat (though I admit, his first suggestion was pretty damned good) and now the thread has degenerated into an epeen match...*sigh*

I sympathize with Group 1. However, group one should concede that there will always be a new generation of gamers taht will discover the Holy Trinity for the first time, and enjoy it, so it will be around forever.

I fall into Group 2. I enjoy playing games with the Holy Trinity, and variations on that theme.

I am not familiar with this mob called a WTFLOLIGATOR???

Is it similar to a LOL Walrus?

I never wanted to destroy the Holy Trinity, I just want something else to play.

Originally posted by Visidian

I never wanted to destroy the Holy Trinity, I just want something else to play.

that'll teach you to ask for quality answers at this site.  way too much sifting through crap to find a few cubic zirconias. 

Originally posted by safwd

Originally posted by rikilii

 

Why is it that the healer is almost always the last person you find for your group?

Your assumptions about aggro and tanking are all based on the fact that no one has ever tried to do anything different.  It has nothing to do with whether a game is stat-based or twitch. 

Tanking makes sense in most MMOs because the mechanics of the MMO say it makes sense.  Simply changing the statistics would change that presumption.

I like your idea of combat, and yes it is more realistic, but i question how simple your simple combat would be to program.
 

And i certainly dont remember Healers being that last member in a group in EQ. It was usually a Healer and a Warrior looking for a chanter and maybe a shammy, Monk and something else.

What I highlighted in orange there....that is because EQ2 is predominantly played by ADULTS who have no problem playing supporting classes and not being the "uber leet" dps "star" of the party or raid.  EQ2 has more healing class players than ANY other single MMO that I have ever played.

But in regards to this thread, to me it sounds like the OP is basically wanting longer more drawn out combat, and "classes" that are all essentially hybrid.  Any sandbox game allows you to build your OWN style of "class" and games like, for instance, Runes of Magic or Link Realms (LR is a true sandbox), allow you to have dual classes or in the case of Link Realms or U.O. you can spread your skills ever further, if you so choose.  Yet, I DO think that to a degree, to have so much "cross-spec'ing", really encourages a LOT more solo play.  (Not talking about WoW here though, since that can be solo'd to max level if you really want to, just by skipping instances and raids.)  If you have no need to ever rely on a class that is DIFFERENT from yours to accomplish things, then that takes away some of the INCENTIVE to group.

Just my two cents.

From www.brokentoys.org/2009/02/03/fixing-mmos-is-hard/

"Ditch classes and levels

If I had a quarter for every armchair designer (or actual designer for that matter) I’ve listened to that began their “How I Would Save The MMO Industry Singlehandedly” speech with “ditch classes and levels”, I could fund World of Progressquest singlehandedly. It’s the quickest way to indie cred: instead of saying you really like Angry Johnny and the Killbillies, you say you really wish someone would make a game just like Ultima Online (which effectively had classes and eventually patched them in explicitly) or Asheron’s Call 1 (which had levels as well as implicit classes) or Game No One Has Ever Heard Of But Makes A Ton Of Money And Has No Classes (but does have levels and an insane soul destroying grind) or My Favorite MUD No One Ever Heard Of But It Totally Ruled. Saying “I wish someone would ditch those damn levels and classes” isn’t proposing a game design. It’s proposing the absence of one.

Unless you have a pretty compelling alternative for explaining how people can develop their character without being intimately familiar with the game’s rules (which, mind you, are almost never well documented in any MMO, it’s like some sort of conspiracy industry-wide to refuse to hire a decent web team), you’re simply taking all the design work you’d already have to do in creating skills and abilities, and instead of building them into coherent class sets yourself are saying “screw it - let the players do it. They know better anyway. Plus there’s none of that annoying game balance to worry about! Everybody can be everything, amirite?” (Oh wait, you have this really complex series of checks and balances to make sure you can’t screw up your character or become God of the Tankmages that will mean the game will take 2 years to learn instead of 1 year. Right.)

Ditching levels and classes won’t magically eliminate The Grind: Ultima Online was a horribly, horribly grind-tastic game (hello, GM Blacksmith TWICE, cry for me) and World of Warcraft is pretty grind-free despite being chock full of both classes AND levels. It’s simply another rules system, and by its nature an inherently more complicated one, both to design and more importantly, to play. That doesn’t mean it’s BAD - there’s plenty of successful MUDs that do very well with mature skills-based systems. But just tossing that out as “well, hell, why hasn’t anyone ever thought of this besides ME” ignores, among other things, the fact that this gets proposed and wildly argued over and finally shouted down violently by the experienced and probably drunk senior developer in every MMO designed to date.

Of course, just rehashing D&D over and over again is pretty insane, too."

Originally posted by Quizzical

If you read and understood my post explaining that Puzzle Pirates has no concept of tanking, then why did you afterwards assert that every MMO--including Puzzle Pirates--has a concept of tanking and healing?  You seem to now be conceding the point.

A "tank" in Guild Wars does not have any means to keep a mob's attention.  At most, he can force mobs off of some other player by body blocking them.  The ally can run through the "tank" (which could well be a minion that will die in two hits), but mobs cannot, so mobs cannot chase the fleeing ally.

But that is not a particularly important way of getting mobs off of a player in Guild Wars.  Rather, the main key is that every character--not merely every class, but every character of every class--has to be able to take quite a few hits when called upon.  A timely use of a blocking or +armor skill, or a potent protective skill from another class (e.g., spirit bond or weapon of warding) can do this.

If it's really important to get mobs off of a player, the preferred means of doing this is with area of effect/damage over time attacks.  Mobs see that if they stand there attacking a player, they're going to take a ton of damage from breath of fire or sandstorm or whatever.  The AI is built such that the mobs scatter out of the area attack, thus leaving the player alone.  On my monk, I'd sometimes carry kirin's wrath for this very reason.

Alternatively, area defensive skills can get mobs off of a player.  Enfeebling blood, ward against melee, eruption, and some others can (in some cases) ensure that even if the mobs do stand there hacking away at a player, they don't do that much damage.

In order to say that Guild Wars has tanking in the usual sense, you'd basically have to claim that every class is a tank class (not much of a holy trinity there), and that a lot of spells not designed to pull mobs to you constitute tanking.

Guild Wars does have healing, of course.  But your claim was that every MMO has tanking and healing, not just that it has either one or the other.  And incidentally, every class in Guild Wars is also a damage dealer, and in the right circumstances (which vary by class, of course), capable of doing more damage than most other classes.

Nice job twisting my words around.

I've never said that every single MMO has the concept of a Tank/Healer/DPS.  There are always niche games, such as Puzzle Pirates, that introduce odd concepts which don't require the "Holy Trinity".  However, you can't fit those niche solutions into a generic market game, unless you've got some way to prove otherwise.  Hell, I'd be kind of curious as to how an MMOFPS (such as Planetside) would even be able to do that.  On the other hand, we're at a site discussing the specifics of MMORPGs, not an MMOFPS.

In addition, you seriously need to open up your mind.  For some reason you, and a lot of others, seem to think a tank is a defined set of abilities.  It isn't.  In Guild Wars, following through your example, you've got some people who can take hits that others can't.  So you try and manuever things around so that person takes the hits over the people who can't take the hits.  You described that very thing in your post.  That my friend, is tanking.  You can argue over the fact that because the "tank" doesn't have a generic taunt like ability, it isn't tanking, but that is a matter of your opinion and doesn't match the definition of a tank.

Also, didn't I explain in the very post you quoted me on that the concept of a healer is keep the group alive, not cause the groups health bar to go up?  Healing damage is no different, from a healing concept, than using skills to prevent damage.  At the end of the day even if every class in the game was capable of doing anything in the game, you'd still have the same concept of a person to take the damage, a person to heal the damage, and person to do the damage back.  Maybe you only need one person to do all three jobs, but you still need all three jobs in one form or another.

Following on to that, you consider exploiting poor AI coding a method to avoiding the requirement to having a healer or tank?  I don't know about you, but I generally want to see games get better with work, not intentionally screwed over by the development team.

Originally posted by Nessin 

Nice job twisting my words around.

I've never said that every single MMO has the concept of a Tank/Healer/DPS.

-----

So you try and manuever things around so that person takes the hits over the people who can't take the hits.  You described that very thing in your post.  That my friend, is tanking.  You can argue over the fact that because the "tank" doesn't have a generic taunt like ability, it isn't tanking, but that is a matter of your opinion and doesn't match the definition of a tank.

-----

Following on to that, you consider exploiting poor AI coding a method to avoiding the requirement to having a healer or tank?  I don't know about you, but I generally want to see games get better with work, not intentionally screwed over by the development team.

In post #47 on this thread:

"Every MMO has some semblance of a tank, some semblance of a healer, and of course some DPS if it has any significant focus on PvE at all. Its a pretty basic concept."

Is that not a claim that every single MMO has the concept of a tank/healer/DPS?

-----

You are effectively reduced to arguing that getting hit without dying constitutes tanking.  In Guild Wars, usually the goal is not to make it so that one character or one of a few characters takes most or all of the damage.  Rather, it is to make it so that no particular "squishy" character takes most of the damage.  It is typically better for four characters to get hit once each than for any one of the four characters to get hit four times and the rest left alone.

-----

The aggro system with the tank/healer/damage dealer setup is itself poor AI coding.  Games that include that setup are intentionally built with poor AI, and encourage players to find ways to exploit the idiotic AI.  Winning PvE battles in Guild Wars is much closer (albeit not terribly close; PvE pretty much never is) to the ideal of having to find ways to win a battle no matter what strategy your opponents take with their particular builds.

Originally posted by MuffinStump

From www.brokentoys.org/2009/02/03/fixing-mmos-is-hard/

 

"Ditch classes and levels

If I had a quarter for every armchair designer (or actual designer for that matter) I’ve listened to that began their “How I Would Save The MMO Industry Singlehandedly” speech with “ditch classes and levels”, I could fund World of Progressquest singlehandedly. It’s the quickest way to indie cred: instead of saying you really like Angry Johnny and the Killbillies, you say you really wish someone would make a game just like Ultima Online (which effectively had classes and eventually patched them in explicitly) or Asheron’s Call 1 (which had levels as well as implicit classes) or Game No One Has Ever Heard Of But Makes A Ton Of Money And Has No Classes (but does have levels and an insane soul destroying grind) or My Favorite MUD No One Ever Heard Of But It Totally Ruled. Saying “I wish someone would ditch those damn levels and classes” isn’t proposing a game design. It’s proposing the absence of one.

Unless you have a pretty compelling alternative for explaining how people can develop their character without being intimately familiar with the game’s rules (which, mind you, are almost never well documented in any MMO, it’s like some sort of conspiracy industry-wide to refuse to hire a decent web team), you’re simply taking all the design work you’d already have to do in creating skills and abilities, and instead of building them into coherent class sets yourself are saying “screw it - let the players do it. They know better anyway. Plus there’s none of that annoying game balance to worry about! Everybody can be everything, amirite?” (Oh wait, you have this really complex series of checks and balances to make sure you can’t screw up your character or become God of the Tankmages that will mean the game will take 2 years to learn instead of 1 year. Right.)

Ditching levels and classes won’t magically eliminate The Grind: Ultima Online was a horribly, horribly grind-tastic game (hello, GM Blacksmith TWICE, cry for me) and World of Warcraft is pretty grind-free despite being chock full of both classes AND levels. It’s simply another rules system, and by its nature an inherently more complicated one, both to design and more importantly, to play. That doesn’t mean it’s BAD - there’s plenty of successful MUDs that do very well with mature skills-based systems. But just tossing that out as “well, hell, why hasn’t anyone ever thought of this besides ME” ignores, among other things, the fact that this gets proposed and wildly argued over and finally shouted down violently by the experienced and probably drunk senior developer in every MMO designed to date.

Of course, just rehashing D&D over and over again is pretty insane, too."

UO for me, was the game that felt the least about grinding.  On the other hand, WoW is not the most, but up there on the games that I'd rather claw my eyes out than play again.

But nevermind that, Since when did anyone say that Skill based = No grinding?  Maybe someone, but I sure has hell would never say that.  A skill based game can seem just as much a grind as a level based one.

If this guy really knew what he was talking about in this insert, he'd realize that people like me don't want Skill-based games because they feel like less of a grind, but because they are realistic.

Games have solved the feel of grinding a LONG LONG time ago.  At this moment in my life I am playing Final Fantasy 12, and it feels very much like an MMO.  Yes there is level, but no there is no classes, Quite an original advancement system.  Does that make it feel less of a grind?  No

Well what could it be, what could it truely be that makes traditional RPG's not a grind but MMO's so.

....

...

Wait I got it, FREAKING GOD DAMN STORY!  Why is it so hard for MMO's to realize that if they just created a story with a begining at lvl 1, and an end at what ever lvl they decide.  Toss in some sweet cinematics, some drama, and voila, I might have a FREAKING reason to actually play and enjoy the game.

As I play FFXII, Never once have I felt, gawd this is so boring, because shit is constantly changing as is the story.

It wouldnt be so hard for a MMO, to program 5-10 different Epic Quest Story Lines that allow people to play through,  Then as they patch they could release more and more.  They certainly get enough money a month to do so.

Too expensive?  Yeah, like making your game actually fun to play would be too expensive.  How fun the game is is paramount.

All too often I play an MMO and I kill a few mobs and I ask myself,  WTF am I really doing this for?

Originally posted by craynlon

i suspect the trinity of healer/tank/dps is not so much a demand of the players but an easy way for devs to make quests/ adventures a more complex challenge then tank draws agro, healer heals tank, dps does damage on every single encounter.

Nope. It is a way to force grouping. If you just require a certain amount of DPS to win the encounter, then a char may become good enough to be able to do it all alone.

Breaking up the roles into 3  guaranteed that you need a group for the encounter.

Originally posted by Visidian

UO for me, was the game that felt the least about grinding.  On the other hand, WoW is not the most, but up there on the games that I'd rather claw my eyes out than play again.

 

It is the opposite for me. UO is all mining grind and skill grind and no fun at all. Very little content. WOW is much better. Quest grinding is a lot more fun (i am NOT talking abotu dailies taht u repeat, i am takling about leveling quests that you do only once).

Originally posted by MuffinStump

From www.brokentoys.org/2009/02/03/fixing-mmos-is-hard/

 "Ditch classes and levels

If I had a quarter ...

 Excellent Post MuffinStump, even if it does urinate very accuratly and from a great height upon my own stand-point :) (and thanks for the link)

While I agree with the arguement, and indeed the evidence that backs it, I cant automatically accept the conclusions (surprise). MMO-RPGs are still in their infancy, well I hope so (and so should all of us) thus while the actual level of development is limited its not the issue until the game content and game-play is expanded. Until we have a wider range of play options then sure classes makes it easier not just for dev but more importantly for the player, just as you state.

Of course all I'm discussing within these posts are future games (doubt devs are about to throw their games in the bin on the weight of a few nutters without a complete solution (that can be proved to work)). I hope they will eventually provide me with more to do than simply hack and slash, maybe thats too RPG of me, but I cant believe that more RPG is an impossible goal (especially given how far they've already come -  'between them'). A better question, and the crux of your arguement is... will this be a fun game that people will pay to play in sufficent numbers to warrant the development etc? As I said, I hope its a development still to be made, and I imagine that eventually it will be achieved. To that end I'm happy to discuss the options and possibilities. If its been proved impossible today, then fair enough, but I'm still looking forward.

And yeah, no matter the 'cunning plan' to remove tank/dps/heal these archetypes will always remain in some form simply because (as I think someones already written) you'll always have someone who can absorb punishment, deal it out and mitigate any enemy successes, but I dont feel that we must have them clearly defined for the players especially as I keep saying (somewhat hopefully), if we expand the game play we can promote greater diversity of characters to employ the wider range of challenges and victories.

This may well result in a niche game, but as games in general develop it will become easier to produce such a game and therefore allow a game to be developed for this niche market with a viable business plan... and you never know if it is done well (as it must eventually be) then it may not remain a niche market. Lets face it how many people saw the massive market in MMOs before it was upon us... not as many as now claim such foresight. So I'll keep on looking and posting.... if thats ok? :)

err.i see

but cant have both i am afraid

Originally posted by Visidian

Wait I got it, FREAKING GOD DAMN STORY!  Why is it so hard for MMO's to realize that if they just created a story with a begining at lvl 1, and an end at what ever lvl they decide.  Toss in some sweet cinematics, some drama, and voila, I might have a FREAKING reason to actually play and enjoy the game.

 

As I play FFXII, Never once have I felt, gawd this is so boring, because shit is constantly changing as is the story.

 

It wouldnt be so hard for a MMO, to program 5-10 different Epic Quest Story Lines that allow people to play through,  Then as they patch they could release more and more.  They certainly get enough money a month to do so.

 

Too expensive?  Yeah, like making your game actually fun to play would be too expensive.  How fun the game is is paramount.

 

All too often I play an MMO and I kill a few mobs and I ask myself,  WTF am I really doing this for?

I believe that the game you're looking for is Guild Wars.  Start with Prophecies, as that one has the best storyline.

I agree with the OP. Holy trinity doesn't make any sense. This is why it all falls apart to crap in PVP.

Why? Because players are -NOT- RETARDED like NPCs.

Players will take out the biggest threats first. This means, 99% of the time, you will spike that healer ASAP. You will spike him and fast before he can pull off a heal

Additionally, you will always save the plate wearers for last. They most often do way less damage then your mages and rogues.

Trinity has always been a broken concept used to entertain PVE'ers

Originally posted by Tatum

Theres a reason why so many people look for PvP in an MMO...because PvE (for the most part) is repetitive, boring, and easy.  Of course, we all know the reason for that is the retard-level AI that falls for the same tank-and-spank strategy every time.  Does the same strategy work in PvP?  Hell no.  For one, only the noobs will stand there, hitting the un-killable tank in the face while his healers healing him and his nukers are WTF pwning every thing in sight.  And, on top of that, other players actually force you to react and adapt, rather than following a simple plan.

So what I'm trying to say is, if you make PvE less predictable and more varied, you won't be stuck with the same holy trinity dominating every encounter. 

Nice one Tatum. We both said the samething. I swear I didnt read your post before I typed mine

Yeah fromt he point of view of a pvper, we can clearly pickout whats wrong with Tank-and-spank

In a war, you target your most dangerous targets. There is no point in going for a heavily defended Tank that does way less damage then the Nukers. And there is no point in going after the Nuker if something is healing away the damage incurred. So 1st you eliminate the healer.

There is no WAy EVER in any PVP game I have ever played did we spare a Healer. You must keep them under constant pressure and kill them 1st.

This is why Holy Trinity is broken. Because its not logical and if AI had any sense they'd always kill the healer. But because Developers build NPCs to LOSE- it appears gamers have become somewhat brain washed into thinking its clever PVE

I think it would be great to have a game with very limited healing. There would be more attack and fall back tactics then, just sit there and get healed. You would do more trapping and sniping and moving.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

I think it would be great to have a game with very limited healing. There would be more attack and fall back tactics then, just sit there and get healed. You would do more trapping and sniping and moving.

Are you sure you want this different gameplay? Apparently we dont really want it, or if we got it, we'd not like it. I think that was the crux of Muffins arguement, and I honestly believe the accepted arguement amongst the more 'sensible' developers.

While I agree that players cannot be expected to understand the impact of every item on their wish list (we're typically not professional and proven developers), I'd like to think that we've quite a bit of experience of gaming in general, and what we do or do-not like, perhaps its not that far fetched that we might want to play a game with a wider range of features... We're just waiting for someone to make it work... no pressure :)

Originally posted by PatchDay

Originally posted by Tatum

... So what I'm trying to say is, if you make PvE less predictable and more varied, you won't be stuck with the same holy trinity dominating every encounter. 

... This is why Holy Trinity is broken. Because its not logical and if AI had any sense they'd always kill the healer. But because Developers build NPCs to LOSE- it appears gamers have become somewhat brain washed into thinking its clever PVE

I think its as simple as... the devs haven't thought up a way to nearly beat the PCs in an interesting way, nor have they thought of a way to make the PCs beat the NPCs in an equally interesting way, I would argue its not really an issue of the trinity (although they are a symptom of the problem) its just simply the combat mechanics game devs feel they are forced to employ thanks to tech limits (lag and security). Some devs are definitly implementing simple mechanics 'cos they couldn't dream up anything more interesting, while others employ overly complex or increasingly esoteric systems thinking that this will restore interest in combat. It might for a while, change can be refreshing, but once we've realised that its the same simple repetition but this time with mouse swings instead of button presses (or whatever), we start asking for more once again.

I dont think it needs to be amazingly complex in appearance to the player, and obviously it needs to keep the data transfer demands to a minimum, but we (I think others agree) want more options in combat and I think most importantly a more realistic combat flow; if this can also provide the devs with the ability to balance NPC v PC in a way similar to PC v PC engagements then they're going in the right direction. I dont think its to much to have a wish list for our future games, who after all are the devs developing these games for?

Originally posted by rikilii

Why is this form of group combat an automatic feature of practically every MMO, especially fantasy MMOs.

There are so many other alternatives.  I have ideas.  Let's hear yours first.

I remember when the arcades started to come out in the early 80, I stuck a ton of quarters in several game, the one thing I found is their was a pattern you have to follow after you reached a certain level,  take Pacman for instance; if you did not follow the patern needed you lost the roumd (it was several games besides pacman)  The MMORPG have just followed the pattern that has been their since the dawn of video games,  you have a pattern,  tank,  healers and midrangw dps'ers.  

It us a PATTERN they have used for years and I do not see them changing it over the next serveral years,  if tiy do not want to play with this pattern, I suggest you play fishing buddy,  the only pattern it has is that youu have to be a lakes certian times in a certian aera.,  Only way you will escape this, is to go pure PvP in cerian  games.