Originally posted by ironhelix

Yeah, I miss it. I have rolled 3 different characters, and they all feel more or less the same. It's as if they made one class, then reskinned it 8 times. Sure, there is some slight variation, but they all play about the same.

Try playing a thief, they are very different and rather twitch based if you play them the right way. Or an elementalist, the way the switch between their 4 specializations are rather different.

If you play the classes the same you are either playing all of them wrong or all besides one. Ok, warrior and Guardian seems pretty like to me but then i never played a guardian so that might just be me generalizing.

Miss the trinity? Me?

Dude... I AM the freakin' trinity!

I didn't really thought a lot about the trinity during my time with GW2. It works with most games, and i won't argue about that. I absolutely love the fact that most people choose to play ranged during instances. It's so much easier to play melee speceed guardian when you actually see, what is happening on the screen for a change and fights aren't a cluster@%$k of guys/gals bashing on eachother.

Originally posted by Zikari

Please stay with me for a second and read my opinion before ranting solely because of the title.

First a quick history of what I played in the past. I was playing Holy Priest for most of my 'hardcore' raiding career in WoW from Vanilla till Lich King, later causally pugged as Paladin Tank for Cataclysm. I played Warrior Priest and Zelot on the Warhammer Online battlefields and cleared dungeons as Mitra Priest and later Guardian in Age of Conan. Lately I came to play The Secret World and mainly tanked during my dungeon runs, while occasionally going DPS.

Now Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO not using the Tank/Healer/DPS split as basis for it's dungeon play and honestly I am having a hard time getting used to it. Maybe that’s the wrong term, having a hard time liking or appreciating the benefits is more accurate. As others have stated in other threats, a lack of trinity does not mean you can randomly throw together any 5 players without taking their build into consideration and have a chance on success. Big problem here, most players don't seem to be aware of this, with the result that dungeon runs in pick-up groups tend to be very chaotic and unorganized

The trinity, gave players a baseline tactic to approach every situation, the players of each role knew what their job was upon entering the dungeon, send the tank to catch the mobs, make sure no one dies, kill everything, simple but yet you could build tons of fun encounters around that baseline. Now people don’t have an initial understanding what they are supposed to do. Everybody seems to fight for himself and only looks out for other to raise them up after they have been downed. Mob Aggro, while following some rules, seems to be a bit of a mystery and it doesn’t really let you prepare your skill deck before an encounter, since it is making a huge difference if all the adds and the boss are chasing you, or someone else (aggro depending on player health is a very very annoying mechanic).

There are other things to be found in the dungeons that I would consider problematic from a design perspective, trash heavy, long walks after wipes, graveyard zerging, very high health-pools for bosses and trash and barely telegraphed one-shot mechanics are the most obvious. I love the game, I love exploring, doing events and the WvW, but the dungeons so far have been more frustrating than anything else. I am not saying they are to hard, the difficulty is okay for the most part, but the gameplay is hectic and random, that makes it frustrating on failure, since it is very hard to analyse what went wrong and how to do better.

 

This lead to a series of questions that I answered myself:

 

Does the lack of trinity make looking for groups easier? - YES, definitely

Did I have more or less fun playing GW 5 man dungeons than 5 man dungeons in games with a trinity model? - LESS FUN, this is an subjective statement.

Am I having less fun because there is no trinity? - TO A LARGE DEGREE YES, the trinity enforced collaboration, while without, it is more everyone for himself, which goes against the idea of an team effort required to overcome a dungeon challenge.

Will it be more fun in a fixed group? - MOST LIKELY, my experience is based on PUG's, I am perfectly aware that a well build team will have an completely different experience.

 

What’s your take on this, do you miss the trinity in the 5 player dungeons of Guild Wars 2?

As I have said to others before.  You can still use the Trinity in GW2.  But, if you want to you need to find people with the right builds to represent the parts.  You can have a water ele for a healer.  Many warrior/gaurdian builds can tank or DPS.  For DPS you can use just about any class.  If you want CC mesmers can help.  It's about strategy and planning.  If you go in blind with a group chances are they won't be built to trinity.  That doesn't mean your group can't come up with a working strategy though.  Just talk to each other about your builds first.  Figure out strengths and weaknesses. 

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Zeus.CM
No more LFG for healer, DPS or tank for 30 minutes. Thank you Arenanet.

Instead you can have your instant gratifcation corpsezerg with groups that are most of the time undergeared, solo based specced and clueless about synergies. Not much of an improvement. Sometimes waiting a while to get a quality experience surpasses instant gratification mixed with frustration.

And please don't try to defend him by mentioning guild or friend runs. LFG obviously imply random people and the majority of random people have learned to work solely for themselves on every other aspect of GW2. In contrast, pure tanks and healers have to live through a frustrating experience on every other aspect of gameplay (in other games obviously) in order to have a great experience in groups.

There's a solution to that: teach clueless people how to specc for group. There's bunch of skill points lying about in the game, and thanks to Tiered utility a player will inevitably pick up a AOE heal or buff, or support skill. It takes time to educate the masses, but it's not impossible.

In a Holy Trinity game there's no soultion to the issue presented. You're stuck waiting for the right class to fill the role, or you're stuck looking for a group who needs your class.

Difference is that in a trinity game the roles are clearly defined and known where as the "education of masses" you suggest in GW 2 is not very clear. Also, I have to spend my gaming time educating others how to play when I barely know it myself?

No, for PUGs and specially Zerg PUGs, what you are suggesting is not viable

I think the non-trinity approach is simply a sign of a lack of confidence on the developers....let me explain please.

Group strategy should always be based on the encounter...this is why the trinity system works so well.

In order to facilitate for poor encounter design, a lack of trinity could spice things up....

So far, all encounters I have had have not required too much thought/strategy on what to watch out for from a mob (cept 1 shot skills that are ridiculous), but rather how does the group stay alive long enough to kill the mob.

The focus of strategy has now switched from the encounter to the "motley crew" of members in the group.

So basically, in my opinion, the makes it easier for the devs to create dungeons/bosses/world bosses..etc.  They don't have to focus as much on the encounter as other mmo's because no trinity makes any mob with hard hits and lots of HP's a difficult battle.

Again, I'd consider this to be very lazy of the devs.  But Ive seen lazyness through the game.  DE's that are less interesting than Korean FTP game quests (but they are "dynamic")...imbalance in mobs throughout the game world, imbalance in mob density, optional content (non-main story content) that is nothing more than copied and pasted in different spots on the map over and over again.  

When jumping quests are the most exciting part of the optional content, there is a problem. 

I digress though....the trinity system is there so that each encounter can be tooled and mastered to be as difficult as possible.  Without a trinity system, there is no way a dev can construct an encounter properly to give the best or worst challenge, because in order to build an encounter, there must be rules in which to build off of....a foundation....which is the trinity system.  Otherwise, there can be no strategy for encounters.  

If you play TSW dungeons, you'll see that it's much more than stand there and and tank'n'spank....although there are those encounters...they are few and far between...

but Im wasting my breathe...

Originally posted by Randayn

I think the non-trinity approach is simply a sign of a lack of confidence on the developers....let me explain please.

 

Group strategy should always be based on the encounter...this is why the trinity system works so well.

In order to facilitate for poor encounter design, a lack of trinity could spice things up....

 

So far, all encounters I have had have not required too much thought/strategy on what to watch out for from a mob (cept 1 shot skills that are ridiculous), but rather how does the group stay alive long enough to kill the mob.

 

The focus of strategy has now switched from the encounter to the "motley crew" of members in the group.

 

So basically, in my opinion, the makes it easier for the devs to create dungeons/bosses/world bosses..etc.  They don't have to focus as much on the encounter as other mmo's because no trinity makes any mob with hard hits and lots of HP's a difficult battle.

Again, I'd consider this to be very lazy of the devs.  But Ive seen lazyness through the game.  DE's that are less interesting than Korean FTP game quests (but they are "dynamic")...imbalance in mobs throughout the game world, imbalance in mob density, optional content (non-main story content) that is nothing more than copied and pasted in different spots on the map over and over again.  

When jumping quests are the most exciting part of the optional content, there is a problem. 

 

I digress though....the trinity system is there so that each encounter can be tooled and mastered to be as difficult as possible.  Without a trinity system, there is no way a dev can construct an encounter properly to give the best or worst challenge, because in order to build an encounter, there must be rules in which to build off of....a foundation....which is the trinity system.  Otherwise, there can be no strategy for encounters.  

If you play TSW dungeons, you'll see that it's much more than stand there and and tank'n'spank....although there are those encounters...they are few and far between...

but Im wasting my breathe...

Originally posted by Mannish

Originally posted by Randayn

I think the non-trinity approach is simply a sign of a lack of confidence on the developers....let me explain please.

 

Group strategy should always be based on the encounter...this is why the trinity system works so well.

In order to facilitate for poor encounter design, a lack of trinity could spice things up....

 

So far, all encounters I have had have not required too much thought/strategy on what to watch out for from a mob (cept 1 shot skills that are ridiculous), but rather how does the group stay alive long enough to kill the mob.

 

The focus of strategy has now switched from the encounter to the "motley crew" of members in the group.

 

So basically, in my opinion, the makes it easier for the devs to create dungeons/bosses/world bosses..etc.  They don't have to focus as much on the encounter as other mmo's because no trinity makes any mob with hard hits and lots of HP's a difficult battle.

Again, I'd consider this to be very lazy of the devs.  But Ive seen lazyness through the game.  DE's that are less interesting than Korean FTP game quests (but they are "dynamic")...imbalance in mobs throughout the game world, imbalance in mob density, optional content (non-main story content) that is nothing more than copied and pasted in different spots on the map over and over again.  

When jumping quests are the most exciting part of the optional content, there is a problem. 

 

I digress though....the trinity system is there so that each encounter can be tooled and mastered to be as difficult as possible.  Without a trinity system, there is no way a dev can construct an encounter properly to give the best or worst challenge, because in order to build an encounter, there must be rules in which to build off of....a foundation....which is the trinity system.  Otherwise, there can be no strategy for encounters.  

If you play TSW dungeons, you'll see that it's much more than stand there and and tank'n'spank....although there are those encounters...they are few and far between...

but Im wasting my breathe...

 

 

 

 

Agreed!

My main issue with GW2's approach is that some classes are tanks + dps, while others are just dps.  Playing a dps-only class (*cough* Elementalist *cough*) is pretty lame when almost everything can one or two shot you at end game.

And sure an Elementalist can go full defense, but then they suck at everything.

Another issue with GW2 is that there aren't many cool spells.  Meteor Shower is the only "oh yeah" spell that the Elementalist gets.  The rest are pretty boring.

Tera and Dragon Nest had my favorite systems.  Not necessarily my favorite games, but their approach to classes seemed to work pretty well.

Originally posted by bubaluba
If no trinity is good be sure that Blizzard would adopt this idea. They tried to create something new in gw2 but only what they did is simplification of everything.

I can't see how Guild Wars 2 is a simplified system. If anything it's more complicated due to the fact that each class must adopt the trinity mechanics. All classes are responsible for control, healing and damage. Furthermore, I would say the trend in WoW classes has been one of dilution.

Originally posted by Sylvarii

ArenaNet haven't removed the holy trinity of tanking damage, healing damage, and dealing damage in Guild Wars 2. They consolidated it. Everyone can tank, everyone can heal, and everyone can nuke. 

Nope,the holy trinity dispite ArenaNets claims is alive and kicking in GW2.

(TL/DR = I do not miss the Trinity and if I did, I'd go play the countless games that have that system.  I do not want that system in Guild Wars 2 and if they changed to that system I'd rip the game out of my computer and move on!)

Since you said "the holy trinity is alive and kicking in GW2" I feel like something needs clarification. In a dungeon within Guild Wars 2, There is No specific class that can only be a healer? Nobody can only Tank and all classes can, if they so choose only be dps?  Your blanket over exaggerated statement and definition is NOT what the standard meaning of "Trinity" is.  Every game before Guild Wars 2 that defined the term does not fit your overexaggerated blanket consolidation term. Infact the "Trinity" when it refers to MMORPG's usually =

1 specific class is a TANK the entire battle.

1 specific class is a HEALER the entire encounter.

1 specific class is a DPS the entire battle.

This is why so many people have had to sit around LFG 1 Specific Role and wait for the specific class to come around and heal or tank an instance.... The major flaw in your statement is "everyone can heal" WRONG, nobody can traditionaly heal, and if you played any character like a traditional tank, your characters self heal would do you absolutely no good.   So no, flat out no.  Now I suppose if you wanted to change the definition along with the twisted delusional consolidation of roles, then okay I guess yep lets all change the meaning and move on...  Sorry doesn't work that way, we don't just make up our own definitions for the hell of it and then expect everyone to take anything we have to say seriously.

There are no specific classes for specific roles in Guild Wars 2 and NONE fit the traditional "HEALER" or even "TANK" categories, saying so is over simplifying and over exaggerating the terms.  Each class has the ability to Support, DPS, and Mitigate damage as well as coordinate all of that with each other via Combo Fields.  The key is to switch roles accordingly depending on the situation in the battle.  Just because each class has the ability to do all the things needed in a given battle doesn't mean there isn't need for coordination and job assignments.  Seems like simple logic to me but I guess its not. But if you tell someone who is use to the Trinity system from WoW or any other game, to try and impliment that same exact traditional system into Guild Wars 2, you get what we have here. Crying about missing the traditional Trinity...

Now to the OP's Question.  "Do I miss the Trinity?"

Being a former Raid and Dungeon group leader for hundreds and hudreds of countless hours in over a variety of different games for more then a decade, I am extremely comfortable with the "Trinity" system. Unlike some other naive individuals, I'm not confused as to what the definition is.  I've done it, I've taught it, I've practice it for an extremely long time.   It is a crude system needed to be in place in previous games to help people fit roles specifically so they didn't have to think for themselves.  All anyone needed to do was pick the role they wanted to fit and level to max, practice that role and there you have it.   No thinking needed because you knew the specific limited role you were going to fill.  How ever the class system in RIFT pleased me, it was still limiting and still caused encounters to rely on specific roles.

I DO NOT MISS this limiting and old system.   I hated waiting around for a worthwhile healer, or a tank that didn't have some kind of complex... Or the blame game, "Tank didn't hold agro", "Healer didn't get out of red circles" "DPS Pulled more mobs" Now that I've played Guild Wars 2 it has made me DESPISE the trinity, absolutely despise it...

Guild Wars 2 current system needs a bit of fine tuning to make sure each member of a group can clearly distinguish the combo fields.    I don't think there is an issue with Guild Wars 2's system I think the players who are so engrained with "gaming muscle memory" are having a hard time learning, adapting and using this system and then crying for their old "baby blanket and bottle" trinity system.  

It is hard to think for yourself, it is hard to coordinate a group and expect the people you are grouping with to fit specific roles you need.   That is part of being a Raid Leader / Dungeon Group Leader.  You sit down find the people who are the best at certain roles and you build your team with them.   In Guild Wars 2 you need people who are quick at CC, people who are quick at responding to bleeds / poisons with cleanses, people who are extremely aware of their surroundings and much more.    I find Guild Wars 2 system far more comlpex and that is causing even some of my closest friends to cry about no trinity, which when a group leader worth his salt comes in and orginizes the party, they stopped crying and enjoyed themselves.

Here is the problem group leaders will face.  They will need to know the capabilities of each class to determine which roles from each class they will need to fit the desired jobs within his team.

Originally posted by Yamota

Originally posted by KhinRunite

Originally posted by Xasapis

Originally posted by Zeus.CM
No more LFG for healer, DPS or tank for 30 minutes. Thank you Arenanet.

Instead you can have your instant gratifcation corpsezerg with groups that are most of the time undergeared, solo based specced and clueless about synergies. Not much of an improvement. Sometimes waiting a while to get a quality experience surpasses instant gratification mixed with frustration.

And please don't try to defend him by mentioning guild or friend runs. LFG obviously imply random people and the majority of random people have learned to work solely for themselves on every other aspect of GW2. In contrast, pure tanks and healers have to live through a frustrating experience on every other aspect of gameplay (in other games obviously) in order to have a great experience in groups.

There's a solution to that: teach clueless people how to specc for group. There's bunch of skill points lying about in the game, and thanks to Tiered utility a player will inevitably pick up a AOE heal or buff, or support skill. It takes time to educate the masses, but it's not impossible.

In a Holy Trinity game there's no soultion to the issue presented. You're stuck waiting for the right class to fill the role, or you're stuck looking for a group who needs your class.

Difference is that in a trinity game the roles are clearly defined and known where as the "education of masses" you suggest in GW 2 is not very clear. Also, I have to spend my gaming time educating others how to play when I barely know it myself?

No, for PUGs and specially Zerg PUGs, what you are suggesting is not viable

When I started WoW I built a "jack-of-all-trades" hunter. My gear was all over the place. I have Stamina, Intelligence, Strength, etc. I was wearing cloth too because I liked the "Intelligence". It was not until doing dungeons I learned that as a Hunter I should only concentrate on specific stats. This was in a PuG. I didn't join any guild.

The point is I came from a point of ignorance to the point of being educated. In GW2, it's still the same. It doesn't matter if there are no defined roles. Yes, it is much harder to "educate" other people especially those who are so set in their Holy Trinity ways, but unless none of us have EVER played single player action games (Darksiders, TES) before, I don't think there would be a problem at all to adapt to an environment where you can be the tank, healer, and dps on the fly. You just have to spec to be self reliant, but supportive at the same time since this is a multiplayer game.

I'm idealizing things. This theory will only work if the dungeon encounters support the concept. I have not that much experience with dungeons under my belt to get into deeper arguments and tell which works and not.

I truly do not miss the trinity. It makes it real easy to tell a decent player from a bad one. The trinity simplifies things so people don't have to think and can just sit there and macro or simply hit a set rotation. Gonna be hard as hell for me to go back to the trinity if GW2's take on it doesn't stick. 

I only really miss the trinity in guild groups and for me this is a huge problem with GW2, there is simply no need to group as you gain no benefits from grouping.

I miss organised trinity play in dungeons, GW2's dungeons are a real mess of overgear or choke the boss with corpses. There is skill to playing GW2 properly in dungeons, but why bother when the kamekazie approach works?

Outside of dungeons and guild groups i do not miss the trinity, not for one second....but then outside of dungeons no-one groups.

I don't miss the trinity one bit.  If I did I would go play one of the many games available that has it.

Mostly everything about the trinity is bad.  Things I don't like about it:

1) Waiting for groups to form

2) Dependant on other people-This point is more specifically about the person you were waiting suddenly needs to leave then your back to waiting.

3) Pigeon holes your class into a certain role.

4) Limits/Inhibits dungeon design