It is quite simple, class roles do not fit solo play, so out with the class roles. There is no mystery about why MMO's have gone down this route. If you hear the team of a MMO talking about less complexity in classes, allowing all players to do something that was class specific or making changes to the trinity you will find it always helps solo play. Always. So the driving force behind all this is easy to spot.
Originally posted by Scot It is quite simple, class roles do not fit solo play, so out with the class roles. There is no mystery about why MMO's have gone down this route. If you hear the team of a MMO talking about less complexity in classes, allowing all players to do something that was class specific or making changes to the trinity you will find it always helps solo play. Always. So the driving force behind all this is easy to spot.
Pure dps also does not fit solo play, yet we still have it.
It is unfortunately not so simple, the way you describe it it may have been in the beginning, but we dont get pure healers and pure tanks for some time now.
It boils as usual down to "what can i do with my toon", if you could and would be willing to maintain outlets for every role, say undead monsters aplenty for healers with their exorcism as only attack spell, medium tough monsters where longevity is more important than burst for tanks and so on, we would not have such a big problem.
But we are not willing for some reason, it has become somehow unreasonable to expect anything more than world monsters you can oneshot regardless and raids where we can qq to no end that a specific role has not enough spots.
Ironically, and this is the part where i will partially agree, the system has devolved into a state when specialists get shafted and jacks of all trades are masters of all.
EDIT: and dont think i would have something against old d&d outlets and activities, even specialist ones, wail of the banshee comes to mind, but if we are unable to make outlets for classes, i dont have much faith into creating complex systems like a dm would in a p&p game, lockpicking, critical trick shots, time stop...
GAMING COMPANYS GOT LAZY!!!! They started combining this stuff into other roles so they could get away with less classes. You think Guild Wars 2 got rid of healers and tanks to be innovative? LOL! It was lazy. They gave everyone a rez. Gave everyone a heal. Gave everyone the ability to safely pull mobs. Something challenging will come along eventually that will once again REQUIRE such specified teamwork. Until then enjoy easy mode.
Edited in:
Killing the trinity:
Tank role deletion: All damage is based on getting hit or not getting hit (avoidance). All characters have the same defensive standpoint.
Healer role deletion: Take out all abilities to regen HP except a natural passive heal over time. Like real life wounds are healed.
DPS role deletion: Take out differentials in damage output. Take out enemy HP. What part of a monster you attack starts to weaken and break him down. (obviously this would be the hardest role to take out but if there was no damage differential in skills it would all be skill based and therefore having no tank or healer role naturally takes this role out as well.) It's like: Mortal Kombat as an example. Everyone fights but you don't call them DPS.
Now make me a game! go go go! :P
OP, you have me a bit confused with the edit.
GW2 killed the trinity to be lazy. But in the section "Edited in" it looks like you're suggesting killing even further?
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
“Pure dps does not fit solo play”. - How so? Seems fine for soloing to me.
“But we are not willing for some reason, it has become somehow unreasonable to expect anything more than world monsters you can oneshot”
– That’s solo gameplay design for you, the grouping gameplay is made easier, because it makes it easier for solo players to understand and they will put up with it as it is all over quickly. When I say that remember this is what designers think of solo players, I think solo players could do and want so much more from a MMO. They just need help going over to a more grouping style of gameplay.
“GW2 killed the trinity to be lazy”
- Somehow I doubt this. The answer here is in the word, 'trinity', you need more than one player for that! Once again, grouping has been denigrated to a pointless playstyle to make solo players want to play MMO’s. Solo players were and are the much bigger demographic of players. MMO players were only a fraction of the gaming population. So seeking more sales, MMO’s have become shaped to appeal to solo players, in the process stripping them of nearly everything that made them MMO’s in the first place. Look at what has happened to crafting, quests, PvE, PvP, housing, roleplaying tools; look at any aspect of gameplay in MMO’s and you will see how it has become more solo friendly.
“Pure dps does not fit solo play”. - How so? Seems fine for soloing to me.
“But we are not willing for some reason, it has become somehow unreasonable to expect anything more than world monsters you can oneshot”
– That’s solo gameplay design for you, the grouping gameplay is made easier, because it makes it easier for solo players to understand and they will put up with it as it is all over quickly. When I say that remember this is what designers think of solo players, I think solo players could do and want so much more from a MMO. They just need help going over to a more grouping style of gameplay.
Quite right, once you go past that definition, and you start considering soloing group content or past group content, meaning that the speed of killing a thing does not become the most important in the consideration, someone who can heal or simply take more beating (or both) will be in a much better position.
Depending on the degree the system is broken you can even end up in a unfavorable position when twoshotting things, healers get more often than not superior mechanics in resource regeneration just to be able to heal more, yet it will also enable them to kill more.
Oh, really? So your answer is to brainwash them or bribe them to enjoy grouping? Isnt that the reason even groupers are unhappy these days, because group content becomes "random individuals" content ?
Any kind of reward in a group play is broken "xp, items, etc" in any MMO because of tagging system and lack of scaling system, why bother grouping?
If MMO makers learn how to script scaling system which will reward everyone who take part similar to solo? then that will help with grouping.
AI should be scaled-up prior to a sise of a group, and so dose the reward system.
No more TERA's reward system and tag system, reward should be individual and fair in a group play.
If someone join a fight he/she should be rewarded based on many factors " support, dps, tank, time and level", remember if higher level character join a group AI should be scaled accordingly, or that character should be scaled down to the level of AI.
what he said for sure. Some games do that thankfully. Not common enough though. Though i see both sides of the arguement It is nice grouping with people who CAN rob you, because when they dont you made a new friend!
Hero Evermore Guild Master of Dragonspine since 1982. Playing Path of Exile and deeply in love with it.
I feel it was less about a trinity as a 'defining role' guide as much as a very basic archetecture in a game. Its existed for a good deal of time but it isn't as cut and dry as some games make it to be. Even with a vast spread of different roles, they could basically be put into the trinity in some linked way.
Tanks could be actual characters built to absorb damage but they also could be 'off tanks' or 'distractions of sorts, meant to maybe guard allies without expecting to be taking everything on at once. This could even apply to Crowd Control Arch-types that might disable enemies in combat in some cases.
Support (Heals as people gravitated to considering it) essencially acted as the buffers/debuffers. This might mean as well healing which people tend to consider the branch, which isn't really what it was considered to be originally. Support goes beyond just healing and works on aiding a party.
Damage is just as its said. Little explination needed.
In that regard, roles were often dipped into and the trinity itself might relied not on having a character fit one specific arch type, but also in part some other. It did give more dynamic then most games do explorer. It was the trinity, but it was a far more eleborate version.
Comments
Pure dps also does not fit solo play, yet we still have it.
It is unfortunately not so simple, the way you describe it it may have been in the beginning, but we dont get pure healers and pure tanks for some time now.
It boils as usual down to "what can i do with my toon", if you could and would be willing to maintain outlets for every role, say undead monsters aplenty for healers with their exorcism as only attack spell, medium tough monsters where longevity is more important than burst for tanks and so on, we would not have such a big problem.
But we are not willing for some reason, it has become somehow unreasonable to expect anything more than world monsters you can oneshot regardless and raids where we can qq to no end that a specific role has not enough spots.
Ironically, and this is the part where i will partially agree, the system has devolved into a state when specialists get shafted and jacks of all trades are masters of all.
EDIT: and dont think i would have something against old d&d outlets and activities, even specialist ones, wail of the banshee comes to mind, but if we are unable to make outlets for classes, i dont have much faith into creating complex systems like a dm would in a p&p game, lockpicking, critical trick shots, time stop...
Flame on!
OP, you have me a bit confused with the edit.
GW2 killed the trinity to be lazy. But in the section "Edited in" it looks like you're suggesting killing even further?
“Pure dps does not fit solo play”. - How so? Seems fine for soloing to me.
“But we are not willing for some reason, it has become somehow unreasonable to expect anything more than world monsters you can oneshot”
– That’s solo gameplay design for you, the grouping gameplay is made easier, because it makes it easier for solo players to understand and they will put up with it as it is all over quickly. When I say that remember this is what designers think of solo players, I think solo players could do and want so much more from a MMO. They just need help going over to a more grouping style of gameplay.
“GW2 killed the trinity to be lazy”
- Somehow I doubt this. The answer here is in the word, 'trinity', you need more than one player for that! Once again, grouping has been denigrated to a pointless playstyle to make solo players want to play MMO’s. Solo players were and are the much bigger demographic of players. MMO players were only a fraction of the gaming population. So seeking more sales, MMO’s have become shaped to appeal to solo players, in the process stripping them of nearly everything that made them MMO’s in the first place. Look at what has happened to crafting, quests, PvE, PvP, housing, roleplaying tools; look at any aspect of gameplay in MMO’s and you will see how it has become more solo friendly.
Quite right, once you go past that definition, and you start considering soloing group content or past group content, meaning that the speed of killing a thing does not become the most important in the consideration, someone who can heal or simply take more beating (or both) will be in a much better position.
Depending on the degree the system is broken you can even end up in a unfavorable position when twoshotting things, healers get more often than not superior mechanics in resource regeneration just to be able to heal more, yet it will also enable them to kill more.
Oh, really? So your answer is to brainwash them or bribe them to enjoy grouping? Isnt that the reason even groupers are unhappy these days, because group content becomes "random individuals" content ?
Flame on!
Any kind of reward in a group play is broken "xp, items, etc" in any MMO because of tagging system and lack of scaling system, why bother grouping?
If MMO makers learn how to script scaling system which will reward everyone who take part similar to solo? then that will help with grouping.
AI should be scaled-up prior to a sise of a group, and so dose the reward system.
No more TERA's reward system and tag system, reward should be individual and fair in a group play.
If someone join a fight he/she should be rewarded based on many factors " support, dps, tank, time and level", remember if higher level character join a group AI should be scaled accordingly, or that character should be scaled down to the level of AI.
^
what he said for sure. Some games do that thankfully. Not common enough though. Though i see both sides of the arguement It is nice grouping with people who CAN rob you, because when they dont you made a new friend!
Hero Evermore
Guild Master of Dragonspine since 1982.
Playing Path of Exile and deeply in love with it.
I feel it was less about a trinity as a 'defining role' guide as much as a very basic archetecture in a game. Its existed for a good deal of time but it isn't as cut and dry as some games make it to be. Even with a vast spread of different roles, they could basically be put into the trinity in some linked way.
Tanks could be actual characters built to absorb damage but they also could be 'off tanks' or 'distractions of sorts, meant to maybe guard allies without expecting to be taking everything on at once. This could even apply to Crowd Control Arch-types that might disable enemies in combat in some cases.
Support (Heals as people gravitated to considering it) essencially acted as the buffers/debuffers. This might mean as well healing which people tend to consider the branch, which isn't really what it was considered to be originally. Support goes beyond just healing and works on aiding a party.
Damage is just as its said. Little explination needed.
In that regard, roles were often dipped into and the trinity itself might relied not on having a character fit one specific arch type, but also in part some other. It did give more dynamic then most games do explorer. It was the trinity, but it was a far more eleborate version.