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If you don't like the holy trinity, come up with something better.
CalmOceans
Member UncommonPosts: 2,437
I see some people complain about the holy trinity.
That's fine, but realise that the holy trinity from Everquest, which was based on D&D, created one of the most successful MMO communities ever, a community that grouped and was much stronger than the fast-paced action games we see now.
So people who say
"the trinity is boring, we need something new"
That's great, but unless you are able to offer something as compelling as the trinity then I'll remain playing games with a trinity.
Don't fix what isn't broken.
edit:
I need to add this for people who didn't play EQ, people mistakingly say EQ didn't use trinities even though EQ coined the phrase.
EQ's trinity was warrior, cleric, enchanter. This is where the name comes from. It referred to 3 classes that were extremely powerful in a number of expansions and ended up as preferral classes, a trinity.
Comments
Allow players to have more than one skill set at the same time.
2) The Holy Trinity IS broken. Tank in pvp? Healer when doing solo quest ? Having to wait 1 hours because your group is missing a tank ? Having your healer friend enable to play with you because you are yourself a healer ? Please.
4) D&D doesn't use the trinity. There a long thread about it somewhere on these forums. Basic idea is: you heal *after the fight*
3) Non trinity mmo already exist and are/were succesful. You should check UO EVE or GW2 and its +3 millions boxes sale.
so nothing should be upgraded or changed ever?
Most games have all sorts of overlapping skill sets, with each class fielding multiple skill sets at a time. It's just that once you zoom out to the trinity-role layer that's as far as you can go before role overlap makes the game considerably more shallow.
My tank druid can heal himself while tanking, or switch roles to be a full-on healer while in the same instance. That's pretty much the extreme limit to how much the skillsets can be allowed to happen at the same time. At some point you have to bite off a specialized role and play it: you can't do everything.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think if you want any chance of changing the system you have to look at group sizes larger than 5.
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Omfg this was spot on.
Did he come up with something better ? GW2 is just as broken as any trinity ever was and EVE is different but " so complex your avg mmo player would walk away from the game " isn't really better....for most people.
The problem with almost every game that "solves" the trinity riddle is people end up with a mish mash of skills that end up more a zerg than anything.
The game for people who complain about the holy trinity is called "God" they want to tank, dps, and heal all at the same time. Its also a one player game... your tank is you, the only one playing, the DD is, you again, your the only one playing...and the healer is your mastery of drinking health potions...This is also any rpg on a consoul in the 80's-90's.
Honestly though free choice build sets is nothing new, but fact remains, we need a master tank, we need a master healer, and we need tons of DPS... its just the way it is, you cant be a master of everything.
Really?
That is the baby boomer sentence of those satisfied with the status quo. They are the ones that sell out at the first opportunity, the ones that push outdated business models on everyone, the ones that left the future generations in debt. Are you really no better than they are? Are you really satisfied with stagnation and mundane, uninteresting ways of living? Can't you see that the next generation wants nothing but to evolve? Stagnation means humanity is broken. Where is your curiosity? Your will to outdo your elders? Your will to tinker with the world around you? Do you not have an ounce of humanity left in you?
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
1. No it didnt, in fact it had a "quadrity", as you needed an enchanter for crowd control, or a really freakin good bard.
2. The holy trinity is not broken, the current form of the MMORPG is broken. The Holy Trinity works just fine when you have a game that properly promotes grouping. With the current state of mmo's being online single player RPGs then yes, the holy trinity becomes pointless. Also, you're misidentifying the problem, the issue is not the holy trinity, but the pigeon holing of certain classes to certain roles. Rift proved the holy trinity works just fine, because just about every class could play just about every role.
3. GW2 is not a success, 3 million boxes sold means nothing if only 1/8th of that still regularly log into the game. See Diablo III for evidence of high box sales and failure. EVE ABSOLUTELY has the holy trinity, its just because its not called a cleric, or a DPS, or a tank. But you absolutely have to have DPS ships, support ships, and tank ships to be be succesful in a non 1 on 1 fight. UO's focus was on PVP, and you can bet your ass the people who were most successful were the ones who showed up with a couple healers and CC'ers in the group. Lets see, 5 dps, 2 healers and a cc'er vs 8 dps, who do you think wins that fight...
4. D&D is not an MMO. *Gasp*
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Why do people have to take sides?
After years of playing MMO's with the trinity, I was estatic to play GW2 and have no trinity.
After playing GW2 for awhile, I am ready to play another game that is trinity based.
I enjoy both approaches to the genre. However, I would enjoy a slightly beefier "support" class in GW2.
Most people seem to think the way to 'end' the trinity is to remove roles. Not many people seem to consider the possibility of adding more instead; CC, pulling, debuffing, resource management... just a few of the roles that have disappeared from the genre in the last decade.
What's happened is that these lost roles have all been combined into others. The modern tank now also covers pulling, resource management is gone because everyone has endless mana (or whatever their resource is). CC is no longer relevant because content has simply been dumbed down to remove the need...
Having class roles wouldn't be so boring if there were more than just three. Filling slots in groups with specific roles also wouldn't be so hard if more games adopted the 'all-in-one' approach allowing all classes to be accessed (seaparately) on the same character.
Realize that EQ thrived on numbers that today would be considered an impetus to shift payment models in hopes of "stopping the bleeding" before shutting the servers down. (Ironically: both EQ and UO are still alive, despite still having numbers like that...) So I ask: compelling to *whom?*
You like trinity, that's fine; go play trinity. I don't like it, I'd rather play something with a system akin to EveO's. IF they still made games like they did in EQ's time, we could both have our games that make us happy, instead of having to put up with each other's complaining in some half-ass "we have trinity, but it's watered down" hybrid concocted because the devs need both our subscriptions to stay afloat.
Or alternately, some "Standard Trinity Just Like the Last" game that makes you happy and leaves me with an abundance of time to spend on forums like this, asking for a game that doesn't bore the hell out of me.
One's man's treasure is another man's trash.
(Corrolary to a better known saying.)
#2 is very good point. Some today complained about neverwinter non-cleric character soloing needed to use heal potions and how all clases should have healing. Too much soloing so they need to do everything.
We shoud make a game: Tank Mages now with extra healing.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
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After years of playing MMO's with the trinity, I was estatic to play GW2 and have no trinity.
After playing GW2 for awhile, I am not ready to play another garbage like that again. Gief trinity back please.
GW2's "no trinity" approach turned everything into an incredible messy zerg and terrible instances. If I want to play group FPS games, I'd play those. Role-Playing, you know people, Roles?
Also, when all your classes are some form of "DPS", there will always be the "top-dps" class, the class that everyone will play and everyone will have in instances. "Whatever you want to play, you need an lvl80 warrior, you want to do instances, don't you?" were the words of the "veterans" in my guild when i've joined the game.
1/8th of three million is 375,000. That's not too far off from Everquest's peak. Would you say Everquest was a failure?
Eh?DPS, sure. But who's the tank - tackle? They don't manage aggro or hold positions, they debuff speed and prevent escape. Eve uses the word 'tank,' but it's less a role and more a reference to ship survivability.
And what is meant by support? We talking 'heal-analogs,' EW, or is this where tackle actually fits?
I mean sure, you could dodge and weave around vagaries enough to maybe argue Eve had a 'trinity' of some kind hiding under it's hood somewhere, but getting there takes far too circuitous a route to call it the Holy Trinity.
Back when I was playing, I didn't see much '5 dps 2 healers and a cc'er." The opportunity cost of stacking CC and heal capability onto the DPS build wasn't high enough to justify not doing it in most cases. Dedicated healer or dedicated CC might have been *better* at it, but not by enough of a margin to create an actual edge against 8 JOATs.
I liked UO, but of the (few) classless games out there, it was one of the more vulnerable to the "everyone does everything" criticism. Might have changed after I left, though.
Can't speak for others, but when I role-play I prefer to do it via character roles rather than metagamed-mechanic roles.
Im Sorry but i dont agree with you at all, GW2 solved all the problems i had with the trinity and he happens to mention them all.
When i want to do any dungeon i go to the lfg site( There is not any groupt that i can see asking for a specifici class at any time), it takes 3 minutes, and i can go with any class i want and my friends can bring any class they want.
pvp in Eve without logistic ship ? ...or incursions?
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Some systems may work better than others in certain environments but there is never one that will ALWAYS be the best for all environments. What happens to some of us after playing one way for so long is that we get bored and start to seek a change. If we try something new, we may like it and stick with it (til we get bored again), keep searching, or go back to what we know.
So, for me it's not about coming up with something better but creating something different to give players a NEW experience.
Here's some ideas:
Combine tank/dps roles. Give each class a taunt or threat type attack to keep target focused on them. If you're facing a boss that uses magic for dmg you could have a spell casting class(with their increased magic defences) as a tank. Or, Melee/casting classes alternate if a boss has both abilities)
You could keep healers. Or, have each class have some type of self heal abilities.
You could create a class whose sole responsibility is to control ads. You could create a whole array of control methods so that the ads are slowed down or stopped so a party can deal with them before they are overwhelmed. They may drop them into a hole in the ground, slowing them til they climb out, levitate them for a periood of time, freeze them in place, transport them to the other side of the cavern etc etc.
Some instances/dungeons may require 3 crowd control guys for example, others one or even none. Could make for some exciting new dynamics.
It's not hard to create a new system but the trick will be to have it balance and work well.
Rhino.
None of that is new, it's all been in WoW at some point. They have different bosses that need tanked by different people, they have bosses that require add control and management, they have bosses where you have to self heal.
I actually think WoW raids ave plenty variety in the machanics over the years just most people either don't see it when it's relevant or dismiss everything with tanks dps and healers as basic tank and spank.
I think everything you described is still a trinity too, currently games have a hard enough time just getting tanks and healers to play those roles trying to get people to play a constant control class is difficult.
1. OMG poor Shaman, we had great slows, buffs, debuffs DoTs and Heals. Hehe my bro played a chanter. Put the two of us in a group and we could take on anything. :-)
100% agree on the rest. :-)
Okay, heres my fix for the Trinity...
Are you ready?...
This is going to be a long post, so make sure you have plenty of time to read it before starting...
Sandbox
Ok, nevermind I guess it wasn't that long. In any case, I like what GW2 did and I'm looking forward to what ESO has in store since they too want to stray from the traditional trinity.
Personally I'm glad so many developers have taken notice of the fact that the trinity is broken and are finally attempting to fix it.
Honestly, I'd be happy if classes were simply given more flexibility and the need for specific roles wasn't a neccessity. I liked Bear Shaman in AoC, Cleric in Neverwinter, Cleric in Rift, but not in many others. When I have the option of tanking, DD, healing, or being a bit of a hybrid/support the trinity aggrivates me a great deal less.
But not that far.
By dev's word, the trinity roles will still be there and still be viable; but some of the mechanics (particularly aggro management) will change, and characters will be able to shift roles to at least some degree when not in battle.
Aye.
Not that I have anything against the trinity *itself.* Just it's near-omnipresence in the market. (Well, that and the hordes of trinity advocates who scream bloody murder at the mere thought of trying something else.)
If you pick your favourite fight in a fantasy movie e.g. for me the troll fight in moria in LotR, and then imagine how to make mmo combat like that.
Pretty easy imo, you just give players (and mobs) a short range melee root so the tougher ones can create a blocking wall to protect the weaker ones and make being melee rooted in this way by more than one player (or mob) give a major disadvantage.
Among other things this would make multi-level groups (mob or player) viable.