What I find disturbing is the fact that people are still debating over this hatred towards trinity mechanics even after GW2 showed you the reason the system was created in the first place.
I'd agree that we are moving away from the slower pace of EQ1, but I don't think roles have outworn their stay just yet.
I don't think roles have outworn their stay at all, but I feel that action combat where the group is more involved and likely to be attacked / killed is going to be the norm. Like my example, GW2 had roles, but everyone was in danger and had to dodge/heal/react to combat.
Sure, we may have been just lucky or just inexplicably skilled (which I doubt very much), but if a system exists where some combinations literally don't even have to think to get through content, then that is not a good thing. We had myself (Engineer), a guardian, a ranger, and a necro. We did actively choose skills that were more group friendly I concede, more aoe heals and aoe buffs, but it certainly was rarely a difficult challenge for us, and we didn't feel pushed.
Ya that's what I figured. You guys were playing and complementing each other (and you were doing these things, it wasn't an accident). This would be why you didn't have problems, compared to the PUG groups where everyone was a 100% glass cannon and getting floored every 3 seconds lol.
The truth of the matter though, is that in GW2 there is a ton of inter-play between the classes and roles, and that they very much do help each other. But, it's because the support is mostly AoE skills that people don't realize how important that guardian is to your group. It always seems like you saved yourself with your big heal, which you probably did, but you didn't need to heal very often because the guardian was carrying you and you didn't know it.
Exactly, and this is why it confused a lot of people. They'd go into one random group and do great, then go into another and get floored, and blame it on the dungeon being too hard. Instead of understanding how important the support roles were.
What am I trying to say? I think it boils down to that I don't like something about the GW2 system of group play, and I don't really want to see anything similar implemented in other games. I'm sure lots of people will disagree with me, and that is fine by me.
People like what they like, but expect a lot of future games to have a large emphasis on action combat, with less rigid "roles".
Besides, GW2 made up for its lack of group play in PvE with its exceptional group play in PvP, in my mind. That's where I think their gameplay style really shines.
I thought it shined well in both. PVP was very balanced and there were tons of ways to play each class. I also enjoyed that the PVE wasn't a complete snooze fest like most recent games.
We did actively choose skills that were more group friendly I concede, more aoe heals and aoe buffs, but it certainly was rarely a difficult challenge for us, and we didn't feel pushed.
Ya that's what I figured. You guys were playing and complementing each other (and you were doing these things, it wasn't an accident). This would be why you didn't have problems, compared to the PUG groups where everyone was a 100% glass cannon and getting floored every 3 seconds lol.
That pretty much sums up why I thought the system was bad. We happened upon a good combination by chance (not all glass cannons) and simply by using lots of aoe heal spells, we could ignore the whole group play element almost entirely, including the combo system, and do quite well. We just dodged around like fools and shot at things. Not good when only the bad class combinations have to actually think about group play.
I enjoy trying to read the minds of the developers tha tclaim ' we will change the way you think of MMORPGs' so I try to think outside of the box on every question on this board.
Aggro management - as a healer I love it. But if I were ti create a game that is unlike otehrs I would incorporate the following ideas:
Have the PvE mobs follow the strats fo PVP warfare. I dislike PVP because as a healer I am targetted first. Make the mobs in EQC have different levels of hatred for different classes before you even aggro. Would make it fun and a roll of the dice on what you have to do group wise as a strategy.
Have mobs attack the players furthest from the action - similar to my first though but again again, casters and healers stay back.
Have mobs surrender if they are outmatched and perhaps your group surrender if the same occurs. Faction would take a hit as well as some form of 'glory' status. I dunno - just spweing.
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
We did actively choose skills that were more group friendly I concede, more aoe heals and aoe buffs, but it certainly was rarely a difficult challenge for us, and we didn't feel pushed.
Ya that's what I figured. You guys were playing and complementing each other (and you were doing these things, it wasn't an accident). This would be why you didn't have problems, compared to the PUG groups where everyone was a 100% glass cannon and getting floored every 3 seconds lol.
That pretty much sums up why I thought the system was bad. We happened upon a good combination by chance (not all glass cannons) and simply by using lots of aoe heal spells, we could ignore the whole group play element almost entirely, including the combo system, and do quite well. We just dodged around like fools and shot at things. Not good when only the bad class combinations have to actually think about group play.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
The difference is that some games hold your hands to achieve this (You must have 1 of each arch-type *Tank, Healer, DPS, Support*) and they make this extremely clear in the game by making each class specific to a role.
In GW2, there's no hand holding and any class can be any range of roles. So if you just randomly PUG an exploration mode dungeon, you're rolling the RNG dice on group make up. This is the same as going into an EQ dungeon with all wizards or all warriors.
In GW2, you either took the time to understand the mechanics and bring a complementary group, or you run around, kiting, downing and zerg rushing the bosses.
If you ugys want to see how a game works without aggro management look at Guild Wars 1. There was no predictable aggro in that game and no way of managing it. Yet every player had a role to fulfill and team play was strategic and satisfying. GW1 had some of the most challenging fights of any MMO i have ever played and it was mainly because of the atypical aggro on mobs.
I've always hated the tank and spank of traditional trinity combat. Personally tanking should be done with active skills like how it is done in MOBAs. Slow fields, short duration taunts, pushes/pulls, stuns, blinds, impassable barriers; things that allow active tanking and not just spamming the taunt button.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
Ya it seems like you were halfway there. GW2 lets each class form to different roles. Like a necro could high dps, or it could really high support. This was done intentionally so players could pick the class that they wanted to roleplay and thought was the coolest, but still be able to fit in with any of your friends in a group.
But ya, you were half way there, you considered group play when picking your skills, but didn't really work on fields and complementing spec loadouts, so you had to kite and run around. If you had dug a little deeper you would have seen that GW2 system was not so different from what you prefer.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
Ya it seems like you were halfway there. GW2 lets each class form to different roles. Like a necro could high dps, or it could really high support. This was done intentionally so players could pick the class that they wanted to roleplay and thought was the coolest, but still be able to fit in with any of your friends in a group.
But ya, you were half way there, you considered group play when picking your skills, but didn't really work on fields and complementing spec loadouts, so you had to kite and run around. If you had dug a little deeper you would have seen that GW2 system was not so different from what you prefer.
It may have been deeper, but since it was so easy for us to clear content, we didn't want to dig deeper.
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
Well, i m Dungeon Master in GW2 and i have played 400 fractals, for my experience you dont need a class coordination in order to end an istance in GW2, you only need to have players that have a good spec for their classes (no glass cannons), that dodge at the right time, that do decent dps and that dont do stupid things (like throwing themself in a group of mobs pretenting to be a tank for example).
The fact that you dont need a class cordination is proven by the fact that you can do praticaly all the istances of the game with a group of random classes.
"Brute force not work? It because you not use enought of it" -Karg, Ogryn Bone'ead.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
Ya it seems like you were halfway there. GW2 lets each class form to different roles. Like a necro could high dps, or it could really high support. This was done intentionally so players could pick the class that they wanted to roleplay and thought was the coolest, but still be able to fit in with any of your friends in a group.
But ya, you were half way there, you considered group play when picking your skills, but didn't really work on fields and complementing spec loadouts, so you had to kite and run around. If you had dug a little deeper you would have seen that GW2 system was not so different from what you prefer.
It may have been deeper, but since it was so easy for us to clear content, we didn't want to dig deeper.
Been following this discussion and it's a very odd argument on the pro-GW2 side. So GW2 is easy enough to do the content without going in depth with combat, and if you do go deeper into combat you get something akin to the trinity.
How does this make GW2 better? It's easy enough that you don't need a trinity, but if you put more effort into it, you get to play it with a pseudo-trinity which is apparently . . . more fun? So why not just go with a trinity?
I've played my fair share of GW2 too, and it seems that cross class combos aren't really that impressive, or at least, not useful enough to warrant a set up considering most skills happen so quickly. Gallus, do you have a video of a group doing a dungeon using the methods you describe in this and other posts in this thread? I'd be very curious to try it out.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
Ya it seems like you were halfway there. GW2 lets each class form to different roles. Like a necro could high dps, or it could really high support. This was done intentionally so players could pick the class that they wanted to roleplay and thought was the coolest, but still be able to fit in with any of your friends in a group.
But ya, you were half way there, you considered group play when picking your skills, but didn't really work on fields and complementing spec loadouts, so you had to kite and run around. If you had dug a little deeper you would have seen that GW2 system was not so different from what you prefer.
It may have been deeper, but since it was so easy for us to clear content, we didn't want to dig deeper.
Been following this discussion and it's a very odd argument on the pro-GW2 side. So GW2 is easy enough to do the content without going in depth with combat, and if you do go deeper into combat you get something akin to the trinity.
How does this make GW2 better? It's easy enough that you don't need a trinity, but if you put more effort into it, you get to play it with a pseudo-trinity which is apparently . . . more fun? So why not just go with a trinity?
I've played my fair share of GW2 too, and it seems that cross class combos aren't really that impressive, or at least, not useful enough to warrant a set up considering most skills happen so quickly. Gallus, do you have a video of a group doing a dungeon using the methods you describe in this and other posts in this thread? I'd be very curious to try it out.
I have nothing against GW2. It's easy enough to clear content without really thinking, and some people say it's deeper, but I couldn't find it.
They say combos are great... in reality they feel weak and their downfall is they are not needed to clear anything.
They say there is important ways to play your group that will make groups so much better... but they are not needed to clear anything.
Maybe those things do exist, but GW2's group play is such a weak tack on that only the worst players are actually having trouble and need to even consider thinking about combos... which is very counter-intuitive, since those players are the least likely to actually learn an advanced technique.
It's really a poor design for PvE. I'm not saying a system without role's couldn't work, but it just ends up being a bunch of guys running around dodging and shooting at stuff in GW2... and that simplistic style works just fine to clear everything.
Edit: I should mention that I agree with your point lol.
Been following this discussion and it's a very odd argument on the pro-GW2 side. So GW2 is easy enough to do the content without going in depth with combat, and if you do go deeper into combat you get something akin to the trinity.
How does this make GW2 better? It's easy enough that you don't need a trinity, but if you put more effort into it, you get to play it with a pseudo-trinity which is apparently . . . more fun? So why not just go with a trinity?
I've played my fair share of GW2 too, and it seems that cross class combos aren't really that impressive, or at least, not useful enough to warrant a set up considering most skills happen so quickly. Gallus, do you have a video of a group doing a dungeon using the methods you describe in this and other posts in this thread? I'd be very curious to try it out.
I wouldn't say "Better". I'd say it was different. It's nice to get something different instead of the same old same old, imho.
Well you can say that cross class combos aren't impressive, but the difference in damage when your whole group stays in range, drops a fire field, and 1 or 2 people put blast finishers in those fire fields, you end up with +25x Might x 5 players = +125 might worth of extra dps on the mob.... that's pretty massive difference in the damage output of the group.
Being able to drop water fields and keep players alive is also a really big difference imo.
Drop a poison field from a thief or a necro then do blast finishers and leaps through them to cause Weakness, and you just reduced the mob's damage by 50%. 50% damage reduction for utilizing fields right in this situation. Frankly I don't know how much more powerful you want this system to be before it becomes meaningful to you.
Sethius says that he could clear the content without thinking about it, but I feel that he just got lucky/exaggerating the easy of his game experience on top of playing with a static group. His team was already thinking about group oriented skills, and on top of this, they were probably taking advantage of fields unknowingly, and even admits to still running around during fights.
It's possible that it can happen, but clearly this was not the case with a large portion of the population. There are tons of videos on youtube and tons of complaints on the GW2 forums about people are getting wiped on exploration mode AC dungeon, and it's only a lvl 30 instance lol. Clearly the game is doing something right in terms of difficulty.
As for a video, I didn't record any PVE dungeons. I could try to find a good one for you, or make my own. I'll post back if I find something.
I wouldn't say "Better". I'd say it was different. It's nice to get something different instead of the same old same old, imho.
...
Sethius says that he could clear the content without thinking about it, but I feel that he just got lucky/exaggerating the easy of his game experience on top of playing with a static group. His team was already thinking about group oriented skills, and on top of this, they were probably taking advantage of fields unknowingly, and even admits to still running around during fights.
It's possible that it can happen, but clearly this was not the case with a large portion of the population. There are tons of videos on youtube and tons of complaints on the GW2 forums about people are getting wiped on exploration mode AC dungeon, and it's only a lvl 30 instance lol. Clearly the game is doing something right in terms of difficulty.
...
You seem pretty thoughtful about the game, which I can appreciate. I will say that I do admit to running around during fights, and frankly it was a strategy that worked great. I'd call that a weakness of the system that simply running around enables you to win much of the time, but that's just me.
As for the AC dungeon supposed to be easier because it's lvl 30... I thought the scaling pretty much did a good job of negating that (not entirely of course, once you got all exotics it was easier), and that was a strength of GW2 imo.
Anyway, it's neither here nor there. The game system is fine for what it is, but it feels to me to be lackluster compared to a trinity based system. I rooted for it at first, I too wanted to break the mold, but after awhile I found myself longing for the complexity of my old job as a tank.
Now, I will say, the jump puzzles... those were amazing! =D
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
Well, i m Dungeon Master in GW2 and i have played 400 fractals, for my experience you dont need a class coordination in order to end an istance in GW2, you only need to have players that have a good spec for their classes (no glass cannons), that dodge at the right time, that do decent dps and that dont do stupid things (like throwing themself in a group of mobs pretenting to be a tank for example).
The fact that you dont need a class cordination is proven by the fact that you can do praticaly all the istances of the game with a group of random classes.
I'm curious to what combat system you would say is superior.
In games that have the trinity, you're typically pressing a pre-arranged set of skill buttons to either taunt/do damage or do damage.
If you're a healer, you wait till HP bars go down, then press a few buttons to make them go up.
Every class is predefined a role and role is extremely simple and easy to perform.
What game would you say shines over GW2's combat system?
Anyway, it's neither here nor there. The game system is fine for what it is, but it feels to me to be lackluster compared to a trinity based system. I rooted for it at first, I too wanted to break the mold, but after awhile I found myself longing for the complexity of my old job as a tank.
Now, I will say, the jump puzzles... those were amazing! =D
Ya, I guess because I've played so many trinity MMOs and none of them came close to the complexity of character development and combat that GW2 did.
I've played tanks, healers, support and DPS in a wide range of trinity games, from EQ, Lineage 2, EQ2, Vanguard, Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, just to name a few, and none of them really stood out as "complex" when it came to combat.
Tank taunts, healer watches those HP bars and DPS stand somewhere (generally behind the mob) and push buttons.
Didn't ever feel as fun or interactive as GW2's combat.
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
Well, i m Dungeon Master in GW2 and i have played 400 fractals, for my experience you dont need a class coordination in order to end an istance in GW2, you only need to have players that have a good spec for their classes (no glass cannons), that dodge at the right time, that do decent dps and that dont do stupid things (like throwing themself in a group of mobs pretenting to be a tank for example).
The fact that you dont need a class cordination is proven by the fact that you can do praticaly all the istances of the game with a group of random classes.
I'm curious to what combat system you would say is superior.
In games that have the trinity, you're typically pressing a pre-arranged set of skill buttons to either taunt/do damage or do damage.
If you're a healer, you wait till HP bars go down, then press a few buttons to make them go up.
Every class is predefined a role and role is extremely simple and easy to perform.
What game would you say shines over GW2's combat system?
I m not talking about combat system, i m talking about strategies in PvE and need of coordinations between classes with unique skills . I think that EQ and WOW (first WoW with 40 peeps raid) was far better than GW2 PvE.
"Brute force not work? It because you not use enought of it" -Karg, Ogryn Bone'ead.
I'm curious to what combat system you would say is superior.
In games that have the trinity, you're typically pressing a pre-arranged set of skill buttons to either taunt/do damage or do damage.
If you're a healer, you wait till HP bars go down, then press a few buttons to make them go up.
Every class is predefined a role and role is extremely simple and easy to perform.
What game would you say shines over GW2's combat system?
I m not talking about combat system, i m talking about strategies in PvE and need of coordinations between classes with unique skills . I think that EQ and WOW (first WoW with 40 peeps raid) was far better than GW2 PvE.
And what's the difference between Playing a cleric in EQ, and being told that you heal people when their HPs get low, or speccing a character in GW2 to throw out regens, utilize water-field blast finishers and using skills to heal your allies?
The only difference I see is that one system the class tells you what you will do, and the other lets classes change to fit different roles as they see fit. Both systems require team work and looking out for each other, but one allows for more class diversity.
If we're just speaking on those terms, I don't personally mind either and I'll be happy if EQN has either (or something else).
But I feel that GW2 was an evolution to a more realistic, fun and dynamic fighting experience (while still benefiting from different play styles)
I don't know if you want to be my dancing queen. There are few that could handle this.
Holy hells, ROFL...
As for the OP, I'd like to see something different done with such mechanics.
I agree though. I'm a sucker for new. Personally, I can find the good in just about any game. So I don't care if EQN has a trinity, or something else... but I love seeing new innovations and seeing old systems modernized.
And I've always felt that the trinity style game play made combat not feel like... combat. It's always felt kinda 1 dimensional, cheesy and unrealistic. But that's ok. I like a little cheese too sometimes.
Originally posted by Masterfuzzfuzz Gholos i've seen a lot of your posts and I think we are on the same page man. I hated GW2 group combat.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
Well, i m Dungeon Master in GW2 and i have played 400 fractals, for my experience you dont need a class coordination in order to end an istance in GW2, you only need to have players that have a good spec for their classes (no glass cannons), that dodge at the right time, that do decent dps and that dont do stupid things (like throwing themself in a group of mobs pretenting to be a tank for example).
The fact that you dont need a class cordination is proven by the fact that you can do praticaly all the istances of the game with a group of random classes.
I'm curious to what combat system you would say is superior.
In games that have the trinity, you're typically pressing a pre-arranged set of skill buttons to either taunt/do damage or do damage.
If you're a healer, you wait till HP bars go down, then press a few buttons to make them go up.
Every class is predefined a role and role is extremely simple and easy to perform.
What game would you say shines over GW2's combat system?
Guild Wars 1. Slight alterations to the usual aggro system, but everyone still had fulfilling and necessary role in a team.
I think combo fields had the potential to be neat, but from what I experienced almost no one ever made any coordinated effort in their use beyond dropping them in the middle of a zerg/on top of a mob where they will obviously proc something through the usual skill spam.
But i'm not really seeing the major innovation in it personally over other games. Dropping an AE on the ground and proccing with something that will make it spit out a short might/retal or heal is more or less the same effect as having a shaman in EQ2 buffing team mates with bolster or shielding them with wards. Or exploiting weaknesses/chainning group buffs in Vanguard.
I suppose you could say you don't have to actually switch targets over to a group member with combo fields since they are ground targeted, but i'm not sure if that was ever the kind of thing anyone ever taken issue with in the usual trinity.
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Philosophy of MMO Game Design
as long as there is no miracle one button ability like Taunt. Such a horrible feature
what you are asking for is to make fights predictable
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That pretty much sums up why I thought the system was bad. We happened upon a good combination by chance (not all glass cannons) and simply by using lots of aoe heal spells, we could ignore the whole group play element almost entirely, including the combo system, and do quite well. We just dodged around like fools and shot at things. Not good when only the bad class combinations have to actually think about group play.
I enjoy trying to read the minds of the developers tha tclaim ' we will change the way you think of MMORPGs' so I try to think outside of the box on every question on this board.
Aggro management - as a healer I love it. But if I were ti create a game that is unlike otehrs I would incorporate the following ideas:
Have the PvE mobs follow the strats fo PVP warfare. I dislike PVP because as a healer I am targetted first. Make the mobs in EQC have different levels of hatred for different classes before you even aggro. Would make it fun and a roll of the dice on what you have to do group wise as a strategy.
Have mobs attack the players furthest from the action - similar to my first though but again again, casters and healers stay back.
Have mobs surrender if they are outmatched and perhaps your group surrender if the same occurs. Faction would take a hit as well as some form of 'glory' status. I dunno - just spweing.
August 2 will be fun.
I couldn't agree with the both you more. I really dislike group play in Guild Wars 2 as it ALWAYS feels disorganized with people running around dodging and dps'ing. It looks and feels ridiculous to me. To the point that I can't even play the game. I've always been a big fan of the trinity as I love to have a purpose. I really hope they don't go the gw2 route.
I don't see your point. You guys created a system that was group friendly with heals and buffs and such (That's not "ignoring" the whole group play") You were thinking about the group when you made your character builds. That's good. I don't see how that's bad.
That's the same as saying "We shouldn't go into this dungeon unless we have a healer". You're thinking about the group, it's just done in a different way, to achieve the same effect, in GW2.
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Only the bads ran around ridiculously in GW2 because none of them were specced right or complemented each other, so they just run around and kite mobs in dungeons.
If you understand how to build teams and use combo fields, you could stand still in every single fight, except for using dodge to get out of the way of big attacks.
The difference is that some games hold your hands to achieve this (You must have 1 of each arch-type *Tank, Healer, DPS, Support*) and they make this extremely clear in the game by making each class specific to a role.
In GW2, there's no hand holding and any class can be any range of roles. So if you just randomly PUG an exploration mode dungeon, you're rolling the RNG dice on group make up. This is the same as going into an EQ dungeon with all wizards or all warriors.
In GW2, you either took the time to understand the mechanics and bring a complementary group, or you run around, kiting, downing and zerg rushing the bosses.
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If you ugys want to see how a game works without aggro management look at Guild Wars 1. There was no predictable aggro in that game and no way of managing it. Yet every player had a role to fulfill and team play was strategic and satisfying. GW1 had some of the most challenging fights of any MMO i have ever played and it was mainly because of the atypical aggro on mobs.
I've always hated the tank and spank of traditional trinity combat. Personally tanking should be done with active skills like how it is done in MOBAs. Slow fields, short duration taunts, pushes/pulls, stuns, blinds, impassable barriers; things that allow active tanking and not just spamming the taunt button.
We didn't think at all about the classes we chose, we only had the presence of mind to choose aoe heal/buff abilites... other than that group play consisted of run and shoot. We ignored combos and even each other for the most part, other than hitting our aoe abilities at nearly random intervals. Sure it is group play, but it's pretty simplistic for my taste. I won't judge you if you found something deeper within the system than I did, but for us, it felt shallow and we just decided to move on.
Ya it seems like you were halfway there. GW2 lets each class form to different roles. Like a necro could high dps, or it could really high support. This was done intentionally so players could pick the class that they wanted to roleplay and thought was the coolest, but still be able to fit in with any of your friends in a group.
But ya, you were half way there, you considered group play when picking your skills, but didn't really work on fields and complementing spec loadouts, so you had to kite and run around. If you had dug a little deeper you would have seen that GW2 system was not so different from what you prefer.
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It may have been deeper, but since it was so easy for us to clear content, we didn't want to dig deeper.
Well, i m Dungeon Master in GW2 and i have played 400 fractals, for my experience you dont need a class coordination in order to end an istance in GW2, you only need to have players that have a good spec for their classes (no glass cannons), that dodge at the right time, that do decent dps and that dont do stupid things (like throwing themself in a group of mobs pretenting to be a tank for example).
The fact that you dont need a class cordination is proven by the fact that you can do praticaly all the istances of the game with a group of random classes.
"Brute force not work? It because you not use enought of it"
-Karg, Ogryn Bone'ead.
Been following this discussion and it's a very odd argument on the pro-GW2 side. So GW2 is easy enough to do the content without going in depth with combat, and if you do go deeper into combat you get something akin to the trinity.
How does this make GW2 better? It's easy enough that you don't need a trinity, but if you put more effort into it, you get to play it with a pseudo-trinity which is apparently . . . more fun? So why not just go with a trinity?
I've played my fair share of GW2 too, and it seems that cross class combos aren't really that impressive, or at least, not useful enough to warrant a set up considering most skills happen so quickly. Gallus, do you have a video of a group doing a dungeon using the methods you describe in this and other posts in this thread? I'd be very curious to try it out.
I have nothing against GW2. It's easy enough to clear content without really thinking, and some people say it's deeper, but I couldn't find it.
They say combos are great... in reality they feel weak and their downfall is they are not needed to clear anything.
They say there is important ways to play your group that will make groups so much better... but they are not needed to clear anything.
Maybe those things do exist, but GW2's group play is such a weak tack on that only the worst players are actually having trouble and need to even consider thinking about combos... which is very counter-intuitive, since those players are the least likely to actually learn an advanced technique.
It's really a poor design for PvE. I'm not saying a system without role's couldn't work, but it just ends up being a bunch of guys running around dodging and shooting at stuff in GW2... and that simplistic style works just fine to clear everything.
Edit: I should mention that I agree with your point lol.
I wouldn't say "Better". I'd say it was different. It's nice to get something different instead of the same old same old, imho.
Well you can say that cross class combos aren't impressive, but the difference in damage when your whole group stays in range, drops a fire field, and 1 or 2 people put blast finishers in those fire fields, you end up with +25x Might x 5 players = +125 might worth of extra dps on the mob.... that's pretty massive difference in the damage output of the group.
Being able to drop water fields and keep players alive is also a really big difference imo.
Drop a poison field from a thief or a necro then do blast finishers and leaps through them to cause Weakness, and you just reduced the mob's damage by 50%. 50% damage reduction for utilizing fields right in this situation. Frankly I don't know how much more powerful you want this system to be before it becomes meaningful to you.
Sethius says that he could clear the content without thinking about it, but I feel that he just got lucky/exaggerating the easy of his game experience on top of playing with a static group. His team was already thinking about group oriented skills, and on top of this, they were probably taking advantage of fields unknowingly, and even admits to still running around during fights.
It's possible that it can happen, but clearly this was not the case with a large portion of the population. There are tons of videos on youtube and tons of complaints on the GW2 forums about people are getting wiped on exploration mode AC dungeon, and it's only a lvl 30 instance lol. Clearly the game is doing something right in terms of difficulty.
As for a video, I didn't record any PVE dungeons. I could try to find a good one for you, or make my own. I'll post back if I find something.
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You seem pretty thoughtful about the game, which I can appreciate. I will say that I do admit to running around during fights, and frankly it was a strategy that worked great. I'd call that a weakness of the system that simply running around enables you to win much of the time, but that's just me.
As for the AC dungeon supposed to be easier because it's lvl 30... I thought the scaling pretty much did a good job of negating that (not entirely of course, once you got all exotics it was easier), and that was a strength of GW2 imo.
Anyway, it's neither here nor there. The game system is fine for what it is, but it feels to me to be lackluster compared to a trinity based system. I rooted for it at first, I too wanted to break the mold, but after awhile I found myself longing for the complexity of my old job as a tank.
Now, I will say, the jump puzzles... those were amazing! =D
I'm curious to what combat system you would say is superior.
In games that have the trinity, you're typically pressing a pre-arranged set of skill buttons to either taunt/do damage or do damage.
If you're a healer, you wait till HP bars go down, then press a few buttons to make them go up.
Every class is predefined a role and role is extremely simple and easy to perform.
What game would you say shines over GW2's combat system?
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Ya, I guess because I've played so many trinity MMOs and none of them came close to the complexity of character development and combat that GW2 did.
I've played tanks, healers, support and DPS in a wide range of trinity games, from EQ, Lineage 2, EQ2, Vanguard, Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR, just to name a few, and none of them really stood out as "complex" when it came to combat.
Tank taunts, healer watches those HP bars and DPS stand somewhere (generally behind the mob) and push buttons.
Didn't ever feel as fun or interactive as GW2's combat.
But most games? Zzzzz. Not complex at all.
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Holy hells, ROFL...
As for the OP, I'd like to see something different done with such mechanics.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I m not talking about combat system, i m talking about strategies in PvE and need of coordinations between classes with unique skills . I think that EQ and WOW (first WoW with 40 peeps raid) was far better than GW2 PvE.
"Brute force not work? It because you not use enought of it"
-Karg, Ogryn Bone'ead.
And what's the difference between Playing a cleric in EQ, and being told that you heal people when their HPs get low, or speccing a character in GW2 to throw out regens, utilize water-field blast finishers and using skills to heal your allies?
The only difference I see is that one system the class tells you what you will do, and the other lets classes change to fit different roles as they see fit. Both systems require team work and looking out for each other, but one allows for more class diversity.
If we're just speaking on those terms, I don't personally mind either and I'll be happy if EQN has either (or something else).
But I feel that GW2 was an evolution to a more realistic, fun and dynamic fighting experience (while still benefiting from different play styles)
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I agree though. I'm a sucker for new. Personally, I can find the good in just about any game. So I don't care if EQN has a trinity, or something else... but I love seeing new innovations and seeing old systems modernized.
And I've always felt that the trinity style game play made combat not feel like... combat. It's always felt kinda 1 dimensional, cheesy and unrealistic. But that's ok. I like a little cheese too sometimes.
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Guild Wars 1. Slight alterations to the usual aggro system, but everyone still had fulfilling and necessary role in a team.
I think combo fields had the potential to be neat, but from what I experienced almost no one ever made any coordinated effort in their use beyond dropping them in the middle of a zerg/on top of a mob where they will obviously proc something through the usual skill spam.
But i'm not really seeing the major innovation in it personally over other games. Dropping an AE on the ground and proccing with something that will make it spit out a short might/retal or heal is more or less the same effect as having a shaman in EQ2 buffing team mates with bolster or shielding them with wards. Or exploiting weaknesses/chainning group buffs in Vanguard.
I suppose you could say you don't have to actually switch targets over to a group member with combo fields since they are ground targeted, but i'm not sure if that was ever the kind of thing anyone ever taken issue with in the usual trinity.