To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
Exactly.
I still play D&D (Pathfinder, but lets not get into RPG version arguments on an MMO site.) In my current group, my Oracle of Battle (divine caster) is the tank, the fighter is a glass cannon, and the arcane caster is support.
The group has a strongly defined set of roles based upon how each character is built.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
I played D&D since the early 80s. No, D&D didn't have taunts until the lousy 4th edition a few years back. And while a cleric didn't hurt the only class almost all AD&D groups had was a thief, but not so much for DPS as for opening locks, disable traps and to find hidden stuff, you always lost a lot of loot unless you had one.
Pen and paper RPG combat is very different from trinity, in P&P the mobs act smart (if they are smart of course) and try to take out the easy kills first.
D&D do have plate users and they often body blocks opponents from killing the squishy characters but that is as much trinity as there ever was.
The trinity is basicly something that showed up in primitive forms in MUDs, got a bit polish in Meridian 59 and were complete in Everquest. No pre -Wow pen and paper RPG ever had it at least to my knowledge and I played a lot of them. You are just wrong.
GW2 also has the issue of having a terrible combat system that is too over-reliant on the player having lightning reflexes (complete damage avoidance) to make up for bad game mechanics. Dungeon runs are a hot mess in that game. Really, any time I spent playing it I consider a complete waste. The lack of defined Tank, Healer roles makes everything feel messy and uncoordinated.
And if you do bad damage in a group in that game, you will get kicked. They don't care if you were trying to be a tank or trying to Spec for better Survivability and Healing... Welcome to eSports.
But yea, after playing GW2, I will never play another game without hard targeting (click a MOB and it's you target), or so called "Action Combat," or one that tries to use the lack of defined roles as a selling point.
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
I played D&D since the early 80s. No, D&D didn't have taunts until the lousy 4th edition a few years back. And while a cleric didn't hurt the only class almost all AD&D groups had was a thief, but not so much for DPS as for opening locks, disable traps and to find hidden stuff, you always lost a lot of loot unless you had one.
Pen and paper RPG combat is very different from trinity, in P&P the mobs act smart (if they are smart of course) and try to take out the easy kills first.
D&D do have plate users and they often body blocks opponents from killing the squishy characters but that is as much trinity as there ever was.
The trinity is basicly something that showed up in primitive forms in MUDs, got a bit polish in Meridian 59 and were complete in Everquest. No pre -Wow pen and paper RPG ever had it at least to my knowledge and I played a lot of them. You are just wrong.
Loke666 is right on this one. Do not feel bad Rhoklaw, I made the same exact mistake in another thread. It is probably the only time I was outright wrong. Waynejr2 reminded me the same as Loke666 just did you here. They are right, as the warrior or fighter types, did not hold aggro. It came down to game master's decisions (which sometimes was based on your character standing out, based on some outrageous decision you made, which could be considered a sort of aggro skill but not really) and-or game master's dice rolls (which was completely random... or fixed... tinfoil hats not included), in order to know who the encounters were attacking. The first real aggro type skills were online, and thus the original "trinity itself" (if there was a trinity in paper and pen rpgs) did not include aggro. I can honestly say, that I can not even remember hearing of any trinity before online MMORPGs. And that conversation with Waynejr2 opening up a can on my sorry ass, led to my doing some research into some other areas as well. Was worth the spanking.
Trinity was a term that was coined because of EverQuest's group content design.
Trinity != Tank/Healer/DPS
Trinity == Tank/Healer/Enchanter
The Enchanter is largely absent in most games and its duties are split among the rest of the classes. It was the biggest issue in early EQ, as no other classes could be subbed in for lacking an Enchanter and without one you were hurting in end-game dungeons (hell, even some lower level dungeons sucked without an Enchanter)
I can't play a game without Healer and Tank roles. If combat is bad then that's not the trinity's fault. That's the game designer's fault. Improve your MOB AI, and things improve.
GW2 is an utter train wreck eSport failure without a proper tank and healer role. I doubt most people who play that game play it for the PvE and most people who got it got it because they couldn't afford a[n additional] subscription in better games.
Originally posted by Amjoco If the trinity system would have never been invented this genre would have been much better off imho. Imagine if mmorpgs had started out non-trinity to begin with we would have all learned to play that way. If a developer came along later and said "look, we have this new system called Holy Trinity" we all would have dismissed it quickly. It is unnatural to me, and loses game immersity when you have to have a certain team to fight an enemy. A band of players should be able to just gather together and go fight for glory! The system GW2 has in place needs fixing, but in general I like what they have started. I'm not sure I could answer the OPs question right off, but there just isn't one reason I would want to play it other than that is what the norm is.
I like the defined roles. It creates multiple experiences of the same content. Running a dungeon as a healer vs tank vs dps vs support/cc can offer a fresh perspective on the same content. Needing a specific skill set to overcome a group challenge is a cornerstone of fantasy role playing. Goes back to the beginning; "But we have the white wizard. That's got to count for something."
And was that white wizard DPS or heals?
Because as i remember he was pure HYBRID And he soloed big baddie
Hehe well I'm taking about abilities that he brought to the table that his companions did not have. Things that if he weren't there to use those unique abilities, the group would have failed. Same with the rest of that group
And none of them had specific role, and if you had to transfer it to MMO they were all hybrids.
As i said, trinity was dumbing down combat to make it simplistic. trinity "works" because its simple, but its also very limiting because every encounter has to be designed in one way - trinity way, no surpises no nothing. Some people wants to take it slow and easy and they have trinity, others want more complex fights and there trinity doesnt cut it any more (because any complexity in design used in trinity can be used without the trinity)
And when you talk about group dynamics thats also super simplified in trinity because its preset and cant be changed in any way because of strictly designed preset roles.
Just take GW2 and combo fields. You dont have to strictly be buff bot that spams buffs to put down fire field, and you dont have to strictly be buff bot to blast it. But you have much higher requirement to get buffed than buff bot spamming same button over and over again. Same goes for every other role.
um... lol?
One of the best parts of the so-called "holy trinity" was grouping without it (ie, all casters anyone?). The "holy trinity" is simply about interdependence specifically, and is certainly not an easy task to solo on any class in such a game design. Classes designed correctly in the so-called "holy trinity" design, can have plenty of skills to make use of (ie, no mashing any single or select few skills over and over). Oh, do pardon me, I forgot what generation of gamers I am talking to.
I share your viewpoint but your last sentence is completely unnecessary and makes you come across as very immature.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
I played D&D since the early 80s. No, D&D didn't have taunts until the lousy 4th edition a few years back. And while a cleric didn't hurt the only class almost all AD&D groups had was a thief, but not so much for DPS as for opening locks, disable traps and to find hidden stuff, you always lost a lot of loot unless you had one.
Pen and paper RPG combat is very different from trinity, in P&P the mobs act smart (if they are smart of course) and try to take out the easy kills first.
D&D do have plate users and they often body blocks opponents from killing the squishy characters but that is as much trinity as there ever was.
The trinity is basicly something that showed up in primitive forms in MUDs, got a bit polish in Meridian 59 and were complete in Everquest. No pre -Wow pen and paper RPG ever had it at least to my knowledge and I played a lot of them. You are just wrong.
Loke666 is right on this one. Do not feel bad Rhoklaw, I made the same exact mistake in another thread. It is probably the only time I was outright wrong. Waynejr2 reminded me the same as Loke666 just did you here. They are right, as the warrior or fighter types, did not hold aggro. It came down to game master's decisions (which sometimes was based on your character standing out, based on some outrageous decision you made, which could be considered a sort of aggro skill but not really) and-or game master's dice rolls (which was completely random... or fixed... tinfoil hats not included), in order to know who the encounters were attacking. The first real aggro type skills were online, and thus the original "trinity itself" (if there was a trinity in paper and pen rpgs) did not include aggro. I can honestly say, that I can not even remember hearing of any trinity before online MMORPGs. And that conversation with Waynejr2 opening up a can on my sorry ass, led to my doing some research into some other areas as well. Was worth the spanking.
Trinity was a term that was coined because of EverQuest's group content design.
Trinity != Tank/Healer/DPS
Trinity == Tank/Healer/Enchanter
The Enchanter is largely absent in most games and its duties are split among the rest of the classes. It was the biggest issue in early EQ, as no other classes could be subbed in for lacking an Enchanter and without one you were hurting in end-game dungeons (hell, even some lower level dungeons sucked without an Enchanter)
I can't play a game without Healer and Tank roles. If combat is bad then that's not the trinity's fault. That's the game designer's fault. Improve your MOB AI, and things improve.
GW2 is an utter train wreck eSport failure without a proper tank and healer role. I doubt most people who play that game play it for the PvE and most people who got it got it because they couldn't afford a[n additional] subscription in better games.
To be honest I am not even sure people were tossing around the term "holy trinity" that much before GW2 started mocking the concept. I've played tons of MMOs before GW2 and have been reading these boards, and you would very rarely hear the "holy trinity" being mentioned if at all. I didn't even hear people complaining about it. The main thing people were complanining about from time to time was that there were never enough tanks/healers and there was discussion how to entice more people to play those roles as opposed to removing the concept altogether.
Tehn GW2 came in storming with its hype and propaganda and started making fun of the holy trinity and all of a sudden people started talking about it. When playing EQ/UO and classic WoW I've never ever heard the term holy trinity. Even way after that in GW1 and more recent MMOs like Rift, you still didn't hear about it.
In my opinion it's all propaganda and hype on GW2's part to make their combat sound "cool".
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Definitely, the lack of healers in GW2 basically made me write off the game all together, i played it for a while and had fun, but when i level capped the game just felt poorly designed.
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
I played D&D since the early 80s. No, D&D didn't have taunts until the lousy 4th edition a few years back. And while a cleric didn't hurt the only class almost all AD&D groups had was a thief, but not so much for DPS as for opening locks, disable traps and to find hidden stuff, you always lost a lot of loot unless you had one.
Pen and paper RPG combat is very different from trinity, in P&P the mobs act smart (if they are smart of course) and try to take out the easy kills first.
D&D do have plate users and they often body blocks opponents from killing the squishy characters but that is as much trinity as there ever was.
The trinity is basicly something that showed up in primitive forms in MUDs, got a bit polish in Meridian 59 and were complete in Everquest. No pre -Wow pen and paper RPG ever had it at least to my knowledge and I played a lot of them. You are just wrong.
Loke666 is right on this one. Do not feel bad Rhoklaw, I made the same exact mistake in another thread. It is probably the only time I was outright wrong. Waynejr2 reminded me the same as Loke666 just did you here. They are right, as the warrior or fighter types, did not hold aggro. It came down to game master's decisions (which sometimes was based on your character standing out, based on some outrageous decision you made, which could be considered a sort of aggro skill but not really) and-or game master's dice rolls (which was completely random... or fixed... tinfoil hats not included), in order to know who the encounters were attacking. The first real aggro type skills were online, and thus the original "trinity itself" (if there was a trinity in paper and pen rpgs) did not include aggro. I can honestly say, that I can not even remember hearing of any trinity before online MMORPGs. And that conversation with Waynejr2 opening up a can on my sorry ass, led to my doing some research into some other areas as well. Was worth the spanking.
Aggro system and the traditional roles are there for a reason. Theres a synergy created to promote teamwork and interdependence. Of course its not the way it was on pen and paper, but its there to simulate it. The trinity is structure, and aggro is there to prevent chaos that exists in games without it. I find combat without aggro and the role system absolutely horrible. The class system that goes with it is usually equally horrid.
Without these systems combat degenerates. You might as well just play an FPS.
I remember Paul Barnett when he was talking about Warhammer and said their healers were not going to be standing at the back and going "and I heal and I heal and I heal". That game had some nice ideas like the tank classes taunting players in PvP.
On the forums in Everquest the term Holy Trinity was used in jest made up of Warrior,Cleric and Enchanter because they were the ones that got groups and formed groups. The rest of us DPS classes then I played a wizard begged for scraps at the table. The thing was you could play and succeed at dungeons with other classes it was the ideal group though but people got hooked on the requirement and started turning away other classes . Poor druids and shadow knights . I recall doing Guk with a shadow knight tank ,well we had an awesome bard but no enchanter. It was done even in EQ the group composition could be changed but most slavishly started asking for the Holy Trinity. They made it worse when the cleric was the only one at one point who could rez and give back about 90 % of the experience you lost making them even more desirable. I am talking about 1999-2000 .
There is a lot of hate for the trinity because many of us were spurned by it and carry those memories but it also had its merits and I see a lot of blind hate for it without really considering what it did for groups and how it was intuitive.
I never actually did many dungeons in GW 2 but the few I did was not all strategic or had any real roles so to speak but finished it and I cannot say anything about the dungeons because quite frankly there were unremarkable and forgettable the experience. Probably the later dungeons may have been better but the outdoor events where we killed these big bosses outside where people threw buffs and you got 'combo' they were just, just people mashing skills to kill the guy.I mean you could have skill and threw down combos and such but they were not necessary.There was somebody who commented you missed buffs if you did not do the combo and such but honestly none of it was significant. The bosses went down whether you played poorly or well. If you got low in health you ran away and then come back. When you were 'downed' someone might get you up before you completely die if you're lucky but overall there is no appreciable difference your presence. Just one other person zerging. Could be now this is all different I played in the beginning when the game was very full so I guess there were a lot of people running around and tactics were not needed at all.
I enjoyed the game as a casual and such but I cannot say much about the dungeon experience and since I never did the PvP I cannot talk about that but I have seen very good videos showing small groups of people working together and killing loads of others who were not working together. That game probably would be advantages to people who play and like PvP. The PvE side I am not qualified to comment I guess since my time was short but it was fun and pretty game but not one I would go to to enjoy group mechanics. The game is not a poster child for grouping in PvE. You did not need to work together at all unless there were too few people to take down a boss. Then if someone took charge and we would see some chat about using the combos and such it worked but intuitively the don't work together which is why the game gives the impression it does.
Random people tend to work together better when they have roles .I am not saying it is better or that GW 2 is a bad game because of the lack of trinity but if you put random people together and they have to do something they do better when they have roles. GW 2 works marvelously when you play with a group of friends and use tactics and such to take down larger groups. Strangers oth it is probably not such a grand experience in game play.
Originally posted by Bladestrom Lol the term holy trinity existed long before gw2 - simply google holy trinity and look at the dates,
I didn't say that it didn't exist so your statement is completely out of place and pointless. I said barely anyone spoke about it. Googling provided very few results with most of them just someone mentioning something about holy trinity in a post.
Everquest discussion 2004 talking about the trinity.
No, one guy mentioned "holy trinity" in that topic. That was more of a phrase he just dropped. The guy was asknig what would be a good combo for 3 people.
As I said, you always had that trinity in MMORPGs however it was never something which was discussed that much. YOu might get what like 1 topic every year or less with like 5 posts in it? But after GW2 everyone seems to be talking and moaning about it.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
I can not stand the "i can do everything at once" games. I want a distinct role, i want to be a tank, or a healer. Not a healing tank dps. Or worse: A dodging DPS like GW2 did. It is just no fun at all without interdependance in a group.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Originally posted by Bladestrom Lol the term holy trinity existed long before gw2 - simply google holy trinity and look at the dates,
I didn't say that it didn't exist so your statement is completely out of place and pointless. I said barely anyone spoke about it. Googling provided very few results with most of them just someone mentioning something about holy trinity in a post.
Everquest discussion 2004 talking about the trinity.
No, one guy mentioned "holy trinity" in that topic. That was more of a phrase he just dropped. The guy was asknig what would be a good combo for 3 people.
As I said, you always had that trinity in MMORPGs however it was never something which was discussed that much. YOu might get what like 1 topic every year or less with like 5 posts in it? But after GW2 everyone seems to be talking and moaning about it.
Ye fair enough, The issue is more to do with GW2 being the first big AAA game (although there are others like EVE,GW1 etc) to try to break away from the trinity, and gaming forums like this where people trying to argue one is better than the other. In reality both trinity and non trinity simply offer different forms of gameplay, some like trinity, some like non trinity, some like both.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
No, not at all. The trinity have become worse and worse for many years anyways, now it is so dumbed down that it is neither challenging nor fun.
If a game have trinity or not doesn't really matter as long as it have group dynamics. I can adapt to new ways, no problem.
What is a problem is any game where you can skill rotate through through most or all of the content.
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Wrong. You have classes which resisted damage better than others, but there was no tank as they exist in MMORPGs. You had no threat table.
The worse is not the trinity. The worse is the threat mechanics, which are completely artificial.
I still enjoy games with threat tables, but I've also played many games which were/are very good and didn't have one (UO, AC1, GW2) and it's refreshing to have some more realistic behavior of mobs than just bash the guy with the heaviest armor and the biggest health pool.
Totally agree, threat tables, and games designed around bosses with threat tables creates simplified fights. Whats much much more interesting is a boss fight with loads of mechanics and no threat magnet versus a group with tons of classes and variations of skills and synergies. Unfortunately in competitive raiding games this cant be balanced, and bosses have to be balanced to stretch out the content and to make the gear valuable.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Roleplaying your character doesn't matter if it's an open skill set or predetermined. You still come down to the basic fundamental classes of tank, healer, dps and support.
yea, been playing PnP RPGs from the age of 12 till like 25 or something... and we never had a tank.
we made up plans how to handle mob groups, who attacked and handled whom... and usualy my mage blew himself up right in the first 5 secs of the fight (after concentrating on his spell for like 5 mins he totaly blew it into himself or a friend... love fail casts), the hunter ranger usualy tripped about some animal he wanted to tame and the warris ususaly ended up fighting alone anway. which did NOT make em tanks, just the last 2 standing :P
it was more about cc than about tanking (IF our plans worked).
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
To whoever it was that said having a tank role completely negates RPG. I sincerely hope you are being sarcastic as trinity system was designed directly from paper and pencil dungeons and dragons table top. You had tank, healer and dps classes as well as support classes. So I'm afraid you got it backwards.
Wrong. You had classes which resisted damage better than others, but there was no tank as they exist in MMORPGs. You had no threat table.
The worse is not the trinity. The worse is the threat mechanics, which are completely artificial.
I still enjoy games with threat tables, but I've also played many games which were/are very good and didn't have one (UO, AC1, GW2) and it's refreshing to have some more realistic behavior of mobs than just bash the guy with the heaviest armor and the biggest health pool.
Threat mechanics only simulate a role which is the protector. MMOs use it for lack of a better option. We are coming to the point where we could use more collision to accomplish this goal, but that will still create a more skill-based, twitchy form of combat that doesn't work well in mmorpgs for a variety of reasons. Either way, implementing that sort of thing for the sake of tactics and group play will ultimately seem a little "artificial". Video games are artificial by nature...
It's not about trinity vs. no tronity, it's about whether the system works for the game, and if the rest of the game works, too.
I loved UO, GW1, Vindictus..
GW2 is indeed messy though. So i played the hell out of two games with no trinity, and one with a trinity, while at the same time not liking the approach of another non-trinity game. I also loved that you basically needed a thief in DDO for the instances. Traps were way more deadly than most enemies.
Nothing to do with the system itself. Either it works, or it doesn''t.
It's the same as with visual style. It's not realistic vs. cartoon or how a high polygon count doesn't mean a game looks good.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
It annoyed me. Ie. in ff1 and 4, no one needed healing but white mage dps sucked. Cecil's cover only had 1 target, was only physical, and wasted a turn.
i don't know if i could play an mmorpg without trinity or at least having roles. what would be the point of grouping up other than to just zerg stuff down? no thanks.
Comments
Exactly.
I still play D&D (Pathfinder, but lets not get into RPG version arguments on an MMO site.) In my current group, my Oracle of Battle (divine caster) is the tank, the fighter is a glass cannon, and the arcane caster is support.
The group has a strongly defined set of roles based upon how each character is built.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
I played D&D since the early 80s. No, D&D didn't have taunts until the lousy 4th edition a few years back. And while a cleric didn't hurt the only class almost all AD&D groups had was a thief, but not so much for DPS as for opening locks, disable traps and to find hidden stuff, you always lost a lot of loot unless you had one.
Pen and paper RPG combat is very different from trinity, in P&P the mobs act smart (if they are smart of course) and try to take out the easy kills first.
D&D do have plate users and they often body blocks opponents from killing the squishy characters but that is as much trinity as there ever was.
The trinity is basicly something that showed up in primitive forms in MUDs, got a bit polish in Meridian 59 and were complete in Everquest. No pre -Wow pen and paper RPG ever had it at least to my knowledge and I played a lot of them. You are just wrong.
GW2 also has the issue of having a terrible combat system that is too over-reliant on the player having lightning reflexes (complete damage avoidance) to make up for bad game mechanics. Dungeon runs are a hot mess in that game. Really, any time I spent playing it I consider a complete waste. The lack of defined Tank, Healer roles makes everything feel messy and uncoordinated.
And if you do bad damage in a group in that game, you will get kicked. They don't care if you were trying to be a tank or trying to Spec for better Survivability and Healing... Welcome to eSports.
But yea, after playing GW2, I will never play another game without hard targeting (click a MOB and it's you target), or so called "Action Combat," or one that tries to use the lack of defined roles as a selling point.
Trinity was a term that was coined because of EverQuest's group content design.
Trinity != Tank/Healer/DPS
Trinity == Tank/Healer/Enchanter
The Enchanter is largely absent in most games and its duties are split among the rest of the classes. It was the biggest issue in early EQ, as no other classes could be subbed in for lacking an Enchanter and without one you were hurting in end-game dungeons (hell, even some lower level dungeons sucked without an Enchanter)
I can't play a game without Healer and Tank roles. If combat is bad then that's not the trinity's fault. That's the game designer's fault. Improve your MOB AI, and things improve.
GW2 is an utter train wreck eSport failure without a proper tank and healer role. I doubt most people who play that game play it for the PvE and most people who got it got it because they couldn't afford a[n additional] subscription in better games.
I share your viewpoint but your last sentence is completely unnecessary and makes you come across as very immature.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
To be honest I am not even sure people were tossing around the term "holy trinity" that much before GW2 started mocking the concept. I've played tons of MMOs before GW2 and have been reading these boards, and you would very rarely hear the "holy trinity" being mentioned if at all. I didn't even hear people complaining about it. The main thing people were complanining about from time to time was that there were never enough tanks/healers and there was discussion how to entice more people to play those roles as opposed to removing the concept altogether.
Tehn GW2 came in storming with its hype and propaganda and started making fun of the holy trinity and all of a sudden people started talking about it. When playing EQ/UO and classic WoW I've never ever heard the term holy trinity. Even way after that in GW1 and more recent MMOs like Rift, you still didn't hear about it.
In my opinion it's all propaganda and hype on GW2's part to make their combat sound "cool".
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Everquest discussion 2004 talking about the trinity.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Aggro system and the traditional roles are there for a reason. Theres a synergy created to promote teamwork and interdependence. Of course its not the way it was on pen and paper, but its there to simulate it. The trinity is structure, and aggro is there to prevent chaos that exists in games without it. I find combat without aggro and the role system absolutely horrible. The class system that goes with it is usually equally horrid.
Without these systems combat degenerates. You might as well just play an FPS.
I remember Paul Barnett when he was talking about Warhammer and said their healers were not going to be standing at the back and going "and I heal and I heal and I heal". That game had some nice ideas like the tank classes taunting players in PvP.
On the forums in Everquest the term Holy Trinity was used in jest made up of Warrior,Cleric and Enchanter because they were the ones that got groups and formed groups. The rest of us DPS classes then I played a wizard begged for scraps at the table. The thing was you could play and succeed at dungeons with other classes it was the ideal group though but people got hooked on the requirement and started turning away other classes . Poor druids and shadow knights . I recall doing Guk with a shadow knight tank ,well we had an awesome bard but no enchanter. It was done even in EQ the group composition could be changed but most slavishly started asking for the Holy Trinity. They made it worse when the cleric was the only one at one point who could rez and give back about 90 % of the experience you lost making them even more desirable. I am talking about 1999-2000 .
There is a lot of hate for the trinity because many of us were spurned by it and carry those memories but it also had its merits and I see a lot of blind hate for it without really considering what it did for groups and how it was intuitive.
I never actually did many dungeons in GW 2 but the few I did was not all strategic or had any real roles so to speak but finished it and I cannot say anything about the dungeons because quite frankly there were unremarkable and forgettable the experience. Probably the later dungeons may have been better but the outdoor events where we killed these big bosses outside where people threw buffs and you got 'combo' they were just, just people mashing skills to kill the guy.I mean you could have skill and threw down combos and such but they were not necessary.There was somebody who commented you missed buffs if you did not do the combo and such but honestly none of it was significant. The bosses went down whether you played poorly or well. If you got low in health you ran away and then come back. When you were 'downed' someone might get you up before you completely die if you're lucky but overall there is no appreciable difference your presence. Just one other person zerging. Could be now this is all different I played in the beginning when the game was very full so I guess there were a lot of people running around and tactics were not needed at all.
I enjoyed the game as a casual and such but I cannot say much about the dungeon experience and since I never did the PvP I cannot talk about that but I have seen very good videos showing small groups of people working together and killing loads of others who were not working together. That game probably would be advantages to people who play and like PvP. The PvE side I am not qualified to comment I guess since my time was short but it was fun and pretty game but not one I would go to to enjoy group mechanics. The game is not a poster child for grouping in PvE. You did not need to work together at all unless there were too few people to take down a boss. Then if someone took charge and we would see some chat about using the combos and such it worked but intuitively the don't work together which is why the game gives the impression it does.
Random people tend to work together better when they have roles .I am not saying it is better or that GW 2 is a bad game because of the lack of trinity but if you put random people together and they have to do something they do better when they have roles. GW 2 works marvelously when you play with a group of friends and use tactics and such to take down larger groups. Strangers oth it is probably not such a grand experience in game play.
No, one guy mentioned "holy trinity" in that topic. That was more of a phrase he just dropped. The guy was asknig what would be a good combo for 3 people.
As I said, you always had that trinity in MMORPGs however it was never something which was discussed that much. YOu might get what like 1 topic every year or less with like 5 posts in it? But after GW2 everyone seems to be talking and moaning about it.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Yes,Guild wars 2 make me realize that older games with trinity and deep PVE where so much better.
Yes. Every single one i tried.
I can not stand the "i can do everything at once" games. I want a distinct role, i want to be a tank, or a healer. Not a healing tank dps. Or worse: A dodging DPS like GW2 did. It is just no fun at all without interdependance in a group.
MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.
Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?
Ye fair enough, The issue is more to do with GW2 being the first big AAA game (although there are others like EVE,GW1 etc) to try to break away from the trinity, and gaming forums like this where people trying to argue one is better than the other. In reality both trinity and non trinity simply offer different forms of gameplay, some like trinity, some like non trinity, some like both.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Nice one, and the more "specialized" preset roles you have the worse it gets
Not to mention whole combat with"agrro" is nonsensical in itself, it was then, it is today.
And i said, trinity "works" because its dumbed down and simplified, when you meet someone he has his preset role, he push his button, you have your role, you push your button and it works. Just like that.
I know most people want it dumbified, but not everyone wants it like that, sorry folks.
i remember when ANet messed around with dailies, there was 1 daily where you had to kill something with combo finisher. So i grabbed 2 randoms and we went to do it. 2 of us got our 20/20 and a third guy had 0/20 and no amount of explaining and showing would do. I guess he missed trinity also. probably 1 of posters here.
Of course they removed that 1 and it never showed up again lol
Totally agree, threat tables, and games designed around bosses with threat tables creates simplified fights. Whats much much more interesting is a boss fight with loads of mechanics and no threat magnet versus a group with tons of classes and variations of skills and synergies. Unfortunately in competitive raiding games this cant be balanced, and bosses have to be balanced to stretch out the content and to make the gear valuable.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
yea, been playing PnP RPGs from the age of 12 till like 25 or something... and we never had a tank.
we made up plans how to handle mob groups, who attacked and handled whom... and usualy my mage blew himself up right in the first 5 secs of the fight (after concentrating on his spell for like 5 mins he totaly blew it into himself or a friend... love fail casts), the hunter ranger usualy tripped about some animal he wanted to tame and the warris ususaly ended up fighting alone anway. which did NOT make em tanks, just the last 2 standing :P
it was more about cc than about tanking (IF our plans worked).
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Threat mechanics only simulate a role which is the protector. MMOs use it for lack of a better option. We are coming to the point where we could use more collision to accomplish this goal, but that will still create a more skill-based, twitchy form of combat that doesn't work well in mmorpgs for a variety of reasons. Either way, implementing that sort of thing for the sake of tactics and group play will ultimately seem a little "artificial". Video games are artificial by nature...
It's not about trinity vs. no tronity, it's about whether the system works for the game, and if the rest of the game works, too.
I loved UO, GW1, Vindictus..
GW2 is indeed messy though. So i played the hell out of two games with no trinity, and one with a trinity, while at the same time not liking the approach of another non-trinity game. I also loved that you basically needed a thief in DDO for the instances. Traps were way more deadly than most enemies.
Nothing to do with the system itself. Either it works, or it doesn''t.
It's the same as with visual style. It's not realistic vs. cartoon or how a high polygon count doesn't mean a game looks good.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
i don't know if i could play an mmorpg without trinity or at least having roles. what would be the point of grouping up other than to just zerg stuff down? no thanks.