Well, one way to adapt the current methods of tanking and healing into a different form would be to have healing have diminishing returns. I mean there could easily be body limits from taking all your hit points 50 times in a minute. If any healing over say 50% of your hit points during say a 15 second period made further healing 20% worse, and healing over 100% in a 15 second period 40% worse etc. it would change healing and aggro away from having just one main tank who tries to take ALL of the damage from an encounter into having enough tanks trying to split the aggro enough to maximize the healing capacity of the group/raid.
The mob randomly targets someone and it is the heavily armored characters job to charge and knock the mob down for say 4 seconds. After 4 seconds the mob gets up and targets someone else. At that time it is another characters turn to charge and knock down the mob (because charge has, say, a 10 second cooldown). So basically you "ping pong" the mob with knock downs. And if someone actually does get hit, they have to fall back out of attack range to heal up essentially taking themselves out of the fight for a period of time.
A good group, in theory, could do the entire encounter without a single person taking damage.
Yep, its the good old "hitpoints are evil" thread all over again.
You said that already at the first page of this thread, I never talked about hitpoints. If you intend to repeat the same posts just to troll in this thread, just keep the hell out of a thread with a topic that apparently annoys you. Or contribute with valid arguments, not repeater ones.
It would be much more fun if the people complaining about hitpoints or the trinity would actually be able to provide an alternative.
Neither is there an alternative to the trinity. All the minor changes described here have already been done before in various games. Ideas such as "put a damage shield on people instead of a heal" doesnt change much of the principle. In fact the damage shield and the reactive heal (healbuff that activates once you get hit) are very common.
People in this thread provided alternative ways, learn to read.
GW2 devs specifically and very detailed described how they were going to get rid of the trinity. You can come up with things like 'oh, but this is still a trinity, oooh!' but what I referred to in the OP was the classic trinity of the past 10 years, and alternatives on that specific type of gameplay.
Sure, you can make games based on formation, but thats exactly what the aggro system typically present in MMOs is trying to emulate on a simplified basis !
How exactly you want to have a "formation" with 6 different people is however your secret ... I dont see many possible formations for that, especially when there is typically only one of each type of class present, which is exactly not the idea of formations.
In faction PvP very often a lot more than 6 people are playing at one side. A shieldwall in close quarters fighting or a charge btw can already be formed with 3 people.
Originally posted by Dusntmatter
So we now have 10 pages establishing how people feel about the trinity, so now let's use our time for something constructive.
What alternatives can we think of?
What about taking notes from various sports? With football we have the QB, linemen to block, wide recievers, etc., with basketball we have people setting on the ball/off the ball screens, we have shooting guards, point guards, centers, etc., with soccer we have people faking injuries hoping to draw a penatly (just messing with you soccer fans :P).
All these sports have elements of strategy and require teamwork. Do you think there is a way to adapt these types of elements to an MMO?
If you read the OP and the posts, you'll see that there's quite some suggestions and examples that are given in this thread, it wasn't only complaining about trinity as some peope who object discussing trinity alternatives like to think.
An MMO based on squad based shooters would provide other types of team gameplay already. As examples were mentioned Puzzle Pirates, or examples from GW or what ANet devs are doing with GW2.
I'm not sure how Darkfall manages team combat, people say it isn't trinity based, also EVE Online I have heard descriptions of combat that in no way sounded like trinity to me.
The main thing is that first people should have a clear image of what are the core elements of classic trinity. I described in the OP what I thought were the core elements of traditional trinity. Then you just remove those elements and what happens if you insert other gameplay mechanics instead of those core trinity elements.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If we are looking for alternatives, I suggest we all get in the mind set and ask our selves. What roles other than a melee class can perform? What other roles can a caster perform? What other roles can a ranged perform? Will there be zero variation for each class type? I don't think so. What we have now kinda works. I don't think we will ever do a 180 on changing the roles for a high fantasy mmo.
I've thought about it from a war scenario and still I don't see how the trinity can be changed. It can be improved, absolutely. Again, its the AI behavior that needs to change. Once that is changed to a more strategic level, then the combat mechanics/class design will follow.
I've thought about it from a war scenario and still I don't see how the trinity can be changed. It can be improved, absolutely. Again, its the AI behavior that needs to change. Once that is changed to a more strategic level, then the combat mechanics/class design will follow.
? Seen from a war scenario, I don't see much of a trinity mechanic in squad based shooters.
But looking at trinity, it isn't about changing trinity but about possible changes in team based tactics and (mob) encounter design in MMO's.
And when looking at that, even within an MMO model, there's enough possibilities, some of which we've seen in other MMO's.
- strip away taunting, make it trivial, and a tank or class with better damage absorption will be forced to use actions like root, snare, body blocking, knockdown or other cc or mob harassing skills to help out the more vulnerable team members.
- remove the dedicated healer class, give everyone some heal skills, and you'll have done away with the healer part of the classic trinity equation. Sure, it might be replaced by support/utility classes that can provide damage absorption/prevention shielding and so on, but that isn't classic trinity anymore.
- make positioning, collision detection/body blocking more important, add more focus to line-on-sight mechanics and the possibility of avoiding spells like fireballs or arrows and such, and all this will add even more options for other kinds of gameplay.
Of course, the design needs to support it, if taunting skills have been trivialised then devs need to design AI behaviour in such a way that it reflects those changes.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Well, one way to adapt the current methods of tanking and healing into a different form would be to have healing have diminishing returns. I mean there could easily be body limits from taking all your hit points 50 times in a minute. If any healing over say 50% of your hit points during say a 15 second period made further healing 20% worse, and healing over 100% in a 15 second period 40% worse etc. it would change healing and aggro away from having just one main tank who tries to take ALL of the damage from an encounter into having enough tanks trying to split the aggro enough to maximize the healing capacity of the group/raid.
This has been implented already quite a few times going all the way back to vanilla WoW at least. There are plenty of fights where two tanks have to switch tanking the boss because the original tank has been made useless by a debuff. They usually switch back and forth so the debuff has time to expire.
As early as Everquest you had very needed crowd control. That game had the trinity and crowd control. Many raids required multiple enchanters to succeed and not just healers and tanks. Then if we did not have enough DPS we still failed.
Maverick you brought up a tough topic like always .
Trinity can be broken easily , there is a big But , It then falls down to each player individual skills .
That is currently the problem , Trinity infact support the skilless people .
Example DPSers can tank a bos with good coordination and damage sharing .
That really requires a lot of cooperation , for now the encounters are made to one shot anything else but tanks.
But as you outlevel the instance , you will find the most optimal tank for those instances are infact DPSERS .
Problem is skill , people skill level reaction and patience are too low .
Thus holy trinity will excist for years to come , take wow people more then half of them fails at avoiding fires , don´t stand in aoe. and when asked who caused the wipe they all claim innocence.
You want those people to play on individual skills ?
Reasoning behind why holy trinity is easily broken , cause of city of heroes .
When other classes could tank , crowd control and general mayhem , it is not a zerg fast , but it is finding out smart oppenents. You don´t go taking on a boss unless you can are definetly sure you can handle it .
We didn´t really have tanks , everybody just do bloody hell there best , and it either works or it failed .Tanks made it easier and faster , but more contributing was healer .If you don´t have a proper healer , but a proper tank , It still went slower .
So basically the bottom line is , if you want to make a game without holy trinity in modern times .
You need to give people a strong selfheal , damage reduction options or cooldown and enough damage to beat the tough bosses .
But most important good enough skilled players . those skilled players usually can break the holy trinity even in this current system .
Just look at how Asheron's Call is designed, you'll see how you can break from holy trinity. Unfortuntely Turbine doesn't want to expand on that franchise, and nobody else is willing to do something different from the norm.
Watch this entire series (10 episodes) of Magicka gameplay to see how it's possible to have group gameplay with support, crowd control, damage and healing without the holy trinity.
Just look at how Asheron's Call is designed, you'll see how you can break from holy trinity. Unfortuntely Turbine doesn't want to expand on that franchise, and nobody else is willing to do something different from the norm.
there are others breaking the norm, ANET being one of them
Guild Wars 2's Johanson: MMO class trinity is "tired"
For me it comes down to dependency. Are players dependent on each other in an encounter or is each player only taking care of themselves during an encounter.
Roles create dependency IMO. So it doesn't matter if it is a streight trinity or any other way of creating dpendency. You still are dependent on others to complete an encounter. If someone doesn't do their role correctly, you will fail as a group. If each player is in charge of their own character and an encounter is completed regardless of each role, just killing everything before you die. You have no real dpendency on others. It is basically a solo event in a group encounter.
That is why I don't like skill based games that have no structure. Everyone is out for themsleves, and regardless of what you may think, it is more of a zerg situation IMO. So I like the trinity or any variation that adds dependency. So bottom line for me is that dpendency or a role to play is better than a FFA skill based system. That is why I am ok with the trinty for group encounters as long as the class is not gimped in PvE activities.
I'm curious as to what you'd think of a strict skill based system which has loosely based classes? It's really a mix of both or neither.
You have 5 "Focus" Ranks. Each Rank can choose between a Role: Stealth, Tank (Armor & Guarding Others), Magic (Wizard, Mage, etc.) Support Magic (Bard, Cleric, etc.), Offense (Berserker, Dual Wield, Polearms), Pets, etc. So each Focus is inevitably a Class.
However, you are a hybrid if you don't specialize in all 5 ranks of the same focus. So a Rank 5 Tank would have Platemail Armor (Consumes 3 Ranks, Leather, Chain, Plate), and be able to Parry exceptionally well (Blocking with Weapon) and mastery of the Shield, making for a player who has the best dmg aborption and the abililty to use TWO abilities to protect both themselves and another person, as well as the dmg absorption to absorb other's damage. Pure Tank. A 5 Magic (Wizard magic) player would have the most powerful Fire or Ice spells, a rank 5 Cleric the best support, etc.
To make a Paladin you'd take 1-4 roles in Tank, and 1-4 roles in Support. It's up to you what type of paladin that is. All sorts of Paladin types can be made (Chainmail with Smiting Melee, or Platemail and Shield with self buffs). Anyone can pick any mix. Special abilities are given to pure roles (a 5 Pet player gets a special pet at 5) and the 5th level is significant if the rank type (tank, stealth, magic, etc.) is a level up type of thing like Magic, and a special 6th free level for focus in one tree entirely (like Tank, which anyone can pick any of the 5, it's not a level up thing where you need Platemail to equip a shield).
Once a rank is chosen, you unlock skills and abilities by gaining Skill Points and investing them in a sub-set of skills which come with the Rank Focus. So you can be a 5 Rank Tank, but have only 50/100 of all skills, while another player can be a 5 rank tank with 100/100 capped skills and have more options (Such as Armor not slowing them down at all at 100 points).
There is little to no healing in the game, and support is entirely based on buffs and active buffs ((buffs which are strong and special but require action-focus from the supporter via a mini-game type of system or something).
There is a support role, but not a healer role, and the role of tank is a BIG one, as combat is about OBJECTIVES and not actual defeat of the enemy. And tanks have the ability to protect an objective where no other player can. So if you choose Rank 1: Tank, you get a Tank's Rank 1 ability, and whatever of the 5 ranks you picked (Armor, Parry, or Shield). So there's two parts to each rank focus. Abilities which come with the Rank # total (regardless of picked ability set in that rank, for ex Rank 1 Tank.) and abilities which come with the set you pick in that rank (for ex. Shield)
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
MMORPG = Massive multiplayer online really poor gameplay.... especially in wow's case.
Oh, and other genre's oversimplified gameplay and meaker-features are any better> MMORPG's have some of the most complex gameplay.
In fact... why are you even on these forums if you think this???? WoW is one of the most amazing games, for a plethora of reasons.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
At the risk of calls of "you want to do everything", I'd like to say I hate the trinity system simply because I could never get my head around damage variations.
I love the Paladin class (as a lot of people do) and it winds me up when they end up as a Tank class because it's usually gimped in PVP and has utter rubbish damage in PvE.
Put simply, a sword is a sword. It hurts if I stab you with it. I don't like seeing that my sword of stabbyness +250 does 10 damage simply because I have Heavy Plate and a Shield.
I understand why the trinity exists though, it's easy and it's structured. It also encourages or enforces group play of a sort, for anti-soloists that's a good thing. But it looks stupid especially in games like Star Trek Online... Escorts do damage, Engineers tank and Science ships heal... That doesn't really sit well with me, they should have pros and cons along a different line really and that's what classes should do in other MMO's.
Guild Wars did it well, you did have alternative options if you wanted to use them but Warriors weren't gimped simply because they had a shield and heavy plate there either. If anything they were capable of severely ruining one's day with knockdowns, cripples, bleed effects or pure heavy damage.
That's my 2 incoherent cents mind (alcohol and all that...) but yeah.
Well, one way to adapt the current methods of tanking and healing into a different form would be to have healing have diminishing returns. I mean there could easily be body limits from taking all your hit points 50 times in a minute. If any healing over say 50% of your hit points during say a 15 second period made further healing 20% worse, and healing over 100% in a 15 second period 40% worse etc. it would change healing and aggro away from having just one main tank who tries to take ALL of the damage from an encounter into having enough tanks trying to split the aggro enough to maximize the healing capacity of the group/raid.
Funny how when people try to come up with alternatives to the trinity they still fall back on the same old trinity system, but in this case a slightly more annoying trinity. So instead of requiring 1 healer & 1 tank for a straightforward "tank-n-spank" encounter, you'll require multiple, making the most annoying feature of the trinity (the waiting around) just that little bit worse. Personally I don't think it's a difficult task to come up with a feasible alternative to the trinity, but that is because I come from a more varied gaming background (FPS, RTS, action RPG, Fighting, etc.) and the notion of: a guy soaking up all the damage, whilst another heals and the rest do their own thing; is fairly new to me.
Well I'm just glad that not every MMO studio out there is as uncreative as a lot of the naysayers in this forum, who believe that a trinity-less combat system will result in a mindless zergfest, where no teamwork is involved. Well here's a little demonstration of a trinity-less system from a little unknown game called Guild Wars 2:
Notice how there are 2 heavy armoured characters but they aren't up in the mob's business, taking all the damage, or someone at the back handing out first-aid and yet they are still playing off each other. MMO combat should be more about using what your teammates bring, to your advantage and vice versa, not on having to rely on what a particular class brings. Because I just hate having to wait for that healer.
So we now have 10 pages establishing how people feel about the trinity, so now let's use our time for something constructive.
What alternatives can we think of?
What about taking notes from various sports? With football we have the QB, linemen to block, wide recievers, etc., with basketball we have people setting on the ball/off the ball screens, we have shooting guards, point guards, centers, etc., with soccer we have people faking injuries hoping to draw a penatly (just messing with you soccer fans :P).
All these sports have elements of strategy and require teamwork. Do you think there is a way to adapt these types of elements to an MMO?
Alternatives ... it has already been done.
DDO .... everybody can survives a while .. no dedicated tank needed.
Global Agenda .... again .. no tank needed .. and an engineer can perform multiple roles in a fight (set up shield to protect everyone, dps with pets/guns, set up healing station)
TOR ... cover mechanics.
There are lots can be done with combat mechanics and many different things are being done.
DDO .... everybody can survives a while .. no dedicated tank needed.
Global Agenda .... again .. no tank needed .. and an engineer can perform multiple roles in a fight (set up shield to protect everyone, dps with pets/guns, set up healing station)
TOR ... cover mechanics.
There are lots can be done with combat mechanics and many different things are being done.
I'm surprised that you actually brought up SW:TOR as an alternative just because of the cover mechanic. Look we are not talking about single mechanics because then we could bring up a whole slew of games. We are strictly talking about feasible combat systems and no matter what you say SW:TOR still relies heavily on trinity combat. Doesn't matter if you're a Smuggler handing out heals or damage from behind some cover, you are still relying on your tank to hold aggro, so that the mobs don't come over behind that piece if cover and roflstomp you.
DDO .... everybody can survives a while .. no dedicated tank needed.
Global Agenda .... again .. no tank needed .. and an engineer can perform multiple roles in a fight (set up shield to protect everyone, dps with pets/guns, set up healing station)
TOR ... cover mechanics.
There are lots can be done with combat mechanics and many different things are being done.
I'm surprised that you actually brought up SW:TOR as an alternative just because of the cover mechanic. Look we are not talking about single mechanics because then we could bring up a whole slew of games. We are strictly talking about feasible combat systems and no matter what you say SW:TOR still relies heavily on trinity combat. Doesn't matter if you're a Smuggler handing out heals or damage from behind some cover, you are still relying on your tank to hold aggro, so that the mobs don't come over behind that piece if cover and roflstomp you.
How do you know? Have you actually PLAYED the coop combat missions? It is entirely possible that combat is all ranged (and i heard that they also have abilitise to keep the range up) and cover is the main way of avoiding dmg (instead of using a tank).
The now defunct Stargate Universe also have cover mechanics to replace tanking.
DDO .... everybody can survives a while .. no dedicated tank needed.
Global Agenda .... again .. no tank needed .. and an engineer can perform multiple roles in a fight (set up shield to protect everyone, dps with pets/guns, set up healing station)
TOR ... cover mechanics.
There are lots can be done with combat mechanics and many different things are being done.
I'm surprised that you actually brought up SW:TOR as an alternative just because of the cover mechanic. Look we are not talking about single mechanics because then we could bring up a whole slew of games. We are strictly talking about feasible combat systems and no matter what you say SW:TOR still relies heavily on trinity combat. Doesn't matter if you're a Smuggler handing out heals or damage from behind some cover, you are still relying on your tank to hold aggro, so that the mobs don't come over behind that piece if cover and roflstomp you.
How do you know? Have you actually PLAYED the coop combat missions? It is entirely possible that combat is all ranged (and i heard that they also have abilitise to keep the range up) and cover is the main way of avoiding dmg (instead of using a tank).
The now defunct Stargate Universe also have cover mechanics to replace tanking.
Then why is it that I am watching SW:TOR group gameplay footage, where there is a Tank, an Off-Tank, a Ranged DPS and a Healer? I'll leave you to ponder on that. Sure you can delude yourself all you want but it's obvious that SW:TOR revolves around trinity combat.
Comments
Well, one way to adapt the current methods of tanking and healing into a different form would be to have healing have diminishing returns. I mean there could easily be body limits from taking all your hit points 50 times in a minute. If any healing over say 50% of your hit points during say a 15 second period made further healing 20% worse, and healing over 100% in a 15 second period 40% worse etc. it would change healing and aggro away from having just one main tank who tries to take ALL of the damage from an encounter into having enough tanks trying to split the aggro enough to maximize the healing capacity of the group/raid.
Guild Wars already did that. And Guild Wars 2 will do it too. Get your heads out of the sand.
How about this scenario;
The mob randomly targets someone and it is the heavily armored characters job to charge and knock the mob down for say 4 seconds. After 4 seconds the mob gets up and targets someone else. At that time it is another characters turn to charge and knock down the mob (because charge has, say, a 10 second cooldown). So basically you "ping pong" the mob with knock downs. And if someone actually does get hit, they have to fall back out of attack range to heal up essentially taking themselves out of the fight for a period of time.
A good group, in theory, could do the entire encounter without a single person taking damage.
In faction PvP very often a lot more than 6 people are playing at one side. A shieldwall in close quarters fighting or a charge btw can already be formed with 3 people.
If you read the OP and the posts, you'll see that there's quite some suggestions and examples that are given in this thread, it wasn't only complaining about trinity as some peope who object discussing trinity alternatives like to think.
An MMO based on squad based shooters would provide other types of team gameplay already. As examples were mentioned Puzzle Pirates, or examples from GW or what ANet devs are doing with GW2.
I'm not sure how Darkfall manages team combat, people say it isn't trinity based, also EVE Online I have heard descriptions of combat that in no way sounded like trinity to me.
The main thing is that first people should have a clear image of what are the core elements of classic trinity. I described in the OP what I thought were the core elements of traditional trinity. Then you just remove those elements and what happens if you insert other gameplay mechanics instead of those core trinity elements.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If we are looking for alternatives, I suggest we all get in the mind set and ask our selves. What roles other than a melee class can perform? What other roles can a caster perform? What other roles can a ranged perform? Will there be zero variation for each class type? I don't think so. What we have now kinda works. I don't think we will ever do a 180 on changing the roles for a high fantasy mmo.
I've thought about it from a war scenario and still I don't see how the trinity can be changed. It can be improved, absolutely. Again, its the AI behavior that needs to change. Once that is changed to a more strategic level, then the combat mechanics/class design will follow.
? Seen from a war scenario, I don't see much of a trinity mechanic in squad based shooters.
But looking at trinity, it isn't about changing trinity but about possible changes in team based tactics and (mob) encounter design in MMO's.
And when looking at that, even within an MMO model, there's enough possibilities, some of which we've seen in other MMO's.
- strip away taunting, make it trivial, and a tank or class with better damage absorption will be forced to use actions like root, snare, body blocking, knockdown or other cc or mob harassing skills to help out the more vulnerable team members.
- remove the dedicated healer class, give everyone some heal skills, and you'll have done away with the healer part of the classic trinity equation. Sure, it might be replaced by support/utility classes that can provide damage absorption/prevention shielding and so on, but that isn't classic trinity anymore.
- make positioning, collision detection/body blocking more important, add more focus to line-on-sight mechanics and the possibility of avoiding spells like fireballs or arrows and such, and all this will add even more options for other kinds of gameplay.
Of course, the design needs to support it, if taunting skills have been trivialised then devs need to design AI behaviour in such a way that it reflects those changes.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
This has been implented already quite a few times going all the way back to vanilla WoW at least. There are plenty of fights where two tanks have to switch tanking the boss because the original tank has been made useless by a debuff. They usually switch back and forth so the debuff has time to expire.
As early as Everquest you had very needed crowd control. That game had the trinity and crowd control. Many raids required multiple enchanters to succeed and not just healers and tanks. Then if we did not have enough DPS we still failed.
Maverick you brought up a tough topic like always .
Trinity can be broken easily , there is a big But , It then falls down to each player individual skills .
That is currently the problem , Trinity infact support the skilless people .
Example DPSers can tank a bos with good coordination and damage sharing .
That really requires a lot of cooperation , for now the encounters are made to one shot anything else but tanks.
But as you outlevel the instance , you will find the most optimal tank for those instances are infact DPSERS .
Problem is skill , people skill level reaction and patience are too low .
Thus holy trinity will excist for years to come , take wow people more then half of them fails at avoiding fires , don´t stand in aoe. and when asked who caused the wipe they all claim innocence.
You want those people to play on individual skills ?
Reasoning behind why holy trinity is easily broken , cause of city of heroes .
When other classes could tank , crowd control and general mayhem , it is not a zerg fast , but it is finding out smart oppenents. You don´t go taking on a boss unless you can are definetly sure you can handle it .
We didn´t really have tanks , everybody just do bloody hell there best , and it either works or it failed .Tanks made it easier and faster , but more contributing was healer .If you don´t have a proper healer , but a proper tank , It still went slower .
So basically the bottom line is , if you want to make a game without holy trinity in modern times .
You need to give people a strong selfheal , damage reduction options or cooldown and enough damage to beat the tough bosses .
But most important good enough skilled players . those skilled players usually can break the holy trinity even in this current system .
Just look at how Asheron's Call is designed, you'll see how you can break from holy trinity. Unfortuntely Turbine doesn't want to expand on that franchise, and nobody else is willing to do something different from the norm.
EQ1-AC1-DAOC-FFXI-L2-EQ2-WoW-DDO-GW-LoTR-VG-WAR-GW2-ESO
MMORPG = Massive multiplayer online really poor gameplay.... especially in wow's case.
http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut#p/c/645A94C4720C11E7/11/wZHhwUK8aj8
Watch this entire series (10 episodes) of Magicka gameplay to see how it's possible to have group gameplay with support, crowd control, damage and healing without the holy trinity.
there are others breaking the norm, ANET being one of them
Guild Wars 2's Johanson: MMO class trinity is "tired"
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04/15/guild-wars-2s-johanson-mmo-class-trinity-is-tired/
EQ2 fan sites
I'm curious as to what you'd think of a strict skill based system which has loosely based classes? It's really a mix of both or neither.
You have 5 "Focus" Ranks. Each Rank can choose between a Role: Stealth, Tank (Armor & Guarding Others), Magic (Wizard, Mage, etc.) Support Magic (Bard, Cleric, etc.), Offense (Berserker, Dual Wield, Polearms), Pets, etc. So each Focus is inevitably a Class.
However, you are a hybrid if you don't specialize in all 5 ranks of the same focus. So a Rank 5 Tank would have Platemail Armor (Consumes 3 Ranks, Leather, Chain, Plate), and be able to Parry exceptionally well (Blocking with Weapon) and mastery of the Shield, making for a player who has the best dmg aborption and the abililty to use TWO abilities to protect both themselves and another person, as well as the dmg absorption to absorb other's damage. Pure Tank. A 5 Magic (Wizard magic) player would have the most powerful Fire or Ice spells, a rank 5 Cleric the best support, etc.
To make a Paladin you'd take 1-4 roles in Tank, and 1-4 roles in Support. It's up to you what type of paladin that is. All sorts of Paladin types can be made (Chainmail with Smiting Melee, or Platemail and Shield with self buffs). Anyone can pick any mix. Special abilities are given to pure roles (a 5 Pet player gets a special pet at 5) and the 5th level is significant if the rank type (tank, stealth, magic, etc.) is a level up type of thing like Magic, and a special 6th free level for focus in one tree entirely (like Tank, which anyone can pick any of the 5, it's not a level up thing where you need Platemail to equip a shield).
Once a rank is chosen, you unlock skills and abilities by gaining Skill Points and investing them in a sub-set of skills which come with the Rank Focus. So you can be a 5 Rank Tank, but have only 50/100 of all skills, while another player can be a 5 rank tank with 100/100 capped skills and have more options (Such as Armor not slowing them down at all at 100 points).
There is little to no healing in the game, and support is entirely based on buffs and active buffs ((buffs which are strong and special but require action-focus from the supporter via a mini-game type of system or something).
There is a support role, but not a healer role, and the role of tank is a BIG one, as combat is about OBJECTIVES and not actual defeat of the enemy. And tanks have the ability to protect an objective where no other player can. So if you choose Rank 1: Tank, you get a Tank's Rank 1 ability, and whatever of the 5 ranks you picked (Armor, Parry, or Shield). So there's two parts to each rank focus. Abilities which come with the Rank # total (regardless of picked ability set in that rank, for ex Rank 1 Tank.) and abilities which come with the set you pick in that rank (for ex. Shield)
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
Oh, and other genre's oversimplified gameplay and meaker-features are any better> MMORPG's have some of the most complex gameplay.
In fact... why are you even on these forums if you think this???? WoW is one of the most amazing games, for a plethora of reasons.
If being a developer means being quiet, mature, well-spoken, and disconnected from the community, then by all means do me a favor and believe I'm not one.
At the risk of calls of "you want to do everything", I'd like to say I hate the trinity system simply because I could never get my head around damage variations.
I love the Paladin class (as a lot of people do) and it winds me up when they end up as a Tank class because it's usually gimped in PVP and has utter rubbish damage in PvE.
Put simply, a sword is a sword. It hurts if I stab you with it. I don't like seeing that my sword of stabbyness +250 does 10 damage simply because I have Heavy Plate and a Shield.
I understand why the trinity exists though, it's easy and it's structured. It also encourages or enforces group play of a sort, for anti-soloists that's a good thing. But it looks stupid especially in games like Star Trek Online... Escorts do damage, Engineers tank and Science ships heal... That doesn't really sit well with me, they should have pros and cons along a different line really and that's what classes should do in other MMO's.
Guild Wars did it well, you did have alternative options if you wanted to use them but Warriors weren't gimped simply because they had a shield and heavy plate there either. If anything they were capable of severely ruining one's day with knockdowns, cripples, bleed effects or pure heavy damage.
That's my 2 incoherent cents mind (alcohol and all that...) but yeah.
Funny how when people try to come up with alternatives to the trinity they still fall back on the same old trinity system, but in this case a slightly more annoying trinity. So instead of requiring 1 healer & 1 tank for a straightforward "tank-n-spank" encounter, you'll require multiple, making the most annoying feature of the trinity (the waiting around) just that little bit worse. Personally I don't think it's a difficult task to come up with a feasible alternative to the trinity, but that is because I come from a more varied gaming background (FPS, RTS, action RPG, Fighting, etc.) and the notion of: a guy soaking up all the damage, whilst another heals and the rest do their own thing; is fairly new to me.
Well I'm just glad that not every MMO studio out there is as uncreative as a lot of the naysayers in this forum, who believe that a trinity-less combat system will result in a mindless zergfest, where no teamwork is involved. Well here's a little demonstration of a trinity-less system from a little unknown game called Guild Wars 2:
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
Notice how there are 2 heavy armoured characters but they aren't up in the mob's business, taking all the damage, or someone at the back handing out first-aid and yet they are still playing off each other. MMO combat should be more about using what your teammates bring, to your advantage and vice versa, not on having to rely on what a particular class brings. Because I just hate having to wait for that healer.
Alternatives ... it has already been done.
DDO .... everybody can survives a while .. no dedicated tank needed.
Global Agenda .... again .. no tank needed .. and an engineer can perform multiple roles in a fight (set up shield to protect everyone, dps with pets/guns, set up healing station)
TOR ... cover mechanics.
There are lots can be done with combat mechanics and many different things are being done.
I'm surprised that you actually brought up SW:TOR as an alternative just because of the cover mechanic. Look we are not talking about single mechanics because then we could bring up a whole slew of games. We are strictly talking about feasible combat systems and no matter what you say SW:TOR still relies heavily on trinity combat. Doesn't matter if you're a Smuggler handing out heals or damage from behind some cover, you are still relying on your tank to hold aggro, so that the mobs don't come over behind that piece if cover and roflstomp you.
How do you know? Have you actually PLAYED the coop combat missions? It is entirely possible that combat is all ranged (and i heard that they also have abilitise to keep the range up) and cover is the main way of avoiding dmg (instead of using a tank).
The now defunct Stargate Universe also have cover mechanics to replace tanking.
Then why is it that I am watching SW:TOR group gameplay footage, where there is a Tank, an Off-Tank, a Ranged DPS and a Healer? I'll leave you to ponder on that. Sure you can delude yourself all you want but it's obvious that SW:TOR revolves around trinity combat.