Meh... i first came across "trinity" ideas back in the 90´s with PnP RPGS of the fantasy variety. You wanted someone who could take a lot of damage and act as a wall. You wanted someone in the party who could heal or knew medicine (depending on the game) and then you filled the rest with people who did damage and had some other skill like sneaking or bartering or could cast damage spells if the healer could not do that.
If you want some evidence about the origins of the Holy Trinity existing before WoW here's an example citing enchanter as the third part of this trinity. Date of that post is March 17th 2004. Of course the origins were in Ruins of Kunark so even older but this is to prove to those who keep insisting that WoW created this term and that it was DPS and not Crowd Control. Of course the term later changed to DPS instead.
Meh... i first came across "trinity" ideas back in the 90´s with PnP RPGS of the fantasy variety. You wanted someone who could take a lot of damage and act as a wall. You wanted someone in the party who could heal or knew medicine (depending on the game) and then you filled the rest with people who did damage and had some other skill like sneaking or bartering or could cast damage spells if the healer could not do that.
There was a bit more strategy due to it being turn based. Not all mobs would v line to one character. Usually, you had multiple characters like fighter, paladin, cleric, or ranger (possible even druid (especially if the druid was a fighter/druid combo) who could take one or two of the mobs before they got to your mage. A bow-wielding character might pick off enemies before they get close. A rogue might circle behind and pick off lightly armored targets with stealth and backstab. They would also look for traps. On a turn by turn scenario, things are a lot different. Mages could only cast spells once per rest (every 8 hours). This meant they were usually sitting in the back using their sling until an important time presented itself. Introducing game mechanics like Taunt changed things a lot. In general, combat was fun in early MMOs, but got a lot less realistic. The way things worked changed how classes functioned in games like D&D.
Bashing and praising have both left the building for the most part. Every game is different and this type of design tends to lie on a spectrum. Mutual exclusivity was a stupid viewpoint from the beginning.
Fad? The problem was more that every single game a few years back used
the exact same group dynamics and therefor felt just like eachother to
play.
Hrr, hrr.
I disagree.
I played three "trinity" MMOs in total: Lineage 2, Guild Wars, and
Vanguard. I can assure you they could have been hardly be even more different. Same group dynamics ? Nope. Not at all.
And when you think about it, "Trinity" simply means different players specialize into different roles. How exactly that turns out might vary quite a bit.
For example, an alternative trinity to regular tank, heal, dps is
tank, heal, crowd control. Which personally I find preferable - I think
everybody should do damage. Other possible tasks include off
tanking, buffing of allies / debuffing of opponents, pulling etc.
And besides, since unlike some other people my idea of MMOs is "find the right one for you and then play it for years" instead of "try a new MMO every I dunno 2 months or so" it wouldnt even have bothered me if that was true, haha.
And finally, what was the fix of GW2 to this problem, anyway ? Everyone became a dps. Instead of "always the same group dynamics" you got "no group dynamics at all". Yikes ! Thats certainly a poor solution.
Comments
This have been a good conversation
http://www.guildwars2.com/global/includes/images/en/healthcare-thumb.jpg
I remember all of these back then.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I disagree.
I played three "trinity" MMOs in total: Lineage 2, Guild Wars, and Vanguard. I can assure you they could have been hardly be even more different. Same group dynamics ? Nope. Not at all.
And when you think about it, "Trinity" simply means different players specialize into different roles. How exactly that turns out might vary quite a bit.
For example, an alternative trinity to regular tank, heal, dps is tank, heal, crowd control. Which personally I find preferable - I think everybody should do damage. Other possible tasks include off tanking, buffing of allies / debuffing of opponents, pulling etc.
And besides, since unlike some other people my idea of MMOs is "find the right one for you and then play it for years" instead of "try a new MMO every I dunno 2 months or so" it wouldnt even have bothered me if that was true, haha.
And finally, what was the fix of GW2 to this problem, anyway ? Everyone became a dps. Instead of "always the same group dynamics" you got "no group dynamics at all". Yikes ! Thats certainly a poor solution.
Typical result of a too harsh death penalty. Too weak death penalties suck too, though.