Can a Trinity-less PvE MMO be successful? If so, whats some examples

MMOExposed · August 2020

I been trying to think about ways the trinity-less concept has progressed the genre, since its seems to been a trend for MMO developers as of recent.

But of those, how many would you consider a success? Which did it best?

Because I often see trinityless PvP MMOs, but usually those MMOs have poor PvE, so that stuff don't really matter. But for a PvE MMO, how does this work out?

maskedweasel · August 2020

I guess it depends on how you define trinity-less. Phantasy Star Online 2 has been a pretty successful MMO and it's almost entirely PvE.

But it will depend on how you define trinity-less. You don't need the trinity to complete content in PSO2. Your character has access to healing consumables, and even resurrection consumables for themselves along with their team.

Some classes do have healing abilities, but classes aren't dependent on any thing, because you can swap your class and sub class at any time in the lobby.

There's also no real tank in PSO2. You do have some classes with the ability to generate threat, but no class is meant to just sit there and soak up damage or keep all aggro all the time.

You could have a team focus around the trinity in PSO2... but... you really don't need it and the majority of PvE encounters have mostly DPS as it doesn't really pay to spec heals for the majority of PUGS or open expeditions.

Wizardry · August 2020

Trinity would be defined as a GROUPING game that relies on each other,each player has a ROLE>>hence ROLE PLAYING game.

If you do not adhere to this formula you are NOT a ROLE playing game.

You will always ruin the group function within a group,each player becomes a soloist not depending on the other.
Arena.net was at the forefront of this discussion because they had a NEW plan and that was to sell their b2p effort instead of a subscription.

Arena net even went so far as to try and denounce gear sets,again to serve THEIR agenda which in a nutshell was to make a cheaper less costly game to support their pay style.

I could easily sum it up by saying Trinity works and supports the ROLE in ROLE playing games and still has TONS of room to improve WITHOUT steering the genre into a different direction.

However i will add that typically you will see a lesser product that tries to steer away from a trinity design or a game that is pretty much a soloist game.Return to paragraph above,there is NO REASON to even think about moving from a Trinity design,lot's of room to improve it without looking elsewhere for answers.

delete5230 · August 2020

Wizardry said:

Trinity would be defined as a GROUPING game that relies on each other,each player has a ROLE>>hence ROLE PLAYING game.

If you do not adhere to this formula you are NOT a ROLE playing game.

You will always ruin the group function within a group,each player becomes a soloist not depending on the other.
Arena.net was at the forefront of this discussion because they had a NEW plan and that was to sell their b2p effort instead of a subscription.

Arena net even went so far as to try and denounce gear sets,again to serve THEIR agenda which in a nutshell was to make a cheaper less costly game to support their pay style.

I could easily sum it up by saying Trinity works and supports the ROLE in ROLE playing games and still has TONS of room to improve WITHOUT steering the genre into a different direction.

However i will add that typically you will see a lesser product that tries to steer away from a trinity design or a game that is pretty much a soloist game.Return to paragraph above,there is NO REASON to even think about moving from a Trinity design,lot's of room to improve it without looking elsewhere for answers.

Like what you say, and to add own opinion,
Trinityless works !!... But it's no fun no matter what developers can come up with in the future.

When people group, part of what their looking for is the "complexity" of working with others.

What needs to be done:
Tanks and healers need more incentive to play their class. Often boring or slow in damage or weak.

People often shy away from tank classes because they are afraid of the responsibility and the hit on their reputation if things go wrong.

Healers now have a harder time because of SPEED RUNNING dungeons.

A BIG ONE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN ADDRESSED is when mobs one shot groups. Only the Tanks and healers feel the raw dammage. dps classes don't always catch this action and blame......Vanguard addresses this issue by putting more stars above mobs heads so people REALLY know what their dealing with.

Fix the above and we would need less of this topic.

AlBQuirky · August 2020

Why not? Most new MMOs are solo friendly, so "trinity-less" fits right in with what most game players desire, right now. These players want the ability to log when they want and do what they want. No fault to them, as I feel the same way! Where we differ is most look for 30 minutes or less login time and look for multiple hours of time.

I don't know much about most MMOs that have trinity-less design, for I usually don't play them (not their target audience). If companies are making money, ie: they're keeping their servers running, then isn't that deemed successful? Or are you thinking "WoW success" here?

Indahole · August 2020

Guild Wars 2 comes to mind. However, I'm not sure about the progressing the genre part of the equation.

cheyane · August 2020

One very good example is City of Villains. When it launched healing was abysmal in fact the Heat heal was pathetic but shields were very good. A lot of City of Villains relied on debuffing, shielding and loads of others types of buffs and environmental effects together with crowd control. The crowd control wasn't as strong as it was in City of Heroes. The Mastermind classes were armies stomping through the sewers in reckless abandon which made that game my all time favourite for class diversification. There were hardly any Tanks in City of Villains aside from pet classes taking the alpha strike.

Even in City of Heroes if you just disregarded the cries for a tank and defender empathy powers you could easily and quite effectively do the missions without these two archetypes. There were people who were so wedded to the Tank, Healer and Crowd Control / DPS trinity that they just crippled themselves to the infinite possibilities City of Heroes/Villains offered. The game was totally playable without them unlike Everquest dungeon encounters that usually required them especially for the better rezzes Clerics offered and the Enchanter crowd controls that were impossible to go without in raids.

Phantasy Star Online 2 is a very good example too. Guildwars 2 also made a point to step away from the trinity but in a later expansion I believe they offered up some sacrifice to the gods of trinity.

Superman0X · August 2020

The basis of the trinity is separating combat into 3 separate categories:

Aggro
Healing
Damage

The ability to NOT have the healing or damage draw the aggro is what makes it functional. By being able separate the damage dealt from the damage received it allows players to better specialize, and be more efficient.

botrytis · August 2020

Superman0X said:

The basis of the trinity is separating combat into 3 separate categories:

Aggro
Healing
Damage

The ability to NOT have the healing or damage draw the aggro is what makes it functional. By being able separate the damage dealt from the damage received it allows players to better specialize, and be more efficient.

Nonsense. It is not efficient as most people go to damage classes and ignore the healing, aggro classes. Then you end up waiting around to get a healer - aggro class. THAT IS NOT EFFICIENT.

GW2 is non-trinity based and it works pretty well.

botrytis · August 2020

MMOExposed said:

I been trying to think about ways the trinity-less concept has progressed the genre, since its seems to been a trend for MMO developers as of recent.

But of those, how many would you consider a success? Which did it best?

Because I often see trinityless PvP MMOs, but usually those MMOs have poor PvE, so that stuff don't really matter. But for a PvE MMO, how does this work out?

Guild Wars 2

APThug · August 2020

Guild Wars 2 has always had an aggro system. Usually based on who has the highest toughness. In gw2 raids a tank is usually always required.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aggro

In the past the game centered more towards dps, cc, support. This is still the case for older content (dungeons and fractals) but with raids youd typically have a tank, dedicated healer, support, and dps.

In strike missions youd have the same setup, except currently there is no reason to have a tank. So its just dps, healer, and support.

In open world, anything goes. Play anything you want pretty much.

In pvp, healers/support are still important and can carry a match if you've got a good one. Each class in pvp is good at fulfilling different roles. I wont get into all the roles, but the game mode is heavy on the teamwork.

In world vs world pvp healers, dps, support/dps is what makes up a good zerg. But you can also always roam solo or in a small group. Mobility is king.

MMOExposed · August 2020

botrytis said:

MMOExposed said:

I been trying to think about ways the trinity-less concept has progressed the genre, since its seems to been a trend for MMO developers as of recent.

But of those, how many would you consider a success? Which did it best?

Because I often see trinityless PvP MMOs, but usually those MMOs have poor PvE, so that stuff don't really matter. But for a PvE MMO, how does this work out?

Guild Wars 2

Maybe more so Vanilla GW2 right? Why they change ?

Dibdabs · August 2020

"The Trinity" is an unimaginative, stratified, antiquated pile of crap to me. The very concept is a ball and chain to game development.

Scorchien · August 2020

UO and Asheorns Call , did/do not have a trinity set up

cheyane · August 2020

Superman0X said:

The basis of the trinity is separating combat into 3 separate categories:

Aggro
Healing
Damage

The ability to NOT have the healing or damage draw the aggro is what makes it functional. By being able separate the damage dealt from the damage received it allows players to better specialize, and be more efficient.

Original trinity in Everquest was Crowd Control not damage it became damage in later games when crowd control began to take a back seat.

cameltosis · August 2020

Wizardry said:

Trinity would be defined as a GROUPING game that relies on each other,each player has a ROLE>>hence ROLE PLAYING game.

If you do not adhere to this formula you are NOT a ROLE playing game.

I disagree with what you've said here.

The "trinity" is defined by combat mechanics that divide players into three combat roles: tank, healer and dps. Everyone that engages in combat will be one of these three roles.

whether the game is designed mainly for grouping or not has no effect on the trinity, only on whether the trinity is worth having.

Additionally, the trinity is purely combat roles. It is very possible to build a roleplaying game without specific combat roles. Roleplaying isn't just confined to combat, it can encompass all forms of gameplay. Just look at something like the witcher 3: no combat roles, the roleplaying comes through interacting with the story and making decisions.

With all that said.....

I find the trinity too limiting. I think having only three roles, with each of those roles being so straightforward, results in a combat experience that gets stale too quickly.

So, I'm in favour of "trinity+" systems, where the trinity roles exist, but additional roles are also present. Buffers, debuffers, crowd control, off-tanks etc. By adding more roles, it opens up more possibilities for tactics, group compositions etc. It adds depth. My favourite example of this is LotRO, but i know plenty of other mmos in the early days had such systems, I just didn't play them personally.

Some games have tried to merge those other roles into the trinity, giving tanks or DPSers a variety of cc / debuff type skills. That adds a little something over strict trinity, but it still never seems to work out as well as a proper trinity+ game.

If, by trinity-less, the OP means a game without combat roles, then na, I got no examples and no desire to play such games. If there are no combat roles, then there is no interdependence, no possibility for good tactics. I'm not interested in games like that, there's basically no difference between single player and multiplayer in terms of gameplay, so I may as well just play a single player game.

Mendel · August 2020

Myself, I dislike the concept of healing during a battle; healing is an activity that takes place after the fact, at least historically. Ancient armies with formation fighting had active combatants (first rank), reserve combatants (second thru Nth ranks). Healing was not much more than first aid, stopping blood loss and setting bones, and comfort to the dying. There were runners designated to pull, carry or assist the injured to the back. There was no concept of healing-in-place. This is, to some degree, the basis of armies through the ages.

I don't know that a game couldn't use this model rather than the heal-in-place model that almost all games use. No one has really attempted it, to my knowledge. It would make for a game with a lot more fighters than healers.

The heal-in-place model *can* be interesting to play, at times. Rather than an individual relying on someone else to keep their position in the fight, the player relies on someone to counter and cure injuries as they occur.

Too many trinity games make the healer role entirely too dull, though. I've always thought it would be much more interesting to have the healer need to analyze the wounds and treat the individual injury types (cuts, concussion, organ damage, broken bones, etc.) than just a static HP value. That would help alleviate the inevitable boredom traditionally associated with the healer class.

iixviiiix · August 2020

what MMO don't have trinity ?

Iselin · August 2020

Wizardry said:

Trinity would be defined as a GROUPING game that relies on each other,each player has a ROLE>>hence ROLE PLAYING game.

If you do not adhere to this formula you are NOT a ROLE playing game.

Tank, Healer, Damage and CC are NOT the roles that role playing refers to. Those are just meta-gaming functions.

Of course you can have RPGs without the trinity meta.

delete5230 · August 2020

Mendel said:

Myself, I dislike the concept of healing during a battle; healing is an activity that takes place after the fact, at least historically. Ancient armies with formation fighting had active combatants (first rank), reserve combatants (second thru Nth ranks). Healing was not much more than first aid, stopping blood loss and setting bones, and comfort to the dying. There were runners designated to pull, carry or assist the injured to the back. There was no concept of healing-in-place. This is, to some degree, the basis of armies through the ages.

I don't know that a game couldn't use this model rather than the heal-in-place model that almost all games use. No one has really attempted it, to my knowledge. It would make for a game with a lot more fighters than healers.

The heal-in-place model *can* be interesting to play, at times. Rather than an individual relying on someone else to keep their position in the fight, the player relies on someone to counter and cure injuries as they occur.

Too many trinity games make the healer role entirely too dull, though. I've always thought it would be much more interesting to have the healer need to analyze the wounds and treat the individual injury types (cuts, concussion, organ damage, broken bones, etc.) than just a static HP value. That would help alleviate the inevitable boredom traditionally associated with the healer class.

Ancient armies from "real history" were not fighting orcs and trolls dodging fireballs and recovering from magic effects.

In our high fantasy setting that games are made we have magic healing to fight off all the above. Unrealistic battles call for unrealistic healing.

If a games were made from "real history" you would be right... but for our purpose you can't compare.

Ungood · August 2020

GW2.. HAD a trinityless system in place, the Core Game did not have a Trinity style game set up at all, this was changed with HoT, when they put in raids and a Trinity system into the game.

Which was the result of endless nagging on all social media platforms by the players how they hated the idea of not having a trinity or lack of roles.

Mendel · August 2020

delete5230 said:

Mendel said:

Myself, I dislike the concept of healing during a battle; healing is an activity that takes place after the fact, at least historically. Ancient armies with formation fighting had active combatants (first rank), reserve combatants (second thru Nth ranks). Healing was not much more than first aid, stopping blood loss and setting bones, and comfort to the dying. There were runners designated to pull, carry or assist the injured to the back. There was no concept of healing-in-place. This is, to some degree, the basis of armies through the ages.

I don't know that a game couldn't use this model rather than the heal-in-place model that almost all games use. No one has really attempted it, to my knowledge. It would make for a game with a lot more fighters than healers.

The heal-in-place model *can* be interesting to play, at times. Rather than an individual relying on someone else to keep their position in the fight, the player relies on someone to counter and cure injuries as they occur.

Too many trinity games make the healer role entirely too dull, though. I've always thought it would be much more interesting to have the healer need to analyze the wounds and treat the individual injury types (cuts, concussion, organ damage, broken bones, etc.) than just a static HP value. That would help alleviate the inevitable boredom traditionally associated with the healer class.

Ancient armies from "real history" were not fighting orcs and trolls dodging fireballs and recovering from magic effects.

In our high fantasy setting that games are made we have magic healing to fight off all the above. Unrealistic battles call for unrealistic healing.

If a games were made from "real history" you would be right... but for our purpose you can't compare.

It would be entirely possible to make an MMORPG based on history. We just happen to have a majority of fantasy games to base our opinions on.

Sovrath · August 2020

Mendel said:

Myself, I dislike the concept of healing during a battle; healing is an activity that takes place after the fact, at least historically. Ancient armies with formation fighting had active combatants (first rank), reserve combatants (second thru Nth ranks). Healing was not much more than first aid, stopping blood loss and setting bones, and comfort to the dying. There were runners designated to pull, carry or assist the injured to the back. There was no concept of healing-in-place. This is, to some degree, the basis of armies through the ages.

I don't know that a game couldn't use this model rather than the heal-in-place model that almost all games use.

I think they could.

For fantasy games instead of healing it would be magic that thwarted blows, magic that absorbed blows or directed elsewhere.

OR ... just make it so that there is only healing afterwards. I'd be up for it. Damage would have to be calculated differently so that either the figts lasted longer where a player could, through good playing, be successful or much shorter where the player would have to hit quickly as well as dodge.

Asm0deus · August 2020

One thing I do not see mentioned much here is that games that do not follow the trinity thing are much more dependent on everyone being able to dodge or roll away to avoid incoming damage.

Now even trinity games have attacks you want to dodge but games like pso2...well while not an expert from what I can see if you do not master the dodge you are going to have a rough time and this seem to be par for the course in any game where there isn't a trinity system.

LynxJSA · August 2020

maskedweasel said:

I guess it depends on how you define trinity-less..

Agreed. If we use Bartle's definition, the trinity is defined by the presence of a 'taunt' tank. It is easy to move away from it, but many would not like the tools to do so. Two very basic ways to move away...

Non-selective spells - if an AOE hits a 5-meter wide circle, everyone in the circle - ally or enemy - is healed, harmed, buffed, debuffed etc by the spell. Coordinated movement and spell placement becomes valuable player skills.

Collision Detection - Once players are solid, actual tanks can hold the line, protecting the squishies behind them.

We saw in both Asheron's Call and Ultima Online that the modern trinity is not mechanically necessary. However, we also saw how problem players are the reason the trinity is socially necessary.

Arglebargle · August 2020

Holy Trinity was an adaption to primitive online neccesities. But it got ossified into all sorts of games.

The concept really grates on me. Especially the tank -- a non-threatening bag of hit points that magically draws attention away from the wiz throwing fireballs at you. Now if the tank was actually magickal in the game, that'd make more sense. No one could otherwise learn all those insults in all those languages.

Most City of Heroes missions could be done by alternative groupings. I recall one team of seven Rad Defenders and an Empath carving through everything in it's path.

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