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.
Think of Tanks like Internet Trolls, they don't even need to make sense to piss you off.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
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.
Indeed role playing in rpgs means making a character as a fiction writer would and then giving him life by pretending to be him. This is of cource how it was in the birth of table top rpgs and i feel that things have downgraded as the years past. But if you want my opinion the trinity system is lazy and boring and has no use in true rpgs as each character should be unique and complex instead of being just a damage sponge or a heal bot but ppl mostly prefer the simplest of choices and thus the trinity is still used and wanted by many even though imo is just a cheap trick to make easy grouping
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.
This is a good example of real vs game.
Most players want action now. Even in PvP they die and respawn to fight more. Most players don't want "harsh consequences" for their actions. They only have so many minutes they can play games, after all
Can you imagine an MMO where some players actually helped the injured off of the battlefield? "GIT GUD!" is the usual response to taking dieing these days
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I liked it, rolled an elementalist at launch because it had the best aoe heal and ton of dps (even though it was a pain to play).
The problem was when PVEing world bosses and stuff with randoms... it turned into a free for all, protect your own arse... no real strategy.
I would try to help out with heals or purposely pulling aggro if other players were about to die. Which then went into kiting ... dodge dodge "down"... hoping someone would revive me. Kinda messy.
I prefer the trinity or some variation with roles.
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.
Indeed role playing in rpgs means making a character as a fiction writer would and then giving him life by pretending to be him. This is of cource how it was in the birth of table top rpgs and i feel that things have downgraded as the years past. But if you want my opinion the trinity system is lazy and boring and has no use in true rpgs as each character should be unique and complex instead of being just a damage sponge or a heal bot but ppl mostly prefer the simplest of choices and thus the trinity is still used and wanted by many even though imo is just a cheap trick to make easy grouping
Yet non-trinity/classless games seem to have characters that are pretty much "the same" with very little variety. At least in my experience
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
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.
Indeed role playing in rpgs means making a character as a fiction writer would and then giving him life by pretending to be him. This is of cource how it was in the birth of table top rpgs and i feel that things have downgraded as the years past. But if you want my opinion the trinity system is lazy and boring and has no use in true rpgs as each character should be unique and complex instead of being just a damage sponge or a heal bot but ppl mostly prefer the simplest of choices and thus the trinity is still used and wanted by many even though imo is just a cheap trick to make easy grouping
Yet non-trinity/classless games seem to have characters that are pretty much "the same" with very little variety. At least in my experience
Everyone is a self-healing mage tank
There's also a whole range of ways to implement the trinity or even better, quaternities.
WOW, which I suspect is what the majority of people think about when thinking of the trinity these days, does it in a very goofy way with taunt everything all the time tanks, healbots for the tank and then DPS that can just do their thing with almost zero risk or interruptions.
But that's not the only way to do it and even WOW itself, once upon a time used a quaternity where CC was absolutely necessary because tanks and healers were not tuned to tank absolutely everything so you needed some things kept stunned or mezzed while you dealt with other things.
One the things I enjoyed about ESO was their implementation of the trinity (for fights that need it since a lot of group dungeons can be cheesed with no need for a tank and often no need for a healer either) with no AOE taunts and heavy use of short duration CC by tanks but everyone still had to deal with getting attacked and interrupted occasionally.
It's a good system about half way between trinity and no trinity.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
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.
False.
A ROLE PLAYING game is a game in which you are playing a ROLE, meaning another character, not you! It has nothing to do with a FUNCTION in a given GROUP.
The Witcher games are ROLE PLAYING GAMES because you play the ROLE of Geralt. And they are a solo games! No group involved here!
ROLE PLAYING is first and foremost a table top activity, that has seen many kind of more or less successful transpositions in digital worlds. MMORPGs are originally tentatives to emulate such an experience on the screens and augmenting it by integrating a very large number of players.
The goal has never been at first to implement the "trinity". The trinity is a consequence of copying the archaic class design of Dungeons & Dragons. If MMORPGS would have been based on classless RPGs instead of D&D, the concept of trinity might not have existed at all!
The trinity doesn't define anything but itself.
Now some people like it, and some don't. And that's ok to not like it. There is no need to stigmatize players that refuse to play this system.
After playing GW2, and maybe I'm just an old fart, but I prefer the trinity system versus everyone doing anything or everything.
I have and always will enjoy characters with identity. Being able to play a character with a specific role adds depth. I mean, it is an RPG after all.
Dungeon and Dragons has been around for decades and is still popular to this day along with all the other variant tabletop games. While some argue D&D isn't a true trinity format, you still had tanks, healers and dps, but aggro was for the most part random.
You are limiting your thought process. Think about some of the great Fantasy novels out there, like Swords of Shannara, they had no Trinity. Trinity is a table top D&D system. I feel it limits game development.
I mean , they all have trinity like tank and supports ability , all of them have trinity in one way or another
This goes back to the other poster's very valid point that one would need to define what they are referring to. Yes all combat games will have a defense or "tank" roll, however a UO/AC tank is very different from an EQ/WOW tank.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
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.
False.
A ROLE PLAYING game is a game in which you are playing a ROLE, meaning another character, not you! It has nothing to do with a FUNCTION in a given GROUP.
The Witcher games are ROLE PLAYING GAMES because you play the ROLE of Geralt. And they are a solo games! No group involved here!
ROLE PLAYING is first and foremost a table top activity, that has seen many kind of more or less successful transpositions in digital worlds. MMORPGs are originally tentatives to emulate such an experience on the screens and augmenting it by integrating a very large number of players.
The goal has never been at first to implement the "trinity". The trinity is a consequence of copying the archaic class design of Dungeons & Dragons. If MMORPGS would have been based on classless RPGs instead of D&D, the concept of trinity might not have existed at all!
The trinity doesn't define anything but itself.
Now some people like it, and some don't. And that's ok to not like it. There is no need to stigmatize players that refuse to play this system.
And yet, most modern MMOs use action combat, where I am playing me, not a character in a game.
Combat roles were an attempt to organize an otherwise very chaotic activity involving more people than usually sat around a tabletop (talking raids here). It also "encouraged" playing together, which isn't really needed in face to face tabletop games.
I can't think of one "classless" tabletop RPG out when MMOs started (late 80's to mid 90's?). It
doesn't mean they didn't exist, I just wasn't aware of them. Wait!
Champions was one such RPG. That was a Super Hero setting, though, not a
fantasy party setting, which most MMORPGs set themselves in. Iron Crown
Enterprises (I.C.E), Middle Earth Role Playing system, Traveller, Soap Opera, a
Star Wars RPG, Shadowrun all had classes for the characters.
Your summation is awesome and I wish more people took it to heart
PS: It's also OK to like certain things
PPS: If you think about it, classes and jobs/roles is a natural human thing. Our military is full of jobs with specific duties in war. Armored, infantry, air support, medical. It's all there, since man started fighting wars
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Absolutely, GW2 was a prime example of this system in use and being very successful.
The main problem is, some people like these Tactical Roles to be filled.
Either because they want someone else to enable their play, Ergo: Someone who just wants to play a massive DPS toon because it makes them feel powerful and important, and expects someone else to do ther "other" stuff, like keep them alive so they can get max kill count) Or Because they know that playing less desirable Tactical Roles will ensure their ability to join groups for various content (Ergo: People who play Heal-bots, or Buff-Bots to get an easy up into Raids for example.)
If you remove these Tactical Roles, you leave a lot of players feeling, shall we say, weak, because everyone can DPS like they can, or Everyone can heal themselves, thus they need to be very competitive for spots, which they don't like.
It also makes grouping and teamwork very nuanced, which as it stands, it seems players also do not like either.
Case in point, in GW2, I started with a shout guard, just pulled the build off meta-battle, when I started the game, as a very solid all around build, the way the build worked in groups, was the more people I could buff with my shouts the better my buffs and the more I could AOE heal. Very fun and solid group based build, but it was nuanced, I needed to time my shouts to work the best, and I needed players to be within the AOE effects, couple this with Fields and Finishers, and you can have some really good Group Dynamic going on.
When GW2 released HoT, that all changed, that nuanced grouping ended, and people fell into roles, there were Healers, Buffers, and DPS.. gone was that era where people could work together on various levels, and it all became generically simplified.
So, while it can be done, as GW2 did prove, and it can be very much enjoyed as well, it also needs to address the stupid that gamers bring to the table. If something is too nuanced, too complex, or the synergy and co-op of the class is not beat into their heads with a hammer, just too many of them simply will not be able to grasp it.
A prime example of this for me, was Trove, I started with a Candy Barb, and thinking "barbarian" that this was a Pure DPS glass Cannon build like barbarians are in most other MMO's.
Boy was I wrong, and for that reason I had a real hard time leveling my Candy Barb, and I finally looked at the guild, and it turned out, that the Candy Barb was a self healing tank style build, once I made that shift, changed my gear, and my approach, the class was a dream to play.
I then made a Tomb Raiser, however this time, I didn't just make assumptions, I read guides and looked up how the build was supposed to work, and again, leveling was easy, the game was fun, and the build felt powerful.
What all these words come to, is that, sometimes as a player, we have an idea of how the game is supposed to be played, but that might not be how the Devs thought the game was supposed to be played.
So for a non-trinity/non-role game, the players need to know that is the case walking in, and ready to learn how to handle a new style of game, not walk in thinking that this game will be like all the other games they played.
It also takes a Dev team that will stick to their vision, not like Anet that will flop all over the place.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
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.
Think of Tanks like Internet Trolls, they don't even need to make sense to piss you off.
Yet non-trinity/classless games seem to have characters that are pretty much "the same" with very little variety. At least in my experience
As opposed to the cookie-cutter Trinity classes?
If I understand correctly his argument is that "3 is more varied than 1".
Though as I said in my comment above, I don't think it always has to be the case. I like how GW2 does roles post-HoT - a softer trinity with lots of well established extra utility roles.
Interesting that you bring up GW2. Prior to HoT everything was centered around DPS. Tank and Healer wasn't needed and the game wasn't designed around either role, so all the NPC AI had to be built with a Trinity-less system in mind, which lead to the very poor dungeon stacking tachbics which really couldn't be resolved because the game had no real tank role. Many stat sets (as in GW2 gear progression was more horizontal) were practically useless at endgame such as Healing Power stat sets since the healing output wasn't that great enough to sacrifice DPS loss, especially when somebody not stacking Healing Power could still drop just as good of a heal. Again stacking in place was better since damage was easily mitigated and spread out while maximizing the AoE Boons and Field Blast. Again all became mindless DPS. Like imagine World of Warcraft max level endgame dungeons all being doable with a 5man all DPS build Rogues party. May be fun at first, but quickly gets dull because everybody doing the same exact thing. Minds well make Mesmer's Clones the real thing and let them fill the party slots, because everybody would be doing the same thing in the group, just DPSfest and applying boon here and there when abled.
When GW2 released HoT, that all changed, that nuanced grouping ended, and people fell into roles, there were Healers, Buffers, and DPS.. gone was that era where people could work together on various levels, and it all became generically simplified.
So, while it can be done, as GW2 did prove, and it can be very much enjoyed as well, it also needs to address the stupid that gamers bring to the table. If something is too nuanced, too complex, or the synergy and co-op of the class is not beat into their heads with a hammer, just too many of them simply will not be able to grasp it.
GW2 HoT only made the requirements for those roles stronger, it did not take away any nuancing.
Aggro based on toughness was there before HoT. There was no nuancing as it was just ignored since the content was easier, most people went for max DPS with group buffs on the side and tanking was irrelevant. Same for healing.
HoT actually made more nuanced roles relevant, with utility functions (shadow stepping, reflects, CC for the breakbar) being more important. Buffs were and are equally relevant before and after HoT. Condi builds became more important (they were mostly non-meta before).
And GW2 never had a hard trinity, thanks to its LFG tool being totally free-form (although you could argue that no raid group will survive without a tank and healer in most encounters). I haven't followed GW2 after PoF, but to me it seemed that HoT was great for adding more roles (that go beyond the trinity) without making the lines too hard and rigid.
This is not true at all, as I played a guard that used Knights (Pow/Per/Tough) and Mobs would go after players in Zerk gear all the time, after years of dungeons and fractals, Agro was more an issue of who was doing the most DPS, or based on who struck first.
It was only after Raids were put in that Mobs locked on Agro to the players with the most toughness.
Also, the nuances were mainly gone, as Chrono/Druid/BannerSlave were the core needed roles, after that is was just full retard DPS slots, either by Conditions or Power based (With Dungeons and most Fractals, Zerk/Power based was still king). So it very much eliminated the nuances of grouping, and removed the whole idea of group dynamic, so much so, I revised my guard into straight up DPS, as that was more efficient than any other kind of synergy that had existed in the past. It and pretty much beat the roles of Chrono / Druid / Banner Slave into the game as the needed Trinity and everyone else, just does DPS. A massive step down from what it was like at Core.
But, again, a Trinityless game can be made, and I believe there are a lot of players that are in fact ready for such a game to be put on the market, just, need to get past the dinosaurs that cling to the role based system, or flat out ignore them.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Yet non-trinity/classless games seem to have characters that are pretty much "the same" with very little variety. At least in my experience
As opposed to the cookie-cutter Trinity classes?
If I understand correctly his argument is that "3 is more varied than 1".
Though as I said in my comment above, I don't think it always has to be the case. I like how GW2 does roles post-HoT - a softer trinity with lots of well established extra utility roles.
Interesting that you bring up GW2. Prior to HoT everything was centered around DPS. Tank and Healer wasn't needed and the game wasn't designed around either role, so all the NPC AI had to be built with a Trinity-less system in mind, which lead to the very poor dungeon stacking tachbics which really couldn't be resolved because the game had no real tank role. Many stat sets (as in GW2 gear progression was more horizontal) were practically useless at endgame such as Healing Power stat sets since the healing output wasn't that great enough to sacrifice DPS loss, especially when somebody not stacking Healing Power could still drop just as good of a heal. Again stacking in place was better since damage was easily mitigated and spread out while maximizing the AoE Boons and Field Blast. Again all became mindless DPS. Like imagine World of Warcraft max level endgame dungeons all being doable with a 5man all DPS build Rogues party. May be fun at first, but quickly gets dull because everybody doing the same exact thing. Minds well make Mesmer's Clones the real thing and let them fill the party slots, because everybody would be doing the same thing in the group, just DPSfest and applying boon here and there when abled.
This is a good point and from a game design point, there was a huge issue that there were stats that simply did not scale well. Toughness/Healing being a prime example of this, as these stats didn't scale anywhere near as well as Power/Condition stats did, so there was very little incentive to build in that direction at all.
Not to mention they built a lot of mobs with one shot kill/down mechanics, making toughness/vitality/healing tantamount to worthless, there was simply no reason to build in that direction at all. There was more motive to have some defensive stats in WvW & sPvP, but not in PvE.
That was a direct issue with the game design and was brought to their attention quite a bit, which they did nothing about.
I loved the original system, because it allowed players to take anyone and just go do a dungeon, they didn't need to wait for a (Healer) or wait for (CC) or wait for a (Tank), take the first 5 and go! Made the game super easy to join or make a group, a stress free game IMHO.
Think about it, in WoW, if you could take the first 5 and go do a dungeon, that would make grouping so much faster and easier, if everyone wanted to play a rogue, they could, if they wanted to play a paladin or shaman, they could, and they would not be put into some "role".. like "Oh you're a shaman, that means you need to buff and heal" .. no.. it means we all run through the dungeon like the greedy psychopaths we are, killing everything for loot and exp.
Honestly.. for the life of me, I will never be able to grasp how anyone really wanted to go back to the era of "Looking for (Healer)" times of LFG's.. it sucked back then, it sucked today.. I mean.. I dunno.. Obviously some people loved it, hence why they cried for it in GW2, but I never liked waiting on a healer, and I never liked the idea that if I played a "healing" class I was expected to be ther nanny for everyone else in the group.
But again.. Obviously some people must love that.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
This is not true at all, as I played a guard that used Knights (Pow/Per/Tough) and Mobs would go after players in Zerk gear all the time, after years of dungeons and fractals, Agro was more an issue of who was doing the most DPS, or based on who struck first.
It was only after Raids were put in that Mobs locked on Agro to the players with the most toughness.
Also, the nuances were mainly gone, as Chrono/Druid/BannerSlave were the core needed roles, after that is was just full retard DPS slots, either by Conditions or Power based (With Dungeons and most Fractals, Zerk/Power based was still king).
Might remember the aggro mechanics pre-HoT incorrectly, I will check again. Still disagree with the rest: druid CC and Eles on Gorseval, shadow steps (and no tank) on Sabetha, reflects and group stun breaks (and no tank) on Sloth, condi becoming finally part of the meta etc etc. HoT content brought lots of utility skills to the forefront, whereas before it was all Knight until you git gud and go Zerk or Assassin and full DPS - condi was mostly irrelevant, as were other sets.
Condi becoming part of the meta was a truly horrible thing to happen GW2, with Anet making Condi a primary damage dealer as opposed to off shot support damage, it screwed up the stat performance in a massive way, as players would max out Condi Damage and Still max out survivability, unlike using Power base for maxed DPS, which required investing 3 stats to optimize (Power/Precision/Ferocity) and was countered by another Stat (Toughness) Condi only required 1 stat to optimize and had no counter stat to protect against it, making it a total shit show for WvW, and they even had to remove some stats from sPVP because they were OPAF.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
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.
False.
A ROLE PLAYING game is a game in which you are playing a ROLE, meaning another character, not you! It has nothing to do with a FUNCTION in a given GROUP.
The Witcher games are ROLE PLAYING GAMES because you play the ROLE of Geralt. And they are a solo games! No group involved here!
ROLE PLAYING is first and foremost a table top activity, that has seen many kind of more or less successful transpositions in digital worlds. MMORPGs are originally tentatives to emulate such an experience on the screens and augmenting it by integrating a very large number of players.
The goal has never been at first to implement the "trinity". The trinity is a consequence of copying the archaic class design of Dungeons & Dragons. If MMORPGS would have been based on classless RPGs instead of D&D, the concept of trinity might not have existed at all!
The trinity doesn't define anything but itself.
Now some people like it, and some don't. And that's ok to not like it. There is no need to stigmatize players that refuse to play this system.
And yet, most modern MMOs use action combat, where I am playing me, not a character in a game.
Combat roles were an attempt to organize an otherwise very chaotic activity involving more people than usually sat around a tabletop (talking raids here). It also "encouraged" playing together, which isn't really needed in face to face tabletop games.
I can't think of one "classless" tabletop RPG out when MMOs started (late 80's to mid 90's?). It
doesn't mean they didn't exist, I just wasn't aware of them. Wait!
Champions was one such RPG. That was a Super Hero setting, though, not a
fantasy party setting, which most MMORPGs set themselves in. Iron Crown
Enterprises (I.C.E), Middle Earth Role Playing system, Traveller, Soap Opera, a
Star Wars RPG, Shadowrun all had classes for the characters.
Your summation is awesome and I wish more people took it to heart
PS: It's also OK to like certain things
PPS: If you think about it, classes and jobs/roles is a natural human thing. Our military is full of jobs with specific duties in war. Armored, infantry, air support, medical. It's all there, since man started fighting wars
Organizing chaotic activity is a good call I think. And unfortunately, given the development of online access, it was easier if it was simple.
Though there were classes in D&D, there weren't tanks. Fighters could dish out damage. The second best fighter was your cleric. Not til 4th Ed. (I think) did the MMO version feed back into the PnP. Class systems certainly got ossified into a lot of the second and third wave of RPGs, but there were alternatives. GURPS comes to mind.
In modern real world armies there are no tauntbots. The tank is one of the singularly most powerful units on the field. Troops are regularly cross-trained.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
The more you compartamentalize abilities like attack, defense, magic defense, healing, resource building, avoiding attacks, etc. The more roles you create.
Let's say there's a game where there's certain magic attacks from the enemy that absolutely require magic barrier shields otherwise the enemy AOE damage demolishes the group. So even a tank is not enough. Now a new role is created which is responsible for creating barrier shields. So the 3-role system has turned into a 4-role system.
This ultimately is not a good idea as it just becomes harder and harder to get every role filled the more roles are required. I think the 3 role system works nicely, but I'm open to more roles or even less roles. I think you can still have an engaging game with a 2 role system: let's say damage and dps, but everyone has self-healing abilities so everyone heals for themselves. It's a possibility.
Condi becoming part of the meta was a truly horrible thing to happen GW2, with Anet making Condi a primary damage dealer as opposed to off shot support damage, it screwed up the stat performance in a massive way, as players would max out Condi Damage and Still max out survivability, unlike using Power base for maxed DPS, which required investing 3 stats to optimize (Power/Precision/Ferocity) and was countered by another Stat (Toughness) Condi only required 1 stat to optimize and had no counter stat to protect against it, making it a total shit show for WvW, and they even had to remove some stats from sPVP because they were OPAF.
Condi was a much needed variety, not having it excluded whole weapon sets, skill sets, trait lines and playstyles. GW2 always had balancing issues with PVP. Before condi I remember people complaining about bunker builds in sPVP for example. Adding more build variety just flushed out the issue that PVP and PVE need to be balanced separately, they are different playstyles/modes with different requirements.
No, making Condi a primary damage dealing ability was a shitshow, which is why they not only nerfed the hell out of Condi in sPvP they also revamped several condi-abilities in sPvP, and removed several gear combos, like Trailblazers, to keep a semblance of balance, that was how screwed up it was.
The only complaint about bunker builds that really happened for the most part, was that with power creep they became less viable, when GW2 revamped their whole WvW combat they made bunkers viable again, and people were happy again, then they went and messed with condi making it a shitshow again.
Anyway, none of this address the OP.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
And yet, most modern MMOs use action combat, where I am playing me, not a character in a game.
Combat roles were an attempt to organize an otherwise very chaotic activity involving more people than usually sat around a tabletop (talking raids here). It also "encouraged" playing together, which isn't really needed in face to face tabletop games.
I can't think of one "classless" tabletop RPG out when MMOs started (late 80's to mid 90's?). It
doesn't mean they didn't exist, I just wasn't aware of them. Wait!
Champions was one such RPG. That was a Super Hero setting, though, not a
fantasy party setting, which most MMORPGs set themselves in. Iron Crown
Enterprises (I.C.E), Middle Earth Role Playing system, Traveller, Soap Opera, a
Star Wars RPG, Shadowrun all had classes for the characters.
Your summation is awesome and I wish more people took it to heart
PS: It's also OK to like certain things
PPS: If you think about it, classes and jobs/roles is a natural human thing. Our military is full of jobs with specific duties in war. Armored, infantry, air support, medical. It's all there, since man started fighting wars
Organizing chaotic activity is a good call I think. And unfortunately, given the development of online access, it was easier if it was simple.
Though there were classes in D&D, there weren't tanks. Fighters could dish out damage. The second best fighter was your cleric. Not til 4th Ed. (I think) did the MMO version feed back into the PnP. Class systems certainly got ossified into a lot of the second and third wave of RPGs, but there were alternatives. GURPS comes to mind.
There is a game out, called Dungeons and Dragons Online. Built off mainly the 3.5 rule set. So if you liked 2nd or 3rd edition, this game still has that old school feel to it.
I bring this up because you talk about tanks, in DDO the raids are built with the idea that there will be dedicated tanks, healers, and many roles will need to be filled. Some raids offering some very unique roles, like a Shadow Tank for ToD for example.
Some raids even requiring several "tanks" and teams, Ergo, Master Artificer, requiring people to be able to seperate the 2 boss mobs, one ranged, the other melee, and take them down at the same time.
This when you build a "Tank" it's not a one system fits all, you end up with several gear sets that have various abilities that are situational.
It also means that it's not always the fighter that Tanks, in some cases the rogue tanks, because their dodge and evasion are better for the Boss mob that tends to hurl spells as opposed to just beating them physically.
Couple this with the idea that you can milti-class, (up to 3 classes) you have racial abilities, as well as additional enhancement abilities like Inquisitor that anyone can use, and, when you get there, epic destinies that can be mixed up as well.
So that Wizard/Arti might end up being the best tank in the group for one of the raid bosses, and the Rogue/Bard and FvS/Monk is the primary healer, while the Cleric/Fighter is off playing second tank.
The more you compartamentalize abilities like attack, defense, magic defense, healing, resource building, avoiding attacks, etc. The more roles you create.
Let's say there's a game where there's certain magic attacks from the enemy that absolutely require magic barrier shields otherwise the enemy AOE damage demolishes the group. So even a tank is not enough. Now a new role is created which is responsible for creating barrier shields. So the 3-role system has turned into a 4-role system.
This ultimately is not a good idea as it just becomes harder and harder to get every role filled the more roles are required. I think the 3 role system works nicely, but I'm open to more roles or even less roles. I think you can still have an engaging game with a 2 role system: let's say damage and dps, but everyone has self-healing abilities so everyone heals for themselves. It's a possibility.
There's many creative possibilities out there!
Again the MMO I mention above, did put in very unique roles for some of their raids, like in ToD, they had Shadow Tanks, and needed 2 tanks for the end fight.
In Shroud, you needed to split the group apart into 4 teams that each handled a mini boss that all needed to be killed at the same time.
In master Artificer, there were 2 titan raid bosses, one could only be hit by melee, the other only by ranged they needed to be dropped at the same time, so you needed one dedicated team for each, Each of the two teams needed their own tank, dps, and healer.
Not to mention that since there was the ability to multi-class, you could build a self healing toon, and in this game I have seen Rogues, Bards, and all manner if hybrid mixed builds play healers with no "healer" class (IE: Cleric/FvS) levels.
in DDO there is a group called R.O.G.U.E, which is really just a bunch of Thief enthusiast that go about proving that Thieves can do anything in DDO, including an All Rogue Shroud, which I took part in one such event during my rogue life on my main.
The variations and different ways people can build their characters are staggering, and among the 12 fellow rogues that I ran with in that Shroud, not a single one of was the same, yet we all did a good job with our characters, and won.
IMHO, it is a odd game, because while it is a "Role" based game, there is a lot of room on who can play what roles. Not every healer is going to be a Cleric, not all your tanks are Fighters.. sometimes that Rob wearing spell casting Sorc/Monk is the exact person you need for the job.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Comments
Indeed role playing in rpgs means making a character as a fiction writer would and then giving him life by pretending to be him.
This is of cource how it was in the birth of table top rpgs and i feel that things have downgraded as the years past.
But if you want my opinion the trinity system is lazy and boring and has no use in true rpgs as each character should be unique and complex instead of being just a damage sponge or a heal bot but ppl mostly prefer the simplest of choices and thus the trinity is still used and wanted by many even though imo is just a cheap trick to make easy grouping
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I liked it, rolled an elementalist at launch because it had the best aoe heal and ton of dps (even though it was a pain to play).
The problem was when PVEing world bosses and stuff with randoms... it turned into a free for all, protect your own arse... no real strategy.
I would try to help out with heals or purposely pulling aggro if other players were about to die. Which then went into kiting ... dodge dodge "down"... hoping someone would revive me. Kinda messy.
I prefer the trinity or some variation with roles.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
There's also a whole range of ways to implement the trinity or even better, quaternities.
WOW, which I suspect is what the majority of people think about when thinking of the trinity these days, does it in a very goofy way with taunt everything all the time tanks, healbots for the tank and then DPS that can just do their thing with almost zero risk or interruptions.
But that's not the only way to do it and even WOW itself, once upon a time used a quaternity where CC was absolutely necessary because tanks and healers were not tuned to tank absolutely everything so you needed some things kept stunned or mezzed while you dealt with other things.
One the things I enjoyed about ESO was their implementation of the trinity (for fights that need it since a lot of group dungeons can be cheesed with no need for a tank and often no need for a healer either) with no AOE taunts and heavy use of short duration CC by tanks but everyone still had to deal with getting attacked and interrupted occasionally.
It's a good system about half way between trinity and no trinity.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Absolutely, GW2 was a prime example of this system in use and being very successful.
The main problem is, some people like these Tactical Roles to be filled.
Either because they want someone else to enable their play, Ergo: Someone who just wants to play a massive DPS toon because it makes them feel powerful and important, and expects someone else to do ther "other" stuff, like keep them alive so they can get max kill count) Or Because they know that playing less desirable Tactical Roles will ensure their ability to join groups for various content (Ergo: People who play Heal-bots, or Buff-Bots to get an easy up into Raids for example.)
If you remove these Tactical Roles, you leave a lot of players feeling, shall we say, weak, because everyone can DPS like they can, or Everyone can heal themselves, thus they need to be very competitive for spots, which they don't like.
It also makes grouping and teamwork very nuanced, which as it stands, it seems players also do not like either.
Case in point, in GW2, I started with a shout guard, just pulled the build off meta-battle, when I started the game, as a very solid all around build, the way the build worked in groups, was the more people I could buff with my shouts the better my buffs and the more I could AOE heal. Very fun and solid group based build, but it was nuanced, I needed to time my shouts to work the best, and I needed players to be within the AOE effects, couple this with Fields and Finishers, and you can have some really good Group Dynamic going on.
When GW2 released HoT, that all changed, that nuanced grouping ended, and people fell into roles, there were Healers, Buffers, and DPS.. gone was that era where people could work together on various levels, and it all became generically simplified.
So, while it can be done, as GW2 did prove, and it can be very much enjoyed as well, it also needs to address the stupid that gamers bring to the table. If something is too nuanced, too complex, or the synergy and co-op of the class is not beat into their heads with a hammer, just too many of them simply will not be able to grasp it.
A prime example of this for me, was Trove, I started with a Candy Barb, and thinking "barbarian" that this was a Pure DPS glass Cannon build like barbarians are in most other MMO's.
Boy was I wrong, and for that reason I had a real hard time leveling my Candy Barb, and I finally looked at the guild, and it turned out, that the Candy Barb was a self healing tank style build, once I made that shift, changed my gear, and my approach, the class was a dream to play.
I then made a Tomb Raiser, however this time, I didn't just make assumptions, I read guides and looked up how the build was supposed to work, and again, leveling was easy, the game was fun, and the build felt powerful.
What all these words come to, is that, sometimes as a player, we have an idea of how the game is supposed to be played, but that might not be how the Devs thought the game was supposed to be played.
So for a non-trinity/non-role game, the players need to know that is the case walking in, and ready to learn how to handle a new style of game, not walk in thinking that this game will be like all the other games they played.
It also takes a Dev team that will stick to their vision, not like Anet that will flop all over the place.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Again stacking in place was better since damage was easily mitigated and spread out while maximizing the AoE Boons and Field Blast. Again all became mindless DPS. Like imagine World of Warcraft max level endgame dungeons all being doable with a 5man all DPS build Rogues party. May be fun at first, but quickly gets dull because everybody doing the same exact thing. Minds well make Mesmer's Clones the real thing and let them fill the party slots, because everybody would be doing the same thing in the group, just DPSfest and applying boon here and there when abled.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
It was only after Raids were put in that Mobs locked on Agro to the players with the most toughness.
Also, the nuances were mainly gone, as Chrono/Druid/BannerSlave were the core needed roles, after that is was just full retard DPS slots, either by Conditions or Power based (With Dungeons and most Fractals, Zerk/Power based was still king). So it very much eliminated the nuances of grouping, and removed the whole idea of group dynamic, so much so, I revised my guard into straight up DPS, as that was more efficient than any other kind of synergy that had existed in the past. It and pretty much beat the roles of Chrono / Druid / Banner Slave into the game as the needed Trinity and everyone else, just does DPS. A massive step down from what it was like at Core.
But, again, a Trinityless game can be made, and I believe there are a lot of players that are in fact ready for such a game to be put on the market, just, need to get past the dinosaurs that cling to the role based system, or flat out ignore them.
Not to mention they built a lot of mobs with one shot kill/down mechanics, making toughness/vitality/healing tantamount to worthless, there was simply no reason to build in that direction at all. There was more motive to have some defensive stats in WvW & sPvP, but not in PvE.
That was a direct issue with the game design and was brought to their attention quite a bit, which they did nothing about.
I loved the original system, because it allowed players to take anyone and just go do a dungeon, they didn't need to wait for a (Healer) or wait for (CC) or wait for a (Tank), take the first 5 and go! Made the game super easy to join or make a group, a stress free game IMHO.
Think about it, in WoW, if you could take the first 5 and go do a dungeon, that would make grouping so much faster and easier, if everyone wanted to play a rogue, they could, if they wanted to play a paladin or shaman, they could, and they would not be put into some "role".. like "Oh you're a shaman, that means you need to buff and heal" .. no.. it means we all run through the dungeon like the greedy psychopaths we are, killing everything for loot and exp.
Honestly.. for the life of me, I will never be able to grasp how anyone really wanted to go back to the era of "Looking for (Healer)" times of LFG's.. it sucked back then, it sucked today.. I mean.. I dunno.. Obviously some people loved it, hence why they cried for it in GW2, but I never liked waiting on a healer, and I never liked the idea that if I played a "healing" class I was expected to be ther nanny for everyone else in the group.
But again.. Obviously some people must love that.
Though there were classes in D&D, there weren't tanks. Fighters could dish out damage. The second best fighter was your cleric. Not til 4th Ed. (I think) did the MMO version feed back into the PnP. Class systems certainly got ossified into a lot of the second and third wave of RPGs, but there were alternatives. GURPS comes to mind.
In modern real world armies there are no tauntbots. The tank is one of the singularly most powerful units on the field. Troops are regularly cross-trained.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Let's say there's a game where there's certain magic attacks from the enemy that absolutely require magic barrier shields otherwise the enemy AOE damage demolishes the group. So even a tank is not enough. Now a new role is created which is responsible for creating barrier shields. So the 3-role system has turned into a 4-role system.
This ultimately is not a good idea as it just becomes harder and harder to get every role filled the more roles are required. I think the 3 role system works nicely, but I'm open to more roles or even less roles. I think you can still have an engaging game with a 2 role system: let's say damage and dps, but everyone has self-healing abilities so everyone heals for themselves. It's a possibility.
There's many creative possibilities out there!
Mend and Defend
The only complaint about bunker builds that really happened for the most part, was that with power creep they became less viable, when GW2 revamped their whole WvW combat they made bunkers viable again, and people were happy again, then they went and messed with condi making it a shitshow again.
Anyway, none of this address the OP.
I bring this up because you talk about tanks, in DDO the raids are built with the idea that there will be dedicated tanks, healers, and many roles will need to be filled. Some raids offering some very unique roles, like a Shadow Tank for ToD for example.
Some raids even requiring several "tanks" and teams, Ergo, Master Artificer, requiring people to be able to seperate the 2 boss mobs, one ranged, the other melee, and take them down at the same time.
This when you build a "Tank" it's not a one system fits all, you end up with several gear sets that have various abilities that are situational.
It also means that it's not always the fighter that Tanks, in some cases the rogue tanks, because their dodge and evasion are better for the Boss mob that tends to hurl spells as opposed to just beating them physically.
Couple this with the idea that you can milti-class, (up to 3 classes) you have racial abilities, as well as additional enhancement abilities like Inquisitor that anyone can use, and, when you get there, epic destinies that can be mixed up as well.
So that Wizard/Arti might end up being the best tank in the group for one of the raid bosses, and the Rogue/Bard and FvS/Monk is the primary healer, while the Cleric/Fighter is off playing second tank.
Again the MMO I mention above, did put in very unique roles for some of their raids, like in ToD, they had Shadow Tanks, and needed 2 tanks for the end fight.
In Shroud, you needed to split the group apart into 4 teams that each handled a mini boss that all needed to be killed at the same time.
In master Artificer, there were 2 titan raid bosses, one could only be hit by melee, the other only by ranged they needed to be dropped at the same time, so you needed one dedicated team for each, Each of the two teams needed their own tank, dps, and healer.
Not to mention that since there was the ability to multi-class, you could build a self healing toon, and in this game I have seen Rogues, Bards, and all manner if hybrid mixed builds play healers with no "healer" class (IE: Cleric/FvS) levels.
in DDO there is a group called R.O.G.U.E, which is really just a bunch of Thief enthusiast that go about proving that Thieves can do anything in DDO, including an All Rogue Shroud, which I took part in one such event during my rogue life on my main.
The variations and different ways people can build their characters are staggering, and among the 12 fellow rogues that I ran with in that Shroud, not a single one of was the same, yet we all did a good job with our characters, and won.
So if you were looking for something like that, you might want to check out Dungeons and Dragons Online.
IMHO, it is a odd game, because while it is a "Role" based game, there is a lot of room on who can play what roles. Not every healer is going to be a Cleric, not all your tanks are Fighters.. sometimes that Rob wearing spell casting Sorc/Monk is the exact person you need for the job.