for me i consider being able to project your roles mitigation abilities (to some extent) on to another player as a superior form of healing. This encourages players to play together but is far more specific in implementation. Extending shields and guards are types of preventative healing but they are useless on yourself.
so when a fighter groups with a mage they both can bolster each others weaknesses to a degree and adding the third role gives maximum possible protection. Of course those players would need to be set up properly to do that within their own role.
Group size would likely be 4 or 5 so it should be easy to get that effect with any full group.
The problem with eso is the combat system is completely broken so content is either way to easy or way to hard. Theres no middle ground in the game ( anymore..there used to be) as tanks are either invincible or made of paper. This is because self healing combined with action combat wasnt well thought out and they rely primarily on "one shot" mechanics to provide challenge. so basically you miss a block and you die but anyone can block and heal and dodge. Eso has crowd control but its worthless most of the time as it only lasts a couple of seconds. Not so sure about GW2 its been a long time since i played that game.
i think if your going to have action combat you must also have limited healing and situational mitigation or else you will be the next eso in terms of combat.
for instance in eso any player can block 50% of the damage of anything anytime and with roll dodge can avoid 100% of almost any damage. Im not against doing this but it has to be more situational and limited.
so fighters can block 50% of melee damage mages can block 50% of magic damage Rogues have enhanced roll dodge and roll dodge is limited ( more so than eso ) when it comes to area effect abilities.
so block wont be op when a fighter has to block a fireball and mages cant block a sword very well and this is as it should be. Rogues cant block well at all and are more reliant on evading attacks. This is how you share the tank role among the archetypes/roles.
these limitations can be improved a bit by having the other roles in your group armed with the right skills and spells of course and this is a better way to limit healing but at the same time offer a preventative form of it for grouping purposes.
so there is a huge gameplay advantage in action combat when you use selective mitigation and damage as your role criteria. Players will have real situational weaknesses to overcome both offensively and defensively which is dependent on what your fighting.
I don't see the problems you are seeing. The main problem is the group finder ratios.
Its all balanced when you look at classes separately like archer, rogues/duel wielding, melee 2h DPS, ranged mage, pet/summon/necro mage, 1h tank dps and healers then its very balanced.
The group finder only has 4 spots and requires a healer and tank, but what about other classes? only 2 spots for all those other dps classes.
If groups were sized at 6/7 with 1 heals and 1 tank, it would be much more balanced.
Additionally they need to add abilities to DPS classes that give them CC ability, but for 1h melee/shield tanks give them equivalent dps but taunts/pull/tug abilities instead. That way 1h melee/shield dps don't feel like they are shafted in dps department.
Finally like WoW you cant have a group size of 5 with 1 tank, then have raids where 1 main tank in 40. If 20% of the pop is tanks how are they going to compete in end game at 2.5% of spots available?
Eso 1 Main tank in 12, group size 1 tank per 4? tanks cant get a group end game as main tanks. Meanwhile tons of DPS spots open in end game raiding. People always looking for good DPS end game raiding.
That's only on paper. in reality your still not going to have any more tanks than there are now and it says nothing about the quality of those tanks that are available. The larger the group is the more difficulty there will be in assembling it. If the tank sucks or the healer leaves they will still be very difficult to replace. In my method anyone can step up and lead assuming they are the right role for the situation.
I agree with you regarding the lack of good crowd control available and the raid issue. Of course these are nonissues with my design. The best tank is based on the situation and everyone has an effective array of cc like eq1 had with most classes. You just need your best guy and who that is will change depending on what your fighting.
this also solves soloing problems but makes soloing more situationally difficult so you actually have to know your enemy. Something you rarely see in games today.
Eso is a blocking & dodging game. Nothing else really matters. Miss one of those and your dead. At least with my design you cant just block everything in the whole game.
The situational mitigation role strategy also opens up other forms of gameplay
For instance you you might have to rotate who has aggro even within the group since this is not a healing game. After one guy takes a beating he can be relieved and back off and let the new guy take over. This can be done on the fly and can be done with multiple roles temporarily since the rogue is an evasion expert and can buy some time.
Buying time will be very important as there are no heals and you only have your innate regeneration abilities.
Other situations are where a boss might change strategies midfight from magic to melee which might also require you to change out who is taking aggro.
Then there are situations where you have a group of mobs which includes casters an melee and you have to determine who tanks what and what has to be controlled.
these situations would rarely happen in a traditional mmo because the strategy is always the same. Tank, spank, heal. At least ESO has tried a few encounters ( like engine guardian) that made the tank unneeded but because of the way the meatsheild/tank works in mmos they become too useless when their role is not required.
Also the reason why dps are always needed in raids in ESO isnt because of numbers but rather the number of people who animation cancel aka "good" dps is much lower than the number of players available.
Because what ive presented is a very situational type of gameplay where you actually have glaring strengths and weaknesses a big part of the game is completing your monster manual. This is a journal which details every monster you fight. As you are exposed to them it will fill itself out based on your actions.
if you hit a goblin with a mace, the monster manual will update on whether or not that was effective, how effective or not effective against this creature. It will also detail its effectiveness against you. All creatures you face will have similar entries and of course this will fill itself out faster if your in a group since different people have different damage types.
As the game progresses its really about learning a specific monsters weakness and exploiting it. It wont be just about more and more dps because that might not work.
You have to leave the dps mindset youve been conditioned into. The damage type really really matters, possibly more than your skill with it does.
You have to learn the game and the monster manual helps you do this. It wont be easymode like other games. Certain matchups you will be completely ineffective and have to change your strategy.
there is no experience in this game, no low hanging fruit. You can either kill the thing or you cant and get the resource it carries.
Your fighter will be at a great disadvantage against the rust monster no matter how uber he is. His weapons will shatter and so will his armor. Fighters are not well suited to combat the dread rust monster. All roles will have their various nemesis's. Some monsters might even have rotating defenses in this manner.
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so when a fighter groups with a mage they both can bolster each others weaknesses to a degree and adding the third role gives maximum possible protection. Of course those players would need to be set up properly to do that within their own role.
Group size would likely be 4 or 5 so it should be easy to get that effect with any full group.
The problem with eso is the combat system is completely broken so content is either way to easy or way to hard. Theres no middle ground in the game ( anymore..there used to be) as tanks are either invincible or made of paper. This is because self healing combined with action combat wasnt well thought out and they rely primarily on "one shot" mechanics to provide challenge. so basically you miss a block and you die but anyone can block and heal and dodge. Eso has crowd control but its worthless most of the time as it only lasts a couple of seconds. Not so sure about GW2 its been a long time since i played that game.
i think if your going to have action combat you must also have limited healing and situational mitigation or else you will be the next eso in terms of combat.
for instance in eso any player can block 50% of the damage of anything anytime and with roll dodge can avoid 100% of almost any damage. Im not against doing this but it has to be more situational and limited.
so fighters can block 50% of melee damage
mages can block 50% of magic damage
Rogues have enhanced roll dodge and roll dodge is limited ( more so than eso ) when it comes to area effect abilities.
so block wont be op when a fighter has to block a fireball and mages cant block a sword very well and this is as it should be. Rogues cant block well at all and are more reliant on evading attacks. This is how you share the tank role among the archetypes/roles.
these limitations can be improved a bit by having the other roles in your group armed with the right skills and spells of course and this is a better way to limit healing but at the same time offer a preventative form of it for grouping purposes.
so there is a huge gameplay advantage in action combat when you use selective mitigation and damage as your role criteria. Players will have real situational weaknesses to overcome both offensively and defensively which is dependent on what your fighting.
Eso 1 Main tank in 12, group size 1 tank per 4? tanks cant get a group end game as main tanks. Meanwhile tons of DPS spots open in end game raiding. People always looking for good DPS end game raiding.
I agree with you regarding the lack of good crowd control available and the raid issue. Of course these are nonissues with my design. The best tank is based on the situation and everyone has an effective array of cc like eq1 had with most classes. You just need your best guy and who that is will change depending on what your fighting.
this also solves soloing problems but makes soloing more situationally difficult so you actually have to know your enemy. Something you rarely see in games today.
Eso is a blocking & dodging game. Nothing else really matters. Miss one of those and your dead. At least with my design you cant just block everything in the whole game.
For instance you you might have to rotate who has aggro even within the group since this is not a healing game. After one guy takes a beating he can be relieved and back off and let the new guy take over. This can be done on the fly and can be done with multiple roles temporarily since the rogue is an evasion expert and can buy some time.
Buying time will be very important as there are no heals and you only have your innate regeneration abilities.
Other situations are where a boss might change strategies midfight from magic to melee which might also require you to change out who is taking aggro.
Then there are situations where you have a group of mobs which includes casters an melee and you have to determine who tanks what and what has to be controlled.
these situations would rarely happen in a traditional mmo because the strategy is always the same. Tank, spank, heal. At least ESO has tried a few encounters ( like engine guardian) that made the tank unneeded but because of the way the meatsheild/tank works in mmos they become too useless when their role is not required.
Also the reason why dps are always needed in raids in ESO isnt because of numbers but rather the number of people who animation cancel aka "good" dps is much lower than the number of players available.
Because what ive presented is a very situational type of gameplay where you actually have glaring strengths and weaknesses a big part of the game is completing your monster manual. This is a journal which details every monster you fight. As you are exposed to them it will fill itself out based on your actions.
if you hit a goblin with a mace, the monster manual will update on whether or not that was effective, how effective or not effective against this creature. It will also detail its effectiveness against you. All creatures you face will have similar entries and of course this will fill itself out faster if your in a group since different people have different damage types.
As the game progresses its really about learning a specific monsters weakness and exploiting it. It wont be just about more and more dps because that might not work.
You have to leave the dps mindset youve been conditioned into. The damage type really really matters, possibly more than your skill with it does.
You have to learn the game and the monster manual helps you do this. It wont be easymode like other games. Certain matchups you will be completely ineffective and have to change your strategy.
there is no experience in this game, no low hanging fruit. You can either kill the thing or you cant and get the resource it carries.
Your fighter will be at a great disadvantage against the rust monster no matter how uber he is. His weapons will shatter and so will his armor. Fighters are not well suited to combat the dread rust monster. All roles will have their various nemesis's. Some monsters might even have rotating defenses in this manner.