Gamebreaker Takes A Deeper Look At The Holy Trinity

Written by: James Johnson (@WadeDMcGinnis) | July 5, 2012 4:15 pm

80 Comments

The holy trinity is a topic that has been thrown around a lot this past year or so, what with Star Wars The Old Republic following World of Warcraft‘s trinity based system and gamers getting their first real taste of Guild Wars 2‘s break from the standard system.

Now it appears Wildstar decided to ask this pivotal question to their community in their weekly Uplink Analysis. The community had very insightful views, ranging from “the system works because it’s simple” to “developers are too lazy to go outside the safety of this system”.

The conversation even dipped into whether DPS is less stressful, and many know that tanking is dealing with both the monster and the group for control. Healing is fighting everyone to give support, and dealing damage is learning how to die in the fastest most efficient way possible or if you’re actually good, dealing damage while dancing with mobs.

A group in the Wildstar community says the system works and this is why we see it with other games. Some said it was the backbone of group play, while others said that while freedom is nice, the overwhelming task to construct such freedom would be too costly/time consuming to design so the holy trinity is, in a way, a necessary evil.

Which lead into the idea that programmers could be at fault for this system.

The community made a distinct claim that programmers are either unimaginative for not looking outside of the trinity, or developers were effectively hurting the gamer by forcing them to choose a role that may not fit their play style.

While play styles can be vastly unique and it’s difficult for a developer to know all the ways a gamer will want to play their game, being given a limited choices of game play for that character is also just as bad.

But is this problem partly because of the design philosophy of MMO’s today?

If you were given the choice of having a select number of abilities to choose from but you had to deal-with-flavor-of-the-month character builds versus having a set play style based on roles, which route gives you more freedom?

Hard thing to answer because players will undoubtedly dislike having that one build rock one month only to get hit with a nerf bat the next, while trying to squeeze into a play style that may fit will but might always feel unnatural.

The best thing that gamers could ever hope for is that developers use or learn to use incomparables.

If you’re unclear on what incomparables are: take two abilities, one will give you a snare you can only use on one player but you can do so while running. The other ability will let you create a wall to stop multiple targets. The choice depends upon the player to decide which ability will complement their playstyle.

At the end of the day, gamers will find their niche in an MMO. Creating a character, mastering their class, and refining all the nuisances that class has. Whether or not the group system in their game has the trinity system will not matter if a player truly enjoys the game.

Leave a comment below and let us know where you stand on this topic.

Do you feel humans naturally lean towards efficiency/roles or is there something else at work?

Gamebreaker Takes A Deeper Look At The Holy Trinity

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http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo

the trinity is whack EQ had a more complex group dynamic which catered to four to five roles…the trinity is of WoW. DAoC and AC didn’t have a trinity…

it’s of WoW, an unnecessary streamlining of everquest mechanics. there were and shall be good, successful mmo’s besides WoW.

pro or con, let this discussion die out. it’s not as important as people think.

if anything it’s bad unless you want to play woW. look how the trinity rapes and bogs down TERA. all this action bullshit marketing yet you stand around casting and attacking while a tank tanks and you move once a minute when the mob does its extremely telegraphed dive in a random direction.
Sathure

Just one simple fact. Programmers do not design games. Programmers develop engines and other back end systems as well as tools for designers to use.

The Trinity is a core design facet. Your game play is designed around this model. Programmers wouldn’t have an ounce of say in this.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Tj-Vossos/647768691 Tj Vossos
  
  the trinity is not a core design, check out guild wars 2
  - Sathure
    
    My Avatar is Guildwars 2..
    
    Core design doesn’t relate to necessity. It just means it’s a core principle in your games design. It doesn’t mean other games have to have it.
    
    I’m simply saying programmers don’t have a say in this sort of detail.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
      
      progammers don’t have a say…game developers do.
      - Old Ben
        
        > progammers don’t have a say…game developers do.
        
        You probably mean “designers”. The programmers are also developers (as are the artists, writers, etc.).
- Old Ben
  
  Technically true, but in a lot of projects (especially in smaller companies) the designer is one of the programmers.
  - Sathure
    
    For small indie developments that can be true. But not for anything triple A. Not for the last decade or so. Especially for an MMO.
    
    A lot of game studios today don’t have many if any actual programmers on staff.
    
    Design and development is done with editing tools. Nowadays primarily 3rd party tools and engines designed by other studios. Like unreal for example.
    - Old Ben
      
      > For small indie developments that can be true.
      
      Yes, but not just. I’ve worked as a programmer and QA tester for what was (at the time) the second largest game publisher in the world, and in three subsidiaries where I worked, the lead designer was also a coder.
      
      Most game designers these days seem to come from two backgrounds: Level design and mod development. The former generally don’t know much about coding, but the latter do, and remain involved with some aspects of it even when they’re “promoted” to lead designer.
      
      And there’s a lot more to a game than simply coding the graphics engine. Some design positions (ex., systems designer, quest designer, AI designer, etc.) involve writing a lot of code (sometimes meant to be compiled, sometimes just scripts in Python / Lua / whatever) and require a good understanding of programming (even if they don’t require any knowledge of system APIs or hardware).
      
      I agree the use of “programmers” in the GBTV article above is incorrect (they meant designers), but in the real world there’s often some overlap between the two.
- Frobbley
  
  However, programmers limit games in ways that are significant.
  
  The holy trinity exists because of the lack of sophistication in AI. Mob behavior has been ridiculously stupid in MMOs (and most other games, really) and consequently, available player action has been limited as a result, otherwise the humans gain an edge the programmers can’t compete with in the AI. When players get dumbed down to have about the same available actions as the dumb AI, then game balance is easier to manage. Spreadsheets rule, testing is easier.
  
  That isn’t exactly the programmers’ fault, since computing resources for AI have been limited due to emphasis on graphics, for instance. But effective and efficient AI is a problem to be solved by programmers, not game designers.
http://twitter.com/KingStGreibach Greibach

The holy trinity is a contrived and unnecessary model of combat. Yes, it is old, but the older versions of it (a la DnD) are far less extreme and contrived as the modern day incarnations, and even back then they were not necessary to conform to. The idea of “Hate” being a controlled metric to draw aggro onto the guy that does no damage and can take a huge beating is absolutely bass-ackwards. Let’s take a look at one of the quintessential RPGs- DnD. Look at what was commonly considered the Tank- Fighter (or barbarian sometimes). This is the melee guy that has lots and lots of HP, fortitude, strength, and armor or damage reduction. Ok, so he can survive a beating. The thing is, in lower-middle-tier parties, the fighter could be a formidable force if he got into your face, he just didn’t have many tools to do so. A wizard would have to worry about the fighter not because he had an artificial Hate, but because a wizard took big penalties when enemies started wailing on them. A fighter could grapple the wizard, or knock him prone, or take opportunity attacks, or at lower levels, outright kill him. Does this sound like a Tank in current MMO terms? No, not really. He could take a beating because he HAD TO in order to BE A THREAT. That’s what is so wrong with the holy trinity nowadays- the Tanks are not actually a threat, they just use a stupid gimmick to force the enemy to throw away resources on something that is not actually threatening to them, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Moving on. The “DPS” classes like the rogue, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard (which was much better to use for save or die spells or environmental effects, but that’s beside the point) were scary because of their ability to inflict their powers at range, or with stealth. After the low levels were out of the way, they didn’t die instantly like many DPS characters do in the trinity. Yes, they did a lot of damage, and yes, they died faster, but it was entirely effective to eschew the Tank role altogether with sufficient and varied DPS; something that modern MMOs virtually never allow.

And then Healers. In-combat healing did not used to be as much of a thing. Yes, you could do it, but often the healer was there to heal AFTER combat because HP recovery was so slow in older RPGs. Plus, with the advent of softer healers (bard, druid) and potions and scrolls and wands… the need for a dedicated healer was at the very least less required.

What MMOs did is they stratified the roles to an extreme degree. Tanks can’t do good damage, because if tanks could go without needing DPS, nobody would play DPS. Likewise, if the DPS could survive without tanks, nobody would play a class that does no damage and isn’t needed. Healers were tacked on to support that structure even more so. How do you ensure that the monsters attack the only person who can take it? Better add hate! Is that model necessary? NO! It is a systemic issue that they designed in for themselves. Look at GW1 & 2. Classes can be tanky, but there are no tanks. Tanky characters can still deal respectable damage. DPS characters can take some hits. Lo and behold, you no longer need a Hate system when people can survive some hits, and the tanky characters can do damage because it is a reasonable trade-off. PvP doesn’t have Tanks because hate is ridiculous, and if someone can’t do damage, they will never be a real threat. What you need is a system that is not so stratified and that has monsters that have more advanced target priorities than “Because a mechanic makes me attack him”.
http://twitter.com/MattstaNinja Mattsta

I don’t think it is that we lean towards efficiency, but that by nature we suck at multitasking. It is alot easier to go into these group fights knowing we only have to focus on one thing (healing, damage, or keeping a bosses attention).

I haven’t gotten a character high enough in the BWEs, but from the videos I have seen and from what I heard this is why the dungeons are so hard in GW2. Everyone in the party is doing damage, and keeping their health up, while making sure they are not keeping too much attention on the boss while also avoiding any big attacks it dishes out. The trinity helps keep all the chaotic crazyness of boss fights in check by giving us only one thing to focus on. (Though this might also be why we need all of these unique and surprising mechanics added to bosses to keep things interesting.)
- Old Ben
  
  > The trinity helps keep all the chaotic crazyness of boss
  > fights in check by giving us only one thing to focus on.
  
  And yet the good players (even in trinity-based games) are the ones who don’t just focus on one thing, but keep track of all the aspects (and can shift their own role as required – within the limits of each game’s design).
  
  In every guild I’ve been in, we had a “rule” that everyone had to be experienced in a minimum of two roles (tank and healer, tank and DPS or healer and DPS) and a minimum of two classes. Some of my favorite moments in WoW were when people suddenly had to change roles because someone disconnected, died, or messed up, or doing instances where some of the “roles” were missing (ex., no dedicated tank or healer).
http://twitter.com/cyanpill cyanpill

Did someone claim that DnD had the holy trinity? There was no taunting in DnD, there was healing, but it was weak in combat, far more usefull to use spells to finish combat, then get back up to health out of combat. That is not the holy trinity. The holy trinity is a recent form of min-maxing a party setup.
http://twitter.com/DaveyDiablo Davey Diablo

It’s probably just me, but I’ve found it easier to follow a winding story of an old boy at a bar after far too many drinks, than I did following this debate.
Roles don’t have to be as ‘hard’ as in the ‘trinity’. Flexibilty is the key to dynamic, engaging gameplay.
ArsenicSundae

I get the impression that this guy really has no understanding of what non-trinity combat actually means. In terms of freedom, there’s absolutely no question that the trinity system far more restrictive. In GW2, I’ve tanked, healed and DPSed all within 30 seconds in the same fight. I can’t say that for WoW after more than three years.

Also, when he said that the trinity is the backbone of every tabletop RPG leads me to believe that he’s never played a tabletop RPG in his life.

The trinity system won’t stop me from playing Wildstar, but it will limit my interest and level of engagement with it.
Old Ben

The really artificial aspect of the “holy trinity” is the fact that tanks (who do less damage than the “damage dealers”) somehow manage to generate more aggro. I would almost describe that as a bug in the enemy AI (why is the enemy attacking the player who poses the lowest risk to him and is hardest to kill?).

I don’t have a problem with players being allowed / able to specialize. It makes perfect sense to have a heavily-armored player (i.e., a “tank”) in a dungeon where you need to cross a series of traps to reach a lever, or some similar situation, but a player who sacrifices his damage output for survivability should never be a preferential target of the AI-controlled enemies. Taunts should be momentary and really just used to “distract” the enemy for a short period and maybe save a teammate from a killing blow (and they should be available to everyone). Artificial aggro generation just feels fake.

Anything that makes PvE _radically_ different from PvP is probably “wrong” (and I’m not even saying this as someone who primarily does PvP – I actually prefer PvE in RPGs; I do enough PvP in other kinds of games).
- jayremy
  
  I have down some brief AI programming, though being a novice learning it in a class assignment it really isn’t that hard. It is definitely the most complicated form of programming. When all the in game AI processes is threat which is basically like a secondary damage table (in terms of how lazy/easy it is to design), you get a very simplistic gameplay experience.
  
  That carries over to how groups play and how limiting content is. When AI is smarter and uses more variables like, distance, what attacks are available, what type of enemy (the player is the enemy from this perspective), what attacks are best, what is their armor, what is their health (%), are they recovering, are they attacking (last time they attacked) and how much damage they have just dealt. These all weigh in to some extent on what the NPC AI will do.
  
  Dedicated 100% up time tanks is probably the worst way to design any role, because nobody else is ever in direct risk of being attacked by the big bad guy.
  - Old Ben
    
    The thing with “AI programming” is that it’s not a very well defined concept. I mean, at its core it’s about making decisions, but a huge factor is what information your code has access to.
    
    Virtually all game AI “cheats” (it has access to data that the entity you’re controlling shouldn’t really have access to), but there are still very significant differences in the level of complexity and, as you say, the approach most of these games have to threat (a modified damage table) makes programmers’ and designers’ life much easier than if they had to do a “realistic” assessment of how threatening each entity (player / pet / etc.) is.
    
    Partly it’s for performance reasons (the server has to run the AI for all creatures in the world), but mostly it’s designers playing it safe. I think it would be interesting if some MMO company had a raid boss that was actually controlled by a human. I wonder how the “pro raiders” would react when faced with an enemy that didn’t follow fake aggro rules.
    
    I’ve had to code AI for some robots (where we had to rely on the data coming from the sensors) and it was a lot harder, because we had to deal with the possibility that the sensor data was inaccurate or that it was being incorrectly interpreted by the low-level layers of the perception system. There was still a lot of ugly hacking for performance (and funding / deadline) reasons, but when we put in the time to construct a “mental world model” inside the robot’s mind (instead of just tracking things by color, etc.), we started seeing some really interesting behaviors which might even teach neurologists / psychologists a thing or two.
    
    Sometimes I think that AI (especially perceptual AI) is the only thing that could make me go back to coding.
    - jayremy
      
      Well I mean Blizzard even has shown what a more dynamic AI in a boss fight can do via “Faction Champions”. Though most people hated it and the tuning was bad (NPC healers healing for 150k back in WotLK days), the way the AI worked was the most fun and dynamic fight in the game. The bosses were not immune to every control effect and they were still very threatening.
      
      It is harder in a way that has not really with it being tedious but it’s complexity. Though it can be difficult it is definitely a more impressive and intriguing form of programming so it’s not like I would see actual professional programmers dreading hat line of work. If anything programming how NPCs especially bosses work seems like the most fun portion of programming. Something about seeing automation created from your very hands that performs intelligently just makes you feel… like a god.
      - Old Ben
        
        Well, the thing about the faction champions was that you were fighting a lot of enemies at the same time, so it got a bit hard to follow (it tended to really bring the frame rate down on some systems, too). I don’t think their AI was particularly good, they just had frequent aggro resets and target switches. They still didn’t approach the fight the way intelligent beings would.
      - jayremy
        
        Not saying they didn’t just saying they were a much more complicated AI design than the norm. They actually did process things like health, magic resist, distance and armor values, which is something we tested in raids because our raid leader was curious on how to figure out the system. Nonetheless we found out, but trying to adapt and make some structured approach to it we found out wouldn’t work even though we knew how the AI worked, coordinating a raid to a more complex AI (even if only a slight increment in “intelligence”) wass difficult on its own.
      - Old Ben
        
        I kind of hated ToC10 / ToC25 (how lazy can the developers get? two rooms for an entire raid…?!) so I didn’t play through it more than strictly necessary, but I can’t say I found them particularly intelligent. The fight was more complex just because you were dealing with multiple enemies who didn’t all focus on the tank.
        
        I saw all kinds of theorycrafting about that fight and lots of completely contradictory “conclusions”. In the end, it boiled down to killing the druid ASAP (biggest heals), keeping the shaman off the squishies (biggest burst damage) and then just kite, interrupt, and burn down the rest.
4rcane

guild wars 2 may break the trinity system, but now everyone die more often than not
- Old Ben
  
  People were used to dying quite frequently in other MMOs too. It was only in recent years that players started expecting to be able to make it through all the content without ever being in any risk (and expecting to be able to cast forever without running out of mana, and so on).
- jayremy
  
  GW2 seems to be quite a nasty mixture between where action combat games
  thrive and where (WoW-like) ui and target based games limit themselves
  to.
  
  Damage isn’t avoidable the same way and action combat game does it.
  Generally speaking, these games require better pacing of the player in
  combat.
  
  Like boxing or any martial art, attacking often exposes you to be
  attacked as well. If you need to recover you lay off (back out) and be a
  bit defensive for a while. You choose opportune moments to attack and
  the rest is about reading the fight, positioning and recovering.
  
  It’s a more realistic way of performing if anything. Mainly the other option is near mindlessly look at the UI and mash buttons every cooldowns liker there is no tomorrow, only moving when there is fire under your feet.
http://twitter.com/Just_Izumi Izumi

I don’t mind the “holy trinity” mainly because I love healing and sometimes tanking. I do like dpsing too but I also like to play support because dpsing gets boring after a while.
Sharuko

I love the usage of the word “force”, right so now instead of “forcing” people to do dps/tank/healer you are forcing people to dps/dps/dps.

Secondly, why are people using GW2 as an example of a class system that gives you choice and “freedom”. The Secret World gives you true choice and actual freedom, it doesn’t force you to play a “Rogue” archetype. You can be what you want to be how to want to be. Also, it already launched a couple of months before GW2. So GW2 is using the TSW model. We should be using TSW as an example and not GW2.

Lastly, devs that don’t use trinity are lazy and want the easy way out. It is easier to balance PvP or PvE without healers or tanks. The biggest problem Blizzard had with PvP was balancing healers and tanks. Devs like Arenanet took the easy way out by removing them completely. I rather have a game that lets you make tanks and healers but doesn’t require content to have tanks/healers.

The funny thing is GW2 balances the lack of tanks and healers in their “dungeons” by having NPCs in them which acts as tanks. Great job, now instead of player tanks you have NPC tanks. Trinity is in because it works even games like PlanetSide 2 have trinity like systems because they want players to have choice.

I love how removing choice somehow equates to “more freedom”. Right.
- TacoBaal
  
  The Wildstar community is saying Trinity is a casualized simple system made for plebeians who can’t bear to not have their hands held through all the content.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle
  
  No matter what the theme of the podcast is.
  
  Just bash at GW2 at every chance you get, huh?
  - Old Ben
    
    I think he’s actually on Arena Net’s payroll, to make sure every thread is about GW2.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
  
  But in end game content, in TSW, you will have to have a healer and a tank in your group, or you’re going to fail. So even though the game gives you freedom at times, in the end result. it’s not much of an upgrade on Rift’s roles. Nice try.
  
  Freedom is freedom. Some people want it and some people can’t deal with it. You can tell which is which by the silliness they hang on to.
  - Sharuko
    
    I never said you didn’t. You do need healers and tanks in TSW. But ideally developers would let people play healers and tanks but make the content not require healer or tanks. This would be hard so developers don’t do that.
    
    They easy way out is just removing the trinity. And some developers prefer the easy path.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle
      
      and he did it again
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz
      
      It’s harder to remove the trinity. That’s why NO ONE has done it. Because it’s hard. And it’s risky. Leaving the trinity in, that’s lazy. Because it’s contrived, and there are other ways to do things. That you don’t see it is completely irrelevant.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1375412151 Erik Merickel
    
    I’m with Sharuko here. TSW came before GW2. That aside, yes it forces you to have roles in your group, but at the same time doesnt force any player to be anything other than what he wants to be in whatever way he wants to be. You can get every skill, you can get every weapon, and you can tank/dps/heal any way you want to. Yes, you need someone to take the brunt of the damage, and someone to support him by keeping him up. But any of the “dps” can do that if they want to. It requires teamwork… rather than simply everyone going flat out to kill the boss before they themselves die.
    
    IRL you have heavy units, fast units, and support units. In the “trinity” concept you have Singular units and Support units. “Tanking” is a support role, supporting the group by holding focus. “Healing” is a support role, keeping the group alive. “DPS” is a selfish singular role where your only concern is your personal well being and your ability to hurt the enemy quickly.
    
    I think the “Holy Trinity” has a place. In a group game there should be teamwork. I feel the trinity is not only a “normal” realistic breakdown of that, but also a fundamental creator of teamwork. That said, no one should be forced to play what they dont like. Which in reality your not. In WoW you can play as whatever you like… a healer who damages. Granted you cant do Raids or PvP, but then, no one is forcing you to do that content. And no one said you had a fundamental right to see every bit of content in the game while still refusing to do what is necessary to get to those parts of the game. That would just be silly…
    - Old Ben
      
      > TSW came before GW2.
      
      …and is a completely different game. GW2 has predefined classes, TSW doesn’t. TSW effectively has tanks / healers / DPS, GW2 doesn’t. GW2 has dynamic events, TSW doesn’t. TSW has a well-written story with good acting, GW2 doesn’t, and so on.
      
      Tanking in the holy trinity makes no sense; it’s an artificial position created by unrealistic mechanics, and that’s why “tanks” don’t really exist in PvP. It doesn’t make any sense for an enemy to stay focused on the guy that does the least damage _and_ is hardest to kill.
      
      If you’re faced with a guy wearing kevlar and holding a water pistol, and another guy wearing a toga and aiming a bazooka at you, which one of them are you going to take out first?
      
      I would almost describe the way enemies focus on the tank as an AI bug.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo
  
  what are you moving on to once TERA closes? did you already hop on funcom’s dick?
- jayremy
  
  There is a difference in the “DPS” role for a trinity system or games that play like WoW and games that play with a more action combat approach or have no trinity.
  
  Everybody may have to contribute to damage but that aren’t spending every second of combat attacking, they aren’t casting or activating some (global) cooldown every second to be considered effective.
  
  Its more about everybody assisting and holding their own as well and filling in the gaps on the fly. Instead of taking damage in the face you dodge or block/absorb it. You can choose maybe to rely on one person to be a medic or all can try to contribute or take care of themselves. If you are low health you back off, you don’t stay in the fray until you die and blame the healer.
  
  Even so dps in a well designed system isn’t that important, it is about staying alive (unless you martyr to save the group).
- http://profile.yahoo.com/5F67A4WUUVMLLVP4MNYEAQOVIU Rob
  
  Your exhausting. It was cute at first how you’d stomp your foot on the ground and hold your breath demanding people see that GW2 wasn’t a good game. I am sure there are plenty of people out there who agree with you but if you think you’ve changed many if any minds I’d wager you’d be mistaken. Lets play a game……instead of trying to make me NOT like something like GW2 how about you try to get me to like something like TERA. That should be easy enough right, I mean it is THE game this year right? I am a long time MMO player and enjoy many games so you explaining to me, or us if you choose, why TERA is the superior game to GW2 should be like shooting fish in a barrel for you since you seem to be an expert on a game you dislike so much.
  I am more than a little sure you have never stepped foot inside of any GW2 “dungeon” I do though believe you have watched video’s of it and have not experienced a single second of said “dungeon” so for you to say “Great job, now instead of player tanks you hav NPC tanks” just goes to show you in no way have anything intelligent to say but just want to keep grinding your axe. Using your logic, I have never attempted brain surgery but have seen a couple videos about it so please feel free to call me if you need your head examined in the future.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/3JO75BNS43WDETCNCO7F7XS6Q4 jo
    
    sharuko already quit tera. when the game is shit, you can only force yourself to bear so much of it.
    - Sharuko
      
      I am still alive and kicking in Tera, come over to Dragonfall at anytime and you will be seeing me having a great time in Tera.
      
      I usually give MMOs a chance but I couldn’t stand GW2. I put GW2 in the same category as FFXIV and STO, two other MMOs I couldn’t stand.
      - Spammerbam
        
        I’m not sure about that because I see you here all the time, always mentioning about GW2, even on a different game article.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/5F67A4WUUVMLLVP4MNYEAQOVIU Rob
        
        Thats great your still playing Tera. Spend more time doing that and enjoying yourself and less spout off about things you “can’t stand” Maybe some joy will enter your life. Your dog and pony show is getting old and to be honest tiring. YES you hate GW2, we get it sport now move along. Would you eat a meal somewhere and “hate” it then spend the next month standing outside telling others that they will hate it too or would you just go somewhere you know you’ll like next time? BTW you paid for GW2 and if you never play a second of it live they still got yo money Kid. Have a blessed day.
  - Sharuko
    
    I am not here to convince you other games are good. I am just telling you the facts as to why GW2 is not innovate and why the game is lazy because it removes the trinity.
    - Spammerbam
      
      ‘”The Secret World gives you true choice and actual freedom, it doesn’t
      force you to play a “Rogue” archetype. You can be what you want to be
      how to want to be.”‘
      
      - Of course, TSW actually has more freedom than GW2 because that’s how the system is designed and being one of its main features. In GW2, you’re gonna have different professions, and each with different sets and varieties of skills that you put together, whether it be dps/support/healer and also enabling you to switch in-between roles during combat to be more effective in teamwork; you’re not stuck to playing one role/play-style and I think that TSW and GW2 does a great job of that.
      
      It’s a good thing GW2 doesn’t follow the trinity system. Having that system would considered to be lazy because then they would just be following what MMO’s have been doing for years.
      
      The Devs in GW2 want to avoid the type of gameplay where you sit there tanking-and-spanking while watching health bars rise and fall and counting/calculating numbers/percentages, rather than paying attention to the actual combat. The dodging mechanics in Tera and GW2 sets a good example because it gets the players to be more active.
      
      ‘”Enjoy using your heal skill after each cooldown even as DPS.”‘
      
      - Cooldowns make it important for a player to decide when to use that certain ability, and also focusing on utilizing other skills available; this sets for a dynamic play-style. And to be familiar with the trinity, you have other players on the battlefield that fits the healer/support role to aid you.
      Otherwise, everyone would be spamming the heal and dodging would be less important, which defeats the purpose of the dodging mechanics feature — that’s like saying it’s not important to dodge those BAM attacks in Tera. Isn’t it?
      
      But with all that said, the last thing I recall was you being level 4 at max with 0% map completion in GW2 — I might be wrong. But hmm, it’s a good idea to get familiar with the skills and traits system a bit more before saying it doesn’t give much player freedom. Just like GW1, I can assure you that coming up with a skills build in GW2 is far more complex than the average traditional MMO, like say, Tera.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/5F67A4WUUVMLLVP4MNYEAQOVIU Rob
      
      By Facts you are of course speaking of you Opinion, right? Since you did not deny my statement that you have NO real idea what goes on inside of dungeons in GW2 and yet you seem to state “fact” when describing them. If you wont convince me other games are good why do you spend so much time trying to convince the people here guild wars is bad? It’s your Opinion kid thats all. Your allowed to have that, you are not allowed your own facts.
just_izumi

I don’t mind the “holy trinity” mainly because I love healing and
sometimes tanking. I do like dpsing too but I also like to play support
because dpsing gets boring after a while.
http://twitter.com/DaPhoolz Rp TheFoolz

Having Limited choices of skills sounds like a fair-game to me.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Willi-Enderle/1668850948 Willi Enderle

holy trinity – let it rot
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steve-Lazarowitz/100000420795554 Steve Lazarowitz

The holy trinity is NOT a necessary evil and we had combat in games long before the holy trinity existed. It’s just easier to make content with a trinity for programmers, because they can limit what you can do…but in a sense that means they also have to limit what THEY can put into the game. It kills both player and developer creativity.
Guild Wars 1 didn’t even have a true tank. There was no way to hold aggro. This idea that holy trinity is necessary is just silly. It’s just what people are used to. Here’s an article I wrote a long time ago about the trinity that puts it into perspective.

http://gw2.dream-sequence.net/Wordpress/?page_id=21
http://twitter.com/thekkadvance The KK Advance

Meh that is stupid, trinity or no trinity dosent limit player choice.
What does limit you is the dept of your class/deck building system. TSW
and GW2 are good examples. One has trinity and one dosent. Both are very
open when it comes to letting the player flavour it up regarding
playstyle. Both require you to heal/buff and soak dmg and both require you to
dodge and deal damage in the same fight. Difference is in GW2 you are more reliant of doing those things yourself while TSW leans towards you relying on others to do some of it for you. Its just a matter of what you enjoy and thats a very personal thing and nothing a focus/test/community group can answer for any majority of other induviduals.

I like both

Get a new community group going Wildstar.
integerx

I don’t think roles are necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that World of Warcraft watered down the Everquest roles to simplify the whole thing. Now it is tank, healer, and damage whereas it used to be tank, healer, damage, control, and support. EQ had its problems, but having more than three roles wasn’t one of them.
http://twitter.com/Master10K Master10K

The choice regarding building your character isn’t what defines whether a game follows the trinity system, but instead it’s the mechanics of the encounters and the combat systems that define it.

Like “Tanking”. It simply isn’t possible to tank indefinitely in GW2 because of the lack of being able to control threat and no way for for a single player to sustain a beating, even if built as tanky as they possibly can be. However like someone did point out earlier, GW2 dungeons do have some ridiculously tough NPCs that can take a bit of a beating, though the lack of strong sustained heals & threat still rid the game of the holy trinity.
http://twitter.com/SilverTaurusPL SilverTaurus

IMO they role system is as said, the back bone of RPG. But current MMO had twisted it to this stale state we have now.
If we take D&D system, there was cleric.. but for each adventure he could adjust to the role he needs to fill. He could pick more support spells or more offensive, depending what group expects. As its still possible in MMOs to pick specs, you are greatly hold back by gear. Taking WoW as example, every spec in best case needs reforge and regem to be viable .. in worst case you need completly different set.
It hate that roles are sticking so much to characters and it require so much effort to switch it, or that DPS role is so shallow (but thats topic for other discussion)
I hope that GW2 will find this balance, where group will like to take this elementalist player who does great as support/healer in one situation, but can easly switch to Damage Dealing in other.
http://profile.yahoo.com/EUGKRFCTDAHRUCSGKY5RZP6YVQ chris

somebody has been watching extra creditz…
Revanhavoc

One of the messages I take from this hit is:

“If it a’int broke, don’t fix it!”

I can’t say I agree when it comes to the triumvirate of tank dps and heals in the MMO industry, and RPG industry as a whole. We are always pigeonholing each other! Oh you’re a democrat. You’re a republican. Your from this or that country, you are of this race…

There is a tendancy to want to fit or mold a complex form into an oversimplified shape. This can achieve accessibility to the nostalgic or noobs, but for someone like me who is sick of the status que and is searching desperately for some innovation, ‘not fixing it’ just seems lazy.

Never again do I want my playstyle defined before I even play the game (i.e. through Character creation)

Never again do I want to HAVE to re-roll (REROLLLLLLLL!) Quiet havoc.

As I was saying I never want to have to re-roll just because my spec no longer fits my playstyle.

What I’m looking for a is some damn customer service. These games are designed for all the wrong reasons: “oh gotta have cash shops for more money, oh gotta have unqiue characters so players will re-roll and then keep paying for our DLC/expansions, oh I gotta keep things just like WoW otherwise how am I ever going to become a millionaire and get 10 million subs!?”

No!

No, gaming companies.

This will not do. The line must be drawn here! And no further!

Innovate you damn dirty ape!
Dyraele

Already posted this on a WildStar board, but thought I would add it here.

I can see both sides. I like the trinity to a point. EQ did it better having multiple roles to fill in a group, as was mentioned in the comments. What it comes down to is that people are tired of having to find different roles to fill in the group and spamming “Healer for dungeon XXX! ST”. I have a different solution that would take more development time.Why not change the content of raids/dungeons to the content of the group? Cater the encounters based on if you have 5 tanks or 3 tanks/1 healer/1 DPS or 5 healers, etc. That way, it doesn’t matter what you have, you get the experience of the dungeon with different tactics needed based on the group makeup. This not only allows any group to do an encounter, it lets you get to experience different tactics based on your group. That way, people get to play the style they like and still get to experience the content without having to wait for certain roles.
- jayremy
  
  Forcing the trinity i never good. A game like Vindictus (and I am pretty sure there are other games to use as example) you can have somebody act as “a tank” and the evie class can heal and regenerate the group to a point.
  
  It’s not so much an issue of having “classes” or builds that can mitigate 30-60% more damage than other classes, or some that can heal or buff but the content designed instead.
  
  If you design combat to be so that mobs hit you non-stop and damage is not avoidable (via positioning or timing), you are going to NEED healers and tanks. If you have enrage timers then you are going to need a required amount of damage dealers. If players have no other way to heal or recover in combat they are likely going to require healers.
  
  I find designing roles as in general “support” over just a “healer” a superior design for group content. Playing from support centric compared to strictly healing only gives more options of play style while still playing in the same manner.
  
  Basically:
  
  If they can design the game so players can avoid a vast majority of the damage, that is a plus.
  
  If they can design the role as support, not just healing, that is a plus.
  
  If they can make the “tanks” not mandatory but a trade off at the choice of the players, that is a plus.
  
  If they can not put in enrage timers, a huge plus.
  
  If they can leave content more dynamic, with multiple ways to overcome it than single method strategies or groups, a huge plus.
  
  If they can make AI (Artificial Intelligence, the “smartness” of encounters in game) dynamic and more complex (algorithms) than a crappy threat system based from purely using abilities, that is a huge plus.
  
  There may be more points but some major ones out of the way and you can get my point.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/YSVAPKVBUPTX6YS3W2DLPOBNN4 AlokP
    
    “f they can design the game so players can avoid a vast majority of the damage, that is a plus.
    If they can design the role as support, not just healing, that is a plus.
    If they can make the “tanks” not mandatory but a trade off at the choice of the players, that is a plus.
    If they can not put in enrage timers, a huge plus.”
    These are all things I find make PvE wildly boring. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a bad gamer, and I can dodge telegraphed damage pretty regularly. Even in explorable mode in GW2 betas (which everyone seems to think are the bee’s knees in re: difficulty) I dodged almost everything with ease, and all of it with practice, and only died when the rest of my group was dying and I was the only one left standing and I just couldn’t dodge that many times. Dodging is only an interesting mechanic when you have to do it or die, many times in a row – warrior tanks in TERA come to mind in that regards (as opposed to lancers, who just block). That has a high skill cap, and is interesting (and difficult) gameplay. A game with no enrage timers is silly.
    - jayremy
      
      When I say avoidable damage it is not only limited to a dodging mechanic. Simply running out of the way, preemptive positioning, shielding/absorbs abilities, blocking and so on.
      
      The way GW2 has designed dodge to work I am not really a fan of, it’s more so a temporary immunity mechanic that moves you from place to place and I think Tera does it a bit the same. Not all games have done it that way, where the dodge is used to actually avoid collision all together not become immune to it.
      
      Whether or not you find it silly is irrelevant to whether it working fine if not optimal. Enrage timer mechanics are a horrid way putting a challenge to every boss fight you design. It only makes sense of some self-destruct is activated or some mob is about to go nuts that matches with the lore and only a small fraction of bosses do them.
      
      Enrage does nothing interesting for the mechanics of the fight and only enforces that x amount of damage has to be done. If people can do a fight designed for more players, more power to them. If armored and support heavy groups want to tackle content with little to no damage dealer heavy players, why not let them?
      - Old Ben
        
        No MMO that I’m aware of uses realistic model collisions. Not only would that put a huge load on the servers, it would also be “unfair” for players who pick larger races (easier to hit). They use very simplified collision detection, based on a box, sphere or cylinder.
        
        The immunity works as a sort of “reasonable doubt” principle. Instead of occasionally damaging players when they were (visually) safe, due to the hit box being bigger than the player, they always grant the player about one second of immunity. That way, if there’s a discrepancy between the hitbox and the model, it never works against the player.
        
        There are a couple of bugs with dodging in GW2, though. Sometimes the client plays the dodge animation but the character doesn’t actually dodge (you see him rolling in place), and sometimes the server acknowledges the dodge but the client doesn’t play the correct animation (you see the player character just running very fast in one direction for a second). I’m sure they’ll manage to fix that, though (it’s a common kind of bug resulting from netcode optimization).
      - jayremy
        
        Not realistic model collisions but more accurate hit boxes, sometimes more than one. Example would be a “box” per limb, head and torso, if even that far.
        
        It depends on the games too not all games have giant and tiny races to compare to, or otherwise their size is factored in before balancing the game.
        
        What you are talking about is a bit on the side of “clutch dodging” when it is right before you get hit. The thing is attacks, effects and projectiles in GW2 are typically too fast once they initiate to dodge visually alone.
        
        Again we can’t assume dodge, as in how it is limited for any specific game already out there but rather the capability of how the mechanic overall would work at it’s best.
        
        If I remember correctly from playing KoA: Reckoning, God of War or Vindictus (for some top examples in my head) you could dodge, as exactly the example of how it could be used. It’s merely a means of moving faster (than running) to place yourself in a position to not be hit.
      - Old Ben
        
        > Not realistic model collisions
        > but more accurate hit boxes,
        
        The hitboxes are used to check for collision with projectiles (or with melee weapon swings, etc.). I wasn’t talking about characters bumping into each other.
        
        > Example would be a “box” per limb,
        > head and torso, if even that far.
        
        In FPS games, there are typically three levels to hit detection. First there’s a big hull (a big sphere or box), then (if the shot intersects that), it’s tested against a model with boxes for each section (arm, forearm, torso, etc.), and finally (if the shot intersects one of those) it’s tested against an actual high-resolution model. Some games skip this last step.
        
        I don’t know any MMORPG that goes that far, though, not only for performance reasons (thousands of characters fighting in different parts of the map at the same time) but also for “racial” reasons as mentioned above.
        
        In a game like TF2, it’s fine if the HWG has bigger hitboxes than the scout, but in a game where you can pick models of different sizes for the _same_ class, that would give some players an advantage.
        
        In fact, most MMORPGs don’t use hitboxes at all, they decide if something “hits” or “misses” based purely on character stats (hit rating, dodge, etc.) and a RNG. Even for AoE, they just consider your character’s coordinates (i.e., they treat it like a single point, and see if it’s within the AoE’s circle), which makes it very fast to compute.
      - jayremy
        
        Well in fact Asheron’s Call a game made in 1999 and in development since 1995 used hitboxes and character collisions. Yes I agree it is a more intensive calculating process. I used to think it was a big deal like you do, but I learned it isn’t quite as big as I thought. Though the method of programming or engine may have a significant impact on the viability, don’t forget this is 2012 now there are much higher tech boundaries. Even Vindictus uses a more complex collision detection system, that seems quite precise.
      - Old Ben
        
        Anything that requires server resources reduces the resources available for everything else. Testing intersections with 12 volumes takes (at least) 12 times longer than checking the intersection with a single volume (and checking against complex non-convex models takes a lot longer). The difference between 0.00001 seconds and 0.00012 seconds might seem irrelevant, but when you multiply that by thousands of players and projectiles, it adds up. Besides, you wouldn’t just need detailed hitboxes for the players, you’d also need at least one per weapon / projectile, and you’d still be left with how to check for contact with things like fire, poison clouds, and so on (which don’t have a well defined boundary). Doing them all realistically would need crazy amounts of coding and loads of CPU cycles. And for what?
        
        Unless it’s going to add something relevant to the gameplay (such as having localized damage), it’s wasted. In a shooter or swordfighting game, it lets you do things like distinguish between body shots and headshots (or decapitations), or make the characters limp if they’re hit in a leg, but most MMORPGs use different mechanics for that (like crit rating for bigger hits, or cripple debuffs to slow down enemies). The extra power of modern servers can be put to better use by allowing more players into each shard or improving the creature AI.
        
        Detailed hitboxes are just not an important thing for most MMORPGs, and would introduce balance issues in any game with different races (or even with a “height” or “build” option during character creation). Everyone would be running around with the smallest possible character, to reduce their chance of being hit.
    - Old Ben
      
      > A game with no enrage timers is silly.
      
      On the contrary; it’s enrage timers that are extremely silly. If the enemy had the ability to do 5x damage, then he would obviously use it right at the start of the fight.
      
      If designers want to prevent long fights (I have no idea why; long fights where you win by the skin of your teeth are a lot more epic than “do it in 3 minutes or you must restart”), they can use a realistic mechanic, such as the arrival of reinforcements.
      
      The concept of “timed enraging” is completely artificial, immersion-breaking, and adds nothing to the gameplay.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/YSVAPKVBUPTX6YS3W2DLPOBNN4 AlokP
        
        Of course enrage timers are silly from an in-character, RP perspective, but then again, so is almost everything about raiding. Why would Deathwing wait for us to come kill him if he can destroy the world whenever he wants? The whole concept of raiding is “immersion breaking,” so get off the RP horse and actually examine it objectively.
        
        I find “no enrage timers” to be silly from a design perspective. Believe me, I love videos of blood DKs soloing bosses, but it’s only possible when there’s no enrage timer, and it makes a fight incredibly ridiculous and/or irrelevant. And, from an RP perspective, it’s silly that one person can take down what 10 people working together may have trouble taking down. And like it or not, enrage timers are a balance issue – otherwise you’d just have 2 tanks and 4 healers in every fight and there would be no issues ever downing a boss. Or you can do it with one good tank and one good healer and down it in a couple of hours. It makes fights irrelevant. As for your soft enrage timer, I assumed the OP was against them too, since he never said “oh, soft enrages are fine, but not hard enrages!!” or “N minutes to kill the boss aren’t okay, but increasing waves of adds eventually making the boss unsurvivable are cool and RP-esque and therefore fine!”
      - Old Ben
        
        The silly part there would be the notion that he can “destroy the world whenever he wants”, so it would be a story problem more than a game mechanics problem.
        
        Anyway, if the game’s story takes place independently of the players’ presence, you don’t have a game. Making the NPCs “wait” for the player improves the game.
        
        Turning fights into mere DPS checks does not. Groups with lower DPS (i.e., not as well geared) who are able to execute well and survive longer should not be punished for it. The only thing enrage timers do is force everyone to grind for gear, independently of their actual skill.
      - jayremy
        
        If players can do the fight with less than optimal numbers or groups comps, more power to them. If anything it is a trial of skill or bad boss design balance, one or the other.
        
        There is no problem with one person being able to solo a boss it takes 5 people to do by any means. If anything that could mean the fight or classes have overwhelmingly strong gimmicks or it is too easy.
- Old Ben
  
  > Why not change the content of raids/dungeons to the content of the group?
  
  Because the point of RPGs is to create something that at least _tries_ to resemble a realistic world. Why should enemies do less damage because people in your party decided to wear less armor? And how would a fight with 5 tanks work? Would they just break enemies into pieces by taunting them in different directions at the same time? What about a fight with 5 healers? Would the enemies just give up after failing to bring their HP down?
  
  It’s perfectly possible to do most WoW instances (at least in normal mode) without a “dedicated” tank or healer. I’ve done some (at the “appropriate” level) with just 3 or 4 DPS, and I’ve tanked bosses with hunter pets, shamans, rogues and even priests. But I don’t expect the enemies to nerf themselves based on what my group is missing. I don’t expect them to hit softer because I have less armor or to have less HP because my group’s DPS is low.
  
  If my group can’t handle a certain dungeon (or a certain quest, or a certain area of the open world), we can simply pick a different one.
  
  > Cater the encounters based on if you have 5 tanks or
  > 3 tanks/1 healer/1 DPS or 5 healers, etc.I have an even better idea: Get rid of “tanks”, “healers” and “DPS”, give every player the ability to deal damage, heal, avoid damage, buff, debuff, control, etc., and then let them decide amongst themselves how they want to tackle each fight. Then design encounters that need different approaches (ex., maybe one encounter requires quick removal of debuffs, maybe another requires a lot of control to position enemies in a specific way, maybe another is basically a DPS race, etc.).
  
  The trinity (as it exists in most MMOs) is a completely artificial concept, created to simplify the designers’ job and to lower the skill and awareness requirements of players.
  
  A well designed system allows different group compositions to tackle the same content by using different tactics, and rewards players who are able to adapt their role to the way the fight is going.
  
  GW2′s implementation still needs some work (judging from what I saw in the BWEs) but it’s an important step in the right direction.
  
  It still allows players to focus on healing if they prefer (as a guardian or elementalist you can have 7 of your 10 skill slots taken up with healing skills, for example), it lets players focus on survivability and control (ex., vitality + toughness + mace + shield), but it doesn’t have simplistic aggro mechanics where one player “magically” manages to hold aggro despite doing less damage, it forces players to take some responsibility for their own survival (instead of blaming it on the tank or healer) and it increases the skill and tactical awareness requirements for harder content (instead of making it all about gear stats and memorizing boss scripts).
  - jayremy
    
    I agree that is best to ALLOW players to adapt to the content successfully rather than making content adjust to players.
    
    Two reasons are, it allows players to be creative and rewards them for (either or both creativity and skill) and it is less work on the developers. Usually developers trying to cut work and do what is easiest is a bad thing if it is for the sake of being lazy, but in this case it makes sense.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Walters/745740897 Steven Walters

I love no trinity because I never want to play Healer or Tank. The GW2 system allows me to be self sufficient. I guess if you love playing Healer or Tank then this change might suck? However you might enjoy it if you try it?
jayremy

I find no benefit in the trinity system as in the “trinity only” system for group content. They only people who could really somewhat benefit from forced trinities are those who love healing or tanking only and there is a huge lack of those roles in games.

Games can have healers and heavy armored (or high avoidance based) classes without being a forced trinity. Every point I am sure can be rebuked on why the trinity would be better for the overall lifespan and success of any MMO.
http://profile.yahoo.com/YSVAPKVBUPTX6YS3W2DLPOBNN4 AlokP

My thoughts:
1) I played Catacombs Explorable (the hard mode) on two different toons so far over the course of GW2 BWEs, a guardian and a ranger. Two wildly different classes, but the place felt exactly the same: Each time I felt like I was fighting mobs by myself, with 4 other people next to me working independently of each other. Occasionally I’d have to duck out and wait for my heal to come up, occasionally they would have to, and that was the extent of interaction between party members. I know that changes as you have a guild, and it was a little bit more specific on certain bosses (IE, lovers in storymode you wanted to coordinate knockback/pulls, etc), but the lack of roles made me feel like I was doing everything and yet nothing, and that I was wholly replaceable as a group member, which isn’t an awesome feeling. Conclusion: I think roles serve to give people purpose in a group. To a certain extent, I like it when I know I *cannot* survive tanking the boss, and I must *rely* on another person to survive an encounter. This is what makes PvE exciting – co-operative gameplay, coordination, and reliance. What makes it not fun is when you can’t find a healer to save your life.

2) I don’t think the current trinity system of low-damage tank/glass cannon dps/no damage healer works. People who want to have “fun” will always gravitate towards the low-responsibility, big yellow number DPS (also why you find less DoT DPS classes than direct damage/burst DPS classes). However, I think the trinity system can be reworked. Make it so each role does the same general amount of damage – tanks, healers, and a new category, control. Heals damage mobs by healing allies (sort of like a blood leach thing you see in TSW and predecessors). Tanks/control damage by just pwning faces. Each role then has its “role function”:

a) Tanks have abilities to draw attention, taunts, distracts, high threat abilities which don’t feel disconnected because they’re doing paltry damage. They also have damage mitigation tools far and above what the average player has.
b) Heals have ability to heal-while-damaging. I don’t know if it can work with just pure healers, because then you just have the WoW healer syndrome of just staring at little green boxes, but I think a mix of damage spells with splash healing, and healing spells with splash damage can make an interesting dynamic class. Heals would also have cooldowns for those “oh crap” moments when someone takes too much damage. Think atonement disc priests. With maybe the dual-target control of TSW to allow you to direct the splash to a specific person.
c) Control. This is the biggest design change, imo. The days of DPS just mindlessly beating on bosses til they’re dead have to go. Control classes HAVE to have some role, some responsibility, and it has to go beyond “burst DPS this down before it kills the raid” or something. Design encounters where tanks can mitigate lots of damage but will occasionally face one-shot mechanics that are stunnable or interruptable or somehow able to be avoided by a control class with a temporary immunity (IE, ice block, bubble, cloak, deterrence, for WoW examples). One of the biggest thrills for me in WoW Cataclysm was me (a hunter) feigning death on 10m H-Madness impales because we couldn’t afford a second tank pre-nerf and our MT couldn’t handle a second impale. Yes, it was a gimmick to avoid a mechanic, but I think that can be a good design: it required additional responsibility from one of the glassiest cannon classes, and mass coordination for me to get impale cast on me. Our spriest loved this expansion, because he spent it dispersion soaking shards on Baleroc and onslaughts on Blackhorn, much like he did on Algalon. I think one of WoW’s biggest mistakes has been moving away from needing to interrupt/stun/silence/straight up gimmick correctly, and potentially in rotation. Make DPS classes about controlling the fight – not doing the most damage.

Anyways, just some (long-winded) ideas.
CCLemon77

I like the GW2 model, but I would like it a whole lot more if there were more options(abilities, skills, traits) than there is now. As well easier way’s to swap out builds ‘on the fly’. Much like weapon swapping, but have the player be able to create build profiles that not only encompass the weapon set, but the skills and traits as well (i.e. hotbar items 6,7,8,9,0).

I like the Trinity as to me it feels like it promotes more teamwork play and reliability on your fellow adventurer in order to succeed against content versus GW2.
In GW2, there just isn’t that feeling and need to work together with your fellow players to succeed. Sure, you have cross combos and each class has abilities to compliment other players in the area. However, it just feels and is mostly like a ‘free for all’ when a group of players is fighting in and event or encounter.

To me, I think the GW2 model will be much more popular with people who are new to MMOs, who do not necessarily like to work in a close-knit team with roles and coordination, don’t have time to engage in the ‘social’ aspect of what MMOs are and can be, nor have perhaps the ability to think in a way of roles and responsibilities as the Trinity system requires.

I like GW2, but to me it’s missing that element of teamwork that I believe the Trinity helps to reinforce.

The common complaint about the Trinity system is how it has a habit of neglecting certain classes, leaving those classes to rest with the crickets looking for a group because a lot of the content cannot be done without a group. Tanks and Healers have it made, other classes take a back seat. People just do not like to have to deal with finding groups in order to have fun, and I don’t blame them. However that does not mean the Trinity system is broken, it just means a game maker hasn’t come up with a way to efficiently help people form groups. Even SWTOR has had problems for players to get groups when populations sank.
http://www.facebook.com/christopher.m.dorn Christopher M Dorn

The biggest issue of a holy trinity system is that game companies design a UI to first be efficient to DPS in. Then they make sure that the tank can perform their job reasonably well. Then they ship the game. As a healer in all MMOs I have played, and admittedly I have neither played all of the MMO’s out there nor have I been in a top flight hard core raiding guild, about 25% of a healers job is fighting the UI to perform at max efficiency. WOW, Rift, SWTOR all released with no design in mind for a healer. This is the default way Trinity based MMO’s are done. It isn’t until Addons are allowed in game that a healers job and go back to actually healing and not playing click search on the raid frames. A game like Guild Wars 2 just avoided the issue all together.

For example, if we take an encounter with 1 Tank, 1 DPS and 1 Healer and count the actions it takes to complete a kill of a single boss with the default UI and no macros. A tank will have first select the target to attack (1), then start what we will call a 4 button rotation and will do this twice (4+4) for a total of 9 clicks, assuming that a few cool downs are needed we give another 3 clicks. This gives us a total of 12 clicks. For a DPS the numbers are similar, target boss, perform rotation, activate cool downs, so we will give them 12 clicks as well. Now we get to healers. So we will assume that the healer pre-targets the tank (1), now we start press our action bars to perform our heals. However we don’t get to focus on one target. We have all three people to worry about. So as the battle goes on for each action a healer is taking they have to first select a target (1 click) then press the action key (click 2). Given that you will occasionally get to perform 2 heals or more back to back on the same target it is not always 2 actions for 1 result. But if we assume that like the tank and DPS the healer used 8 totals heals and 3 cool downs then our count with the extra actions comes out to around 16 or 18 clicks. Sure it is just 4 to 6 more clicks but they are wasted clicks.

If we look at 2 recent examples of MMO released in the past 2 years or so, Rift and SWTOR, both games released with UI designs that were for the most part the basic layout (I will give Rift the advantge in UI design right of the box for customization however). Healing in either game was by no means impossible. Most competent healers can set up the default UI’s to allow them to work around its inherent limitations. But Rift soon allowed addons and healing became less of a hassle. SWTOR still does not have either an addon API available or an internal UI process that allows that allows for mouse targeted heals that an addon like Clique does.

There are those that say the these addons “play the game for you”, which is interesting because I have yet to see a healing spell fire itself off at the correct target all by itself while I sat back and stared at the screen. The reality is that I choose to cast Flash Heal on the tank. It is just that with an addon like Clique I can do just that “choose to cast Flash Heal on the tank” and not “Select the Tank” then “Select Flash Heal”.

We are also seeing games where it is becoming beneficial, if not necessary, that healers DPS during encounters. In WOW during Cata I played a Resto Shaman and if I was not casting Lightning Bolts periodically I could easily run out of mana. I feel this is a good direction to go in because there will always be times in a battle where incoming damage is light and any extra DPS can tip the balance. In the example I posted above, now we would have to include extra clicks to target the boss and activate DPS abilities along with the heals already going out.
M H

Honestly I think I need more then a few weekends in GW2 to really say if the trinity system is totally dead or not. The reason I say that is for 4-5 years I have played WoW and it had the trinity. So it is hard to say it is not effective. Plus I think it has proven it can hold an audience even though I might be board out of my skull with it personally.

That being said I think the GW2 model is more in line with the future. At least in a more PVP focused MMO for sure. I could see the trinity sticking around in the heavier PVE sided MMO’s simply because it opens a lot of player and boss mechanic lines that allow you to balance around. I mean if everyone can heal themselves, tank for themselves, and DPS then doesn’t PVE content just become you doing your own thing and 24 (or how many ever in whichever game) just happen to be in your group doing the same? Wouldn’t really matter if the mobs came over to you, or if you were at range, or in melee, or even tossing a heal. You just do whatever to stay alive and pew pew since everyone is pretty much just responsible for themselves and no one is supporting or playing as a team much anymore. The whole dodge and skill shot thing takes it a big step closer but that still just boils down to one man shows in an army that assembled merely for numbers sake.

But then again in a more PVP sided MMO having that total freedom just makes sense because its people working against people and every class should have a way to “in theory” over come another with everything: offense, defense, healers — whateva. If you don’t have that then it becomes player vs game mechanics/the other player. So in other words no trinity takes the middle man of the game out of it a bit and puts its more on person on person. Makes total sense.
- jayremy
  
  There will always be an essence of teamwork required regardless of there not being a trinity. The gameplay will always feel more complicated than doing your own thing but even so it is on the content designers to design the fight if anything and not the class/player/balance designers. As long as the fight is designed to have an appealing challenge to the raid the trinity is an irrelevant issue.
http://twitter.com/hkharpster Kyle Harpster

D and D never had a trinity system. I never understood where this idea that there had to be a set cookie cutter build and roles in games. Why can’t you just play as anything that you want group up with friends and advance, not having to worry about having a healer, tank, or DPS.
Many MMO’s that have come out that do have the “trinity” are very lacking, ether it be un balanced classes or content do to the classes, and just boring game play do to the roles that are placed on players. Also there is a huge problem with finding and making groups with a trinity system. There is ether more or less of the one class or role that is needed and it just takes to long or never make a group do to this. If games just give you the freedom to help everyone in the group as a whole, but not forcing a set role.

I personally hate the trinity and get very bored with the games that have it and never play them for longer then a month or so. The only MMO that I have played for years and will happily do so when it comes you again is Phantasy Star. Game companies should be looking at what they have been going with groups and the ease of getting a group together and implement some type of system like theirs.

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