MMO's (In general) biggest flaw...(Tank, healer, DPS)

[Mrshush]

ive done cadamimu with no tank. amazing how 4-5 ccs work out, and healing the dps with the most threat. on 1-2mobs works. dont see this being a problem in any of the other missions. Edited January 6, 2012 by Mrshush

[squiek]

And what about healers who don't like to DPS?

In my case, I hate to play shadow in WoW to lvl up - so I decided it's pvp and instances only.

Works pretty well and my gear is always up2date. Takes longer but it's more fun.

 

Why is everyone assuming there are no ppl who like to tank or heal?

There are but they are mostly sold out pretty fast and play with guild/friends only, sick of the casual DD who plays like an ape and expects healers+tanks to compensate their failure.

[SlickDevlan]

The tank, healer, DPS mindset for grouping. This doesn't work in the long run. You will force certain players to play a healer or tank when they really just want to DPS.

 

The ONLY MMO that I have seen that makes this work is World of Warcraft. Don't flame cause I said WoW, I have played just about every single MMO for the past 14 years.

 

Keywords: Cross server dungeon finder

 

 

Bioware said that they don't want dungeon queues (even per server) because they want the community to interact. Well Bioware, what happens in a few months when there barely is a community and this "cross server queue" is still demanded. You are in the same boat as you are now except minus a ton of players.

 

The amount of players who enjoy playing a DPS class outweighs the amount of tanks and healers. It makes no sense for games to expect every group to have a role not many people want to play. You need to consider the PSYCHOLOGICAL aspect. There might be 5 tanks on, but maybe all of them ONLY group with friends/guildmates. Thats perfectly fine, but what about that large chunk of playerbase that is a solo player or plays with a few friends who happen to be all DPS.

 

The entire mechanic of tank, healer, DPS makes no logical sense except for a timesink. Let's wait 2 hours to do a 1 hour dungeon.... That's 3 hours and that is assuming you complete it. Risk vs. reward.... Why waste 3 hours? I'll honestly play a different game.

 

First off, WoW is most certainly NOT the only MMO to do this successfully. I mean, you do realize that even in WoW, somehow, someway people managed to clear content before the LFD right?

 

Secondly, while your point is commendable, I don't see anyway to do it without having all classes be able to do all three all the time and/or insane amounts of CC. Now I don't pretend to have exhausted the possibilities on this topic and it seems to me that anytime you fight a mob, someone has to get hit, someone has to hit back, and someone has to heal the hits taken. Someone, or several people...

[yaos]

Lack of the holy trinity is why I hate Chess. It makes no sense that the one piece you don't want to lose is the one piece you don't want in battle. There's no threat mechanics, the rules are simplistic, and allowed moves are just slightly different for each piece making each piece just a copy of any other. There's literally no strategy whatsoever because Chess lacks these vital mechanics and it boggles my mind that anybody can think Chess is deep when you can write the rules on the inside of the box (with pictures) a chessboard comes in.

[pocketthesaurus]

Clearly you didn't play 3rd edition DnD. Both Clerics and Wizards were self sufficient machines of doom and destruction.

 

And real life fighting doesn't have tanks and healers. In real life the Tanks aren't there to soak damage, they're there to completely dominate the enemy, crushing everything in their path to rubble while being armed with some of the heaviest weaponry on the entire battlefield.

 

There's no-one in the back waving a magic wand to make people stop being wounded, what there is is people with low-mobility high-range weaponry hoping that the enemy won't be able to fire back.

 

Even if you go back a thousand years most of the damage was still caused by the heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. The lighter elements are there to flank/trap the enemy and there's still no healing clerics.

You are correct, yet incorrect. The tank in real life, yes, it takes a lot of damage. But it, along with front line soldiers ARE ALL THE TANKS. The infantry are the tanks, etc, etc.

 

The artillery are your DPS. And who else is back with those groups? The medics, standing away from the battle.

 

Same thing for the last few thousand years... Your siege weapons were your DPS, doing the most damage - but they were vulnerable to attack because they were just wooden structure and you didn't armor up the people using them that much. The guys in armor were the ones being the ******es and causing the ruckus and getting the attention of people. You also had archers - again, DPS.

[Bemm]

Coming in 2015...World Of Chess.

 

The trinity we have today is like, 12 years old. Can we abandon this notion that it's some hoary old gaming convention stretching back 100's of years that couldn't possibly be improved on?

 

This is what made this thread so amusing...

 

Being a pen and paper roleplayer for so long, you think this is a new concept?

 

your standard 4 party DnD... Fighter thief cleric wizard, sound a little familliar...?

 

Yes there are standard roles, they work, but no one says you can't get things done outside the standard format...

 

Currently my friend and I are completing same level content with a scoundrel and a commando tag team, we don't even use tank companions, its challenging and fun.

 

-Bemm

[Nuzt]

I enjoy playing healers, tanks, DPS in that order. PLaying a good tank or healer is harder and more crutial then playing a good DPS imo, thats not to say a good DPS can't make the difference but you can make it through without it if your supports are good.

[pocketthesaurus]

Except, you know, it wasn't. In D&D, your thief did abysmal damage. Even with a backstab he was inferior to a fighter and backstabs were rare. The mages could do superior burst damage, but in the majority of cases that was a waste of spell slots that could be used on buffing or crowd control which were really the magic user specialty. And clerics only slightly trailed behind fighters in terms of durability. Same potential AC, slightly lower HP and with the negligible interrupt chance (depending on version), they could heal themselves as well - so no standing in the back and doing anything for them. Plus they had damage only slightly lower than the fighter and above that of the thief.

Backstabs were never rare in my DnD games. Dunno what your crew did wrong, but that's pretty much how it worked. Fighter or cleric or paladin would get in a fight and thief would sneak up on the enemy.

[Bruticuss]

. RIFT adopted a dungeon finder.

 

Really? Didn't know that, just looked it up, its server only too. Time for me to give Rift another try!

 

Not saying I'll be leaving SWTOR for good, but will give Bio time to button it up some more.

[BloatedGuppy]

This is what made this thread so amusing...

 

Being a pen and paper roleplayer for so long, you think this is a new concept?

 

your standard 4 party DnD... Fighter thief cleric wizard, sound a little familliar...?

 

Yes there are standard roles, they work, but no one says you can't get things done outside the standard format...

 

Currently my friend and I are completing same level content with a scoundrel and a commando tag team, we don't even use tank companions, its challenging and fun.

 

-Bemm

I really wish people would stop referencing pen and paper AD&D as though it somehow supported this fantasy that the holy trinity has been with us since the birth of gaming. If you'd actually played any of those games you'd know it wasn't like that at all. You didn't cancel gaming night because the healer didn't show up. You didn't tell Bob he couldn't roll a Bard because "the group needs a tank". If you had a party of all Rogues, the DM designed a campaign for them that revolved around thieving. Even once those games made their way onto the computer in the form of the Gold Box series, you still didn't have tanks taunting and holding aggro for the whole party while healers stood in the back. This Tank/Healer/DPS trinity is a relatively new development, and the way it manifests itself in MMOs dates back to Everquest. So, 12 years.

 

No one is saying that the holy trinity doesn't work, or that it can't be fun. I, and others, are arguing that it doesn't need to be the only way to do things, and frankly I'm astonished that people are continuing to argue that it is.

[Yfelsung]

Yeah that's fine. You've still torn down the trinity.

 

I think the presumption here is that everyone who dislikes the trinity wants to DPS cowboy and hammer the 1 button until the enemies fall down. I dislike the trinity because it's starting to feel like I've been playing the same game since 1998 with the textures switched around.

 

One could argue that when you pay for an FPS, you expect a game where you point guns and shoot people.

 

So when one buys an MMO, they expect the trinity.

 

I don't know if I'd make that argument myself, but it could be argued.

 

And where, yes, I understand not everyone who doesn't like the trinity is a dps cowboy, by the looks of gameplay videos of GW2, it looks as though that's the gameplay they're appealing to with a limited ability set and boss fights that appear to be DPS races.

[Beamermichel]

No... dont want cross server your just lazy..... and want everything easy... no thanks. i want a community.

[JabbasHat]

The tank, healer, DPS mindset for grouping. This doesn't work in the long run. You will force certain players to play a healer or tank when they really just want to DPS.

 

The ONLY MMO that I have seen that makes this work is World of Warcraft. Don't flame cause I said WoW, I have played just about every single MMO for the past 14 years.

 

Keywords: Cross server dungeon finder

 

 

Bioware said that they don't want dungeon queues (even per server) because they want the community to interact. Well Bioware, what happens in a few months when there barely is a community and this "cross server queue" is still demanded. You are in the same boat as you are now except minus a ton of players.

 

The amount of players who enjoy playing a DPS class outweighs the amount of tanks and healers. It makes no sense for games to expect every group to have a role not many people want to play. You need to consider the PSYCHOLOGICAL aspect. There might be 5 tanks on, but maybe all of them ONLY group with friends/guildmates. Thats perfectly fine, but what about that large chunk of playerbase that is a solo player or plays with a few friends who happen to be all DPS.

 

The entire mechanic of tank, healer, DPS makes no logical sense except for a timesink. Let's wait 2 hours to do a 1 hour dungeon.... That's 3 hours and that is assuming you complete it. Risk vs. reward.... Why waste 3 hours? I'll honestly play a different game.

 

No.

 

I hate playing dps. I love playing my tank, I really like healing. If you like mindless button mashing (yes, dps CAN be much more complex) fine but don't extrapolate. Its not that "some players are forced to play tank/heal". Many people actually prefer those roles.

Makes your skill actually count.

[RachelAnne]

And what about healers who don't like to DPS?

In my case, I hate to play shadow in WoW to lvl up - so I decided it's pvp and instances only.

Works pretty well and my gear is always up2date. Takes longer but it's more fun.

 

Why is everyone assuming there are no ppl who like to tank or heal?

There are but they are mostly sold out pretty fast and play with guild/friends only, sick of the casual DD who plays like an ape and expects healers+tanks to compensate their failure.

 

True that,

 

I find it boring to dps - its just not challanging and well it doesnt happen much except spamming a rotation.

 

So I am happy that there is something for the "advanced" player, else I would not play MMO´s. Dont get me wrong, I play a shooter from time to time - but it gets boring so fast, same as playing a dps.

 

At wow they also took away the CC completely, so its in the end just button smashing after a rota - fine for those who have fun there, but I would feel lost in such a game without tank or heal spec.

 

IF GW 2 is such a game, then I wont play it - funny tho that there are really people who like this

Edited January 6, 2012 by RachelAnne

[malevs]

I like playing a healer, I do not want to dps.

[Awesomeedwardy]

So about the trinity, it isn't going to go away, it works with MMO's as it is what instigates teamwork. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it because some people enjoy filling a certain role. Though i don't think people understand what ridding of this really is. Though by the sounds of it, Guild Wars 2 has it right. They are not removing the trinity at all, they are changing how classes are purely dedicated to a role, so some people may want to tank on specific nights but the group can't find a healer, so that player has to play their healer instead.

 

What Anet is doing with GW2 is removing dedicated classes which generally are only associated with one specific role, though this is getting less and less common in MMO's, Anet are still removing any need to have to enter a fight as a role and stay as that role. The overall plan is to have a bunch of players go to a random dungeon and start fighting, people can still enter that dungeon as a tank, dps or healer, but lets say mid-fight the tank dies, instead of the group wiping, someone else can take over the roll in seconds just by switching a weapon whilst other group members ressurect the fallen tank. That tank can then take over and continue to tank, or can then step back and help dps. As is with healing, maybe players are taking too much damage, well one of the dps can step back and switch to something more supportive. Though healers also don't need to dps when things get maybe a bit easy or when no healing is needed, there are supportive skills, as where some skills you may place down and other players can use their own class specific skills to then form a combination dealing more damage or such.

 

Anet have stated that aggro will be basic, by the closest player to the mob will hold its attention. This does not mean the AI is not smart, i believe quite the opposite, i mean in reality you aren't going to be wondering who is dealing the most damage or who is supporting another person when fighting a group, you would go all out and attack what ever or who ever is nearest.

 

Now onto cross-server dungeon finding tool.

Though i have not played WoW for more than a few months last year, when i was playing i didn't feel any need to do anything apart from sit around waiting for things to pop to then teleport to some random place and play with people i may enjoy playing with but then never see them again. I don't enjoy that. Though Aion is a huge ball of fail, no one that played the game can say there wasn't a community. If you ever pugged or fought someone during world pvp, you would most likely know them or almost garanteed to know their guild (legion in Aions case). This is what a community is like. There will be drama, there will be tonnes of fights and hate towards some players, but those are my treasured moments in MMO's, i joined a guild and got to know the people in it, i got to know other guilds, who we were allied with, who was somewhat of a traitor. It had taken me over 7 hours to find a group at one point in the game, but even so i would meet some of the same random pugs and get along perfectly with them.

 

In my own opinion, i didn't see even a slight sense of proper community in WoW, i saw just people who only knew their guild members, talking to the same people again and again, never meeting anyone new isn't why i play MMO's, i've made dozens of friends and i wish to continue making friends with the random people i meet on MMO's.

 

If you read all of that, i applaud you, if not then here is a summary.

GW2 isn't what people are thinking or saying,

and i believe in community in MMO's not convenience.

[DarthKhaos]

Would of been interesting if it wasn't there but it is. Deal with it or move on. I wished they went with something different but they didn't. I came to peace with that a LONG time ago when they announced it EONS back.

 

You don't HAVE to play. It's your choice.