Is it time to perhaps rethink the trinity system?

[spectreclees]

As it was probably beat down already in this thread. GW2 tried to use a no trinity system and well, let me just say I logged on to do one of the newer dungeons from the event they were having. It was a complete mess imo, constantly dying and reviving each other in combat is just not a fun system to play with.

[Kilora]

As it was probably beat down already in this thread. GW2 tried to use a no trinity system and well, let me just say I logged on to do one of the newer dungeons from the event they were having. It was a complete mess imo, constantly dying and reviving each other in combat is just not a fun system to play with.

 

This is exactly why I don't play GW2 anymore. Only lasted about a month.

 

While I agree that we don't need a rigid Trinity system -- I want to heal. I will ALWAYS want to focus on healing. I love doing it. Any MMO that comes out and doesn't allow me to heal, I probably won't play.

[CosmicKat]

I just think that it's pretty important to relax the rigid trinity system in this game to allow the game to actually be more enjoyable for casual players.

 

Now, I personally do not think that means trinity needs to go. I think it just needs to be easier to play the role, and one also needs to be able to easily switch roles if needed. That is why I suggest a refinement and clarification of the ability trees combined with dual spec.

 

MMO's could learn a thing from DnD Version 4.

 

While not perfect, DnD 4.0 broke up the trinity system, that they invented btw, by allowing all classes to customize to a hybrid of pretty much any combination of offense/defence/utility that they wanted. To be a min/max tank you had to start as a tank-class but those who wanted to play a defensive DPS could do so quite easily, for example.

[Noblis]

In a sword and sorcery setting, like D&D, I dont mind it. In SW or a modern setting? Never has made sense!

 

Luke doesn't go around saying "Here! I'll tank this!" or "You tank! I'll DPS them!"

 

They never say it. But they do it.

Remember in SW Episode 3 (Revenge of the Sith) when Obi-Wan and Anakin boarded the Sep. ship to "rescue"

Palpatine? During the fight in the hangar, the droids were all firing at the two Jedi while totally ignoring RD-D2.

I recall some nerds yelling "Wow, they are tanking in cloth armor ! Cool !" Those two Jedi were indeed

"avoidance tanking" aka "blink tanking." All the while, they were still doing DPS. Little R2 was just lucky or the mobs

didn't see him as a threat relative to the two Jedi. (R2-D2 is still lucky.)

 

A dedicated tank (blink tank or meat shield) just focuses the attention of the mobs upon himself / herself and hopefully less damage is going out to the other party members. If he / she can kill stuff at the same time -

all the better. It's easier on the healer's resources to heal the fewest number of team members. Dedecated DPS

are a dime-a-dozen (a friend calls them "O pos blood")

 

Anyways, that's my take on the Trinity System.

[Arkerus]

Here's the big problem...and to understand it you need a little history lesson:

 

When WoW was first released many years ago the Paladin had three skill trees. One for healing, one for DPS and one for tanking. Each tree was "ok" at what it was supposed to do but it wasn't that great. In fact healing was the only tree that didnt completely suck. No joke. At that time tanking and DPS were awful.

 

The reason why:

The developers wanted a class that had no specific job but could fill any role in a pinch. It could DPS, tank or heal but not nearly as good as the dedicated classes. The developers in their infinite wisdom gimped all 3 skill trees because it would be unfair to have a hybrid that was good at everything. They thought "we can avoid the pure trinity by adding a class that can do all 3 but it doesn't do it well". The intention was that a healing paladin could still DPS or tank, etc.

 

The problem:

The class sucked. It wasn't good at anything. People told the wow developers EVERY SINGLE DAY that a dedictated hybrid class doesn't work. It can't DPS, it can barely tank and the only thing it can do is heal. But the developers stuck by it for 5 years, 5 years they swore they could get a hybrid class to work so they could avoid the pure trinity. For 5 years Paladins were forced to heal because the developers thought that "fill in" hybrid would work. A few years ago they finally fixed it. Every skill trees does what it does best. It's no longer a crappy hybrid.

 

Why did I point this out?

Generally speaking people won't play classes that aren't good at something. It has to be something crucial to the game. If a game is designed around a system then every single class has to fit into that system to work. Letting players pick some goofy hybrid isn't going to work because it doesn't work in the system.

 

 

 

While its neat to think outside the box of the trinity, SWTOR was build on it and every class skill tree has to work within the system. Otherwise your left with classes people don't play because they suck at their "jobs".

 

 

Small note: the ONLY time you can expand the trinity is when you use a dedicated debuffer. You have to take most or all debuffs away from other classes and create on class that plays debuffer. FFXI used it. It was a red Mage. They took the BEST abilities in the game and forced you to bring a red Mage. It kind of sucked because debuffers don't get any exciting jobs. They just stand there and play wack a mole with their skills.

Edited May 13, 2013 by Arkerus

[CosmicKat]

Here's the big problem...and to understand it you need a little history lesson:

 

When WoW was first released many years ago the Paladin had three skill trees. One for healing, one for DPS and one for tanking. Each tree was "ok" at what it was supposed to do but it wasn't that great. In fact healing was the only tree that didnt completely suck. No joke. At that time tanking and DPS were awful.

 

The reason why:

The developers wanted a class that had no specific job but could fill any role in a pinch. It could DPS, tank or heal but not nearly as good as the dedicated classes. The developers in their infinite wisdom gimped all 3 skill trees because it would be unfair to have a hybrid that was good at everything. They thought "we can avoid the pure trinity by adding a class that can do all 3 but it doesn't do it well". The intention was that a healing paladin could still DPS or tank, etc.

 

The problem:

The class sucked. It wasn't good at anything. People told the wow developers EVERY SINGLE DAY that a dedictated hybrid class doesn't work. It can't DPS, it can barely tank and the only thing it can do is heal. But the developers stuck by it for 5 years, 5 years they swore they could get a hybrid class to work so they could avoid the pure trinity. For 5 years Paladins were forced to heal because the developers thought that "fill in" hybrid would work. A few years ago they finally fixed it. Every skill trees does what it does best. It's no longer a crappy hybrid.

 

Why did I point this out?

Generally speaking people won't play classes that aren't good at something. It has to be something crucial to the game. If a game is designed around a system then every single class has to fit into that system to work. Letting players pick some goofy hybrid isn't going to work because it doesn't work in the system.

 

 

 

While its neat to think outside the box of the trinity, SWTOR was build on it and every class skill tree has to work within the system. Otherwise your left with classes people don't play because they suck at their "jobs".

 

 

Small note: the ONLY time you can expand the trinity is when you use a dedicated debuffer. You have to take most or all debuffs away from other classes and create on class that plays debuffer. FFXI used it. It was a red Mage. They took the BEST abilities in the game and forced you to bring a red Mage. It kind of sucked because debuffers don't get any exciting jobs. They just stand there and play wack a mole with their skills.

 

Speaking of history lessons...

 

The Paladin existed in WoW because it existed in Everquest. It existed in Everquest because it existed in DnD... with all the same limitations.

 

EQ did a pretty decent job of making hybrids viable classes but failed by giving them huge xp penalties to levelling for being hybrids.

 

EQ added the fourth aspect to the trinity, the Enchanter (or Controller), which was really just a splitting up of the DnD Wizard into two classes, a DPS and Controller. They did this because magic was always severely overpowered in DnD.

[DmdShiva]

I personally would like to see a less rigid trinity system where Tanks get their threat more from damage done and the threat/tank stance

 

City of Heroes did this; Tankers had their AoE Taunt, but the special class ability was 'Gauntlet' -- all of their attacks generated a taunt effect (referred to as 'punchvoke', from the single-target taunt power 'Provoke'), over and above the aggro normally generated by an attack. Brutes did much the same thing, but in a roundabout way; as they attacked and were attacked, they built Fury, which increased their damage, and doing more damage drew aggro to you. It was harder to maintain aggro as a Brute than as a Tanker; a well-specc'ed Blaster could generate enough damage to pull mobs away from a Brute who wasn't at the top of their game, but it was very difficult to pull mobs away from even a halfway-decent Tanker who understood punchvoke.

 

The largest of raids, like the Sleeper Zerg event included a few hundred players effectively zerging that beast, and promptly showing SOE that an unkillable monster certainly can be killed so long as it has hp that can be lowered via damage.

 

That puts me in mind of the two-minute Hamidon raid that was conducted soon after the raid was added to City of Heroes -- Hamidon was essentially a gigantic cell, with different types of 'mitochondria' floating in the goo; the early raid tactic was to have a tank and a pair of healers taunting Hamidon (the nucleus) to keep it occupied, while a mass of 60-100 other heroes ran around under an umbrella of healing taking out the mitos, after which the nucleus had Holds slapped on it until it stopped attacking, then everyone piled on to pound it into the dirt; this would take an hour or more. Well, a group of players decided to try an extreme strategy. There was a mission that awarded a Nemesis Staff as a temporary power -- a ranged AoE smashing/lethal attack -- to whoever opened a particular crate in this mission. They farmed that mission to get a couple hundred characters with Nemesis Staffs, and then went off to the Hive, stepped into the goo en masse, and blew Hamidon away inside of two minutes under the pounding of all the Nemesis Staff attacks. The devs quickly closed that loophole by tweaking the mission so that, regardless of who actually opened the crate, the mission owner got the temp power. And because the mission was low enough level that, when you got it, you were more than fifteen levels shy of being able to enter the zone where Hamidon was, and the staff power only lasted a couple days, that prevented a recurrence of the 'exploit'.

 

In COH you could be missing thumbs and still faceroll through the entire game. That's only interesting to people who think that completing a tutorial in a game is considered an achievement.

 

Actually, doing that serves a second purpose -- by awarding an achievement, it throws up into the player's face that there are achievements for doing things and what kind of things award them, instead of burying them in a wall-o-text series of tutorial screens that get skipped through by the "yah, yah, just let me kill something, already" crowd.

 

A tank, healer, buffer and debuffer. Everyone has an important job and everyone will do DPS. In this manner you can stop creating bosses based on large hitpoints and add different and more imaginative systems where the quad must use their powers to win.

 

The problem there is that you have a small team of developers who are the ones responsible for coming up with battles that require strategies that orders of magnitude more players set themselves to figure out. Creating an end boss that's a sack of hit points is easy; it doesn't require the devs to make sure that any team composition would have the ability to perform whatever special gimmick the boss requires to defeat him.

 

I will miss the Radiation superteams so much. That was fun. Nothing like 8 radiation/radiation defenders steamrolling things 8 levels above them.

 

All-Kinetics was unholy, too -- eight characters all sucking Endurance from the mobs to add to their team's, sucking damage capacity from the mobs to add to theirs, increasing everyone's armor, slowing the mobs to boost the speed of the team... and the Controllers in the team would all have pets -- fire imps, Phantasm/Phantom Army, Singularity, etc. -- squirrels on crack while suffering from caffeine overdoses. A team full of squishies, buffed to adamantine hardness and bouncing across the landscape.

 

Remember in SW Episode 3 (Revenge of the Sith) when Obi-Wan and Anakin boarded the Sep. ship to "rescue" Palpatine? During the fight in the hangar, the droids were all firing at the two Jedi while totally ignoring RD-D2. I recall some nerds yelling "Wow, they are tanking in cloth armor ! Cool !" Those two Jedi were indeed "avoidance tanking" aka "blink tanking." All the while, they were still doing DPS. Little R2 was just lucky or the mobs didn't see him as a threat relative to the two Jedi. (R2-D2 is still lucky.)

 

Although if the devs programmed in target-discrimination algorithms like what players use, the screaming would drown out everyone else. Whenever I played a ranged-damage archetype in City of Heroes, I would almost always wind up in a 'fire support' role, with one overriding rule -- healers go down first. Having mobs preferentially go after the healer in a flashpoint or operation unless they're actively engaged with the tank or a DPS character (hard to focus on shooting the healer over there when you have someone right here trying to shove a lightsaber through your chest) would make taunt- and engagement-specific CC more important to success.

Edited May 31, 2013 by DmdShiva

[Max_Killjoy]

The Trinity is a stale crutch, and should ALWAYS be questioned.

[Aelther]

Oh yes, because a zergfest is a lot better. No thanks I like having a purpose in my team.

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh yes, because a zergfest is a lot better. No thanks I like having a purpose in my team.

 

Then you determine the purpose, instead of relying on the same pidgeon-holes that game designers have been regurgitating for almost 40 years (if you include the tabletop RPGs these concepts orginally come from).

[Grayseven]

The Trinity system still exists because it works, works well, and is easy to work with during design.

 

Could a new system be created? Sure. The problem would be making it fun to play, mechanically sound and content design friendly. Another role would require that that new role be viable for solo play during leveling and mesh seamlessly into content design.

 

The big take from this is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Change for the sake of change solves nothing, change has to make things better to be worth the effort.

[Pietrastor]

Now that the game caters to what should have been it's target audience from launch....Star Wars fans, casual players, SWG fans, "sandboxy" repeatable or alternate content fans, it is likely to continue to grow and flourish.

Good thing you put the sanbox in quotation marks as it's really one thing the game hasn't started servicing to yet. Which puzzles me completely.

 

A for the topic, don't mind the trinity but I sure mind all the problems it brings. Unbalanced queue times (dps on disadvantage), longer leveling (healers), many quests/heroics bbeing designed with a quite rigid trinity requirement to give players a chance to finish them (overleveled/overgeared rich players on 14th alt don't count).

[LordArtemis]

The Trinity system still exists because it works, works well, and is easy to work with during design.

 

Could a new system be created? Sure. The problem would be making it fun to play, mechanically sound and content design friendly. Another role would require that that new role be viable for solo play during leveling and mesh seamlessly into content design.

 

The big take from this is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Change for the sake of change solves nothing, change has to make things better to be worth the effort.

 

I think in this game it's not broke, but it could definitely use a tuneup.

 

Two problems, specifically with group finder...problem finding healers and tanks, and problems with tanks holding agro and healers keeping up with damage dealt.

 

In other words, it seems to me that not only are the roles too muddled and ineffective making them less fun to play, the current groupfinder system does not encourage folks that are tanks or healers to que...nor does anyone have an easy way to switch roles when a particular role is in demand.

[Aelther]

and problems with tanks holding agro and healers keeping up with damage dealt.

That's player's fault, not game's.

 

the current groupfinder system does not encourage folks that are tanks or healers to que...

Because people who like playing tanks and healers are in guilds and there is no need for them to bother with pugs.

 

DPS always cry how there's not enough tanks or healers, yet they are unwilling to heal or tank themselves. And I bet it's the same people, who play dps only and cry about lack of tanks/healers, that want to get rid of trinity system. I'm a tank. Always was (even before I knew what a tank was) and always will be. And I do not want some kind of zergfest where everyone just attacks the boss without any tactics. I remember how boring that rancor in Karraga's palace was, because he attacked a random guy all the time and could not be taunted. Everyone was just attacking, no tactics, just spanking.

 

nor does anyone have an easy way to switch roles when a particular role is in demand.

Also do you really think a guy who is dpsing all the time and swaps to tanking or healing just to get a pop is gonna be good at his new role? You'd just end up wasting time and wiping, because that dpser would not know how to tank or what to do.

 

So you don't need an easy way to swap a role and you don't need to encourage tanks/healers to bother with pugs. What you need to do is permanently convert dpsers (who do pugs) into tanks/healers, so they would learn how to do their role properly and stick with it. If they tried it they'd love it. Dpsing is the most boring role of the 3 anyway.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Aelther

[MoobooMagoo]

Even though this is a necro thread I'll throw my two cents in.

 

The ONLY change to the trinity system that ever really worked was the addition of buffers and debuffers. In FFXI you had classes like Bards (buffer) and Red Mages (debuffer) that added another layer onto the trinity.

 

In the future, if Bioware ever adds new classes (or, more likely, advanced classes) I hope they take these roles into consideration. Not only would it expand the kinds of roles people could play as, but it would also open up more variety in the skill trees. Right now every advanced class has either a tanking and two dps trees, a healing and two dps trees, or three dps trees. I understand why this was done, but you could change it up a bit with, say, a healing, buffing, and dps tree for an advanced class.

 

I don't have any delusions about this actually being implemented, though. It would take a huge revamping of the way the game is balanced to take into account a larger variety of party make up. I just think it would be cool.

[LordArtemis]

Despite some comments against the idea I still think dual spec and boosts to classes in demand would help.

[Aelther]

Despite some comments against the idea I still think dual spec and boosts to classes in demand would help.

 

We have free-respec and field re-spec perk. That's better than your dual-spec.

It's especially easy to hop between DPS and Healing, since they both use nearly the same stats.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Aelther

[LordArtemis]

We have free-respec and field re-spec perk. That's better than your dual-spec.

It's especially easy to hop between DPS and Healing, since they both use nearly the same stats.

 

I disagree. It is not that simple to change spec, it would be far better to be able to change spec by switching to a per-configured spec with all points allotted, ability bar locations all set, etc.

 

This is not an either or. One can exist to compliment the other.

[DmdShiva]

Could a new system be created? Sure. The problem would be making it fun to play, mechanically sound and content design friendly. Another role would require that that new role be viable for solo play during leveling and mesh seamlessly into content design.

 

No, I think the problem is that reworking the system enough to create the sort of spread capability that, say, City of Heroes exhibited would almost require a "jack up the hood ornament and slide a new car underneath" rework of the game, with the result that every single character would be so hugely affected that it would be easier to call the reworked game 'SWTOR II' than to try to transform existing characters into the new system (and all of the requisite screaming from players as characters got shoehorned into roles the player didn't want).

 

And even doing that has the possibility of breaking balance badly if not done right. In the early days of City of Heroes for example, with the sole exception of Illusion Controllers, a Controller was pretty much forced to team to advance from about level 12 until they hit 32, when they got their tier-9 power in their primary (the pet power), because while they could cripple the effectiveness of the mobs they faced, they did such a small amount of damage that they'd be forever taking down a spawn. Defenders faced a lesser version of the same problem, but later in the game, when more mobs got special abilities that were harder to counter -- but their secondary powerset was ranged damage, so they came off somewhat better. These problems were addressed later in the game, but it took the developers some time to resolve the problems.

 

The big take from this is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Change for the sake of change solves nothing, change has to make things better to be worth the effort.

 

More 'If it ain't broke that badly, don't replace it"; the problems do need to be addressed, but a full solution would be more disruptive than tweaks.

 

DPS always cry how there's not enough tanks or healers, yet they are unwilling to heal or tank themselves. And I bet it's the same people, who play dps only and cry about lack of tanks/healers, that want to get rid of trinity system.

 

Or perhaps that they DPS because they dislike the Procrustean bed with the "Healbot" label on it, or the one next to it with labeled 'Meat Shield". The monolithic "That's all you do" role stereotype is just as prevalent from the other side.

 

Also do you really think a guy who is dpsing all the time and swaps to tanking or healing just to get a pop is gonna be good at his new role? You'd just end up wasting time and wiping, because that dpser would not know how to tank or what to do.

 

If tanking or healing is that hard to pick up, is it that surprising that so few people take up those roles? The solution would seem to be making it easier to acquire the skills necessary to fill those roles adequately.

 

So you don't need an easy way to swap a role and you don't need to encourage tanks/healers to bother with pugs. What you need to do is permanently convert dpsers (who do pugs) into tanks/healers, so they would learn how to do their role properly and stick with it. If they tried it they'd love it. Dpsing is the most boring role of the 3 anyway.

 

But you don't know whether the reason that they DPS is that they've tried tanking or healing and didn't like it; without going through the playerbase and asking people, what you have to go on is that you find tanking and/or healing rewarding or fun, so everyone should find it rewarding or fun... and that doesn't work; everyone is different, and has different things that they want to get out of the game.

 

And I put it to you that you're showing exactly the same sort of tunnel vision toward the DPS role that you're ascribing to the people who play it. Certainly, on the face of it, the DPS role pigeonholes into "Targets. Kill." -- but which targets and how can make a big difference in play; being aware enough of the distribution of mobs and their state to be able to use AoEs effectively without breaking the CC'd mobs free (or at least, not without dropping them in the process), using knockdowns and knockbacks to interrupt mobs, keep them out of melee range, or separated to allow AoE use, finding the healers and dropping them first... Certainly a character built around melee damage and defenses can fall into what City of Heroes players referred to as 'scrapperlock' -- getting so head-down into mobs falling around you that you get pulled from spawn to spawn without regard to the rest of your team -- but DPS can involve just as much skill as tanking or healing.

 

I think that DPS becomes the default many players fall into because solo play, despite the addition of companions, doesn't encourage learning the skills for tanking and healing, and the four-player team limit (and the inability to team with someone outside your level range without one or the other getting shafted for XP/drops) doesn't give players the opportunity to be on a team with someone who can show them what they need to learn without taking up a slot that the team 'needs' in another role.

[LordHartigan]

After playing GW2, no, the trinity is what works. No need to fix what isnt broken. The only thing I did not like about GW2 is there was no trinity. It was just a freakin gank fest and it was stupid.

 

GW2 has a lot of things going for it. It's really pretty. The event system. Lack of trinity or defined roles is not one of them. How do you get rid of the trinity roles without it becoming a spank fest? What I came to notice in GW2 is that I felt more isolated in this game that was suppose to foster better community because the only person I was responsible for was me in a group. Sure I can lay down traps that augment other group member abilities, but they're doing the same thing. I will say one thing that makes GW2 interesting is the abilities are fairly well thought out and actuallty interesting and unique in the world of MMOs. Maybe I've just been conditioned 'the man' to like the trinity.

[Tatanka]

I'd rather this.. then being forced to strap a portable bacta tank to my back and pointing a spray nozzle at your boo-boos.

Bacta tank backpack and spray nozzle... I would actually spend CC on that vanity item for my commando just for the silliness of it.

[Mindshard]

I used to think the trinity was old-fashioned. Then I played GW2. Now I love the trinity.

 

And even then you have the same thing. If no one is defensive spec'd a fight gets 100x harder. If no one's a healer people die.

GW2 made a lot of nice claims, but in the end they just have a more broken trinity system than normal.

 

There's nothing wrong with the trinity system. GW2 a hundred people fighting a boss and chaining deaths to run back vs a few tanks, a few healers and a bunch of DPS. The trinity system gives everyone a defined role to carry out, creating better group synergy and opening the door to more difficult fight mechanics.

[ELRunninW]

I would not mind a change but I have no idea what that change could be. I do not agree about dual specs, it is simply wrong. Separating tasks works out better and makes everyone feel like they are contributing. It is a better approach for team play oriented games.

[AGSThomas]

I always liked Diablo's implantation. You are responsible for your own tanking, your own healing and DPS because the mobs will decide to attack whoever the hell they feel like.

[LordArtemis]

Well, dual spec, boosts for underrepresented classes in Groupfinder and advanced class respec has been suggested. I think all three would be helpful in solving the shortage problems.

 

BTW...plenty of folks do not know how to properly play their class despite leveling it up from 1...group play, especially in Flashpoints is very different from PVE questing.

 

I don't think the learning curve would be any different if they respecced or just came into the Flashpoint scene.