Why 4 man Flashpoints? - Trinity system fail

[Arlbo_Nabbins]

I don't think there aren't enough healers or tanks. Especially if you're in a guild.

 

The problem lies elsewhere. PUGS are horrible to tank or heal. So I have 2 tank and 2 healers at level 50 and I rarely PUG. I avoid it when I can because I don't trust PUGS. Too much goes wrong there, so I don't want to put myself through that.

 

This.

 

Its not the numbers, we do have a 1:1:2 ration of tanks/healers/DPS in terms of what is played, however a larger percentage of tanks and healers won't pug FPs when compared to DPS.

[YanksfanJP]

I stopped playing my healer for a few reasons:

 

1- no mouseover healing was frustrating. I'm still baffled how this isn't in the game yet.

2- the debuffs on the frames were soooooo tiny i couldn't make out what debuff any particular person had.

3- no dual spec made me have to do quests, dailies, etc in my healing spec because respeccing every single time is a royal pain in the neck, especially if I'm not on the fleet

4- the fact that in warzones the other team can just put a raid icon on me at the start of the match and then have to do no work at all to find me for the rest of the game was disheartening.

Edited March 28, 2013 by YanksfanJP

[Akash]

Dual spec would go a long way toward lessening the damage done by the 4-man group setup. Groups of 5 would have been a much better choice to balance around, as it better supports the choices people make when deciding a class to play. With a dual spec system even DPS can better tailor their builds for the needs of the immediate situation.

[Ryluk_Shouja]

Great idea! ...if you're a deepser. Heal one HM PuG with a tank with a sloppy rotation or dps who doesn't understand aggro generation. I don't mind PuGing on my healer. It provides a challenge running with geared guildies doesn't. But if you throw more dps in there for me to take care of...there will be a lot more deaths in PuG'd flashpoints.

 

PS: they already have 4 dps flashpoints. Storymode raids.

[AshlaBoga]

Please go ahead and do some of the flashpoints without a single healer or tank. Wonder how long you'd last against some of the bosses. Dps cannot heal either as they are supposed to dps according to your rules.

 

I've seen dps with some tanks skills (taunts mostly) tank. It just puts a lot of extra stress on the healer (and obviously it's not easy for a dps to keep all that aggro).

[JimG]

I do not have the metrics of course, but any way you look at it - something could and should be done about the queue waiting times for DPS - and it is clearly not enough to make the tank and healer classes more appealing - people like those large damage numbers too much. And I suppose this is the inherent flaw in the trinity system.

There is no way to make tanks and healers more appealing. Every game has a shortage of tanks and healers. CoH broke from the trinity system with classes of buffers and mezzers and that make tanks and healers less necessary, but generally the amount of tanks and healers compared to DPS has to do with the difference in playstyle and not queue times. A tank or healer, played correctly in a group, has a responsibility for other players. Some people don't want to or don't like to take on that responsibility.

[Aries_cz]

I stopped playing my healer for a few reasons:

 

1- no mouseover healing was frustrating. I'm still baffled how this isn't in the game yet.

2- the debuffs on the frames were soooooo tiny i couldn't make out what debuff any particular person had.

3- no dual spec made me have to do quests, dailies, etc in my healing spec because respeccing every single time is a royal pain in the neck, especially if I'm not on the fleet

4- the fact that in warzones the other team can just put a raid icon on me at the start of the match and then have to do no work at all to find me for the rest of the game was disheartening.

1. Maybe when we get macros, otherwise, what is wrong with hitting F[num] and [whatever heal]?
   
2. Agreed, UI customization should allow to change size of buffs/debuffs
   
3. Field Respec perk, costs just 200k
   
4. So what would your solution be? Disable marking in WZ? I think that would ruin any possibility of marking priority targets. If you are a healer, you are a priority target, killing the medic is the usual tactic in any game
   

[DarthTHC]

1. Maybe when we get macros, otherwise, what is wrong with hitting F[num] and [whatever heal]?
   
2. Agreed, UI customization should allow to change size of buffs/debuffs
   
3. Field Respec perk, costs just 200k
   
4. So what would your solution be? Disable marking in WZ? I think that would ruin any possibility of marking priority targets. If you are a healer, you are a priority target, killing the medic is the usual tactic in any game
   

 

1. Yeah, this works just fine in this game. Even better if you have raid frames always on. But it's still something to get used to if you're coming from the brilliant UI mods available in WoW.

 

2. Big complaint for me, too.

 

3. Then you have to change your gear and you get the additional pleasure of screwed up action bars. Dual spec should at least remember your action bar settings.

 

4. The mark should go away if you're defeated.

[t-woodhouse]

Love when DPS rage quit or D/C i'm like "ah man its gonna be a whole 10 seconds (long wait for DPS) to get a new DPS"

However if the tank D/Cs "its like ****.... FP is dead"

 

On topic: DPS are dime a dozen yes so do us a favour and roll tank/healers instead of just pounding your DPS rotation on 10 toons with a massive grin often making noob mistakes and straining the Tank/Healer. If the Tank rolls against a dps for gear the tank should auto win for all the trouble dps cause...

[PariahMessiah]

Unless you're a Mara/Sent or Sniper/Slinger, buy dual spec and keep a tank/heal set around for LFG tools. If you are those classes, too bad, guess its a good thing you have high priority is most ops groups being some of the best damage dealers out there.

[ninjonxb]

As most here have stated, 5 is not the norm it just is assumed to be the norm (along with many things from this game unfortunately) because the game is so popular.

 

Personally I do not see any sort of issue with the setup right now. DPS will always have a longer queue. There is less for you to pay attention to. Make sure you don't stand in stupid and pump out high dps...

It is a reality so you have to deal with it or go heals/tank

 

I don't queue for random flashpoints anymore because I have to deal with DPS who do not know what they are not supposed to do (aka, pulling). So there are plenty of Tank and Healers in this game but most are sick of DPS.

I don't understand why so many dps in this game do not know standard practices for what they should and should not be doing.

 

As a side note. This game has been out for a year. Most people really never cared and just took it as a slightly different design choice. Do you really think that at this point they would change how the groups work (which has repercussions on OP groups), re-balance all of the old content?

[Akash]

As most here have stated, 5 is not the norm it just is assumed to be the norm (along with many things from this game unfortunately) because the game is so popular.

 

Personally I do not see any sort of issue with the setup right now. DPS will always have a longer queue. There is less for you to pay attention to. Make sure you don't stand in stupid and pump out high dps...

It is a reality so you have to deal with it or go heals/tank

 

I don't queue for random flashpoints anymore because I have to deal with DPS who do not know what they are not supposed to do (aka, pulling). So there are plenty of Tank and Healers in this game but most are sick of DPS.

I don't understand why so many dps in this game do not know standard practices for what they should and should not be doing.

 

As a side note. This game has been out for a year. Most people really never cared and just took it as a slightly different design choice. Do you really think that at this point they would change how the groups work (which has repercussions on OP groups), re-balance all of the old content?

 

No, they probably won't go back and change how the groups work. But they should have done it correctly from the start. Since the game is now balanced around 4-man groups, then one-click dual spec on the fly (when out of combat) with a corresponding hotbar and gear swap are needed to repair the damage done by failing to grasp the benefits of larger groups as it relates to trends in choice of playstyle.

[river_of_Gem]

I have seen alot of tank start pull by a taunt, or healer don't know how to use their agro dump or keep on throwing big heal until oom, so being a tank or heal doesnt make people better than others, and not all problem in FP is caused by a dps.

 

I have seen tank rage quit from HM FP due to other said he can't hold agro, then whisper to me "good luck finding another tank", guess what i tank the rest of this FP as my deception sin and never lose agro.

 

On topic, given the imbalance of heal/tank/dps number, it actually make sense that we have 3 spot for dps on FP but i think it's too late to change that, so re-roll a tank/heal is the only solution.

[CosmicKat]

Sad, but true.

On a side note, groups or raids built around only tank, healer and dps tend to have less interesting encounter mechanics (at least in my opinion). Often the difficulty consists only in not hitting enrage timers. This is so.. meh.

 

I really loved the bard and enchanter classes in EQ2. Too true, raid bosses then (maybe still, I don't play it anymore) were control immune, but my coercer and both troubadour and dirge found a lot of other things to do. I fondly remember Veeshan's Peek or Byzola in SoH back. Not a single mob with a dull enrage timer and still challenging and fun. Well, at least back then. The memorys

 

In SWTOR I'd like to have bosses with more abilities, horribly hard hitting - and classes with more skills in their book to counter these. I don't know, not only this "bring enough dps and go to town"-encounters.

 

Yep.

 

MMO's are now just barely more complex in both challenge and class diversity than shooters. The sad part is that most of the players nowadays have never seen or played anything resembling a game with the traditional mix of truly diverse classes and challenging combat, but the marketing weasels have convinced them that generic classes and 4 second combats are good.

[Sethland]

Just to clarify a few things from my opening post and the discussion going on - good discussion btw

 

Yes, a larger group size would of course mean re-balancing content, and no, I do not envision that BioWare would re-design old content to suit a larger group size.

 

Look, I am not complaining or raging about longer queue times in the sense that I feel entitled to have the same wait as say a tank or a healer - I know I have to wait longer as a DPS (sniper), and that's OK with me considering the class that I rolled.

However, the design choice of a 4-man Flashpoint group still baffles me, and that is what I wanted to discuss. By norm I of course meant WoW which has 5 man groups - and just adding that extra DPS slot would probably have a large impact on queue waiting times as DPS in SWTOR.

 

So, the question is still - why design around a 4-man group with only 2 DPS in the first place? and why not design future group content with an extra or two dps slots? I am sure that future content could be tuned to a larger group size, i.e. less AOE damage going around, higher tank threat output, more boss health etc.

 

I've read all the "roll a tank/healer" or "DPS players suck" comments, but that is really besides the point. I am not QQ'ing about being a DPS, I am just genuinely interested to know why the design choice for group content in SWTOR is based on a 4-man group with only 2 DPS slots? - and am pretty sure that this design choice contributes to longer wait times for DPS.

 

A response from a BioWare designer is probably beyond hope here, but I have yet to see that comment here that makes me go "ahhhhh, that's why!".

[Chiramu]

Please go ahead and do some of the flashpoints without a single healer or tank. Wonder how long you'd last against some of the bosses. Dps cannot heal either as they are supposed to dps according to your rules.

 

Have you heard of kiting? No? You can kite bosses to death if you know how to do it well enough.

[ZORG]

A lot of PUG healers have a hard time healing three other people and you want them to heal five?

 

Back in my EQ days we used

 

Main Tank (Warrior/Paladan)

Off Tank (Paladan/Shadow Knight0

Buffer/Support/CC/Backup heals (Shaman/Druid/Enchanter)

DPS Rouge/Wizard/Mage

DPS Rouge/wizard/Mage

Main Healer Cleric

 

What was cool was there was 11 classes

 

 

EDIT oops forgot Necromancers but they were only really used in raids Necros were loners anyway.

Sooo there were 12 distinct classes.

 

Now there were many many more buffs and stuff to manage.

 

I would Love a TOR group like this

 

Main Tank - Guardian/Juggy

OffTank - Shadow/Vanguard - Assasin/Powertech

DPS - Sentinal/maurader Agent/Smuggy

DPS - Sage(dps spec) Sorc (dps spec) Agent/Smuggy

Backup heals Buffer debuffer croud control (2 new New Advanced Classes)

Main Heals Sage/Sorc (heal Spec)

 

Edit 2

I would also like to see some group heals that don't require targeting at all just hit the heal and group is healed.

Edited March 29, 2013 by ZORG

[Aramyth]

In FFXI we had 20 classes and 6 person groups. DPS were still left in the dark in the game. However, with a 6 perosn group you now have room for the buffer/debuffer/cc class that doesn't exist in SWTOR.

 

SWTOR eliminated the need for those classes to some degree by giving all classes some CC/utility/class specific buffs. But it doesn't really work. 4 person groups are kind of, shall we say blah, becausehaving CC/buffer/debuffer classes lacks variation.

 

Having 6 person groups with just a tank, healer, off heealer/tank and DPS wouldn't be the same as other games with 6 person groups that have other utility classes.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Aramyth