My friends playing list is down from 15 - 1 hmmm

[Jadescythe]

Speak for yourself as far as boring goes - I've had a blast in TFPs

 

I'm not going to disagree that the trinity system needs to go, but I don't think that's what you wanted me to agree with The best evidence (and it's pretty poor, admittedly) is that players for whom Ops are primary/only reason they play is a small portion of the player base. BW certainly hasn't been behaving like they wish to cater to the Ops crowd in directing their (limited) resources. But I'm waiting to see what comes after TEC before making pronouncements.

 

I'm not trying to speak for everyone, but tacticals lack complexity. Without a healer or tank to mitigate damage, it just ends up being a target dummy with an enrage timer and the need to click kolto tanks sometimes. It's nice to not need to wait on tanks/healers for a queue, but dumbs down the content. They would need to add in significant updates so bosses use fewer or no targeted abilities and rely on area and indicated abilities to allow players to mitigate damage by avoiding attacks. This increases the difficulty, however, which is somewhat contradictory to the direction of the game.

[IanArgent]

I'm not trying to speak for everyone, but tacticals lack complexity. Without a healer or tank to mitigate damage, it just ends up being a target dummy with an enrage timer and the need to click kolto tanks sometimes. It's nice to not need to wait on tanks/healers for a queue, but dumbs down the content. They would need to add in significant updates so bosses use fewer or no targeted abilities and rely on area and indicated abilities to allow players to mitigate damage by avoiding attacks. This increases the difficulty, however, which is somewhat contradictory to the direction of the game.

 

Highlighted the important part of why I think tactical trinity gameplay is dead. There aren't enough tanks or healers. That's the reef upon which development of more hard-trinity mechanics founders.

 

In a way, TEC shows that you can have complex mechanics without requiring tactical trinity. Which is why I'm curious as to what they'll come up with next in the way of group-PvE content that follows on from TEC.

[Jadescythe]

Highlighted the important part of why I think tactical trinity gameplay is dead. There aren't enough tanks or healers. That's the reef upon which development of more hard-trinity mechanics founders.

 

In a way, TEC shows that you can have complex mechanics without requiring tactical trinity. Which is why I'm curious as to what they'll come up with next in the way of group-PvE content that follows on from TEC.

 

That isn't at all true unless everyone is doing it in a DPS spec with a DPS companion. Every player doing it "solo" has a companion in another spec that they need. I assume anyone running DPS with a tank is probably clicking kolto things more often than I'd like and that the majority of players are a DPS spec with a healer companion. The healing is just high enough to not require a true tank. I'd be curious to see how overgeared players have to be to complete every fight with a DPS/DPS setup.

[IanArgent]

That isn't at all true unless everyone is doing it in a DPS spec with a DPS companion. Every player doing it "solo" has a companion in another spec that they need. I assume anyone running DPS with a tank is probably clicking kolto things more often than I'd like and that the majority of players are a DPS spec with a healer companion. The healing is just high enough to not require a true tank. I'd be curious to see how overgeared players have to be to complete every fight with a DPS/DPS setup.

 

I'd be curious as well. But the mechanics don't demand a tank at all, and depending on your setup you could probably get by without a healer. The only "tanklike" thing you have to do is keep the Doom Droid from massacring your comp with their channeled attack, and you could do that by managing companion active/passive stance and some fancy footwork of your own. I'm not that good - the farthest I've advanced has been the Doom Droid, and that with a Tank/Heal pair (Inf 30 melee comp, 208/212 PvP gear because that's what that character has). My DPS is currently hung up on Nocturno and Drake because I'm not as good at moving tactically as I need to be with that character, and I have a Inf 20 comp there. When I get that comp up to Inf 30, I might try double DPS as a Vig Guardian.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'd be curious as well. But the mechanics don't demand a tank at all, and depending on your setup you could probably get by without a healer. The only "tanklike" thing you have to do is keep the Doom Droid from massacring your comp with their channeled attack, and you could do that by managing companion active/passive stance and some fancy footwork of your own. I'm not that good - the farthest I've advanced has been the Doom Droid, and that with a Tank/Heal pair (Inf 30 melee comp, 208/212 PvP gear because that's what that character has). My DPS is currently hung up on Nocturno and Drake because I'm not as good at moving tactically as I need to be with that character, and I have a Inf 20 comp there. When I get that comp up to Inf 30, I might try double DPS as a Vig Guardian.

 

I think there is still a tank mechanic of sorts but it's more in the sense that with a high inf healer comp you can both do tanklike activities from the extra heals that are put out.

 

I do agree though getting away from the standard "required" trinity in things like oeprations would be nice as long as it doesn't dumb it down as much to make it more like a tactical flashpoint.

 

I think content designed around heal/dps only could work with the tank mechanics taken up with heal checks anyway.

To help increase the amount of heals they should look at ensuring every dps class can also run a heal spec and easily change to this spec .... just thinking out loud really.

[IanArgent]

I think there is still a tank mechanic of sorts but it's more in the sense that with a high inf healer comp you can both do tanklike activities from the extra heals that are put out.

 

I do agree though getting away from the standard "required" trinity in things like oeprations would be nice as long as it doesn't dumb it down as much to make it more like a tactical flashpoint.

 

I think content designed around heal/dps only could work with the tank mechanics taken up with heal checks anyway.

To help increase the amount of heals they should look at ensuring every dps class can also run a heal spec and easily change to this spec .... just thinking out loud really.

 

The TFP conversions were limited in that they had to work with the existing FPs' mechanics. A from-the-ground-up non-trinity game design can be much better (KDY, the CZ FPs). Not guaranteed, of course.

 

Don't get me started on the ACs that have their choice of DPS/DPS/DPS as role. That was a bone-headed maneuver.

[rklontz]

Bang for the buck. There's more solos than there are group players, and balancing for solo is easier than balancing for group..

 

And they rather need some way to ramp up people for group content. Let's see what they do now that TEC has shipped.

 

For balancing classes TEC makes sense. Especially since they don't like using their test server.

To ramp people up for group content not so much. The only thing it effectively does is teach people to not stand in bad and how ranged dps needs to stay in melee range.

[PatT]

Yes, it's got nothing to do with you not playing this game for months at a time. Or that you may have missed your so-called friends during your once-in-a-while check-ins. Or that some people remove inactive players from their friends list.

 

 

 

Nah, it's probably sincerely definitely totally not just you. Cereally.

 

lol I do think this person is on to something

[IanArgent]

For balancing classes TEC makes sense. Especially since they don't like using their test server.

To ramp people up for group content not so much. The only thing it effectively does is teach people to not stand in bad and how ranged dps needs to stay in melee range.

 

Which is more than any other solo content in the game does right now. And it teaches them to read debuffs and notes; one of which happens to say "these particular enemies need to be dealt with in melee range."

 

PTS playtesting is inherently flawed for balance because only your more dedicated players will go to it. Using PTS for balancing means you'll overtune the encounters.

[Andryah]

lol I do think this person is on to something

 

Indeed.

 

Not to mention the fact that most of the OPs friends list was used to track his refer a friend hits... which are actually strangers to him.

Edited May 24, 2016 by Andryah

[MaximumOwnage]

Indeed.

 

Not to mention the fact that most of the OPs friends list was used to track his refer a friend hits... which are actually strangers to him.

 

What does that mean?