Aren't boss events just a huge DPS burn event? Would make sense that spamming CDs whenever they're up results in a win.
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Could an MMO exist without tanks/healers/DPS?
- Thread starter yatesl
- Start date
Aren't boss events just a huge DPS burn event? Would make sense that spamming CDs whenever they're up results in a win.
I think I'd probably end up doing more Fractals myself if the vertical progression of it wasn't so awful. The whole agony mechanic is just... dumb. It's a needless and pointless mechanic shoehorned into a game that deserves something better.
It's a start. But it's not merely about tooltips and tutorials. It's about how the game presents itself to the player early on. The story does little to engage a player. The dungeons aren't until level 30. Fractals are confusing to beginners. World content is lacking in structure. Things like that. In this sense, modifying the trait system was also a good start too. The trait system had a fluff into it, even though it's effectively just a means of picking your role in group.
You have so many people in this thread saying negative things about Guild Wars 2 and it's approach to the lack of a trinity system, but that is because such is the game that is presented before them, and largely makes up the game for a significant time. Not Fractals. Not the Twisted Marionette boss fight that was only around for a whopping month. Not Tequatl the Sunless.
theSlacker
Member
That is actually a good comparison. If I have little interest in pvp like I do in mmorpgs, yes, I can beat a standard game of Street Fighter playing both the same way.
For the most part I believe it is best not to give the player the choice. I do also love me some gated content though. One of the few things I think FF14 does well. Returning to the topic though, the majority of people will just choose the fastest path to what they consider the "real" portion of the game and not care that tutorials or learning experiences were to be had along the way.
In EQ the trinity was Healer/Tank/CC (Or if you want to get REALLY particular, warrior/cleric/enchanter). Berserk timers weren't really a consideration for a while, so while you needed some dps, it was generally the other 3 that dictated whether you could actually succeed.
Yes, yes they are. Which is the main reason most people in this thread that hate GW2's lack of trinity dislike it. It's basically like playing a REALLY basic/easy megaman game with like 50 other people next to you also doing it, relying very little on actual interaction most of the time.
I've said it before, but really what ALL of the trinity roles amount to, are CC. That's really what it is. Turning chaos into order through the cooperative efforts of our abilities. Tanking a mob isn't any different than 'blinding' a mob or anything else, except that it ALSO requires a healer to keep you alive. Healing is just controlling the damage output. DPS isn't really part of this but it's important when mobs have enrage/berserk timers in the same way.
There's something very elegant with a lot of coordinated teamwork to actually executing strats with moving parts like that and how they all fit together, they don't HAVE to be those three roles, but those are what people seem to like and there's no guarantee if you do something else just to be 'edgy' that it would work (See: everyone who ever did a GW2 dungeon and thought it was a bore). It's a nice buzzword to claim that there is no trinity in your game for people that seem to think that's what they disliked about past games, but the reality is all that you're really saying is 'we want to make combat a chaotic mess that your skills cannot affect particularly strongly.'
And D&D has always had roles, whether you want to call them the trinity or not, you absolutely have always performed better with a big warrior type character who can take a beating trying to run interference and be in the faces of everything.
What baffles me most is how vehemently anti-trinity some people are, and they almost never have any rationale as to why. they just don't like wow anymore and associate it with wow as far as I can tell. Like, if you want to not heal or not tank, feel free, there are plenty of options to not do those things. If you don't want to rely on other people...don't play an MMO? Or don't try to do group content. You 'rely' on other people just as much in GW2 as you do in anything else, you just don't actually interact with each other particularly interestingly. Instead of a finely tuned and tightly scripted encounter, you run into mobs that you just have to time your invicible roll to dodge their big move, run away when you get aggro and hit some aegis abilities, and then turn around and mash all of your dps buttons when it's on someone else. No way to control aggro? No problem! If he doesn't turn away from you and you die, everyone just comes over and hits F and you're back on your feet again. It's super fun to watch mobs run back and forth like spazzes with absolutely no way to affect what happens with their aggro.
I actually equate those who like trinity to adhere to order in combat in MMOs, and those who don't prefer chaotic encounters.
Order vs. Chaos basically.
I used to be all for Order, until I realized that I would always be pigeonholed into a role I didn't want to play, hence I went more for chaotic, anti-role gameplay, which GW2 provides.
Order vs. Chaos basically.
I used to be all for Order, until I realized that I would always be pigeonholed into a role I didn't want to play, hence I went more for chaotic, anti-role gameplay, which GW2 provides.
Haven't played in a while, eh? Straight up burn and zerg strategies will absolutely fail every single post-launch world boss.
- Tequatl needs people manning turrets to both keep his shield down and keep poison fields off the main damage group, and there needs to be turret defense as well. Main damage group needs to burn down plague carriers and tendrils while dodging the waves from his stomp attack.
- Triple Wurm requires everyone be split into three groups, with each wurm having a completely different strategy. Too long to explain each in detail, but they're basically invulnerable until people work together. Hell, one of the fights involves people getting a coated in wurm attractant so the damn thing will swallow them whole so when they fight their way out, their stomach acid-coated weapon can melt the wurm's skin. The others are right about that level too.
- I mentioned the Twisted Marionette earlier, but it forces everyone into five lanes, which further force everyone into five platforms. An all-in-one-lane strategy left the other lanes unattended, filling up the Marionette's energy meter for each mob that slipped past which meant she nuked everyone from orbit pretty quick.
- Scarlet's Generals were invincible unless players were attuned to the proper color spectrum, which could only be applied 50 times. So even if 150 people showed up at one of the generals and ignored the other two, only 50 of them could damage it.
- Scarlet's Hologram couldn't actually be damaged unless you were attuned to all three color spectrums (and you'd die quick if you didn't), while later phases of the fight were made much faster if everyone coordinated to defeat the three individual holograms within seconds of each other or they'd fragment (and since the fight was timed, that was usually a bad sign). Definitely couldn't just burn down one and then move to the other, or just burn them down without noting the status of the other two.
The April Feature Update changed a lot of the other world bosses too, but none so fundamentally that DPS isn't usually the best solution (a few are made faster by controlling additional enemies and such, but since Megaservers were added there's usually enough people that it doesn't matter).
So you're absolutely right about the pre-launch world bosses, but they are getting better and revamping the existing ones (Tequatl and Wurm are permanent additions, by the way).
These don't have to be the only choices, and I believe that is the basis for what SOE will be doing with EQ Next with their Storybricks AI system. The general idea is to create better, more unpredictable enemy AI that makes more logical decisions so that the tank/healer/DPS paradigm will be less effective. It doesn't mean that these roles can't exist, but it means that they will have to be applied differently. A good place to start is probably with this particular Gamasutra article, which was written by the head of a company contracted to work with Storybricks (but is no longer involved).
Saintguine
Member
RuneScape.
The more interesting aspect of Storybricks is that you will be able to supposedly create lasting friendships and relationships with NPCs. I'm curious to see how that will work.\
Oh and I fully agree those needn't be the only choices, just those are the forefront of what we understand as combat tactics in MMOs today.
cripterion
Member
I like the trinity as well. It is good to change it up but don't know how they could make it work well in an mmo.
Guild Wars 2 didn't do it for me, in fact, I think Guild Wars combat is superior to it's sequel.
Guild Wars 2 didn't do it for me, in fact, I think Guild Wars combat is superior to it's sequel.
I'm trying to find an MMO that completely does away with it. PSO2, while not an MMO, comes the closest.
My eyes glaze over when I hear people talking about DPS and tanking and enmity management and all that shit. I'm a lazy gamer. I just want to fricken hit things when I play a multiplayer game. PSO, PSU, and PSO2 allowed me to do that. PSO was a little more role-oriented though. Having a Force (they're capable of nuking + support + heal) in your party really helped a run go smoothly, but you could pretty much do most areas with a four player party, provided everyone was on their toes.
If you guys find an MMO where I can just hit and juggle things like it's Devil May Cry 3/4, (like I can in PSO2), let me know. I'm still looking for it.
My eyes glaze over when I hear people talking about DPS and tanking and enmity management and all that shit. I'm a lazy gamer. I just want to fricken hit things when I play a multiplayer game. PSO, PSU, and PSO2 allowed me to do that. PSO was a little more role-oriented though. Having a Force (they're capable of nuking + support + heal) in your party really helped a run go smoothly, but you could pretty much do most areas with a four player party, provided everyone was on their toes.
If you guys find an MMO where I can just hit and juggle things like it's Devil May Cry 3/4, (like I can in PSO2), let me know. I'm still looking for it.
curlyfriski
Banned
Wow. Guild Wars combat is really disliked. I thought it was more of an even split.
cripterion
Member
I think the Yanger perfectly describe GW2 gameplay.
Personally, i'm not a fan of unpredictability in mmo pve group content, at all.
The unpredictability is the rest of my party, not the events which we face.
I don't want to enter a gate and face randomized content. I want hand-made, well-thought encounters that both require teamwork and timing, and allow for lateral thinking.
Randomization in extremely challenging content is a no-no.
PvE isn't about outskilling same-level opponents. PvE is about thinking a puzzle through, and by that way, surpassing seemingly impossible odds.
You cannot have tanks if a boss goes straight for the healer.
You can't have CC if the enemies spot it and hit each other to clear it.
And, most importantly, you can't fine-tune the difficulty of semi-randomized content.
At this point, i'm honestly worried about EQN PvE design - Someone who writes that:
Has no business designing anything remotely related to PvE content in any game.
(And that whole article is honestly beyond terrible. Did whoever wrote it even play WoW? Or he's just ignoring the context of the chris' quotes on purpose?)
After having played some MMOs, I personally think the combat gets dull because of two reasons: you end up spamming the same skill bar actions over and over, and you're put into an extremely specific role.
- As healer you primarily do one thing: Pay attention to tank and buff him and heal him as necessary, which mostly involves spamming the healing skills on him. Only if something goes wrong will you end up doing something differently and consider other party members.
- As tank, you have to aggro enemies, and let your party know when it's safe to attack. Once you're in position, you usually end up cycling through the same set of skills.
- As a DPS, it might be more interesting depending on your class, but a lot of the time it's about walking into range and then repeating some attacks skills until the mob is dead.
To me, this just seems extremely repetitive. And it has another problem too. Roles are are fairly simple but you have a huge reliance on them. Especially if the tank or healer does a mistake, things will go very wrong, and people will hate you. They will get very mad.
I played Guild Wars 1 for a long time, and I think it did some things to make those issues less of a problem. You had a lot of freedom with the class mixing and building up the skill bar. The bad thing is that most PUGs just wanted a pure effective DPS so they wouldn't be very interested if you were trying a new experimental build. But on the bright side you almost always had the choice of playing with the AI, letting you play in whatever style.
I think the most fun I've had with the trinity set up is when something goes wrong. Where the tank suddenly dies or loses aggro for instance. At that point you suddenly have to improvise and think on the spot, instead of continuing to spam the same attacks. But that has the downside that players will most likely get mad and angry, or if you're in a dungeon of high enough level, the party will just wipe instantly.
I'm personally excited about the current trend in Korea where many MMOs are going towards action based combat rather than traditional skill bar based gameplay centered around the holy trinity. Black Desert especially looks like an amazing game. I think that's the first MMO in ages I'll end up playing a lot.
It also looks furiously pretty. I'm half tempted to just keep posting screenshots of it:
- As healer you primarily do one thing: Pay attention to tank and buff him and heal him as necessary, which mostly involves spamming the healing skills on him. Only if something goes wrong will you end up doing something differently and consider other party members.
- As tank, you have to aggro enemies, and let your party know when it's safe to attack. Once you're in position, you usually end up cycling through the same set of skills.
- As a DPS, it might be more interesting depending on your class, but a lot of the time it's about walking into range and then repeating some attacks skills until the mob is dead.
To me, this just seems extremely repetitive. And it has another problem too. Roles are are fairly simple but you have a huge reliance on them. Especially if the tank or healer does a mistake, things will go very wrong, and people will hate you. They will get very mad.
I played Guild Wars 1 for a long time, and I think it did some things to make those issues less of a problem. You had a lot of freedom with the class mixing and building up the skill bar. The bad thing is that most PUGs just wanted a pure effective DPS so they wouldn't be very interested if you were trying a new experimental build. But on the bright side you almost always had the choice of playing with the AI, letting you play in whatever style.
I think the most fun I've had with the trinity set up is when something goes wrong. Where the tank suddenly dies or loses aggro for instance. At that point you suddenly have to improvise and think on the spot, instead of continuing to spam the same attacks. But that has the downside that players will most likely get mad and angry, or if you're in a dungeon of high enough level, the party will just wipe instantly.
I'm personally excited about the current trend in Korea where many MMOs are going towards action based combat rather than traditional skill bar based gameplay centered around the holy trinity. Black Desert especially looks like an amazing game. I think that's the first MMO in ages I'll end up playing a lot.
It also looks furiously pretty. I'm half tempted to just keep posting screenshots of it:
Healing in WoW was the best time I've had in an MMO ever. I was really hyped about GW2 but the combat system never really clicked for me. I didn't mind it too much when I was playing solo but whenever I was doing big events I wished I could just straight up be a healer and keep everyone alive. The best times in wow were when I was playing with totally uncoordinated people and managed to get them through encounters despite it.
cripterion
Member
Dark Souls doesn't really work well in the 'Massive' scale. It's not planned for that.
This is very true. Getting through an encounter without any problems is boring, but when shit hit's the fan and you have to improvise to somehow make it through it really shines for me. When I was playing wow with friends it was always a little competition to get aggro from mobs and for the healer to still keep everyone alive.
It is pretty terrible. The game is pretty face-roll once you learn when to dodge at particular encounters and learn how to stack. In GW2 dungeon parties, you are either fully Zerk and helping to complete the content faster or you are essentially being carried if you have any of the other inferior stat combos (And especially if you are all in for personal survivability which is useless).
I would like playing these Korean MMOs if their pay model wasn't so darned painful. I know there's a few Korean to Western ported MMOs that don't have scummy models, but a lot of them still have their gameplay and monetary system geared around making you feel an incredible need to pay money just to advance.
I really do hope more MMOs go away from this holy trinity system. I know our infrastructure isn't good enough to support it, but I really want something where I can do crazy juggle combos and link stuff together. I want everything to be cancellable into everything. Cooldown timers are fine but don't make them last forever. No animation lock unless it's of the variety that forces you to trade the risk of getting hit for doing a lot of damage. Roll cancellable stuff. Dodge cancellable stuff, etc. I don't want to feel like I'm rooted to the ground, I want the gameplay to be as over the top and stylish as possible.
hooijdonk17
Member
In my (limited) experience with MMOs the tank/healer/dps bullshit is a result of
a) terribad aggro mechanics that encourage this
b) awful fantasy archetypes that go back all the way to Gygax's D&D: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief.
Doing away with it is easy. It has been done. My most enjoyable MMO ever (Jumpgate) had none of this shit. The method is simple, make aggro more unpredictable (and clever; i.e. a mechanic for making the monster survive, not for making the player control its behavior), then remove in combat healing. Done.
a) terribad aggro mechanics that encourage this
b) awful fantasy archetypes that go back all the way to Gygax's D&D: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief.
Doing away with it is easy. It has been done. My most enjoyable MMO ever (Jumpgate) had none of this shit. The method is simple, make aggro more unpredictable (and clever; i.e. a mechanic for making the monster survive, not for making the player control its behavior), then remove in combat healing. Done.
Well, I think they're learning at least. I can remember when Vindictus launched in US it had a pretty awful payment system (pay to play, and any cosmetic stuff you bought was temporary), but after a few months of people complaining they removed the token system and made cosmetic stuff permanent instead of temporary.
I recently tried Tera (although I didn't play it for long), and that payment structure seemed fine to me.
Morphine_OD
Banned
GW2 tried that and it works. People who love that trinity think that it sucks though. People who dislike traditional MMOs are ecstatic from GW2, myself included.
nephilimdj
Member
I had the issue in Cata and Panda that healers could over item level too easy, making lfr and normals too easy. Healium and other addon's make healing so boring.
I feel like healing class is needed in a MMO, but at the moment its so stale.
I feel like healing class is needed in a MMO, but at the moment its so stale.
Eh, I don't particular love the trinity but I really can't say I enjoyed the launch dungeons without it.
Parakeetman
No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
samurai1226
Member
This is my experience too. GW2 system sounded great in theory, but when i playing i felt it was way less fun than tradional mmo roles and way too much anarchy in pve.
what i really would like to see is integrated that role setup in other games. i hoped bungie would add a tank/dd/heal system to destiny as a fps, but it seems like they go with the borderlands system where everyone is just dps.
At the end i really like the classic role setup, because i really like playing healer or a tank because of the high responsibility you have for the group
Moff
Member
thats not really true though, only classes that can be full healers can heal.
on topic: I think the trinity concept is what separated MMOs from common hack'n'slays like diablo. I welcomed it and still do, GW2 didnt really work for me.
To be honest while I really enjoy GW2, It looks like most events were designed with no more than 2 or 3 players in mind.
If you take the typical centaurs attacks some emcampment/village event and do it with more than 5 players, it is kind of fun, altought it lacks diversity as every player is probably just spamming skills and trying to kill everything faster. Maybe you'll have to evade some attacks, heal a player or two and maybe use some supports skills, but most of the time it does not matter because all you have to do is kill things that appear and that's it.
So what does the game do if there are more players? Add more things to kill and sometimes harder things to kill.(At least since the last time I played)
What I would like to see are real dynamic events that change determined by player count, classes and many other factors. Things that would make an unorganized zerg invalid.
If you take the typical centaurs attacks some emcampment/village event and do it with more than 5 players, it is kind of fun, altought it lacks diversity as every player is probably just spamming skills and trying to kill everything faster. Maybe you'll have to evade some attacks, heal a player or two and maybe use some supports skills, but most of the time it does not matter because all you have to do is kill things that appear and that's it.
So what does the game do if there are more players? Add more things to kill and sometimes harder things to kill.(At least since the last time I played)
What I would like to see are real dynamic events that change determined by player count, classes and many other factors. Things that would make an unorganized zerg invalid.
TekGryphon
Banned
This is why Ultima Online and Asherons Call were so amzing.
Do you want to be an animal taming alchemist who can hide and speak to the dead? Sure!
Do you want to be a lumberjacking archer who uses bandages to heal wounds? Sure!
Do you want to be a scroll crafting mage who makes maps in his spare time? Sure!
Do you want to be a mace wielder well versed in anatomy with a penchant for tailoring? Sure!
You could mix and match any of those plus many more and play whoever you wanted to play... and it worked.
Do you want to be an animal taming alchemist who can hide and speak to the dead? Sure!
Do you want to be a lumberjacking archer who uses bandages to heal wounds? Sure!
Do you want to be a scroll crafting mage who makes maps in his spare time? Sure!
Do you want to be a mace wielder well versed in anatomy with a penchant for tailoring? Sure!
You could mix and match any of those plus many more and play whoever you wanted to play... and it worked.
Sure you can have MMOs without the trinity. However, no one has come up with a way to replace the huge hole left in the team dynamic.
The defining element of MMOs is the amount of coordination and teamwork required to tackle high end conent. You can give every class heals and let every class take a few hits, but you've also created a more selfish game by throwing away the dependencies -- which is pretty much what happened with GW2.
That said, I am sad more MMOs don't use action based combat systems like TERA.
The defining element of MMOs is the amount of coordination and teamwork required to tackle high end conent. You can give every class heals and let every class take a few hits, but you've also created a more selfish game by throwing away the dependencies -- which is pretty much what happened with GW2.
That said, I am sad more MMOs don't use action based combat systems like TERA.
Toothless Spoon
Member
Well I really like GW2 and still play the crap out of it. There is a good argument for having/not having the holy-trinity. I can play either way, but I do like not having to wait on a tank or healer - and just have 5 friends/pugs roll through a dungeon without too many dramas.
It's a personal preference I think - same with what game you like.
It's a personal preference I think - same with what game you like.
I feel the exact opposite. I like solving a puzzle, but solving the same puzzle over and over again gets boring no matter how well designed it is.
It's perfectly possible to do randomised/emergent PVE content well. It does require more coordination from the players though, and thus makes playing with randoms more difficult since you need to adapt instead of applying a template someone figured out as being "optimal".
It's of course a matter of preference but one is not inherently superior to the other.
I can second this. After going through the song and dance so many time I got fairly bored and have now not played the game in seven months. Though I hear they've nerfed zerk-only stuff to some extent, though I don't know the specifics.
I think I'm going to slowly get back into it though. I enjoyed the game more than i didn't.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
This is an old as hell concept gw1 did this and it did it well. It's just no other mmo's bothered to follow because of the success of WoW. Ironically the success of gw2 has lead many to start branching out in skill systems and payment models.
NemesisPrime
Banned
Asheron's Call never had the trinity.
Anyway... TESO also reduces it a little bit. The problem is that RPGs from the start (1970s) had classes for different roles and it is a habit hard to break. I liked the GW2 approach and I am sure games designers can think of different options. The trick is to create classes that can be tweaked to play broad roles without sacrificing uniqueness. It also depends on what kind of MMO you are looking at. Quite a lot of second generation P&P RPGs did not have dedicated classes.
GW1 did? With Guild Wars I can remember high level strategy was always to have a tank hold enemies, and it wasn't all that hard. Once he got aggro, he had the aggro. You just had to avoid using certain strategies so he wouldn't lose it (like most AoE attacks would scatter enemies).
Mid-level content in GW1 was better as it offered more freedom. But even then, that AI was not very advanced.
NemesisPrime
Banned
No we don't. It would be terrible.
antennaehead
Member
I'm curious - is there any good example of MMORPG with randomized PVE content and proper teamwork?
I mean - the idea is great, but puzzle-like encounters are so much easier to design.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
The tank didn't really hold the enemies as any difficult pve encounter would show you. Enemies attacked the squishiest players which is why you use block blocks and skills to prevent them, but tanking as whole was worthless. You could do pseudo do it but it was the least effect way of playing the game. Direct skill counters we're the proper and intended way to play the game.
High level strategy... it's pretty obvious you didn't play the game that much because that wasn't high level strategy at all, that was low level very low level..
Principate
Saint Titanfall
No it wouldn't PvP would have suffered greatly as a result.
CadetMahoney
Member
I'm personally excited about the current trend in Korea where many MMOs are going towards action based combat rather than traditional skill bar based gameplay centered around the holy trinity. Black Desert especially looks like an amazing game. I think that's the first MMO in ages I'll end up playing a lot.
It also looks furiously pretty. I'm half tempted to just keep posting screenshots of it:
Do Koreans even like medieval Yurop as the backdrop?
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Considering how many swords and sorcery korean mmo's, with typical knights etc there are I'd say yes