How could it not exist?

As long as there are support abilities/gear there will be a support playstyle. The only way to get rid of the trinity would be to get rid of support skills and tanky armour.

Support also isn't mandatory in ESO. The most efficient way to complete most 4-man content is with 4x DPS.

Runefang wrote: »

Personally I'd like to see the roles move from Tank / Healer / Damage to Mage / Thief / Warrior.

One thing MMOs haven't captured is the essence of D&D where each class brings a unique ability to a group. This is especially true of sneaky classes. Nightblades, for example, really aren't sneaky. They have a cloak but its useless in a group, there is nothing they bring to the table by being sneaky.

I want to see a thief sneak past a sleeping giant and steal his potions or club so when the group wakes him he's not as dangerous. I want to see the mage shield the group when the giant throws a rock. I want to see the warrior stun him while he roars to avoid bringing down the roof.

That would be cool.

I don't know which option to choose.

It all boils down simply. You either hurt things, make other things hurt you, or make all the things feel better.

Wow, you nailed it!
I'll try to be clear but it's not easy in English for me, I'm sorry in advance.

Of course roles are necessary, but there are different ways to make roles.
Actually in ESO and in most other MMO roles are simply numbers:

Tank: I take the enemy numbers.
DPS: I inflict numbers.
Helaer: I remove bad numbers.

As you pointed, we could enjoy more GAMEPLAY ROLE. Not even important that they are tied to specific class of course.
This would work if Group stuff like dungeons would be something more than just Killing stuff of course.

The trap disarmer and pick locker, what Bilbo should be and what we expect from previous TES games.
The Magic user who's expert in reading and writing scrolls, secret passages, solving riddles, open portals, do spells that make the Whole party invisible and protect them from the falling stone celing in a cave.
Characters that are more phisical and prefer different type of armors to overcome the situations.

Mostly it could be like:
-Who solve problems with cunning.
-Who deal with them using strenght.
-Who exploit arcane power and intelligence to overcome them.

It's something very classical, but it doesn't means that there are no space for jack of all trades or "strange classes" a la dragonknight.

The original Morrowind and Oblivion with their class system were no multyplayer but great at it.
You can choose a class (a preset of skills in wich you are better at) and learn the Others too.

This leads to character that can choose combinations like:
-Stealth, Dual Wield, Bows, Medium Armour, Alchemy.
-Shields, Heavy Armour, Hand to Hand, Restoration Magic, One handed weapons.
-Illusion magic, Destruction, etc...

They could even let you use the existing skillline from the various classes.

Actually the classes in Eso are not even important, most of them can do anything.
Most skills are the same except for the visual effect and color. In this case it would almost be better to just remove them and choose the playstyle we want.

Even when we want to be creative (well right now every combination is pretty common) like do a Nightblade with heavy Armour and Shield for tanking, we are not doing nothing creative: we are simply a Tank with different icons in bar.
Everything you are is one of the three roles, nothing more. Except for your own roleplaying, wich you can enjoy of course, but for that yuo need no specific system.

Short story: I'd rather to have a system where if I choose a Warden I feel like a warden, where class is tied to my feelings. Otherwise just get rid of them. And thank get rid of trinity Number-gods and have real gameplay difference between characters.

Edit: back in time a sword in normal condition would Always cut. Why now it's pratically damaging as a rubber hammer if used with a shield? My Tank if used normally as tank is superslow at Killing a mere mudcrab.

I think we're forgetting that the 4th role (Support as distinct from Healing) is present and available to all character types. In some games, one of the characters is the designated CC, debuff, buff role. The tank just tanks, the healer just heals, and the dps just does damage. So the Support role handles all the other odds and ends. Here, everyone gets to share in party support which helps a lot to make the roles feel more fluid while also keeping their core natures clearly defined.

Runefang wrote: »

Personally I'd like to see the roles move from Tank / Healer / Damage to Mage / Thief / Warrior.

One thing MMOs haven't captured is the essence of D&D where each class brings a unique ability to a group. This is especially true of sneaky classes. Nightblades, for example, really aren't sneaky. They have a cloak but its useless in a group, there is nothing they bring to the table by being sneaky.

I want to see a thief sneak past a sleeping giant and steal his potions or club so when the group wakes him he's not as dangerous. I want to see the mage shield the group when the giant throws a rock. I want to see the warrior stun him while he roars to avoid bringing down the roof.

You just got an awesome for mentioning the best game ever created and pointing out the fun that system excels at .

I'm not really sure how they could do it, but the trinity is very, very boring. The classes already have so few skills, then those are segregated into magicka or stamina so you have even fewer, and then when you choose healer or DD or tank, you have just enough to fill your ability bar. At that point we're all the same, with more variation for DD, but still.

Maybe the answer isn't jack-of-all trades for each class, but more specialization via world or guild skill lines. But some change might be nice. Not expecting it to happen though.

dpencil1 wrote: »

I think we're forgetting that the 4th role (Support as distinct from Healing) is present and available to all character types. In some games, one of the characters is the designated CC, debuff, buff role. The tank just tanks, the healer just heals, and the dps just does damage. So the Support role handles all the other odds and ends. Here, everyone gets to share in party support which helps a lot to make the roles feel more fluid while also keeping their core natures clearly defined.

Pure support roles aren't something MMOs have done well either in my opinion, they generally felt unneeded. People don't want to play tanks or healers let alone a third support role, generally this leads the developers the nerf content to no longer need them.

Personally it's the one role I would always go for if it exists, but it's rarely worth the effort.

I played GW2 back in the day. I wasn’t fond of that dynamic. Nobody knew what to do...

srfrogg23 wrote: »

I played GW2 back in the day. I wasn’t fond of that dynamic. Nobody knew what to do...

They eventually ended up releasing a pure healer because of this.

The way it worked was everyone was a self-sufficient DPS. That meant there was no need for team coordination (other than focusing targets).

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

ThePrinceOfBargains wrote: »

I’d like to see an MMO that does away with these. Unfortunately, the typical long-time MMO fans wouldn’t be privy to this kind of change. They get too nostalgic and won’t approve even if it’s a clear improvement. Just look at all the OT complaints.

That's not the issue. It's fundamentally impossible to create a game without the trinity unless you make every role DPS and remove any support abilities and tanky gear.

It just requires imagination to think outside the box. Currently you're just thinking 'The boss needs to hit somebody, so it needs to hit the one with the most survival skills. That person then needs to be healed so he doesn't die. The rest then do the damage. Rinse and repeat'.

I think having class abilities interact with specific mechanics is the alternative to the classic MMO trinity. All classes end up having to be jack of all trades, where they're equally tough (with some variations of who is tough against what) and equally damaging (again, with some variation).

Let's play out a different scenario:

You're fighting a mage boss, he casts chain lightning which travels through the whole group. You're a warrior and you throw down a lightning rod to absorb most of the lightning instead of it stopping on the last player who would otherwise take a lot of damage.

This same mage then realises his spell didn't work so goes to pick up his staff from his desk to up his game, only to realise the thief has stolen it at the start of the fight while he was distracted by the warrior's battle cry. If the thief didn't do that then he'd be able to hit the group with AoE fire damage.

The mage then starts to summon a demon instead so the warrior kicks over the braziers to prevent the summoning spell from working. With all of that failing the mage then casts a lightning bolt at the ceiling to bring down the roof so the mage in your group casts a shield to prevent it one-shotting your group.

All the while this is happening you're all damaging the boss and he's damaging you. In order to survive the warrior is providing a HoT via some balms that are regularly applied, the thief is cleansing poison dots with his antidotes and the mage is proving large single target heals by laying on of hands.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO wrote: »

"Jack of all trades" I lold myself when I read this...oh btw, meet the Warden.

All ESO classes are a jack of all trades to a large degree, with few variations based on the class skills.

The other MMO I play does not have a trinity. The trinity is still kind of foreign to me, even after 3+ years of game play.

The only way to get rid of the trinity is to artificially create demand for a fourth role or by removing existing demand. For example a morale system that requires your group to have a bard to keep your characters entertained or else they might not behave the way you want them to since they are scared/sad/annoyed etc.

There are some good ideas in here, especially that thief, warrior, Mage thing. However, can you imagine how terrible PUGging would be, if there were a million other mechanics to follow? Many can't even comprehend getting out of red after it one-shots them for nth time, in a row.

I'm happy with the trinity. It's straight-forward and feels... natural. I also imagine it's a lot easier to balance? I could be wrong.

But I'm also biased, I love playing support roles (yes, they are support roles in ESO-land. On my healer, I can't look my best in crafted gear, because all the best support gear are dropped sets. I look so darn ugly, all for the sake of the DDs --- maximum effort support right there!