Tired of the MMO role trinity?

Sylosi · November 2017

pepe1337 wrote: »

You want a game like destiny>? mindless dps with nothing intresting.

To be fair 'trinity' and PvE in general in MMORPGs is pretty mindless, it is one of the reasons the genre is in the state it is in, and why successful MOBAs, Shooters, etc have more players individually than most western MMORPGs combined, the level of PvE gameplay is absolute trash tier in MMORPGs.

And even by the low standards of MMORPGs the current level is about as brainless as you can get, years ago you used to at least have things like CC classes, but that was too difficult for most of the zombies that play PvE in MMORPGs so normally now it is simply tank/heal/DPS.

Which as a generalization basically sums up the PvE player in these games, they play mainly for "rewards" and gameplay is secondary, meanwhile in good games (MOBAs, Shooters, etc) that is the other way round, gameplay comes first, "shinies" come second.

And if we are talking about mindless, then don't even get me started on how addons (to varying degrees) play the games for players in many MMORPGs...

tizodd · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

I personally can't stand when mmos do the jack-of-all-trades thing. I prefer specialized roles.

I actually wish there were "bard" type builds whose primary purpose is buffing/support. Then basic groups could be expanded to five people: tank, healer, 2 dps, 1 bard; tank, healer, 3 dps; etc.

edit: Also, when mmos do the jack-of-all-trades thing, they often have to dumb down content so anyone can complete it; or buff characters to achieve the same goal.

Tarum · November 2017

Yes - The trinity needs to evolve in MMO gaming from Tank/Healer/Damage to another set of roles

well basically if the game was not so against friendly fire (even in the roots of attack animations) this could work.
There would be more specific gameplay and all would not be solved with spamming of AOE in dungeons.
Of course the current system would never work with friendly fire, not saying we should enable it! :O

technohic · November 2017

I don’t think GW2 sucks because if the lack of the trinity. I think it’s more just bad combat and artwork I’m not a fan of. Autoattack and cutesy kind of clip art story telling are not really my style

Jade1986 · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

What, so we can turn it into a dps centric fluster *** even more? No thanks.

Tomg999 · November 2017

Yes - Move from specific roles to everybody being a jack-of-all-trades

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

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 .

The best thing about D&D was that the question was "How are we gonna beat that thing with who and what we've got?"

Zorgon_The_Revenged · November 2017

omne trium perfectum

zaria · November 2017

Sylosi wrote: »

pepe1337 wrote: »

You want a game like destiny>? mindless dps with nothing intresting.

To be fair 'trinity' and PvE in general in MMORPGs is pretty mindless, it is one of the reasons the genre is in the state it is in, and why successful MOBAs, Shooters, etc have more players individually than most western MMORPGs combined, the level of PvE gameplay is absolute trash tier in MMORPGs.

And even by the low standards of MMORPGs the current level is about as brainless as you can get, years ago you used to at least have things like CC classes, but that was too difficult for most of the zombies that play PvE in MMORPGs so normally now it is simply tank/heal/DPS.

Which as a generalization basically sums up the PvE player in these games, they play mainly for "rewards" and gameplay is secondary, meanwhile in good games (MOBAs, Shooters, etc) that is the other way round, gameplay comes first, "shinies" come second.

And if we are talking about mindless, then don't even get me started on how addons (to varying degrees) play the games for players in many MMORPGs...

So why are you here rather than playing overwatch or destiny? Games who have so interesting PvE content

Tasear · November 2017

I would to see scouts, trap masters, necromancers!, tamers, and such. On hand ESO really doesn't follow the trinity much.... you know play as you want thingy.

Linaleah · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

GW2 tried the no trinity thing. and like for a lot of people here, I personaly wasn't a fan. also, older MMO's had more diversified support roles - an expanded trinity if you will. but the downside came with complete and utter inability to solo. trinity is a compromise between more distinct class roles and no class roles at all. and personaly I like it.

(amusing, to me, thing - after playing ESO, I have trouble enjoying GW2 combat. even though at one point I did get used to it. there's just something very clunky about it, which is ironic as some people here are saying that ESO combat is more stationary? and yet I move around with more freedom in ESO than I do in GW2, despite certain similarities, the rolling and dodging mechanics and all /shrug)

Malamar1229 · November 2017

No - It's not the best idea but still better than anything else

Waiting for another mmo like star wars galaxies where you level weapons and skills instead of your character.

onemoredragon · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

Quite happy here.. that's why I moved from GW2 to this game. I just like them traditional things.

MinarasLaure · November 2017

The "trinity" itself is fine.
It's about preferences
We'll always have people who prefer to heal, to tank or to be a pure damage dealer.
But I'd love to see a sort of specializations, where every class can be any role by unlocking certain skills.
Eso got close, as pretty much every single class can cover any role....but it fails to do so in end game content, where templar will be always preferred over a night blade etc etc.

Sylosi · November 2017

zaria wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

pepe1337 wrote: »

You want a game like destiny>? mindless dps with nothing intresting.

To be fair 'trinity' and PvE in general in MMORPGs is pretty mindless, it is one of the reasons the genre is in the state it is in, and why successful MOBAs, Shooters, etc have more players individually than most western MMORPGs combined, the level of PvE gameplay is absolute trash tier in MMORPGs.

And even by the low standards of MMORPGs the current level is about as brainless as you can get, years ago you used to at least have things like CC classes, but that was too difficult for most of the zombies that play PvE in MMORPGs so normally now it is simply tank/heal/DPS.

Which as a generalization basically sums up the PvE player in these games, they play mainly for "rewards" and gameplay is secondary, meanwhile in good games (MOBAs, Shooters, etc) that is the other way round, gameplay comes first, "shinies" come second.

And if we are talking about mindless, then don't even get me started on how addons (to varying degrees) play the games for players in many MMORPGs...

So why are you here rather than playing overwatch or destiny? Games who have so interesting PvE content

To quote my post from the 'Your day in ESO in 7 words' thread:

Look at forums, then go play Overwatch.

P.S - MMORPGs for the most part don't have interesting PvE content, that is why so many PvE players will only play these games for shiny things, like dogs being rewarded with treats (Pavlov's dog's to be precise), as opposed to fun, interesting gameplay, and is why the genre is in the moribund state that it is.

zaria · November 2017

Sylosi wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Sylosi wrote: »

pepe1337 wrote: »

You want a game like destiny>? mindless dps with nothing intresting.

To be fair 'trinity' and PvE in general in MMORPGs is pretty mindless, it is one of the reasons the genre is in the state it is in, and why successful MOBAs, Shooters, etc have more players individually than most western MMORPGs combined, the level of PvE gameplay is absolute trash tier in MMORPGs.

And even by the low standards of MMORPGs the current level is about as brainless as you can get, years ago you used to at least have things like CC classes, but that was too difficult for most of the zombies that play PvE in MMORPGs so normally now it is simply tank/heal/DPS.

Which as a generalization basically sums up the PvE player in these games, they play mainly for "rewards" and gameplay is secondary, meanwhile in good games (MOBAs, Shooters, etc) that is the other way round, gameplay comes first, "shinies" come second.

And if we are talking about mindless, then don't even get me started on how addons (to varying degrees) play the games for players in many MMORPGs...

So why are you here rather than playing overwatch or destiny? Games who have so interesting PvE content

To quote my post from the 'Your day in ESO in 7 words' thread:

Look at forums, then go play Overwatch.

P.S - MMORPGs for the most part don't have interesting PvE content, that is why so many PvE players will only play these games for shiny things, like dogs being rewarded with treats (Pavlov's dog's to be precise), as opposed to fun, interesting gameplay, and is why the genre is in the moribund state that it is.

However the above games does not have PvE or the PvE is either an short solo campaign or way more an grind than in an MMO.
They win on good PvP however.

Think PvP has been the great looser since early MMO, back then it was hard to run fast paced shooter combat over internet but MMO style combat worked.
Its also way cheaper and easier to design an lobby based PvP game over an MMO.

SGT_Wolfe101st · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

Poll is biased, no choice for Stealth Archer, if you played Skyrim no matter what role you intended play all characters become Stealth Archers. /s

Tarum · November 2017

Yes - The trinity needs to evolve in MMO gaming from Tank/Healer/Damage to another set of roles

I'm doing a copy/paste of another post i did in the wrong thread.
It's about philosofy behind the game, not mechanics.

Prepare for some bad English here

Honestly in 2017 it almost seem stupid that these kind of roles exist. Games, expecially Elder Scrolls Online, are here to make us adventurers, heroes and villain in a well described setting.
Roles like Tank and Dps is really something that can survive just because of bad enemy AI, for the same reason a Tank in PvP is not the same as a PVE tank, as someone else pointed out.

Could you imagine a movie where there's a character that Tank a Boss (let's say Gimli against the Troll in Moria: LotR),
while the DPS get ignored by most of the monsters even if they are more damaging...?
Something is not right here:

Tank: "Hello, I'm the guy with thick armour. My blade is not that sharp, but I'm great at taunting!" <- his best skill is like Speechcaft O_o

DPS: "Hello, I'm a Glass Cannon. I don't mind to die, so i specialized to be sharp like a razor but really fragile. In a role playing perspective i know I can ressurrect and the guy in heavy armour is so great at taunt-poke the enemies with bad jokes that they ignore me "

Healer: "As the people in my Group is bleeding every second and go from 100% healthy to almost dying (without becoming schizofrenic) I'm using a special magic that close and stitch their wounds and also makes them feel better"

This would be acceptable in a game inside the game, but role playing speaking this is absurd. Games like this are fictions where the players can jump in and be part of it, but there's too much metagaming involved everytime. I don't think that Gimli think about being a dps or a tank, same as Legolas, same as Geralt of Rivia in the books.
If every character would really die like in a roguelike and fictions, no one would be organizing roles like Tank and Dps.
Also, monsters would spread their attack like people in pvp do.

zaria · November 2017

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

Poll is biased, no choice for Stealth Archer, if you played Skyrim no matter what role you intended play all characters become Stealth Archers. /s

This was because it was powerful and also an fun play style.
Same reason all my Oblivion characters became more and more mages. using command creature on an goblin warlord was effective, more so as because how Oblivion worked if the warlord was hit enough times he would be permanently hostile to goblins.

Rickter · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

As an action rpg i think the traditional roles need to allow for versatility for, as someone mentioned, content such as VMA. However, I am a very firm and staunch proponent for the trinity roles in mmorpgs.

I played GW2 for almost a year, and as we all should know, GW2 was famous (or infamous imho) for trying to break the trinity mold and it was essentially a disaster. They encouraged you to build for "support" as there truly was no trinity however, all content could be cleared faster and more efficiently when built for full dmg. and thats what happened.

There was an out-of-game lfg (because there was no in game version) and it was littered with posting such as:

"LF ZERKER WAR OR GTFO"
"LFM NEED ZERKER WARRIOR!"
"HOF SPEED RUN ZERKER WAR ONLY!"

the warrior w/ full beserker gear and a two hander outclassed every other class in dps and it became the only thing min/maxers wanted in group. We already started seeing that in ESO before the morrowind CP changes. Everyone built for max dmg.

Anyways im getting long winded as usual but the moral to the story is the trinity is needed or the game gets real monotone.

Kali_Despoine · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

If you want to have the best dps possible you are going to have a support role for him.
Dps can't do it's job if:
Stuned hard or soft
Dead
chasing the enemy
running from the enemy
Blocking/evading
Dps do a better job if the support roles are doing there job by holding aggro, healing, buffing and de-buffing.

Hybrids as good as they might seem will never do the job of a non hybrid.
Can you get the job done? yes, but,
you will never be able to take a one hit as a hybrid tank
you will never be able to keep your group alive if you are a hybrid healer
you will never get all your group buffs and debuffs if your running a hybrid

Hybrids might be good 1v1 PvP but not against end game PvE

rustic_potato · November 2017

EVE online does this perfectly. Every ship can be built for tank, DPS, heals (logi) and support(EWAR and boosters).

Problem is game becomes significantly hard and casual gamers will drop the game. Trinity dumbs down the game significantly so that even the most brain dead person can play and enjoy the game.

Linaleah · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

Tarum wrote: »

I'm doing a copy/paste of another post i did in the wrong thread.
It's about philosofy behind the game, not mechanics.

Prepare for some bad English here

Honestly in 2017 it almost seem stupid that these kind of roles exist. Games, expecially Elder Scrolls Online, are here to make us adventurers, heroes and villain in a well described setting.
Roles like Tank and Dps is really something that can survive just because of bad enemy AI, for the same reason a Tank in PvP is not the same as a PVE tank, as someone else pointed out.

Could you imagine a movie where there's a character that Tank a Boss (let's say Gimli against the Troll in Moria: LotR),
while the DPS get ignored by most of the monsters even if they are more damaging...?
Something is not right here:

Tank: "Hello, I'm the guy with thick armour. My blade is not that sharp, but I'm great at taunting!" <- his best skill is like Speechcaft O_o

DPS: "Hello, I'm a Glass Cannon. I don't mind to die, so i specialized to be sharp like a razor but really fragile. In a role playing perspective i know I can ressurrect and the guy in heavy armour is so great at taunt-poke the enemies with bad jokes that they ignore me "

Healer: "As the people in my Group is bleeding every second and go from 100% healthy to almost dying (without becoming schizofrenic) I'm using a special magic that close and stitch their wounds and also makes them feel better"

This would be acceptable in a game inside the game, but role playing speaking this is absurd. Games like this are fictions where the players can jump in and be part of it, but there's too much metagaming involved everytime. I don't think that Gimli think about being a dps or a tank, same as Legolas, same as Geralt of Rivia in the books.
If every character would really die like in a roguelike and fictions, no one would be organizing roles like Tank and Dps.
Also, monsters would spread their attack like people in pvp do.

I need to address this because movie=/= roleplaying game, though even movies have a trinity of sort with heavily armored melee protecting archers and healers in a back taking care of the wounded/getting them off the battlefield.

but that said.. trinity as we know it in games - exists BECAUSE of role playing games. those pen and paper adventures where a bunch of people gathered around the table and role played their characters? started the whole tank/dps/healer/bard/etc roles. it got distilled eventually to the trinity we have right now, mainly to allow for a little more flexibility of play for individual players, but it started with actual role playing. your example above doesn't work because you are trying to turn a character sheet into something that actualy gets spoken, but its just a character sheet. its a description of what character does, NOT their actual dialogue/how they come about doing what they do. there are actual recorded role playing shows out there now, critical role probably being one of the more well known, but there are quite a few out there. trinity of tank/ damage/support works out pretty well for them regardless of whether the setting is futuristic or quasi medieval.

dennissomb16_ESO · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

Played GW2 when it came out and it did not have a healer/tank/dps set up. I have to say it did not make dungeons very fun. At first it was simply 4 dps with some variations of group support which resulted in a lot of running in circles and unavoidable deaths. Players being players however over time as the game changed slightly roles became more defined.

Instead of the holy trinity the roles were buffs/debuffs/dps. Essentially you ran into the same issue that seems to be the core of complaints in the trinity set up, players being forced into a specific role/gear/skill set up.

PlagueSD · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

Malamar1229 wrote: »

Waiting for another mmo like star wars galaxies where you level weapons and skills instead of your character.

Have you tried Secret World - Legends? Not only do you have to level your character, you level your gear also. Plus, I love the way they handle the "trinity". It's a slider that you can change that updates the stats on your gear - (Anima Allocation).

DjMuscleboy02 · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

There is no way around this "trinity." If everyone was a jack of all trades, then anyone who ventured outside that would be unbelievably strong. Imagine a JOAT being able to do Vmol, they have the damage to bypass the shield phase on the first boss and other dps check mechanics. Now imagine what would happen if that JOAT decided to spec solely into damage and allow another JOAT to spec solely into healing. Damage would skyrocket. And that will always be the case.

People play mmos differently. There is absolutely roguish style nightblade gameplay already. You can't use it in trials, you can't use it effectively in dungeons, but you can use it while exploring overworld or doing quests. There will never be a way to balance play like that with those who decided to min-max and specialize their class, for the same reason you don't see Michael Phelps working on 400s or hurdles. For example, adding enough stealth/sneak damage and mitigation would absolutely break PvP. You wouldn't be able to move on a class that wasn't a nightblade without getting one shot. The "trinity" is there to make sure that people work as a unit to complete content and don't just mindlessly go through swinging a sword self sustaining.

The cool thing about ESO is that, with enough knowledge and skill, you actually can somewhat be a JOAT and do just fine in all content outside competitive raiding/hardcore PvP. I have run with nightblade healers who dps in Spellpower Cure and have great heals/damage, nothing insane like 50k ST but a respectable damage for dungeons. I have thrown on 5 piece heavy and dpsed The Mage in vAA Hm while taunting and stacking atros, again I didn't drop a 55k ST parse but my damage was more than enough for what we were doing. The point is that you can play however you want (to an extent...obviously you can't snipe spam from stealth in Hm Vmol...) if you know what to do. There's a reason that there is a difficulty tier in games and allowing any build to beat any content would just be redundant the second anyone started optimizing it.

DeathHouseInc · November 2017

Yes - Move from specific roles to everybody being a jack-of-all-trades

Trinity will always have it's place in certain mmo's but my not trinity experience in Asheron's Call makes trinity game play a very limiting joke and outdated. It's very easy to design a game around this though and it seems it is all developers these days know so they go with it.

Kalante · November 2017

Yes - Move from specific roles to everybody being a jack-of-all-trades

Giving classes specific roles is what creates unbalance in pvp. Now you have characters that can do things better than others specifically magicka templar and stam warden that can do everything, tank, dps, burst heal.... Balance in this game is a joke.

Milvan · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

I played DDO for quite long time.

There we have dps, the tank, the rogue, the healer and the caster control. For quite a while most of the content you actually had to have one of each to complet harder content (nowdays I don't really know how it's going).

So I don't complain about the trinity anymore

Psyonico · November 2017

Yes - The trinity needs to evolve in MMO gaming from Tank/Healer/Damage to another set of roles

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

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.

You can have support without the Trinity. City of Hope was the perfect example, yes, you could have the Trinity, but a team of offensive Defenders ( the game's support class) could easily out perform it.

The issue in ESO is that buffs are not particularly strong nor do they last long. If there was a skill that buffed my allies' (but not me) defense by 15,000 for 2 minutes then a tank wouldn't be necessary, but the skill wouldn't be overpowered.

Raideen · November 2017

No - I'm happy with the current 3 main roles

The trinity is necessary as it allows people to silently "communicate" during game play because of their defined roles. Everyone knows the tank will hold agro/absorb damage, the healer will keep the tank up, and the DPS will nuke the boss down.

In GW2 running anything was a complete joke because no one knew what was going on as everyone ran around like a chicken with its head cut off. Simply the trinity allows the players to best read the playfield and act accordingly.

I would even take this farther and say that action combat is terrible vs tab targeting. Tab targeting is accompanied by a portrait with the buffs/debuffs, health/mana and casted abilities. Action combat does away with most of this making the bosses "rotation" much more simple and frankly kind of boring.

I see the merit or "skill" in action combat, but it often lacks the necessary UI elements to make fights more engaging vs tanking and spanking.

Healing in action combat is fundamentally flawed in that members of your team could run inbetween the healer and the tank and cause the healer to miss that necessary clutch heal to keep the tank up.

Game companies keep trying to rewrite MMO's because MMO's are falling in popularity, imo part of the reason they are falling in popularity IS because companies keep trying to rewrite them.

I would love to see some form of combat system with a mage, thief, warrior as discussed in this thread, but that type of combat scenario would entail a much much much greater degree of programming, story telling, and creation of art assets to accomplish vs using the systems currently used. When time is money (and it is) games have to be created so that future content takes less time to create.

It goes deeper than this, but there is a good reason why the trinity and target locking (tab targeting) have been as popular as they have been, they simply work.