Everquest had that in 1999. It was the Enchanter class.

They also had tanks, and DPS, and healers, and buffers.

But people whined about "balance" so now we are all Tank/DPS/Controller/Buffer/Healer hybrids.... with super-companions who do anything we don't.

And I'll use GW2 as an example again. They've lost people due to their being no raids.

Who said anything about not having raids? I said maybe the problem was the "raid-level boss". A raid is just a group challenge that requires more than the typical 4 person team to accomplish. Why should it HAVE to involve some massive final encounter with a huge boss the likes of which only the most well armored tanks backed by the most min-maxed healers can survive being hit by? Your argument that only the trinity allows such encounters is true... but it's circular logic. This is the type of encounter the trinity is designed for. Can't there be other challenges worthy of a raid-sized group that involve something other than these massive final bosses?

DCUO already created a 4th type of class, the controller, who you guessed it, crowd controlls. It's also helps keep the group's power/mana up in much the same way a healer helps keep your health up.

I didn't play a whole lot of DCUO but it left me the impression their idea of a controller was more of an "mana healer" first and an actual crowd controller second... but perhaps I didn't do enough teaming to get a real good feel for them. I remember EQ's enchanter and I played CoH's Controller class, which was much more of a CROWD controller.

The thing that enabled more different kinds of workable teams in CoH was the way nearly every power could stack in some way with teammates doing the same thing. That and the fact teams were up to eight players rather than a paltry four and the enemies you faced relied more on numbers than individual strength. So there were literal CROWDS to control. If you could stack enough control or enough buff/debuff, you didn't need a tank and sometimes not a healer. There was still plenty for team members to do and if you didn't do it, death could be a lot more swift with such light-weight classes than if the heavier melee types were involved.

The trinity wasn't absent. It was there if you really wanted it. There were just other options that also worked.

I am hesitant to say the special ability trees should be completely revamped...it would probably be a painful and ill-received change, at least at first.

If there was some way to simply reorganize and refine it a bit so it had three clear roles represented I think it would be pretty healthy for the game, especially if we could switch roles on the fly.

At least for the trinity system in this game bioware painted itself into a corner. By having the group size be 4 it really limited the role options. If they had 5 or 6 then you can start talking about other class types or at least a support role(buff/debuff etc..) I guess they could work around by nerfing the bosses but then if someone went with two dps instead of dps/support then it would be too easy.

On the guild war 2 thing there system really only works imo if you have coordinated groups otherwise it turns into a zerfest. I do commend them for at least trying something different.

At least for the trinity system in this game bioware painted itself into a corner. By having the group size be 4 it really limited the role options. If they had 5 or 6 then you can start talking about other class types or at least a support role(buff/debuff etc..) I guess they could work around by nerfing the bosses but then if someone went with two dps instead of dps/support then it would be too easy.

 

On the guild war 2 thing there system really only works imo if you have coordinated groups otherwise it turns into a zerfest. I do commend them for at least trying something different.

It would probably be easier to increase group size instead of streamlining the special trees into three distinct roles and allowing us to swap, but I still see other benefits in altering the current system, like the idea it would make it easier to form groups because folks to swap to fill a role that is needed.

Naturally the group finder would also have to be modified to show a list of folks in the que, what missions they have chosen and what role they intend to play so you could know what might be needed.

Guild Wars 2 has overcome it with a fantastic, really fantastic combat.

The issue with it are the conservative players trying to stick to the old-fashioned trinity.

I play this game just for the storylines, but when it comes to PvP and PvE I'm with Guild Wars 2 all the way. it has room for innovation and strategy. Here and in all trinity based games, all you do is be the same as everyone, doing the same stuff. Equipment being the differentiation.

But when you remove that, you have a blank canvas to put your brain to work and have fun.

I would actually make the following changes to the overall system if I could.

1) Add an extra 10 points to each advanced class pool to use in other trees.

2) Refine the current trees to put base abilities at the bottom, improvements to those abilities in the middle, stat boosts at the top. Many secondary abilities would be removed and instead would be rolled in as changes or improvements to base abilities to simplify rotations.

3) Final ability in the tree would provide an automatic innate role bonus based on role chosen....

Tank - 5 percent bonus to health pool and agro control.

Healer - 5 percent bonus to healing power and health regeneration rate.

DPS - 5 percent bonus to overall DPS and energy pool.

You would receive an extra 5 percent boost if you choose one of the following roles...

Sith Warrior, Jedi Knight, Imperial Agent, and Smuggler - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if DPS is chosen and maxed.

Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if Healer is chosen and maxed.

Bounty Hunter and Trooper - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if Tank is chosen and maxed.

Finally, dual spec would be added to allow a player to save one ability set choice, with ability positions and bars saved as well, and switch to that ability set on the fly with a cooldown.

I would actually make the following changes to the overall system if I could.

 

1) Add an extra 10 points to each advanced class pool to use in other trees.

 

2) Refine the current trees to put base abilities at the bottom, improvements to those abilities in the middle, stat boosts at the top. Many secondary abilities would be removed and instead would be rolled in as changes or improvements to base abilities to simplify rotations.

 

3) Final ability in the tree would provide an automatic innate role bonus based on role chosen....

 

Tank - 5 percent bonus to health pool and agro control.

Healer - 5 percent bonus to healing power and health regeneration rate.

DPS - 5 percent bonus to overall DPS and energy pool.

 

You would receive an extra 5 percent boost if you choose one of the following roles...

 

Sith Warrior, Jedi Knight, Imperial Agent, and Smuggler - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if DPS is chosen and maxed.

Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if Healer is chosen and maxed.

Bounty Hunter and Trooper - Innate boost of additional 5 percent if Tank is chosen and maxed.

 

Finally, dual spec would be added to allow a player to save one ability set choice, with ability positions and bars saved as well, and switch to that ability set on the fly with a cooldown.

Not bad ideas but without a major rebuild of the PvE game it would all be pointless.

As the way PvE is today, it's pretty much inconsequential what skills a character has. Everyone is a lawnmower and every mob is grass.

The speed and ease with which people blow through the game is its Achilles heel. People, mainly casuals, see it as an advantage, but it does nothing to extend the life or replayability of the game. Most of those casuals won't play more than a few months regardless so catering to them hurts TOR in the long run.

Not bad ideas but without a major rebuild of the PvE game it would all be pointless.

 

As the way PvE is today, it's pretty much inconsequential what skills a character has. Everyone is a lawnmower and every mob is grass.

 

The speed and ease with which people blow through the game is its Achilles heel. People, mainly casuals, see it as an advantage, but it does nothing to extend the life or replayability of the game. Most of those casuals won't play more than a few months regardless so catering to them hurts TOR in the long run.

I would STRONGLY disagree with you there. You have some points I do agree with at least in part.

I agree that Casual players are more transient in nature, are much less dedicated to a single game. Hardcore players are a much more stable dependable revenue stream.

However, to say that catering to them hurts the game in the long run is just not the most wise or healthy financial viewpoint for the game IMO.

Based on market data, any MMO on the market can be made up of anywhere from 60 to 80 percent casual players. The remaining 20 to 40 percent comprise what would be considered Hardcore players. Some games like WoW and EVE do not fit in this general rule.

In the case of free to play casuals are even more important...thought the vast majority of free players generally pay nothing, a small group of them pay more than the average sub base, sometimes as much as three times more. Free players of this type tend to be loose with their money...subs generally are resistant to spending extra money above and beyond the sub cost.

This game was designed to attract WoW type players, not SWG type players. As a result if fell flat on it's face. It couldn't even maintain it's hardcore base due to the lack of any substantial endgame.

Now that the game caters to what should have been it's target audience from launch....Star Wars fans, casual players, SWG fans, "sandboxy" repeatable or alternate content fans, it is likely to continue to grow and flourish.

Just my two cents.

When I saw the thread title I thought GW2.

In order to remove the notion of "The Trinity" they had to introduce new mechanics; what I call

"now everyone gets a chance to die." To make non-Trinity work, mobs now calculate your

Toughness (kinda armor rating) and Health points, among more logical things.

This is what happens : If you are a class that wears light armor, you may choose traits which help your

build and gives you more Toughness. NPCs will target the player with the highest Toughness.

Logic dictates for more survivability, just stack more Toughness. Now, you don't even need to be closest to

the target or even attack the target for it to leave the 4 players beating on it to hop on over to smack you.

You are twice outside of aggro range, you are just standing there, but some stat on your character sheet tells

the mob to forget everyone else and pound you. This can happen in dungeons and dynamic events.

The Trinity System could be argued by some to not be the best system. But upon creating another system you

will now need to tell your mobs who "deserves" to be attacked. That is a serious balancing act for MMO devs.

At least in SWTOR, if I need less attention from the mobs I'm attacking, I summon my tank companion. I want to

tank for myself, I summon my DPS companion. Only certain Hard Mode Flash Points could someone realize

they had better wait for a dedicated human healer or human tank over the respective companions.

I would STRONGLY disagree with you there. You have some points I do agree with at least in part.

 

I agree that Casual players are more transient in nature, are much less dedicated to a single game. Hardcore players are a much more stable dependable revenue stream.

 

However, to say that catering to them hurts the game in the long run is just not the most wise or healthy financial viewpoint for the game IMO.

 

Based on market data, any MMO on the market can be made up of anywhere from 60 to 80 percent casual players. The remaining 20 to 40 percent comprise what would be considered Hardcore players. Some games like WoW and EVE do not fit in this general rule.

 

In the case of free to play casuals are even more important...thought the vast majority of free players generally pay nothing, a small group of them pay more than the average sub base, sometimes as much as three times more. Free players of this type tend to be loose with their money...subs generally are resistant to spending extra money above and beyond the sub cost.

 

This game was designed to attract WoW type players, not SWG type players. As a result if fell flat on it's face. It couldn't even maintain it's hardcore base due to the lack of any substantial endgame.

 

Now that the game caters to what should have been it's target audience from launch....Star Wars fans, casual players, SWG fans, "sandboxy" repeatable or alternate content fans, it is likely to continue to grow and flourish.

 

Just my two cents.

It doesn't have to be one or the other, they could rebuild the game for both extremes and all those in between. Most players are neither casual or hardcore, they are somewhere in between. Alternate advancement planets with harder group content don't stop anyone interested in easy mode or story mode from playing what exists now.

It makes no sense to me why anyone would make a game for one or the other. The MMO audience is pretty tiny to begin with, excluding any portion of it is a bad idea.

It doesn't have to be one or the other, they could rebuild the game for both extremes and all those in between. Most players are neither casual or hardcore, they are somewhere in between. Alternate advancement planets with harder group content don't stop anyone interested in easy mode or story mode from playing what exists now.

 

It makes no sense to me why anyone would make a game for one or the other. The MMO audience is pretty tiny to begin with, excluding any portion of it is a bad idea.

Its a fair point. I generally believe that a hybrid Sandbox/Themepark game that has content for both casuals and hardcore players is the most healthy model.

Its a fair point. I generally believe that a hybrid Sandbox/Themepark game that has content for both casuals and hardcore players is the most healthy model.

Exactly. It also allows the developers the freedom to tailor further development to whichever audience they are most successful with, or to beef up where they are lacking.

I used to think the trinity was old-fashioned. Then I played GW2. Now I love the trinity.

^ This.

A lot of people put bad rap on the trinity system when, in fact, it's having this system that allows for variance in play styles, that something like GW2 just won't give.

Having a game like GW2 means all the people that enjoy a different sort of role in tanking or healing are left in the cold and really all it does is alienate those types of players, which can really have a large butterfly effect in this tight knit MMO community as many people who tend to play tanks/healers are also quite often community guild leaders and officers.

Another thing to point out is that the trinity system was, in fact, created by PLAYERS not game developers, and it's the developers that saw this trend and made moves and game systems to support that style of play.

The trinity system is just a simple system. Most people don't want the Quad system like older MMOs, or even eq2.

Point being: People complain about group finder and soloing and stuff like that. Now imagine you need someone to keep your resource management up.

This is the first mmo I've played where there are only Three kinds of toons, and you keep track of your own resources. Four player groups were -designed- for the quad system. Tank, Healer, DPS, Buffer/Resource toon.

There was an interesting article on Massively by Eliot Lefebvre.

 

The Soapbox: The trinity isn't so bad

 

It raises a few interesting points about how the trinity system seems to get a bad rap in modern MMOs. I tend to think that the system works (I play a Sorc healer btw as my main), but it could use a bit more flexibility.

 

In this game it seems to be that a dual spec would go a long way toward that flexibility. Sure, you can respec for free if you are a sub, take the time to reset your bars and the like, but I think it would be far better to provide a way to save a certain spec to offer more flexibility with roles, especially in flashpoints and operations.

 

Just my two cents. Any thoughts on the Trinity system, it's ups and downs and what if anything can be done to improve it's implementation here?

In a sword and sorcery setting, like D&D, I dont mind it. In SW or a modern setting? Never has made sense!

Luke doesn't go around saying "Here! I'll tank this!" or "You tank! I'll DPS them!"

^ This.

 

A lot of people put bad rap on the trinity system when, in fact, it's having this system that allows for variance in play styles, that something like GW2 just won't give.

 

Having a game like GW2 means all the people that enjoy a different sort of role in tanking or healing are left in the cold and really all it does is alienate those types of players, which can really have a large butterfly effect in this tight knit MMO community as many people who tend to play tanks/healers are also quite often community guild leaders and officers.

 

Another thing to point out is that the trinity system was, in fact, created by PLAYERS not game developers, and it's the developers that saw this trend and made moves and game systems to support that style of play.

City of Heroes didnt require a trinity system, nor did it stop one from playing healer, buffer, tanker or dps.

I will always love the healing cannon troopers have because when I think of a blaster cannon I think healer

This brings a smile to my face as I remember the "Sure, I'll heal you; let me dig out my Healing Arrow and shoot you" retort that the Archery/Trick Arrow Defenders in City of Heroes would bind to a convenient key after the thirtieth or fortieth idiot "R U Healzorz?" question...

Impossible, only BW are oppressive enough to lock or delete threads they don't want to see!

Post a message alluding to the things City of Heroes did right, or suggesting that the out-of-the-blue shutdown that it got could happen to this game in the forums for any of NCSoft's other games; your post will be deleted and your account will be banned almost immediately.

Good article, I have to say that the Trinity system has never been a problem for me, I kind of like the comfort of going to a new MMO and knowing straight away what the roles on offer are, as I did in SWG, and here on SWTOR, even when I tried the (personal opinion) abortion that is WoW, that Trinity aspect helped me at least get into the game system easily.

As the article demonstrates really, it isn't Trinity that is the problem, it is the game that is built on top of that system that ultimately wins or fails...

City of Heroes didnt require a trinity system, nor did it stop one from playing healer, buffer, tanker or dps.

If only more games had classes that flexible. *sigh* God, I miss CoH.

I just think that it's pretty important to relax the rigid trinity system in this game to allow the game to actually be more enjoyable for casual players.

Now, I personally do not think that means trinity needs to go. I think it just needs to be easier to play the role, and one also needs to be able to easily switch roles if needed. That is why I suggest a refinement and clarification of the ability trees combined with dual spec.