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Do you think the non-trinity system failed because of damage stat system?


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> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> My understanding is that Anet never intended to make it impossible to make a pure DPS build, or a tank build or a support build. (I think they did make it impossible to be a pure healer, but heal + other support has always been an option.) What they were trying to avoid was characters being stuck in certain roles. In a trinity game all guardians would always be tanks or healers, all warriors would always be DPS (or maybe tanks), all rangers would be ranged DPS...and so on. And you'd have to make sure you had at least 1 tank and 1 healer in your party for dungeons and other group content, so if you wanted to play with a regular group of friends someone would be 'forced' to be the tank or the healer, and if you didn't have a regular group you'd spend far longer trying to fill those roles because most people prefer to play DPS.

>

> And yes, at first the result of that was that the majority of people went for pure damage builds. They've since figured out ways around that - so now pure damage beserker builds are actually discouraged and there's far more variety. I don't think that means their original intent has failed - to me it means they've finally got it working.

 

I totally understand where ANet was going with breaking from the trinity. I think it was a bold move and was absolutely successful in the area GW2 does perhaps better than anyone in the industry: Open world play. However, as I said, I don't think it works particularly well in organized group play. Despite the fact that I truly enjoy the feel of GW2's combat system, I very much miss raiding and dungeons from WoW.

 

You're correct regarding the advantages of GW2's system. I'm just not convinced it has produced a superior product in the realm of raiding and dungeons. In my opinion, that is something WoW (and probably a few other games as well!) do better. I find GW2's open world play far more enjoyable than fractals or raiding. And that's a bit odd to me because I was a raid leader in WoW and always loved playing every role, but especially tanks and healers (but mostly tanks!).

 

It feels to me like every role is DPS in this game, and I miss the feel of having those distinctive niches. In this game, "balancing" organized PvE revolves around ensuring that classes overlap in such a way that they are all a welcome addition to the group. I think that, in a game like WoW, this very necessary task is easier to manage without making it feel like all that matters is how much damage you can deal. I say this because WoW only has to balance healers with healers (and are they tank healers, raid healers, etc.?) and so on.

 

It's the opposite approach, with roles specifically intended not to overlap. It comes with all of the disadvantages you've listed, but I just find the gameplay much more enjoyable. But as I said, turn that on its head for open world: GW2 is just on another level from WoW.

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There will ALWAYS be a 'Trinity'. Humans(unwittingly or no) create it; shape it; mold it; define it and then **naturally** become dependent upon it in the 'day-to-day'. Be it video games, sports, occupation, family, etc., roles inevitably will surface despite the human's best efforts to 'adapt' or evolve -- It's ironic. No one seems to care that the act of adapting to something may(will?) cause that 'something' to adapt as well.

 

Still, a commendable effort by ArenaNet to be sure, yet they must know that programming code alone can't remove that which is just as natural to the world(and us) as bees gathering pollen; the instinctual migration of the Pacific salmon and so forth. Truly though, these patterns/adjustments in G.W.2's character progression has left me a might curious(yes. It will be most interesting indeed.) and I for one will 'stay tuned' if only to see what future developments will bring to such a versatile repertoire of M.M.O classes.

 

Carry on.

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> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > @"Ithilwen.1529" said:

> > I frequently play both GW1 and GW2. In the original game, you have heroes and henchies to mix and match.

> >

> > **I just completed "Legendary Vanquisher" last night, mostly playing solo. So don't try to tell me that another player for the healer, tank etc is absolutely needed.** When GW2 decided to forgo heroes, they painted themselves into a corner of needing every build to do everything. *I, for one, think that was a poor choice.*

> >

> > Maybe ANET should consider adding back heroes. For 1000 gems, you get to use one of your other characters as a hero.

>

> Did you do with or without Heroes? Because with, isn't exactly the same thing.

> GW1 wasn't a MMORPG, it was closer to diablo than wow. It had limited groups, no open world, all instanced. So you had NPC helpers, it was made to be soloable.

 

I was pointing out to an earlier poster that a human trinity is not an absolute requirement for GW1 PvE. In the earlier game, you can play a class that is relatively weak on, say, healing. You can match a set of heroes to make up for deficiencies in your human piloted character.

 

When ANET gave that up, they also lost a lot of flexibility on balance.

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> @"Atmaweapon.7345" said:

> In vanilla GW2, it was Zerker or bust. Being able to choose 3 multiplicative damage stats that blew up enemies before they could kill you was the best route to take and any damage taken had to be mostly avoidable through dodges, blocks, and reflects.

>

> So what if we didn't have multiplicative damage stats? What if you had one main damage stat and the other stats you picked were utility or survival oriented in nature? Since both players and enemies wouldn't blow up as fast, would things have developed a different way?

>

> For example, eliminate Precision, Ferocity, and Expertise. Would everyone go Power/Cond/X stat? Or would increases from your off-stat be somewhat negligible, like Druids that can mix Harrier/Minstrel pieces without much fuss?

 

Confusing. It could be that the AI was so primitive that allowed full zerker or bust to exist. It's not like enemies in this game intentionally try to interrupt you (like some encounters did in GW1 ironically). At worst their are some scripted dances to follow that hopefully disrupt your optimal rotations. So I too fail to see why the conclusion is that "non-trinity" failed.

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> @"GDchiaScrub.3241" said:

> > @"Atmaweapon.7345" said:

> > In vanilla GW2, it was Zerker or bust. Being able to choose 3 multiplicative damage stats that blew up enemies before they could kill you was the best route to take and any damage taken had to be mostly avoidable through dodges, blocks, and reflects.

> >

> > So what if we didn't have multiplicative damage stats? What if you had one main damage stat and the other stats you picked were utility or survival oriented in nature? Since both players and enemies wouldn't blow up as fast, would things have developed a different way?

> >

> > For example, eliminate Precision, Ferocity, and Expertise. Would everyone go Power/Cond/X stat? Or would increases from your off-stat be somewhat negligible, like Druids that can mix Harrier/Minstrel pieces without much fuss?

>

> Confusing. It could be that the AI was so primitive that allowed full zerker or bust to exist. It's not like enemies in this game intentionally try to interrupt you (like some encounters did in GW1 ironically). At worst their are some scripted dances to follow that hopefully disrupt your optimal rotations. So I too fail to see why the conclusion is that "non-trinity" failed.

 

True, in GW1 enemies interrupt, energy drain and otherwise act in ways that require skilled response. In some areas, mobs are attracted to fights from quite a distance for example and are set up in a way that makes it easy to get flanked and trashed.

 

**If non-trinity failed, it's in making the overall game more based on muscle memory and reaction time. Strategy and situational awareness are less important in GW2 than they are in GW1.**

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Trinity is a disaster.

Play WOW and you will see why, but the basic problem is that if events are designed so that they can only be completed with a dedicated "healer" class, you will find there simply arnt enuf people who want to play them, so that for many events you have to wait sometimes for hours to get a healer to join your group.

At times we had to offer gold for any healers simply to get events done.

Worst events to fill were raids followed by dungeons.

 

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> @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > @"Bloodstealer.5978" said:

> > > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said:

> > > The only thing that "Failed" is whiners that wanted

> > > "BUT I WANT TO BE A TANK!"

> > > "I WANT TO BE A HEALER!"

> > > "I WANT TO BE FULL SUPPORT ONLY!"

> > >

> > > any failures is due to whiners.

> >

> > I guess you failed then D

>

> I haven't because I play how I enjoy still regardless.

> I like the feeling of being able to hold my own weight (or at least play classes that I feel that I can).

>

> I don't aim for someone to tank for me or heal me or support me.

> And I won't complain that I can't tank or heal or support for someone.

>

> So I personally didn't fail anything.

 

I think you failed to understand what my reply was highlighting... but no biggie:D

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> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> You assume the non-trinity system is a failure in the first place. How did you define failure to come to that conclusion?

 

It's not going to be a hard conclusion either way. It depends a lot of context. Does open-world work perfectly well without dedicated healers and tanks? Sure! But then, the open-world content in GW2 is designed so that difficulty is low enough that even a Magi-geared healing Druid has 0 issues with it.

 

But then, things start to erode already:

 

* People talk of "the trinity", forgetting that there are more roles to RPGs than just Tank / Healer / Damage. And sPvP and WvW have **always** had dedicated roles, since day 1.

* Not being allowed to play a healer was, as someone who enjoys playing support in all games, frankly just boring. Pew pew is utterly boring to play, give me someone who I need to save despite their best efforts at dying, not just some buttons to hammer on as soon as they light up again. I desire slightly more varied gameplay than DPS in most games, and especially in GW2 where DPS is even more boring to play than in most MMORPGs.

* As soon as you want to design difficult content, you run into issues. 9 classes with multiple traitlines each and millions of possible setups will have too much variability in their survival to base all of this content on damage specs alone, as in, "no trinity". It won't work. **It clearly didn't!** That's why we had these meta-comps for everything. Still do, but at least with dedicated healers there's a teensy tiny amount of developer control exerted towards basing this on types of classes/specs instead of hardlocking specific ones. Very early beginnings, but getting there.

 

That being said, I feel that **iff** GW2 had stuck with its strengths (instead of trying to shore up its weaknesses and forgetting about everything else), then the original approach would have worked well. Define roles based on PvP and WvW, let PvE play freely in an exploration-centric super-low-difficulty setting where as a result, specific setup matters only to the playing player, not to the players around them. You'd still have meta setups for ~everything, but frankly it wouldn't matter at all whether someone had those or not, as the game never tested you for them.

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> @"Atmaweapon.7345" said:

> In vanilla GW2, it was Zerker or bust. Being able to choose 3 multiplicative damage stats that blew up enemies before they could kill you was the best route to take and any damage taken had to be mostly avoidable through dodges, blocks, and reflects.

>

> So what if we didn't have multiplicative damage stats? What if you had one main damage stat and the other stats you picked were utility or survival oriented in nature? Since both players and enemies wouldn't blow up as fast, would things have developed a different way?

>

> For example, eliminate Precision, Ferocity, and Expertise. Would everyone go Power/Cond/X stat? Or would increases from your off-stat be somewhat negligible, like Druids that can mix Harrier/Minstrel pieces without much fuss?

As mentioned by people above already, you are assuming that the non-trinity system is a failure. That's not as obvious as you might think however.

 

Additionally, i think that you're not looking deeply enough, and are too concentrating on Zerker. What really was a failure was not the multiplicative stat stacking. It was _having traditional-style gear with stats in a game based around action combat and active defenses_. They tried to mix two very different systems, and it doesn't really work all that well together. What is ironic is that the old GW1 armor/attribute system they've abandoned was actually more suited to the combat system we have now.

 

It has nothing to do with non-trinity approach however.

 

 

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Another thing to consider is that including the Trinity doesn't automatically mean you get a harder game which requires coordinated groups and good builds to succeed, or that the fights will be any fun.

 

My other MMO - Elder Scrolls Online - is a trinity game. They kind of have the same idea of each class being able to fufill any role but the expectation is still that the group will end up with 1 tank, 1 healer and 2 DPS and when you queue for a dungeon you have to specify which of those roles you're going to play. But most of the game is easy enough that people don't bother - DPS players will queue as a tank or a healer so they end up with a 4 DPS group because they can actually finish faster that way.

 

The trinity is one side of a set of mechanics that developers can use to set up fights that require players to do specific things to succeed. (The other half is enemies that use complementary mechanics - like targeting the highest health/armour player so they can be the tank.) It's not a magic button that makes all fights challenging and fun. It can easily go the other way if they make it too extreme - if the tank just has to stand there applying taunts and avoiding the odd big attack, the healer just has to cycle through healing skills targeting the tank and the DPS fires away at the boss safe in the knowledge that they will never be hit.

 

It's also not the only set of mechanics which can achieve that goal. I often think the fights people praise most both in Guild Wars 2 and in trinity games remind me of Zelda bosses. Zelda games are single-player and most of the time you're alone in combat so it can't use a trinity system. But it's still got the same idea - you avoid or counter the enemies attacks and wait for an opening to attack yourself. Sometimes you have to use specific attacks to make the boss vulnerable, and even if not there's usually one or two which are much more effective. You get the same effect of having to learn your role and the pattern of the fight if you want to succeed, but through a completely different set of mechanics.

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I think the people who came in to design raids and lately the new fractals weren't around back then and don't have the same brief or feelings about a lack of trinity. Many of us hung on every prelaunch word we could get, including the info about no trinity. But new devs aren't necessarily fans of the game like we are. And there are lots and lots of new devs. Probably fifty or sixty who weren't here at launch maybe more. As some of the original people left and some of the new devs logged in,. they didn't say we're going to make a raid without a tank or healer. They made raids based on how they made raids. I'm pretty sure one of those new people came from Wildstar (and I believe I can see that influence in the encounter design) and Crystal I know came from another company as well.

 

Their entire thought process wasn't to come here and make a game based on no trinity because that probably wasn't even the brief. People were given the brief to design raids. New fractals are very possibly designed by people who believe that it's more important to have a stepping stone in difficulty to raids, rather than not have a trinity.

 

Before raids were introduced into this game (another reason to love them), there was no content in this game that required either a tank or healer.

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> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> It failed because the devs couldn't figure out how to design fights for a non-trinity system.

 

I seriously thought I was alone in thinking that.

 

Non-trinity combat didn't fail, per se, but the combat designers were still designing fights for older paradigms. When everyone can heal and mitigate damage, it makes more sense to threaten lots of players at once, rather than hamfisting a KO onto one of them. But most of what we got were champs that chase one character around and bludgeon it to death and then move onto the next.

 

We got monoliths, when we should have been contending with swarms or larger groups of exceptional enemies. We should have multiple objectives, which is something we started to see during LS1 and the Marionette fight.

 

And honestly, forced Trinity makes for some boring fights. Or at least very rote. Tank, go blow your cooldowns and then wiggle around a bit. Healer, spam 1 until the tank needs more healing. DPS, don't stand in the red things that are the only thing threatening you. No seriously, stop. ...Healer, you can do your AoE now because the DPS are in the fire again. Blah. Commence rotation hypnosis.

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I think that the system we have would have been better if all gear was restricted to 1 offensive stat, 1 defensive stat, and 1 utility stat (i.e. Berserker, with its 3 offensive stats, would not exist).

 

This would have kept the highest and lowest performing DPS specs much closer together which would put more focus on your spec instead of your gear for defining your play-style.

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Excelsior.

 

When I left FF14 and came here, one of the best moments here was in one the first Asura story instances.

I just had a pistol and two Inquest guys followed me around the map. I fought them but I was low health. First of all, I dodged behind a wall (terrible network code in FF14 would you still count as hit) and I then used the bandages of my Medkit to heal myself. That felt so awesome.

 

I've been trapped in the Trinity for so long that I realized it is a really terrible design. First of all, the imbalances in need and demand. _**Find a healer.**_

Second problem: The skills and the attitude. I had many healer that **_were so bad, _**they drew aggro all the time by overhealing, got killed, and died. We all wiped. Or: Someone called him or her out. **_Healer snapped._** Did not heal as "revenge". We died. Wiped.

 

No, nononono. The more random people are involved, the worse it gets.

~~(Also, sitting on a ledge, sniping my enemy down and then retreat and heal myself has a lot of Rambo / Die Hard to it, and I like that. Not asking anyone for help)~~

 

When I have to go back to look for special roles in order to survive, I am pretty sure many people immediately ditch this game, because it's one of the last resorts in that matter.

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> @"Zedek.8932" said:

> Excelsior.

>

> When I left FF14 and came here, one of the best moments here was in one the first Asura story instances.

> I just had a pistol and two Inquest guys followed me around the map. I fought them but I was low health. First of all, I dodged behind a wall (terrible network code in FF14 would you still count as hit) and I then used the bandages of my Medkit to heal myself. That felt so awesome.

>

> I've been trapped in the Trinity for so long that I realized it is a really terrible design. First of all, the imbalances in need and demand. _**Find a healer.**_

> Second problem: The skills and the attitude. I had many healer that **_were so bad, _**they drew aggro all the time by overhealing, got killed, and died. We all wiped. Or: Someone called him or her out. **_Healer snapped._** Did not heal as "revenge". We died. Wiped.

>

> No, nononono. The more random people are involved, the worse it gets.

> ~~(Also, sitting on a ledge, sniping my enemy down and then retreat and heal myself has a lot of Rambo / Die Hard to it, and I like that. Not asking anyone for help)~~

>

> When I have to go back to look for special roles in order to survive, I am pretty sure many people immediately ditch this game, because it's one of the last resorts in that matter.

 

Raids made roles other than dps exist wich is bad zerker meta before hot was the best thing made all you needed was a berserker set and you were good to go now we have ress and buff ppl and mechanics like breakbars and too hard i dont want to wait for others during a wb i want option to solo it

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What fail is not the non trinity system but the stat system. Simply put, damage stats are way to strong in front of defensive or support stats in PvE while defensive stats coupled with active defense are already a treat for an healthy PvP/WvW balance.

 

The issue mostly come from the impact of the stat not from the "non trinity" system. In reality the non trinity system was just an argument to point out that you wouldn't be limited by the need for a specific profession to thread throught the content. What was advertised was more that all professions would be able to stand for any role in a party if you build for this specific role and this was partly right at release.

 

Now, along the years the players found out that the balance is very loose in this game and thus some professions end up being a lot more effective than others in each role. Which leave us with an effective trinity in a game where some players still think that there is none. We have support (offensive and defensive), tank and dps. Only a fool would think that there is no trinity in GW2 nowaday.

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I personally think it mostly fell behind the curve because population spread. ANet makes the same mistake every time they do something new: they make it with the premise that people are going to do it. But then new content comes out and people don't do the old content. First it was Orr, then it was Southsun, then it was Dry Top, (Silverwastes RIBA still gets a solid amount of activity), then it was Verdant Brink - much of the meta itself is usually completed but they usually just hit Matriarch/Patriarch and ignore the others unless there's time. So good luck if you want more than those two. Then it's the LW3 maps. Even now PoF is losing steam and some events are going undone for several hours.

 

Continuously creating content that's supposed to have strong activity in it is, well, counterproductive to making new content. You can still go in as your favourite healer/tank to new zones and have a lot of fun, but you're SOL in Orr because you have to adopt the role of DPS since nobody else is going to be.

 

So naturally everyone trends toward DPS - the only time you stray from DPS is when you have structured group activities. Since the rest of the game took away the structure, you're forced to adopt the pillar that's most important for progress.

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I think that non-trinity does not mean that there is no different kinds of roles in a group. Without any roles group is not a group, it's more like a bunch of rascals raiding a cave - everyone on their own. Some classes / specs can be more useful by boosting the group's damage, so that overall you do more damage with buffer than without. Some classes / specs can be more useful to provide heals, so that people can concentrate to produce more damage without needing to go with hybrid builds. Some classes / specs can be more useful to control the mobs to keep them out of doing bad things.

 

Trinity can be useful tool to design PvE content, because it simplifies the design of mob attacks and their strengths (they are balanced around tanks' abilities to take them, and healers' abilities to keep tank alive). That may or may not lead to better PvE content. As already said above, in many such games at least the small group content is usually such, that even with Trinity games you can go there with 100% DPS if everyone know what they are doing. True, that in such situations there is still usually some more sturdy toon to catch unwanted fire while letting others to work in peace. Trinity games also usually have problems with their PvP content: in PvP, there is no such thing as a tank. Every other roles you find from PvP, too: you have DPS, you have heals, you have buffers, debuffers, CC and such. But there is no room for tanks, because people choose to shoot whatever they want, and that's usually all squishies around.

 

I got to say that having a tank and aggro management can make satisfying PvE content. It just does not automatically do that, and it has its own problems. For example, in many games tank classes tend to make almost over-powered hybrid builds, because of their innate durability and the need of certain levels of DPS to any class to work with solo content.

 

> @"Sylent.3165" said:

> I think it failed big time. Why? They say play as you want. 95% of builds get you kicked out of dungeons, raids and fractals so the players made the game play this build anyways.

 

I think that there is no game where you can play as you want. In any case for more challenging content you will have build requirements. The best that IMO can happen, is that there is no single OP build that fills all the groups. For example, consider that full-zerker warrior is the only option to get a spot in any group content, because choosing anything else will slow down the progress and/or decrease the chances to success - does not sound healthy, does it?

 

> @"Laila Lightness.8742" said:

> Either have trinity or a 100% dps game

 

So no room for buffers and debuffers to boost the group's damage? No room for support/heals to free DPSers to concentrate on damage dealing instead of going in all sorts of hybrid builds? No need for CC? What I mean, is that PvP does not need tanks, but it still has DPS-support dualism. Why there needs to be mob-magnet in PvE side? Why don't borrow ideas for PvE mobs from PvP side? Like, what if mobs choose their target by measuring the heal output (target to healers like usually in PvP), or they measure the effect of their AoE attacks and choose the member who takes most damage (squishie)? I think toughness tanking sounds a bit like a cheap trick (to make mobs attack the target that is *prepared* to be hit).

 

All in all, looking from the PvP side, I'd say the big picture is pretty decent in GW2. There is definitely balancing issues (also balancing classes to content), but that's the reality in all games.

 

- - -

EDIT: Addition: all these kinds of games are 100% DPS games. Just because dead team member does 0 DPS, to maximize ones DPS you need to have your DPSers alive. And that leads to buffers, debuffers, healers and CCers, to maximize the DPS output *also* by keeping members alive. Trinity games are 100% DPS games in this same way, in those games there is just mob mechanics that is used to stuck them hitting specific players in the group.

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