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

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?

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

I don't believe the non-trinity system did fail.

Did the no-trinity experiment fail? That's debatable.

What is so is that ANet buffed healing as a support option while introducing content that required it. They also made Toughness a more reliable aggro management stat in come of the same content. They did so because "enough" people demanded the option to play tanks and healers. It is not really that simple, but that is the core of it. If no-trinity failed, it was because a lot of people found the implementation to be too far from their desired play-style -- which they brought from other games.

All changing the damage stats would have done was to switch the preferred stat from Berserker to whichever stat combo was believed to cause the most damage. This would have left those complaining about no tank/no healer in the same place. So, no.

GW2 got away from the templates of GW; you are the healer, you are the tank, and you three are condi/support --- OK let's go.Now there are no definable roles, but some professions do have an advantage in certain areas over others.

@"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?

^This. I wouldn't call it a failure. GW2 has a very enjoyable combat system, in my opinion. However, I do think the "trinity" just works better for group content (raids/fractals).

The only thing that failed with the old system was that there was effectively no support and no control at all.

I don’t think that Anet should’ve REQUIRED tanks and healers, but make it bow fractals work now, where both those roles are useful, but not required.

That being said I’m still of the opinion that power and condi should just be rolled together and everything gets balanced that way, rather than having to pick one or the other.

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.

In other mmos if people want a healer or a tank they will just take the healer or tank and they have that one role.

When gw2 came out I think it worked very well, but the content they keep adding is the kind of content in trinity type games. Raids are failing non stop with pug groups because there's no standard queues of x amount each kinda role it's just everyone playing damage dealer which doesn't work

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 think that I am going to chime in with those questioning the premise of the OP's assumptions.

Either have trinity or a 100% dps game

That is a thought I have regularly. The old tank/heal/dps system is a system of negatives, where every role is incompetent without the rest of the group. The team has to act as one coherent unit.

But, if a game was built around having a normalized offense, with all other variables being healing, control, environmental manipulation, buffs, debuffs, etc, then you can have a diverse game without rendering players as invalids.

Yes it failed - there was literally no hardcore group content until the started adding heal and aggro mechanics back into the game with HOT.

Why it failed? because they didn't replace it with anything. Way back, Anet said (and they were right) that tanking was just a lazy, simplified form of controlling a fight, and healing was just a lazy, simplified way of supporting your allies. Unfortunately they replaced those things with boons that last mere seconds and Defiance - which before HOT made every boss literally 100% cc immune. So they took out the keystones of group gameplay and actually took active steps to PREVENT replacing them with anything else.

Also, the Trinity is not holy. Back in EQ for example, it was a Quadity- Tank, Crowd Control, Heal, DPS. Sometimes there was a dedicated Buffer, too (anyone remember the Bard?) Eve Online has Tackle (aka Control), EWAR (aka disruption/debuff), Logistics (Heals) and DPS. There are way more options for gameplay then the Trinity - but GW2 used none of them.

The thing is, people assume that the no holy trinity means there should be no tanks, no healers, and no dpsers.But that was really never the case, imo, and if you watch the manifesto and everything you'll probably agree.What it meant was that there was no fixed roles for classes.

Like most games you have something like a ranger, a mage, a rogue, a warrior a priest and a knight, ranger, mage, rogue and warrior are all dpsers, priest heals, knight tanks.What the no trinity meant was that you didn't have to get a specific class to fulfil a specific role.I mean that's pretty much the comment they give iirc, that you don't have to wait hours for a monk or a priest to make a party, because anyone can heal, or tank. Doesn't mean that there is no healer or tank, just that anyone can be it.

Now, currently, you have some specific classes for specific roles. Does that mean it failed?No, it means Arena Net, since HoT established a philosophy of glacier slow development.Eventually, when enough elite specs are released, the true no-trinity will be a reality with everyone having a elite that can pickup any role (Guardian is pretty much doing that btw, since FB can tank and support quite well, it's not a bad healer, and DH is one of the best power cleave DPSers, just needs some polish).The problem is that just like balance they aren't doing Elite Specs anywhere near as fast as they should for this to actually become a reality. Given the current landscape of Elite specs, we'd need at least 2-3 more Elite spec releases to fill that variety. Which means another 4-6 years at current rate. Which means the game will probably stop development before we get there.

If Arena Net perks up, realizes that their philosophy is doomed to stagnation, and releases some Elite specs outside Expansions (i mean they need to start wanting to sell expansions for the content, not these gimmicks, i don't want another PoF, i want to have reasons to spend more than a week on the new areas..

The non trinity was a focal selling point in the beginning for many. I LOVE there is no stupid trinity needed. There is nothing more frustrating than begging for healers, tanks etc and not getting them. All of my toons can solo champs and keep themselves alive solo easily enough in open world. And thanks to meta events people can group up as well if they choose. GW 2 is perfect as is with no trinity needed.

Its not a failure, but a work in progress. Even though trinity elements have been implemented in raids, there are still quite a few parts of the game where trinity is not needed. I think trinity was added to develop the raiding system in particular. With larger groups I could see trinity being easier to develop for than hybrids and self sustaining elements like dodging. Without the trinity in raids, it very well could devolve into zerker speed runs, much like fracs. I myself prefer zerker efficiency over trinity efficiency, because when its zerker, u have the ability to be a swiss army knife doing multiple things to keep ur team alive if necessary. You can go from rezzing to ccing mobs to help team mates get away. It has more potential of being more dynamic imo because with trinity, to keep those roles going, u have a lot of instances where people don't need to dodge for long periods of times just standing in one spot stacked while your healers heal you. Basically DPS can go on auto pilot and really the important jobs are tank and healing and those aren't even that dynamic most of the time. Id rather see less stacking and more self sustaining+ being able to go rez a downed player. It needs more chaos but the trinity is so uniform in its mechanics, that its hard to create a dynamic situation.

Also Damage meters are pretty cheesy when u think about how much time u can sit there nuking the boss while healers heal. IF it were more about popping in and out with strong abilities instead of simple rotations, factoring in positional play and dodges and timing to a greater extent, then you would see much more dynamic results from DMG meters as well instead of who plays the biggest dpsing class and does their rotations each time.

All around they should think more about their initial goal of staying away from the trinity. offering a real time dodge was a step in the right direction and the game needs more focus attacks and counters that are real time, and less of the passives and trash abilities.

When everyone can do everything with any build, it generally means that the game play is not challenging.

I'd rather see very defined roles and necessary team composition. Unfortunately this is not really feasible because there will typically be "one best" profession+build for any defined role. Teams will want the best profession+build for any necessary roles.

I think A-Net has done a decent job at adding skill mechanics to the PvE content which make a successful outcome feel satisfying, even if it had little to do with the team composition or anyone's specific build.

That being said, I find PvE horribly stale, not challenging, and mostly unsatisfying. WvW feels much more rewarding when executing a successful encounter. Without the trinity, I don't think PvE will achieve that level of satisfaction. If you disagree, that's totally ok -- no need to fight over individual opinions on what gives a person satisfaction.

I think it failed because they attempted to fix issues by forcing a trinity on players to combat it.

The only thing that failed is the players, unwilling to adapt to a new system because they were to used to the Holy Trinity from previous games, even GW1 fell into that trap.

@Zaklex.6308 said:The only thing that failed is the players, unwilling to adapt to a new system because they were to used to the Holy Trinity from previous games, even GW1 fell into that trap.

Agree completely

The non-trinity system succeeded and continues to succeed. And ANet's allowed it to evolve as we've evolved our strategies. On the whole, when people run a control/support/heal + DPS comp, they are doing it to be efficient or as a safety net, not because the game actually requires it of them.

@"Zaklex.6308" said:The only thing that failed is the players, unwilling to adapt to a new system because they were to used to the Holy Trinity from previous games, even GW1 fell into that trap.

Some players didn't adapt. Many did. And some don't know any other system.

You can raid in GW2 using a variety of comps and healing isn't necessarily required, the way it would be in games that have a traditional trinity. Healing can be done in a variety of ways, there are all types of control available, holding aggro is more nuanced (and we might call it "tanking," but it's not necessarily the same), and any class can bring DPS (even if some are optimal and some are not).

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.

@"juno.1840" said:When everyone can do everything with any build, it generally means that the game play is not challenging.

I'd rather see very defined roles and necessary team composition. Unfortunately this is not really feasible because there will typically be "one best" profession+build for any defined role. Teams will want the best profession+build for any necessary roles.

I think A-Net has done a decent job at adding skill mechanics to the PvE content which make a successful outcome feel satisfying, even if it had little to do with the team composition or anyone's specific build.

That being said, I find PvE horribly stale, not challenging, and mostly unsatisfying. WvW feels much more rewarding when executing a successful encounter. Without the trinity, I don't think PvE will achieve that level of satisfaction. If you disagree, that's totally ok -- no need to fight over individual opinions on what gives a person satisfaction.

Good thing not all players can do everything with any build then .... you should take care to understand what kind of player this game has targetted SINCE DAY 1, as it's core customer. It's not the guy that can do everything with any build they want.

and on another note ... well defined roles changes that doesn't guarantee challenging gameplay either ... if anything, you can be carried WAY more in a trinity game than this one.

Vanilla GW2 went full damage because the content was terrible.Aside of probably missbehaving skills (like Ice Bow or FGS), it's like they never actually tested how much damage could be output by a full offensive group. Setting explorable dungeons across the whole leveling curve didn't help either.Things just melted. It wasn't even a risk vs reward ratio for those players good enough to get full advantage of active defenses, you could rape most content without even pressing the dodge key once. And since the main point of the strategy for the average meta player was about killing before getting killed, pretty much any build that dind't go full offense was detrimental.If the content would have ever been like the new/reworked fractals we are getting these days, with longer fights and more mechanics, things might have been completely different. Full damage would still have been an option (as still is) for those brave enough, but different approaches wouldn't be so obviously inferior for such a strict berserker meta to settle so deeply.

Regarding stats, the problem wasn't about having multiplicative stats, it was about having stats AT ALL.There was a very interesting trait system to explore, mix and expand on (which was instead dumbed down over time) which, in combination with weapon swap, could had allowed for very interesting builds. Stats disallowed this and still do.You could have a secondary supportive weapon (or attunement, or kit) to use when needed. You would already sacrifice some damage by carrying this instead of a rotation focused weapon, you would sacrifice more damage again if also picking some support related traits instead of offensive ones. Having to also slot healing power or boon duration (which has been made more relevant over time by decreasing base healings and increasing coeffs, or by introducing concentration) is just too much penalty for a hybrid build to be considered, and so, we end up with nothing but specialized builds, where sacrifices can be made but are limited to stat-independant utility.We may have ended with specialized builds anyway (if possible, it's usually the best approach), but stats do harm build diversity A LOT.

@"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.